BR TO LUCY M. DONNELLY, 1 JULY 1904
BRACERS 58448. ALS. McMaster
Edited by M. Forte. Proofread by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Ivy Lodge,
Tilford,
Farnham.1, 2
July 1. 1904

My dear Lucy

Your letter from Grace’s was one which I was very glad to get. It has been a very real happiness to me to be able to be useful to you; and I do hope to be able to go on being so, in spite of your being in America.

The letter I wrote to the steamer had to be written before breakfast, and was interrupted by the postman’s arrival, which compelled me to be curt at the end.

I did not have to play Providence with Meredith,* but only to give him sympathy and encouragement; for I found, to my great relief, that he had already taken the step that I had expected to have to advise him to take. If you had heard him talking about his own discouragement, and about how he came to get his life so tangled, you would have understood how I came to have a liking for him, and how it happens that he is in many ways admirable.

The Waterlows were mildly pleasant. He is rather a puzzle to me. She is very lovely, but dull: she is practical, determined, independent, far less fond of him than he of her. I think they have no real congeniality, and will very likely cease to be happy when he has grown accustomed to her beauty. Bernard Shaw and Miss Harrison, who had just had a violent quarrel at Barford, turned up on Sunday, which added to the success of the occasion. Shaw held forth, explaining the Greek drama; Miss H. sat as still as a mouse, except for one very neat score off him.

I am just back from the Bob Trevy’s. She is a courageous woman, who endures very great self-effacement for an end she knows to be trivial. Him I cannot help liking, tho’ he is an utter egoist and not worthy of respect. One comes to feel strangely a spectator and not an actor: I watch people year after year, I know their faults and virtues, their pleasures and pains, and yet I say nothing and they say nothing, and I remain a casual outsider. It is a strange unnatural part to play; but it is interesting, and sometimes the occasion comes when one’s knowledge and reticence is rewarded by a chance of more active sympathy.

The post is going, so good-bye. Write when you can: I am anxious for news of you.

Affectionately yours
Bertrand Russell.

* [He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown through getting engaged to the wrong lady.]

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  [document] Proofread against a photocopy of the original. BR added a note on a typed copy.

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