BR TO GILBERT MURRAY, 23 MAY 1952
BRACERS 52428. TLS. Murray papers, Bodleian. SLBR 2: #515
Edited by N. Griffin and W. Bruneau. Proofread by A.G. Bone

41 Queen’s Road
Richmond
Surrey.
23 May, 1952.

Dear Gilbert,

Thank you for your letter which I found very interesting. I suppose the sense of failure is common. It is, of course, relative to what one hopes to achieve. For example, you consider that you have been a failure in regard to the classics, but you have made many people who cannot read Greek aware in a greater or less degree of the sort of thing that makes you value Greek literature. There certainly is some comfort in such things as the O.M.,1 though I am always a little ashamed of feeling this sort of comfort. And I have been a rebel during so much of my life that conventional recognition makes me a little uncomfortable. What has make me respectable has been my hatreds of Hitler and Stalin, neither of which fits very well into the kind of general outlook that I like. It would be pleasant to be liked for one's virtues, if any, and not for one's weaknesses.

Yours ever,
B.R.

• 1

  comfort in such things as the O.M. Murray had said he found comfort in such things and had been awarded his Order of Merit in 1941, eight years before Russell.