BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 7 OCT. 1941
BRACERS 19814. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R. D. 1
Pennsylvania1
Oct. 7, 1941

Dearest Colette

Your letter of Sp. 102 reached me a few days ago. I was very glad to hear from you, but your news is not very cheerful.3 I feel your isolation very much, yet I can quite understand why you did not go back to England. We have become strangers and exiles everywhere in this dreadful world. I have been reading St. Augustine’s City of God,4 written in a similar time. The idea is good, but the execution abominable. It is full of discussions of such questions as whether Methuselah5 died in the year of the flood or 14 years later. One has to have hope, but it has to be rather distant. Last time I thought wonderful things would happen at the end; this time I don’t. But in any case one may see again the few who matter to one personally — I can’t write about politics, because of the various censorships.

I heard from Nancy Pearn6 in answer to a letter of mine. She says they have had no word from you since Sp. 27, 1940, and that they are waiting for complete copy and illustrations. Probably some letter of yours never arrived.

We have almost no real friendships here — the people we get on with best are German anti-Nazis. But they are apt to be terribly fierce against Germany. Wedgwood’s visit7 was refreshing — My work obliges me8 to read ancient and medieval history, which I find consoling — merely because it makes one feel that these times are not exceptional, and yet the world has gone on.

Your loneliness must be very hard to bear. I have Peter9 and my children — John10 is a typical Russell, very impersonal, torn between love of learning and the wish to do something useful. He has developed very well — He is now at Harvard, and Kate11 at Radcliffe, the feminine annexe of Harvard. Conrad12 doesn’t know there is a war, and is very happy and altogether delightful —

Let me know if you need money. I could probably telegraph it to you. Also if there is anything more I can do about your book.13 I hope the time will come when we can meet again — but I fear it will be long. One must try to keep alive, in spirit as well as in body — but it is not altogether easy. I think you are right to stay in Sweden — I don’t believe you could do anything for Finland in England. Very much love, dearest Colette.

Your
B.
Bertrand Russell.

• 1

  [document] Document 200820.

• 2

  Your letter of Sp. 10 BRACERS 98436.

• 3

  your news is not very cheerful By her account, Colette had had to live on nothing but wild mushrooms and substitute coffee for 20 days. She had returned to the cottage she had shared with Lavinia (Dorothy Mallows) three years earlier. There was no running water, she had to chop her own wood, and had no oil or candles for light. She did not have enough funds to return to England — the British consul had required her to sign an undertaking that she would repay the cost of the journey — and she had nowhere to stay once she got there except with her mother in Bath, which she did not want to do. Thus she decided to stay on, despite the difficulties, even though the cottage held her memories of the agony she had suffered over her failed relationship with Ralph Edwards.

• 4

  St. Augustine’s City of God  BR was reading St. Augustine for his Barnes Foundation lectures which became A History of Western Philosophy (B&R A79).

• 5

  Methuselah BR sets out the various time-lines in Chapter IV, “St. Augustine’s Philosophy and Theology”, A History of Western Philosophy, Book Two, Part I.

• 6

  Nancy Pearn Colette had asked BR to contact Nancy Pearn of Pearn, Pollinger and Higham, to see if she was trying to arrange for publication of her book in the United States.

• 7

  Wedgwood’s visit Josiah Wedgwood (1872–1943), M.P. In her letter of 10 September (BRACERS 98436) Colette had written: “I was very glad to know you’d had Wedgwood with you: have always liked the little I knew of him: I’d read — in the last months in Finland — reviews of his autobiography; and his letters on Finland used to appear with mine in the Manchester Guardian.”

• 8

  My work obliges me His lectures at the Barnes Foundation and his projected History.

• 9

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

• 10

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

• 11

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

• 12

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

• 13

  your book Colette had written on 8 July (BRACERS 98434) that her book was safe with Cape in London. It is unclear what book this was. Possibly it was a different version of “Rust Red”, which was about Sweden. The copy of it that remains in her papers was typed in England by Alex. McLachlan, Literary Typing Specialist, St. Leonards on Sea. She had had a great deal of trouble getting the manuscript to England. In her letter of 1 January (BRACERS 98430) she had written that a large part of the manuscript she had sent Jonathan Cape had not reached the publisher. On 18 February (BRACERS 98431) she wrote that the manuscript had been with the Finnish Foreign Office for five months, who had then returned it to her. She had sent Cape instructions that the last chapter was to be sent to BR for his approval and alterations, if any were needed. Parts of “Rust Red” appeared in her In the North which was not published until 1946 by Gollancz.