BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 8 SEPT. 1926
BRACERS 19752. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Carn Voel
Porthcurno
Penzance.1
Sep. 8, 1926.

My dear Colette

Thank you for your p.c. from Ireland2 with the picture of lovely country and sea. It has made me long to go and live there, and I seriously think of it. I don’t know Connemara — I know Wicklow, the south-west, and parts of the North, but not any part of Connaught. I have always thought it would be the kind of place I love best. This place is not remote enough — one gets invaded by Hindus and Yanks and other tiresome people. Whenever I go for a walk, some obvious I.L.P.-er3 comes up and says “Excuse me, are you Mr Bertrand Russell?” and then begins the kind of fussy conversation that one feels foolish when the sea is there. They seem to go on holidays merely to go on with the thoughts they have at home. I grow old and have achieved nothing. John4 is me over again — I foresee all the same pains for him, although he is so gay. All this is inspired by nostalgia for the great spaces, which your p.c. gave me — John and I send love.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200759.

• 2

  your p.c. from Ireland The postcard’s photograph is of “Slievemore and Bullsmouth, Achill” in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. Mayo is part of the province of Connaught. Connemara is a district containing county Galway. In her postcard Colette writes that she had stayed a few nights in Galway (BRACERS 98394). She was on a motoring holiday.

• 3

  I.L.P-er A member of the Independent Labour Party.

• 4

  John John Conrad Russell, born 16 November 1921, to BR and his wife Dora.