BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 7 MAR. 1919
BRACERS 19444. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<Garsington>
March 7, 1919.1^, 2

My Darling

Thank you so much for your letter this morning — I am very glad to know all it tells. — I do hope your West End job will come off. Who was it you lunched with?3 — Yes, I think Smillie is doing very well4 — but the general state of the world fills me with blank despair. Wilson5 is evidently defeated over the main things — German starvation is allowed to continue. Massingham saw Wilson in Paris,6 and came away utterly disillusioned — Goldie is not the person in the Coal Conference7 — perhaps it is his brother. — Yes, I saw 12th Night.8 I should love to see Lincoln9 with you. — I will come 15th–17th with joy — thank you, my Dearest. If it is fine, we will go to the country Sunday — if not we can stay at home and read and talk. I don’t give up hope of C.A.10 being strong and well in time. — Gladys11 writes more cheerfully, but says it will be some weeks before he is out of danger. If I go to India,12 I will make a great effort to take him. — What I wrote for the Dial13 is very dull — I sent it to Wrinch14 to be typed so you can get it out of her — one copy, as there are to be two. It is too dull to read out loud. I enclose the review of Hearnshaw,15 which please return. — Tell Elizabeth16 to send me her book.17 I want it, and I have given her several of mine! — As for my money, I think a cheque would be best — £43. Remember that if you want a guarantee for your performance, you can call on my £250, as you are sure to get something in receipts and be able to pay me back. I hate to think of your money melting way without giving you your chance.

Gertler18 is here19 — I like him, but he is very naif. Yesterday was a most heavenly day but today the rain is pitiless. I will finish this after tea.

Later. Just been told post is going earlier than usual so great haste.

Dear Heart, my love is with you always and my tender thoughts long to encircle you and keep your heart warm.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200434.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 34 Russell Chambers | Bury Str. | W.C.1. Pmk: | MR | 19 | OXFORD

• 3

  West end job ... lunched with? Colette’s correspondence is not extant from March to November 1919. A brief summary of her activities during this time period is contained in the “Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”. Thus it is not known what this West End job was or who she lunched with.

• 4

  Smillie is doing very well Robert Smillie, President of the (Coal) Miners’ Federation of Great Britain. He was representing the miners at the Coal Mines Commission, which held its first public sitting on 4 March 1919. A pacifist, he read a speech for BR on “Political Ideals” in Glasgow in October 1916 when BR was prevented from speaking anywhere near the sea.

• 5

  Wilson Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), 28th President of the United States, 1913–21.

• 6

  Massingham … Paris Henry William Massingham (1860–1924), journalist. He was editor of The Nation from 1907 to 1923 and was in Paris for the Peace Conference which followed World War I.

• 7

  Goldie ... Coal Conference The Coal Mines Commission held its first public sitting on 4 March 1919. Sir Arthur Lowes Dickinson (1859–1935), an accountant and the older brother of BR’s friend Goldsworthy Lowes (“Goldie”) Dickinson, then held the position of Financial Advisor to the Coal Controller and testified before the Commission  (“Profits from Coal”, Times, 6 March 1919, p. 11).

• 8

  12th Night Colette’s husband, Miles, was acting in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the Court Theatre.

• 9

  LincolnThe play Abraham Lincoln by John Drinkwater was playing at Lyric Opera House in Hammersmith. Two years later, Colette would have the role of Mrs. Otherly in this play when it was at Lyceum from July to October 1921.

• 10

  C.A (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939). For information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.7.

• 11

  Gladys Gladys W. Rinder (1882–1965). For information on her, see BRACERS 19044, n.5. A letter of 3 March 1919 from Rinder is saved with BR’s letter. Her letter is at BRACERS 19445.

• 12

  If I go to India At the invitation of Maharaja Bahadur of Chhatarpur BR was thinking of going to India in 1919, but did not go. His only visit to India took place on his return from Australia in 1950, but he never left the airport.

• 13

  wrote for the Dial “Democracy and Direct Action”, 3 May 1919 (B&R C19.13; 6 in Papers 15).

• 14

  Wrinch Dorothy Maud Wrinch (1894–1976), mathematician and theoretical biologist; one of BR’s logic pupils in the autumn of 1916.

• 15

  review of Hearnshaw F.J. C. Hearnshaw, Democracy at the Crossways, which BR reviewed in The Nation, 8 February 1919 (B&R C19.06; 1 in Papers 15).

• 16

  Elizabeth Mary Annette Russell (1866–1941). For information on her, see BRACERS 19080, n.7.

• 17

  her book Presumably Christopher and Columbus (London: Macmillan, 1919).

• 18

  Gertler Mark Gertler (1891–1939), painter.

• 19

  here Garsington Manor near Oxford, the county home of Lady Ottoline and Philip Morrell.