BR is returning R.P.'s notebook, having nothing to add to what he has already published.

BR will write a preface to Gellner's book, but probably not before June.

"My time is completely taken up with work designed to prevent a nuclear war, and I have no time for anything else."

BR declines to sign a "renewed declaration" re NATO. "It is not anything specific that I have to criticize, but I have come to feel that NATO is not the road to peace. I am not hostile to it, but I think what is more important is to promote a spirit of conciliation between East and West."

BR and Wall could meet in North Wales in the summer.

BR sends congratulations on "the immense success of the march from Aldermaston and especially of the final meeting in Trafalgar Square. I think this achievement has real importance."

"£1 > staff of House of Lords".

A highly critical letter on Wittgenstein. "His personal impact was so powerful that it tended to warp one's judgment."

"As I have no medical knowledge I do not feel that I myself can give the advice that you ask for." [This may concern family planning.]

"I think the best hope for a more comprehensive bibliography would be to appeal to Denonn who has, I know, continued his bibliographical work since 1943 when it was published in the Library of Living Philosophers."

On issuing Feibleman's book on Peirce in the U.K.

Peirce "is very highly thought of by most philosophers in America and by some whose opinion I respect in this country."

BR believes a three-day fast would not be particularly impressive. "Gandhi was willing to fast unto death and the mayor of Cork actually died of fasting in prison."

BR could not have the bronze relief and manuscript that Willi wanted to give to BR, because customs demanded an enormous sum for them.

"14/14 > Cadogan Estate".

"See App. II of Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare".

"Refer to Why I Am Not a Christian".

"Book > Rosenthal > Cohen".

This may refer to BR autographing E.D. Morel's Truth and the War for Cohen.

BR would be proud to have Holland's projected novel dedicated to him. (No such novel seems to have been published.)

BR declines to write an article on the Arab-Israeli conflict: "I do not know the region concerned and do not feel competent to make a pronouncement. It seems clear that the frontiers of Israel should be very precisely defined and that both Israel and the surrounding Arab countries should be guaranteed against aggression by all the powers concerned." This, BR says, is "rather vague and general".

"Autograph".

BR does not feel competent to express an opinion on Cross's typescript.

On Lion Phillimore's entertaining of Labour politicians and foreign journalists at the expensive Ritz Hotel during the war.

"But I am beginning to think that I made a mistake in concentrating so exclusively on the memory of Bertie, when I might have been enjoying life with a fresh partner or partners! I sent you my Fabian talk, but please don't judge the English style. Talking and writing require different styles, and anyhow my voice is my chief asset, and my success comes from that, and it doesn't matter what I say. Now Bertie's talks are really lectures and quite different."

On Roosevelt.

"Yes, Bertie's style and his clear thought are inimitable, but his radio voice is not as good as mine, tho' his enunciation is perfect. As you say, he is very popular, indeed adored by young people, but his wife quite the reverse. She [Patricia Russell] is very hysterical, and so unable to cope with life that he can seldom leave her."

Alys asks for inexpensive ultra-Italian hotels in Sicily, mentioning Taormina, Syracuse and Girgenti, as she has a friend who wants to go there.

Beatrice Webb and Joseph Chamberlain.

"I am busy writing another broadcast talk, but can't rival Bertie's output—he is speaking on Einstein tonight."

Alys has been poorly, but must live until the publication of her mother's letters and Gathorne-Hardy's "masterpiece" about Logan.

Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus is "a profound book and a terrible study of German mentality!"

"Isn't it splendid that Bertie has been awarded the O.M.? A far cry from his prison sentence of 1915 [sic]."

"I hear a rumour that Bertie's wife [Patricia Russell] has left him, and that he is greatly relieved."

She refers to Berenson's autobiography.

She reread The Christian Secret of a Happy Life and thought it well written and sensible.

"Yes, Bertie's output is very remarkable, and he is the acknowledged leader of thought here. But that picture book [by Leggett] about him is rather vulgar. I wonder with whom he is spending his Xmas? I hear his separated wife [Patricia Russell], has the boy [Conrad], who is preparing for an Eton scholarship."

"Trevy lunched here and told me that Bertie is thankful his hysterical wife [Patricia Russell] has left him, but the custody of their boy [Conrad] is disputed. He is much spoiled, and had to be taken away from that crank school at Dartington and sent to a tutor. Bertie has retired to his Welsh farmhouse, and is writing his autobiography, like you."

Alys is in touch with Flora Russell.

Alys urges Berenson to speak on the BBC. The microphone would be sent to his study, as the BBC does with her.

