BR TO LUCY M. DONNELLY, 28 FEB. 1904
BRACERS 58440. ALS. McMaster. Auto. 1: 171
Edited by Maria Forte. Proofread by K. Blackwell

14 Cheyne Walk
Chelsea S.W.1^, 2
Feb. 28. 1904.

My dear Lucy

It is kind of you to write to me so fully of your feelings, for I am most anxious that you should. But I am very sorry indeed you are having so much depression to endure. There is absolutely nothing so difficult to cope with as a feeling of one’s own worthlessness; and it is a feeling engendered of weariness, and of the unconscious reasoning that, to compensate for one’s own pain, at least one’s life ought to add a great deal to other people’s welfare. But you have really no just ground to feel your life worthless. You have the essential quality of caring for the good life, and of encouraging people who know you to care for it. There are not too many people in the world who are active sources of moral effort: many people can live well under good influences, but few can do so by their own strength, and still fewer have any moral energy to spare for others. But you, however bad health may hamper you, have this power, which is specially supreme for any one concerned with education. I foresee for you many years of really very valuable teaching of whatever is communicable in the wisdom that life has taught you. And whoever has a prospect of that sort has no right to regard his or her life as a waste or a failure.

Really the feeling of the worthlessness of one’s work, where it is not justified, is the last refuge of self-love. It comes partly of too high an ideal of what one might hope to achieve, which is a form of pride; and partly of rebellion against one’s private sufferings, which, one feels, can only be outweighed by some immense public good. But I know it is intolerably hard to drive self-love from this entrenchment, and I certainly have not yet succeeded. I do wish I could be with you, not only for the beauty of Sicily, but because it would be a great pleasure to see you, and because it would be so much easier to say just the things to build up in you the self-respect you deserve to have. You are really too modest altogether; but your friends’ affection ought to persuade you that you have things to give which people value. I have not found myself, tho’, any way of banishing Self except work; and while you are unable to work, it is very difficult for you.

I am glad Helen writes you nice letters. But I gather from what you say that her happiness is not great enough to exclude pains. That is a pity; yet perhaps it is a safeguard against greater pains in the future. This sounds a commonplace reflection, and I confess I think it better to have both pain and pleasure in an extreme degree than to have both soberly. But consolations are not to be rejected, even if they are commonplace.

Your gossip about Mr. Bowland is very interesting, and I shall be glad to hear developments.

There is not much news here. I have been very busy, but now my labours are practically ended. We go to Cambridge for two days this week, and Alys goes to visit Logan and look for sites at Oxford. I have been reading novels: Diana, and Beauchamp’s Career, are the two I have read last. Meredith’s psychology seems to me very good as a rule, tho’ I didn’t think Diana’s betrayal was made credible. I fell in love with her at the Ball, and remained so through all her vagaries.

Last night I went to a remote part of London, to lecture to the local Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. They meet in a Public House, but permit no drinks during their meeting. They seemed excellent people, very respectable — indeed I shouldn’t have guessed they were working men. They were of all shades of opinion, from Tory to Socialist. The Chairman, when I had finished, begged them not to follow their usual practice of flattering the lecturer; but even so I got not much criticism. The Secretary explained this to me on the way home by saying my arguments had “bottled them up”. I liked them all, and felt an increased respect for the skilled workman, who seems usually an admirable person.

In a fortnight I shall have done with fiscal things, and then I shall go a walking-tour in Devonshire and Cornwall before settling down to Philosophy. MacCarthya will go with me.

Write again as soon as you can. I feel there is much more to be said in answer to your letter, but politics has rather scattered my thoughts. Try to keep up your spirits; and please don’t imagine your life a useless one.

Yours affectionately
Bertrand Russell.

• 1

  [document] Proofread against the original letter.

• 2

  [envelope] Miss Lucy Donne<torn> | Hôtel des Temples | Girgenti | Sicily

Textual Notes

• a

  MacCarthy corrected editorially from McCarthy