BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 10 DEC. 1928
BRACERS 19766. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Telegraph House
Harting, Petersfield.1^, 2
Dec. 10, 1928

My dear Colette

Thank you for your letter. Are you thinking of marrying?3 You don’t say more than a suggestion, and I don’t know how to interpret it. Do tell me more.

John4 got his sweets, for which he was most grateful. I am glad you liked the photograph of Kate;5 it is lovely, isn’t it?

If you would like it, I will pay you a visit at Blagdon6 when you get home; it would be a happiness to me. You must let me know what you feel when the time comes.

Love.
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200772.

• 2

  [envelope] Miss Colette O’Niel | c/o Thorndike Co. | African Theatres Ltd. | Cape Town | S. Africa. “Please forward”. Pmk: HARTING | PETERSFIELD | 8 | 10 DE | 28

• 3

  thinking of marrying In her letter of 2 November 1928 (BRACERS 98400) Colette wrote: “If I married and lived in Wicklow or Connemara — it might not be possible to meet.” She had received two proposals.

• 4

  John His son, John Conrad Russell, born 16 November 1921.

• 5

  the photograph of Kate It depicts his daughter jumping off a rock into to sea in Cornwall. The full photograph shows Kate as well as others on the shore including BR; there is also a cropped version that shows only Kate. Presumably it was the latter one that BR sent to Colette Although the photograph is not extant in Colette’s papers, both photographs are in BR’s own photograph collection (Box 6, File 7). It is published in Ronald Clark, Bertrand Russell and His World (London: Thames and Hudson), p. 75.

• 6

  visit at Blagdon This visit did not take place. Colette may have immediately joined Sir Frank Benson’s farewell tour, although there is no mention of this in After Ten Years. The  typescript “Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969” (p. 13) indicates she did; however a schedule of the tour “Revised List” extant in her papers begins in October 1929. Sir Francis Robert Benson (1858–1939), actor and theatre manager had a number of farewell tours in the 1920s. Colette had been living in Bladgon, Somerset since 1925.