"Dear Dora Your letter came this morning."

"Dear Madam I cannot remember whether I answered your letter of May 18, as I was at that time very busy finishing a book."

"Dear Sir I am sorry to be unable to be of much use to you; the moment is a difficult one for all progressive people." [Speaks of] "a new school with which she [Dora] will have some connection".

Evidently this letter, which is without addressee, was forwarded to Dora Russell because BR wrote "My school no longer exists."

"My Dear John and Kate Yesterday (Easter Monday) we had a great excitement, which you would have enjoyed."

"Here is Stockholm, from the Town Hall, which is a very good modern building."

"My Dear Children A Merry Xmas to you both!"

"My Dearest Kate I am glad to know all you tell me about your eyes."

"Hope you agree children better in America delighted facilitate your joining them holidays if possible communicate Tylor B".

"76 San Leandro Lane Montecito" "Dear John and Kate We were very glad to get news from you saying you were coming for the holidays, but we are a little puzzled as to whether you meant that all the difficulties have been overcome, as we have heard nothing from Tylor."

"212, Loring Avenue" "Dear Dora I am grateful to you for your attitude in regard to John and Kate at this crisis, and anxious that we should continue to agree as to their education while they are here."

A typed copy is attached, document .250600a.

"212 Loring Avenue" "Dear Dora I waited to answer your letter until we had finished with the immigration authorities, which we did yesterday. We are all now free to stay in the U.S. as long as we like, but obtaining permission has been a long and tedious business." Re immigration and Mexico.

"212 Loring Avenue" "Dear Dora As you will see from the enclosed, I am leaving California in September, which raises problems as regards John and Kate."

The enclosed typed document, .250603a, concerns the university education of John and Kate.

"Dear Dora How remarkable about the plates." BR cannot afford £6 "for anything not strictly necessary".

"Dear Dora I have now had long letters from both John and Kate about John's affairs. John's state of mind causes me very great anxiety, as it seems not very sane."

[Re Pat Grace.] BR is willing to see Roddy, or Dora and Roddy. Getting into a Cambridge college is difficult these days.

"Dear Dora I am very sorry I have not been able to arrange to see the two men you wrote about."

(The year is confirmed by other letters written from the same place.)

BR has been in Cambridge, Devonshire and Wales and only occasionally in London and has not seen the man Dora has written about.

"Xmas Day" "Dear Dora It is quite convenient for the children to travel up on Jan. 7 instead of Jan. 6."

"Dear Dora, Thank you for your letter of September 4th and for the enclosed message."

"Dear Dora Thank you for your letter, as well as for your previous warning about Switzerland, which prepared me for the prohibition of the Basel Congress."

"Dear Dora, Thank you for your letter of October 6."

"Dear Dora, I am very sorry to hear of the death of Thérèse Nicod's son."

"Dear Dora, Thank you for your recent letter."

"Dear Dora, Thank you for your letter of February 18."

"Dear Dora Thank you for your letter."

"Dear Dora, The notice in the Press that I was selling my library was premature and inaccurate."

"Dear Dora, Thank you for your letter of July 8th."

"Dear Dora, Thank you for your birthday card and for the book."

"Dear Dora, Thank you and John very much for your card of birthday greetings and the Directory of Coach Services."

"All well Ellen wrong salute to Kwan Yin many happy returns Mummy John Russell".

The telegram is also addressed to "Kid Russell".

"Arrived ok address 19 Brewster St Cambridge love Kate Russell".

"My next job is going to be an autobiography, if war with Russia holds off long enough. It would be a great help if I could get hold of old letters of mine." "The murder of Gandhi is typical of the universal madness. I am ashamed of belonging to a species so discreditable as Homo Sapiens."

"Dear Edith My warmest thanks for sending me Lucy's* delightful work on Mrs. MacAulay, so 'celebrated' that I knew nothing of her."

*[Lucy Donnelly.]

"I don't forget about Lucy's letters, but I should like to keep them a little longer as I am having parts typed. They help my autobiography very much."

"Conrad is here, but Peter is kept in London."

BR thanks Edith for her "very nice letter".

"I forget whether I told you that Peter and I have separated—completely, though not legally."

"After January 15 my address will be 41 Queen's Rd., Richmond, Surrey where I am going to share a house with my son John and his family."

"The present American witch-hunt distresses me. But we did just the same in the time of Charles II." He mentions the Dies Committee and the Mississippi flooding.

"I think your newspapers, for propaganda reasons, give a quite unduly gloomy picture of life in England. Our only real hardship is that it is difficult to get whiskey, because it is the only thing we export that Americans are really anxious to get. Wage-earners, who are a majority of the population, are happier than at any previous period in English history. Food is plentiful, though slightly monotonous. Owing to death duties it is not worth while to save, so people live on their capital, which makes life in London very gay. We expect a war any day, and we know most of us will be killed in it, so why worry? Is't not fine to dance and sing while the bells of death do ring. I think of myself as like St. Augustine, putting the finishing touches to his work while the vandals were besieging Hippo. It is rather pleasant."

Note: There are notes in Edith's hand in pencil on the envelope.

US Lecture Tour (1950)

"Sat. Dearest Edith I was very sorry to have no spare time to see you again—I was taken possession of forcibly.—You must try to come to England—"

[Dated 18 Nov. 1950 because BR dated the letter "Washington. Sat."]

"Dearest Edith It is delightful news that you are coming to England so soon."

"My Dearest — Thank you for a heavenly evening."

"Wed. Dearest Edith I have to broadcast in French tomorrow at 4.30." Envelope is pmk. 17 Jan. 1951.

"My Darling Edith If we are dining at a restaurant tomorrow, can you choose which (if either in Sloane Square seems tolerable) and reserve a table for two?" Envelope is pmk. 21 Feb. 1951.

