BRACERS Record Detail for 52605
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BR has always wished he knew Gothic. "... England as a place to live and work in is overshadowed by the atomic bomb. Nine-tenths of the population will be wiped out during the next war, which may come within 10 years. And one feels England's powerlessness: every mouthful eaten by us or by the Germans in our zone is eaten by Washington's gracious permission, and fails to materialize if Americans think it would be fun to have a strike. Whereas in America there are large areas in the Middle West where the food supply is secure and where the Russians would not think it worth while to drop bombs."
On tolerance.
BR's Human Knowledge is about 3/4 done. "Peter has a tiny flat in London where I join her one or two days in the week." No private worries, financial or other.
BR TO KATHARINE TAIT, 9 NOV. 1946
BRACERS 52605. ALS. McMaster
Proofread by K. Blackwell
Trinity College
Cambridge.
9 Nov. 1946
My dear Kate
Your lovely long letter of Sp. 29 was a great pleasure to get, and I have been meaning ever since to write to you. I am interested that you are learning Gothic — I have always wished I knew it, as I imagine it give <sic> one a feeling of the connection of Germanic and other Indo-European languages. I think you are quite right to go on to a Ph.D. As for coming back to England: it would be a very great joy to me to see you, and I hope you will come at least for a summer, but England as a place to live and work in is overshadowed by the atomic bomb. Nine-tenths of the population will be wiped out during the next war, which may come within 10 years. And one feels England’s powerlessness: every mouthful eaten by us or by the Germans in our zone is eaten by Washington’s gracious permission, and fails to materialize if Americans think it would be fun to have a strike. Whereas in America there are large areas in the Middle West where the food supply is secure and where the Russians would not think it worth while to drop bombs.
I am glad of what you say about John. He writes me very friendly letters, and says he will be home by Xmas. I wonder what I shall think of Susan.
You should not wish to excel everyone at everything, because that is beyond mortal powers. You excel at quite enough things to satisfy any reasonable ambition. Conrad, who is very happy at Dartington, is found to have an I.Q. of 160+, but Curry pointed out that it is not higher than yours.
How right you are about tolerance! Whether it is dying out or not has no bearing on whether it is a good thing.
All goes well with me. My big book on The Scope of Limits of Human Knowledge is three-quarters done, and I expect to finish it next summer. Peter has a tiny flat in London where I join her one or two days in the week. At the moment I have no private worries, financial or other.
Dear Kate, I miss you and am very fond of you.
Love.
Your
Diddy