"T.S. Eliot ranks higher than Bertie, by everybody as well as by the Queen, and I rather agree with the slightly debunking article about Bertie in yesterday's Lit. Supp. [TLS]. He is too much a Victorian liberal to suit the young."

(BR's Order of Merit was announced on 9 June 1949.)

Roger is at his "crank school".

Alys is trying to write her memoirs. She has a whole shelf of books written by her parents, Logan and Mary, her daughters, and Berenson and "Bertie".

"I am better than I was last summer, and have more interest in life now that I am trying to write my memoirs." She has a whole shelf of books by her parents, Logan and Mary and her daughters, and Berenson and "Bertie".

She is due to talk on the BBC about the visit to Tennyson that she and Mary made in 1885.

Alys mentions once again the general praise among her contacts of Berenson's autobiography.

"I have given your autobiography away (and would like another copy) to of all people—Bertie! He came to lunch today, and said he wanted to read it, so I gave him my copy, and he will probably write to you about it. He looks older, though not as old as Trevy and his other contemporaries, and is very fine looking, and unspeakably clever and amusing. For 39 years, I could not bear to meet me [sic], as the thought of [sic] threw me into an abyss of utter misery, but now 'all passions are spent', and when he separated from his wife, I wrote to congratulate him on his O.M. He answered, suggesting an interview, and we had a long friendly talk about everything except his wives. He had just been to France for 3 days of lectures and receptions, sent by the Foreign Office to lecture on British politics in French! Think of it—Bertie, the outlawed jailbird!"

Alys bemoans the deaths of Leon Blum and Harold Laski ("a teacher rather than a thinker"). "You and I manage to keep alive, and Bertie is always perfectly well, and looks 10 years younger than his 78."

"I have missed 40 years of a similar one [happy years of congenial companionship], but I hope I have Bertie's friendship now. I will give him your message, and lend him my copy of your book on aesthetics...."

"I have no news, but am living in hopes of another visit from Bertie, after he has completed his move to Richmond."

"Bertie is working like a nigger, on 3 foreign broadcasts, and articles for The New York Times and other papers, but anyhow can stay comfortably at home. He lives with and adores his son John, aged 30, and his daughter-in-law—Vachel Lindsay's daughter. He is now called 'revered' by the press, and may soon be expected to take orders and be called 'reverend'!! So time changes."

"So Alfred Whitehead has died, aged 86 and 10 years older than Bertie. Ralph [Barton Perry] reported that he had lost his memory." "I hope you liked Edith Finch's Life of Carey."

"Yes, that was a stupid review of Bertie's book in the Lit. Supp. [TLS], obviously by a Catholic. He had a fierce controversy with the Australian Catholics over birth control, but in the end the Bishop of Sydney has to make him a public apology for stating that he had been refused an American visa—it was refused to Frank Russell for having been a bigamist and in prison. I hope Bertie sent you his book."

Alys quotes from her letter of 2 years ago from Bernard Shaw. She was interviewed by the press for her Fernhurst reminiscences of Shaw.

"Bertie is now lecturing at Mt. Holyoke, and then seeing his daughter in Washington. She is married to a young Harvard Cambridge don, who has a govt. job at the moment. Her young half-brother (born when Bertie was 64) is a very brilliant boy with a scholarship. But I believe he [Conrad] is hysterical, like his hysterical mother, who left Bertie 1 1/2 years ago."

"I have much enjoyed Bertie's Unpopular Essays, which he is sending you I believe, and enclose [not present] Raymond Mortimer's review of the book. He doesn't understand the philosophy, but appreciates the humour, and indeed the final obituary notice is very amusing."

The gas strike has been very inconveniencing.

On BR receiving the Nobel Prize. Alys quotes from newspapers. "I only hope he will keep the prize money to help to pay his alimonies, to 'Dora' and 'Peter', and, until recently, to one of Frank's widows, aged over 90."

She will give BR Berenson's "sympathetic" telegram when he gets home next week.

"I have heard from Bertie that he likes the Australians and his work, except the Roman Catholics who are fighting him about birth control; and he enjoyed a holiday trip of 1,000 miles to see a coral island, but he is of course dreadfully worried about Corea [Korea], and the drift towards war."

"Bertie is coming to dinner tomorrow to say goodbye before flying to Australia for the summer—I shall miss him, but I don't envy him that dreadful country."

"Poor Bertie got off to Australia on Monday, and I fear he will have a strenuous and tiring two months there, a lecture or two every day and those awful outsiders to associate with. I can hardly wait for his return."

