BR TO HELEN FLEXNER, 17 FEB. 1911
BRACERS 55891. ALS. American Philosophical Society
Edited by M. Forte. Proofread by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1
Feb. 17. 1911

My dear Helen

Your description of the romantic west wind in your last letter was very vivid — it brought all the hurrying clouds and smiling leaves before me. As for me, I have been enjoying the exact opposite, the first day of spring, warm and sunny, with snowdrops and aconites and the first shimmer of the willows. The beginning of spring is disquieting — I feel like the old henchman in the fairy tale when the iron bands round his heart burst because the frog has been turned back into the Prince his master.2

It is not from any nobility of soul that I have grown indifferent to the reception of Whitehead’s and my book — it is from having been forced to think about the subject so long that it has grown disgusting to me. But I enjoy having you think otherwise. As for what you say about free will, you may be right, but I feel the question more difficult than most determinists would admit, and it is not at all clear to me that we have got to the bottom of it yet. I have an obscure feeling that there is a muddle somea where. I don’t think self-sacrifice is the essence of morality, tho’ it is a frequent incident of it. Intrinsic goods I take to be primarily good relations with other people; but these have to be informed by love of impersonal goods, such as are got by the contemplation of beauty, truth etc. Morality then consists in trying to produce intrinsic goods, with complete impartiality as between oneself and others. And now to God the Father …

I am very busy getting up a society for Adult Suffrage here, to be affiliated to the People’s Suffrage Federation. The general state of politics here is most agreeable, and I am enjoying the discomfiture of the Tories over the reciprocity treaty. The Tories altogether are in a sad state, and it looks as if we should secure a splendid harvest of Liberal measures. It is some reward for hard work by all of us. Fifteen years ago, intelligent people were largely Tories; now a large majority of the best people by any intellectual test are Liberals, and sufficiently keen to do the humble work at election times.

Your account of Lucy is very satisfactory. I still enjoy my lecturing and seeing people after the solitude of Bagley Wood, where I saw hardly any one. Let me hear from you again soon. Love to Simon, who I hope is well now.

Yours affectionately
Bertrand Russell.

• 1

  [document] Proofread against the original letter.

• 2

  his master The Grimm brothers’ story “The Frog Prince or Iron Heinrich” involves the prince’s servant wrapping his heart in iron bands to prevent it breaking from grief, and then the frog becomes his master again.

Textual Notes

• a

  some written over indecipherable word