BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 28 JUNE 1939
BRACERS 19805. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #439
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Leandro Cottage, San Leandro Lane,
Montecito, Santa Barbara, Cal., U.S.A.1
28 June 1939.

My dearest Colette

Your unhappy letter2 made me very sad. I do not know what to say that can in any way comfort you. You know that my affection for you is unalterable, and that I respect your capacity for stark courage very highly indeed.

It is difficult not to feel defeated — I have been having difficulty myself, partly owing to the state of the world, partly owing to the rebellion of my body. I got tired out with work, and at last got ill — I have just finished three weeks in bed,3 and now feel better. But sometimes I feel so weary that I do not know how to go on — Peter4 and Conrad5 and Dora6 and her two children7 all depend on my earnings, which grow more difficult to come by, and I must go on working till I die. The state of the world touches me personally through John8 and Kate9 — John won’t fight, but won’t be out of England if there is war — he feels he must do something. If there is not war in the next few weeks, they are to come out here for the summer holidays; but God knows whether “peace” will last so long. And Dora is trying to prevent them from coming. In any case, what hope is there for the young in the England that is to be? All that I have ever attempted, both personally and impersonally, seems to have failed. Nevertheless, somehow I believe that fearlessness and honesty must be worth while. Whether worth while outwardly or not, it is worth while for oneself, inwardly, to call up one’s reserves. I am saying this equally for you and for myself. So long as you can write something worth writing, you have something to live for. For my part, I am writing a big book on “words and facts”,10 and I think I know more than others do about the relation of words to what they describe. Do you remember “emphatic particulars”? They are bound up in my mind with a stone bridge over a rushing stream.11 They come in — so there are things to live for.

My very dear Colette, my heart is with you, and I am sure you will emerge with sympathies still alive. Bless you.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200811.

• 2

  Your unhappy letter Her letter of 2 June 1939 (BRACERS 98413) contained the news that her relationship with Ralph Edwards had ended very badly just at the moment when she was ready to give him everything he wanted. Edwards had told her that he had never really cared for her but had taken her “as a drug to deaden his agony at his wife’s death.” Colette had thus decided to leave England where she had been living because of Edwards and return to Sweden. She described herself as “half blind with misery” and felt “utterly defeated”. In In the North (London: Gollancz, 1946) she described the break-up as “maybe, the second blackest moment” in her life (p. 79).

• 3

  three weeks in bed BR was having trouble with his back.

• 4

  Peter Patricia Russell, née Spence (1910–2004). She and BR were married from 1936 until 1952.

• 5

  Conrad Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell born 15 April 1937 to BR and his wife Patricia.

• 6

  Dora Dora Russell, née Black (1894–1986). She and BR were married from 1921 until 1935. For information on her, see BRACERS 19506, n.3.

• 7

  her two children Harriet and Roderick Barry.

• 8

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

• 9

  Kate Katharine Jane Russell born 29 December 1923 to BR and his wife Dora. Her surname became Tait upon her marriage.

• 10

  writing a big book on “words and facts”An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (B&R A73), published in December 1940.

• 11

  “emphatic particulars” ... a stone bridge over a rushing stream Discussed by BR when he and Colette were at the Cat and Fiddle in Derbyshire in April 1918. Colette recollected this discussion in In the North, p. 129. The particulars appear in An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Chapter 7, where they are called “egocentric particulars”.