BR is settling into Richmond with his family. "... I am deliriously looking forward to his 78th birthday party here on the 18th. If only you and I were as strong and vigorous as he is, never any signs of weakness nor illness, not even colds."

Re BR's birthday at Alys's home in Chelsea, "a great success". "He talked brilliantly for 4 hours, and my young people were enthralled.

And they showed up well in argument with him, as they are all clever. So was his son John, a civil servant aged 29, and a very sweet and engaging personality, the exact image of his grandfather, Lord Amberley [Amberley]. The Vachel Lindsay wife was a disappointment, defiant and uncouth, middle west tho' rather pretty and distinctly clever."

"Bertie is flying to Australia soon for 8 weeks of lecturing. He is broadcasting tonight on 'Punishment', but will not recall his own days in prison."

"Bertie dined here this week (3 hours of blissful talk for me!) and said he had enjoyed your autobiography." "He thanked you for suggesting he look at the aesthetics, but said he had no feeling for aesthetics nor for the visual arts. His interests are purely scientific, philosophical and political, and they keep him occupied. He is separated from Patricia, tho' not legally, but has to pay her alimony, as well as to Dora, his second wife and mother of his two older children. Until recently, he also paid alimony from Frank's estate to Frank's second wife, who lived till 90! Fortunately, he doesn't need to pay me anything, tho' he offered to in 1911!"

The photocopy of two of the pages is very poor quality. Edith refers to Alys as "Aunty Loo".

BR offers to write a preface for her book on China. He will not be able to begin until May as he is "just beginning a book of 90,000 words which has to be finished in April, and I have not yet the vaguest idea what I am going to say in it."

BR asks her to give her sister Dorothy Dudley the enclosed extant fragments of Heraclitus.

[These items (letter and ms.) had been received from the A.J. Berg collection (New York Public Library) as photocopies and are located in Recent Acq. 27.]

"£59.17.11 > Brian Walker".

"Ellis shameful questionnaire reply > Rotblat".

"Who's Who authors writers etc."

"£1.14.6 > Paul".

The best thing to do about "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" is to "chuck it out".

"German thing > Rotblat".

"£7.7.4" is to be paid.

BR declines to take part in a Tom Paine meeting on June 7.

BR's time is fully booked until the end of May.

See Appendix I of Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare for a full statement of BR's views.

"Who's Who > John".

BR will not be in London at the times Mr. Kudo would like to see BR.

BR cannot help Kampe to get publicity for his typescript, "The Questions beyond Science".

Cousins' work "The Rejection of Nothingness" "on practical issues is sympathetic to me, but on theoretical matters it is more favourable to religion than I should be."

"Lolita > Foges".

BR may be able to write a preface to Gellner earlier than June. How long would be satisfactory?

BR praises their pamphlet One World or No World. He hopes it will be effective in Canada; "It is obviously addressed to Canadians." (The pamphlet has not been identified.)

BR is sending it to Peggy Duff.

BR is not competent to deal with Foster's typescript on physics. "It is at least 60 years since I abandoned" the belief that physical reality consists of forces between billiard ball atoms.

"No".

BR expresses his strong wish to have his name on the title page (of Wisdom of the West) followed by "in collaboration with Paul Foulkes". "My conscience will not be satisfied unless you agree to an adequate emphasis on his part in the work." BR threatens "to have to take some other means of publicly disavowing sole authorship".

BR has heard from the Soviet Embassy of Khrushchev's "prima facie approval of your plan for a book".

BR is too occupied to take up Nubar's suggestions and is sending his letter to Rotblat of Pugwash.

BR forwards his correspondence with Nubar.

BR congratulates Schochlin on his engagement.

"Yes, William, Lord Russell was the ancestor that I was alluding to."

BR thanks Lewin for the "poetic effusion" from his father to his grandfather.

"Signed photo > Yugoslavia".

"I see that I must acquiesce in what is being done by way of acknowledgement to Foulkes."

"Cheque".

BR's "autobiography exists—though, like my life, not yet finished—but I do not want anything done with it at present."

Pilder needs to apply to Simon and Schuster for permission to reprint the Nobel Prize speech.

BR sees the need for the magazine Hibbard proposes, but cannot do anything to assist him.

BR cannot undertake to read his manuscript and doubts his competence "to give an opinion of any value on the work".

"Cheque > Tylor for Dora and Griff's wages £111.12.0".

"Red Hackle for Plas Penrhyn", with Hepburn & Ross presumed to be the correspondent.

"A chapter in my book on scientific method which I intended satirically was misunderstood by you as expressing my own opinion. My purpose was to inspire horror of a view of life dominated by technique."