"I don't feel surprised at your finding Scotland unbearable, but England has been pretty trying during this five weeks' frost. I have felt all my faculties congealed. This week has been made gloomy for me by having to think about the atom bomb and human folly. But I am glad of the chance to talk about it." On chastity.

Stickland is writing a book. "But if you write 'Home Life with a Philosopher, By One', the fat will be in the fire."

BR got the Grand Panjandrum from the beginning of Maria Edgeworth's Harry and Lucy.

BR encourages Irina Morley in writing a children's book.

"... demanding 'true' friendship is as bad as rape, or nearly." "I have to go off now to lecture about ethics—I shall point out how women had to be purified from the taint of blood after menstruation (Leviticus XV, 19-29). I hope the effect will be elevating!"

The psalmist's "labour and sorrow" ought to have begun 5 years ago for BR, but did not.

"I can't get over your living at Carn Voel, where I spent very happy times while my older children were young."

Patricia and BR have parted. After late September BR will be in London, but he does not know where.

"I am fond of cake and haven't had any for ages."

Irina heard about the time in Sicily from a friend of Julian. "Peter got into a state like the one she was in when we were all in Cambridge."

"Next week I have to go to London to see the King! I am grown very grand!"

Conrad comes soon for the summer holidays, "full of his mother's sufferings and my sins. Hitherto, I have had a pleasant summer—solitude and agreeable work, interspersed with Kings etc. No ladies! Tonight I dine with an exiled Countess, but she is 60." Poetry.

BR has had "two intolerably impertinent letters from Derek".

One is attached. (See record 57211.)

Enclosed with the document at record 57210.

"My anger, which was unphilosophical, has more or less subsided, but a profound contempt remains."

Re Derek and BR's breakup with Patricia.

BR is "trying desperately to get a habitation in or near London". He feels he is probably being observed by detectives. "I want to join with my son John and his family in a house; then I can be visited without providing evidence."

"Snowy peaks" and flattery.

"Yes, I am more cheerful than I ought to be."

"... I should answer more promptly if I were not so busy addressing the B.B.C., the medical profession, generals and admirals, etc. etc. My housing problem is settled: after the middle of January I shall be at 41 Queen's Road, Richmond, Surrey in a house I shall share with my John & his family — easily accessible from Essex!"

BR goes to Australia to lecture next summer.

"Derek has incurred my undying hatred by having consummated Conrad's ruin by stirring up Peter just when she seemed open to reason."

"I work like a black—odd articles, lectures at Oxford, at Paris, and in Australia."

After Jan. 13, see him in Richmond: "Every Tuesday I shall be in Oxford, and the first two weeks of Feb. I also have to go to Paris for the Foreign Office."

BR is expecting her on Monday the 16th, although the house will be full of workmen and mostly unfurnished.

Dated from the reference to Unwin's visit to 41 Queen's Road to occur on Saturday. This letter is dated simply "Tuesday". Re a visit.

Thanks for Desmond MacCarthy's book on Lady John Russell. "I had it once but lost it...."

BR has "been appallingly busy with articles and globe-trotting for the Foreign Office."

The Richmond house may be habitable soon.

BR invites Stickland to visit before June 19, when he goes to Australia, but not during June 6-10.

Stickland has visited BR.

He does not mind her copying an unspecified passage.

BR will be back from Sweden on Dec. 13 and hopes Stickland will come for a visit soon afterwards.

Written with a ballpoint pen.

Mid- or late December 1950.

BR refers to her coming visit him on "Thursday 28th", which was 1950/12/28 according to his appointments diary. "I haven't got a single Xmas present for anybody because I have had to work day and night to catch up with arrears incurred during my travels."

Later on the 28th BR has to go to London for dinner.

Dated by the slight allusion to his upcoming divorce in June 1952.

BR has talked with her about writing further short stories.

BR has known Edith Finch for about 20 years.

BR likes "exceedingly" Aubrey's Short Lives which he possesses.

BR has written 9 "nightmares". He has gone from philosophy to fiction.

Alistair Cooke.

Rachel Lady Russell; BR's sister.

Postscript is by Edith Russell.

Allusion to shingles: "a time of rather severe pain".

BR quotes Spinoza: "Love is pleasure associated with an external cause."

BR confirms his arrival time in Hull.

Written on letterhead of UCLA.

BR addressed the letter to Dr. Hendrick [sic].

(Hedrick was Provost at UCLA, 1937-42. He called BR his "old friend" in a paper, "The Creed of the University Administrator", cited at http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt9m3nb3pn&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text.)

Re the publication of Ottoline Morrell's Memoirs.

BR would like his wife to have a veto on matters concerning him. There would be "a legal obligation to obtain permission from my literary executors for letters from me."

The writer sends BR information about the John Day publishing firm. He mentions that Lincoln Steffens is going to send a child to Beacon Hill School.

Not a letter but an invitation to a reception and banquet honouring BR and Rudolph Rocker.

BR has more obligations than he knows how to fulfil "without immediate risk of dementia".

There is another carbon, unsigned.

Printed thank-you-for-your-letter card addressed in Patricia Russell's hand.

BR writes: "I do not fit into any recognized orthodoxy, conservative, liberal, labour, or communist...."

BR thanks Komroff for sending a Bishop Manning cutting.