BR TO DORA RUSSELL, 13 MAY 1924
BRACERS 19958. ALS. McMaster
Proofread by K. Blackwell

Smith College
Northampton Mass.
13 May 1924

My Darling Treasure1 —

Since I last wrote I have been very busy, but today at last I have an easy time. I have been watching your career in the American papers — they reported the interview of “Mrs Bertrand Russell’s birth-control committee” and the remarks of H.G. It seems to me that you have done very well. One knew Wheatley couldn’t be moved, but you got your case presented admirably. I was 2 nights in N.Y.; Kallen, each night, got me to come to a small supper after my last lecture (I have 2 more days) where they made me drink poison and then tried to teach me to dance. The results were somewhat regrettable! Thence I went to stay with an episcopal parson in New Haven, rather a nice man. Yesterday I travelled thence to Amhurst, lectured there 4.30, lectured here at 8, and stay here all today for a conference at night. So I shall have time for my S. American article.

This is a girls’ college and I am staying with the Principal, whose wife is a German, a really intelligent woman. She says what makes Americans so odd is that they never had the romantic movement. Do you think there is anything in that? I don’t. The Principal is Scotch, and rather likable. They give me breakfast in bed, and I have a really lovely view out of my window, so I feel in Paradise, with leisure and privacy. Privacy can only be got in this country by not having clothes on. At Kallen’s, all day long, there is a stream of people who just walk in — birth-controllers, pacifist ladies, mistresses of men I have met, film actresses, etc. etc. As everybody keeps doors open, escape is impossible. The intervals are filled with Zionists urging me to speak on the industrial possibilities of Palestine. (Fact!)

This whole country remains unreal to me. I lose my bearings through thinking of it as a country in a dream (a nightmare). I feel nothing real except the money, because that is related to home. If you were with me it would be different. But there is something about Americans that makes one feel them unimportant.

The latest letter I have had from you is April 28. I get to feel it is hopeless to answer things in your letters because so much will have happened before you get the answer. You say nothing more about Fred or your father. I don’t know anything about the gas in my flat. Swinnerton would know better than Helen Dudley. You had better settle with Miracca on terms that keep him quiet; I dare say he is in the right, but I took the information from Swinnerton, so he’s the man to ask.

I didn’t have an interrupted meeting at Boston. A General invited the American Legion to break up my meeting, but they didn’t do so, and not a mouse stirred. Nevertheless all the papers said the meeting had been disturbed. I think I told you how I travelled with the General and he made love to all the ladies in the parlour-car. — Do buy the book on Russian theatre as a present from me. I propose to keep £50 of my earnings uninvested, to spend on luxuries such as that and your coming to Liverpool. Seeing that I often earn £50 or more in a day, that seems permissible. — Do get Charlie to come to Carn Voel if you possibly can. It would be a delight to give him a holiday without Dora.

Now Sweetest I must dress and write for the South Americans. I love you more every day. Thank God this time is nearly over. I ache for you so that it is a physical pain. I want the world to seem real and solid again, and it won’t till I am with you. Goodbye my dear dear Love.

B.

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  envelope: Hon. Mrs B Russell | 31 Sydney Street | London S.W.3 | England. Pmk: NORTHAMPTON MASS. MAY 13 3³⁰ PM 1924.