BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 16 AUG. 1943
BRACERS 19820. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #460
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

2 Pennstone Rd., Bryn Mawr, Pa1^, .2
August 16, 1943

My dearest Colette

It is a long time since I have written to you or heard from you. I wonder how things go with you. Your winters3 evidently involve severe hardships, but I hope summers are tolerable.

We are going home to England — Peter4 and Conrad5 next month, and I in October or November.6 Since Barnes7 gave me the sack, it has become clear that this was the best thing to do. We are very homesick, and I am sure we shall be happier in England. Conrad gets into trouble with other children for speaking English instead of American, and is worried by American nationalism, which is very pervasive. The only difficulty is that we do not know whether we shall be able to make a living. I brought an action against Barnes,8 which I shall win someday, but not, at earliest, till some time next year. The deaths of Beatrice Webb9 and Jos Wedgwood10 made me very sad — I should like to get home before any more of my old friends die. Will you come home when it is possible? I hope so. — John11 is in the British Navy, but I think has for the moment a job ashore. Kate12 is still at Radcliffe (an annexe of Harvard), where she finishes next June. The only address I can give you in England is

c/o Coward Chance and Co., 155 Fenchurch St., London E.C.3.13

I don’t know where we shall live. — I am on the point of finishing my History of Philosophy,14 which has been a big job. My next book if I have time to write it, will be on non-demonstrative inference.15 There is a series called “Library of Living Philosophers”16 which is bringing out a volume on me shortly, containing a good deal by me. I am amazed how little other philosophers understand me.

One begins to see a possibility of the war ending, but God only knows what will happen afterwards — I have much to say, but little to write. Socrates, at about my age, congratulated himself that in heaven there would be no one to stop him arguing. For my part, I have had enough of arguing — I want people who feel things in the same sort of way as I do. They are few — which brings me back to the hope that we shall meet in England — Goodbye dearest Colette — with very much love.

Your
B —
Bertrand Russell —

• 1

  [document] Document 200826.

• 2

  2 Pennstone Rd., Bryn Mawr, Pa. BR had moved from the cottage across from Little Datchet Farm because his daughter Kate had cracked two vertebrae in a fall and was in a body cast. She had been hospitalized in Bryn Mawr. BR and Peter stayed on Pennstone Road, which belonged to friends (F.W. Elliott and family) of Kate who were away for the summer. Upon her release Kate joined them there.

• 3

  Your winters Colette was living in Sweden.

• 4

  Peter Patricia (“Peter”) 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

  in October or November The Russells did not leave the U.S. until May 1944.

• 7

  Barnes Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951) made his fortune from pharmaceuticals. In 1922 he set up a foundation for fine arts and began to acquire a collection of paintings and other artwork, mainly European impressionists but with a significant African element.

• 8

  an action against Barnes Barnes, BR’s employer, with whom he had a five-year contract, had illegally terminated it. On 18 January 1943 BR sued Barnes for the earnings owing under the contract. The trial was held four days earlier than this letter, on 12 August 1943; the judge’s ruling in BR’s favour was issued on 16 November 1943. A transcript of the trial proceedings is in RA Rec. Acq. 1138.

• 9

  Beatrice Webb Beatrice Webb (1858–1943) was an old friend of BR, as was her husband, Sidney, but BR disagreed with them over the Soviet Union. Fabian socialists, they founded the London School of Economics. Beatrice died on 30 April.

• 10

  Jos Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood (1872–1943), M.P. Colette had described him during World War I as having a “thin, hatchet face deeply tanned and his lean body very taut — and the whole of him uncompromisingly on the side of liberty in every single issue. A born fighter if there ever was one” (After Ten Years, London: J. Cape, 1931, p. 105). Wedgwood had visited BR in the summer of 1941.

• 11

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

• 12

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

• 13

  The only address … in England … London E.C.3. The address of BR’s solicitor.

• 14

  finishing my History of Philosophy  A History of Western Philosophy (B&R A79), published in the United States in October 1945.

• 15

  My next book ... non-demonstrative inference.  Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (B&R A83), published in 1948. This book was a return to the huge project he had envisaged in his youth, to uncover the principles which made science possible.

• 16

  series called “Library of Living Philosophers”The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, ed. by P.A. Schilpp, 1944 (B&R B77). It includes a short autobiography, “My Mental Development”, and a long reply by BR to the papers written by other philosophers for the volume, reprinted, respectively, as 1 and 2a in Papers 11. The series was published by Northwestern University in Evanston and Chicago, Ill.