BR TO ALYS RUSSELL, 21 NOV. 1893
BRACERS 20380. ALS(M). Camellia Collections
Proofread by A. Duncan and K. Blackwell

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Nov. 21. 1893.

My dear Alys

I will come by the 12.32, as there is no earlier train except one leaving here 7.20. I should like to take that but I suppose it would be better not. I will look out for you at Liverpool Str. It is a pity you have your class but it can’t be helped. I wish you could hide me behind a curtain and let me watch the proceedings!

It is a good thing your mother’s talk with my grandmother was so satisfactory, and it will be much pleasanter at home if she is not always vexed and alarmed at our meeting.

What I meant was what I fear would annoy you, that every one’s political opinions are and must be sentimental, because the questions of politics are too difficulta for reason to deal with, and would remain so even if we had a much more perfect Science of Politics. I have tried every way I know of to settle political questions reasonably and all of them seem quite inadequate. Every one agreed with me except the youngest brother and the two eldest: and as one of the latter is in the Treasury he must be regarded as prejudiced. I had both McTaggart and Wedd on my side so the other side was rather weak. The only question which did seem clear was Vaccination. — Ever since I came up I have been gradually discovering that Reason in most thingsb if pushed too far refutes itself: so I don’t see any ground for lamenting that one more subject should be abandoned to sentiment. — I have been reading a gruesome Ibsen, the Comedy of Love: have you read it? The hero and heroine are persuaded by a rich middle aged merchant that marriage is essentially prosaic and that people ought therefore not to marry for love but for practical commercial reasons. They separate, and she marries this middle-aged merchant. The whole thing is written with such fiendish plausibility that it took me some time to shake off this effect. By an odd coincidence, McTaggart, who never looks at Ibsen, had been preaching the same doctrine to me: he regards love between people of different sexes as necessarily a misfortune, his own friends being all men. But his views are so hopelessly mystical that only a born mystic could see any force in them. — I too have found the time fly: I think it is only suspense that makes it go slowly. — I only gave £2.12.6 myself, which was not excessive. — Goodbye till Sunday.

Ever yours
Bertie.

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Textual Notes

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  too difficult after deleted and must be

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  in most things inserted