"April Fools' Day" "My Darling You say that every Sunday you doubt my existence—I think today is Sunday—I think so, ergo sum."

Although written on Llan Festiniog letterhead, Russell was not there but in London.

"My Darling Here is a book I meant to bring yesterday but forgot at the last moment."

"Sunday Darling Edith Would Friday be possible for you instead of Wed?" Envelope is pmk. 22 April 1951.

"So I spent the morning dictating an article about American views on sex—a review of a book called The Folklore of Sex by a man called Ellis—a good book, but horrifying."

"All goes well with me, except that this household gets wilder and wilder. Hans Reichenbach had an affair with Susan,* but she is vanished in Paris without a trace, so now he is having an affair with Frances, who evidently enjoys it. John is already taking up with another girl, who is about to go by car to India, through Iraq and Iran—I alone am stable—but I feel giddy with all these changes."

*[Susan Russell.]

"I have a secretary 6 days a week and am just starting on autobiography—but that does not press."

"He* came to Queen's Road about 3 weeks ago and spent the night with Susan, but as soon as he was gone she took up with Hans. Now she writes happily from Paris showing no sign of returning; we don't know who she is with."

*Rupert Crawshay-Williams.

The date is the postmark date.

"Sat. My Darling—Enclosed may amuse you because of French horrors at my flippancy." Written on the verso of the letter in a secretarial hand (probably that of Sheila Zinkin) is an outline "Happy Man". Because it concludes with Old Age, it concerns the "The Happy Man" chapter of New Hopes for a Changing World more than "The Road to Happiness (1)" in Papers 26.

The enclosure is a symposium tear-sheet headed "L'Avenir de la Science" with a contribution by BR.

"But missing you makes me work all the more—I finished my silly story à la Mrs Radcliffe—"

"Beloved—Here are a few Lucy [Donnelly] letters that have turned up." Financial calculations are written in ink in BR's hand on the verso of a blue envelope. The envelope is addressed to "Miss Edith Finch. Am gone out to tea. Will be back about 4.30." The letter and blue envelope were placed in a brown envelope which was posted.

"My Beloved Thank you very much for the notes and your dear little letter."

Although written on Llan Festiniog letterhead, Russell was not there but in London.

US Lecture Tour (1951)

"My Darling—If you know where this place is, you know more than I did till today."

US Lecture Tour (1951)

"All well B".

US Lecture Tour (1951)

"My Beloved—Your surprise letter waiting for me here was a most heavenly surprise when I arrived at one in the night."

US Lecture Tour (1951)

"I have done Herald forum, Columbia, six broadcasts; tonight I have a big dinner and reception, tomorrow a lecture at MIT, returning here afterwards; next day a lecture to Jews, then Washington and points south. It all bores me unutterably."

US Lecture Tour (1951)

"The Roger Smith" "My Darling Edith I am afraid it will be an age before I get another letter from you, as I shall be touring the country—Richmond VA., N. Carolina, Indiana, Ohio." "Yesterday I had a severe television encounter with four eminent reactionary journalists. I thought them half-witted and they thought me offensive—we had a fine old battle which I rather enjoyed, as I think I held my own. I also enjoyed M.I.T. because the young men were enthusiastic—"

US Lecture Tour (1951)

"The Marott" I leave New York at 3 p.m. on Nov. 10, by flight 514."

US Lecture Tour (1951)

"My Darling Edith—This will be my last letter." "Now I am at Washington waiting for a plane to N. Carolina." (BR was due to speak at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro in the afternoon of November 5 [see record 131394], thus the inferred date for this aerogramme. The original might reveal a postmark date.)

"Please ring Richmond 4750".

"My Darling Edith It was sad to see you so depressed yesterday."

"My Darling Edith After lunch yesterday I was so overwhelmed with sleep that I forgot everything I meant to do and say."

"My Darling Edith It seems to me that the times when we are together grow more and more perfect."

Although written on Llan Festiniog letterhead, Russell was not there but in London.

"My Darling Edith It was intolerably distressing to see you depart into storm and rain and darkness last night, with the certainty that you would get very wet and the probability that you would have to wait a long time at the station."

"My Darling Edith It was shameful overworking you so yesterday—I am a bad man—oh dear, what shall I do about it?"

Although written on Llan Festiniog letterhead, Russell was not there but in London.

"My Darling Edith I said I wouldn't write, but changed my mind."

"I told Dinah we are going to marry, and her reaction was quite adequate. She expressed the warmest sentiments about you."

"Radhakrishnan is a very learned man. I learnt from him that it was not the Russians, but the Indians, who discovered America, wrote Plato, etc. He was Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and was then promoted to a professorship at Oxford. Now he is going back to India to be Nehru's understudy."

"My Darling Edith When I got to the B.B.C. I found it was a silly conversation with a half-witted Canadian [Ronald Hambleton] about growing old."

"My Darling Edith Yesterday evening was rather fun, and I was glad there was a posse of my cousins to welcome you, particulary Claud, who is family feeling personified and clothed (more or less) in flesh and blood."

"My Darling Edith This is, I hope, the last letter I shall have occasion to write to you for a long time."

[From Brixton Prison:] "I am enjoying Madame de Staël immensely, having at last got round to reading her. At odd moments I argue theology with the chaplain and medicine with the doctor, and so the time passes easily."

"S.S. Bremen"

"New York New Haven and Hartford Railroad" "New York to Boston."

[Letter is not signed.]

"The Arcady"

"New York Central Lines"

"The New Dunlap Hotel"

"Royal York Hotel"

"10 p.m."

"Tuesday"

"Seymour Hotel" "11 p.m."

"Wed"

"Union-Castle Line S.S Dunluce Castle"

"Sat."

"Sunday"

"Monday"