Co. Down
Septr. 5, ’94
My dear Bertie
Lady Russell will have told you that everything has been arranged for
your going to Paris. I am sure you will like it, and the climate is charming at
this time of the year: and though perhaps there may be a certain amount of
work, I hope it will not be too much to prevent you taking advantage of
your stay to see all that is to be seen in Paris, for the autumn is the best time
for that.
I think, if it could be arranged, that it would be very desirable from our
o?cial point of view that you should stay for at least three months, though I
hope we shall tempt you to remain longer and to go out a little into Paris
society, which would amuse you very much.
engagement 103I have written to all the authorities at Paris to warn them of your arrival,
and to tell them to do everything they can to make you feel at home.
Yours very sincerely
Du?erin and Ava
Hotel du Prince de Galles
Paris
Sep. 11, 1894
Dear Lord Du?erin
I have waited till I was established here to thank you warmly for your two
kind letters to me. It is very good of you to take so much trouble about me,
and I have indeed been most cordially received by everybody. I arrived in
Paris last night and spent this morning at the Embassy. I am sure I shall like
the work, and that the life generally will be very agreeable.
I will certainly stay the three months which you speak of as o?cially
desirable, indeed under ordinary circumstances I should have been glad to
stay any length of time; but I am engaged to be married, and had hoped
that the wedding might be in December; so you will, I am sure, understand
that I should be glad to be free then, if that is possible without any
inconvenience. I hope you will not think this wish ungracious on my part –
no lesser inducement could have made me wish to shorten my stay here,
and I am deeply obliged to you for having given me the appointment – but
as I do not intend to take up the diplomatic service as my career, it seemed
perhaps needless to postpone my wedding, for which I feel a natural
impatience.
Yours gratefully and sincerely
Bertrand Russell
The following letters have to do with a project, which I entertained for a short time, of abandoning
mathematical philosophy for economics, and also with the a?airs of The Society. It was the
practice for one member, in rotation, to read a short paper, chosen by the others the previous
Saturday out of four suggested subjects. In the subsequent discussion it was a rule that everyone
must say something.
Trinity College, Cambridge
Oct. 18th, ’94
Dear Russell
When I ?rst read your letter I thought that you had gone raving mad. I
took it round to Marsh, and he did not take such a serious view of the case.
I will, of course, ask Ward about it directly. I don’t know how far it would be
possible for you to do much good at the subject, but I am fairly certain that
the amount of economics which you would have to read, would not be more
than you could easily do. But I expect that, as well as Psychology and Ethics
the autobiography of bertrand russell 104that you would have to learn some politics and law. I doubt whether you will
really ?nd much life in trying to ?nd out whether the word ‘Utility’ can have
any meaning and what is meant by a man’s ‘demand for tobacco’. Surely you
have a very excellent opportunity of being of some service to the Universe by
writing about space whereas I doubt if you will quickly increase human
happiness by doing the basis of economics. For, on the one hand, owing
chie?y to the spread of democracy, it is distrusted and despised, and on the
other hand the few people who, like myself, think that it is or ought to be a
science naturally do not much mind whether it means anything or not. I
expect McTaggart will have a ?t if I tell him what you say. Trotter would like a
paper from you (if it is possible) for the Moral Science Club. Last Saturday
we chose subjects and Marsh is reading on Saturday on, I think, ‘Why we
like nature’. Please let someone know as soon as possible which day you
are coming up on. It is splendid of you to come. We are thinking about
George Trevvy but are not quite decided. I hear that Edward Carpenter has
published yet another pamphlet on ‘Marriage’. I will send you a copy as
soon as I get one.
Have you got Erdmann’s book on the Axioms of Geometry or do you
know of anyone up here who has it; as I rather want to read it and can’t ?nd it
in the ’Varsity library. Do you see the English papers? Some women have been
raising hell about the prostitutes at the Empire and it is probably going to be
closed. I wish they would protest against those in the streets instead.
I can’t ?nd anything to write about in Economics and I ?nd law somewhat
dull so I should be depressed if it were not that I am going to hear the 9th
Symphony on the day after tomorrow.
Yours frat.
Charles Percy Sanger
Trinity College, Cambridge
Oct. 19th, ’94
Dear Russell
I went to Ward and asked him about you. He said immediately that you
had better do economics, if you thought that you would like it better. That
the important thing was to work at what you liked and that though your
dissertation would have to go in by August, yet you worked very fast
and would probably have enough time. He also said that there was not the
slightest objection to your sending in two or more dissertations, or that if
you write an article on space in ‘Mind’ or elsewhere that you could count
that in with your dissertation on Economics. But that, as one would expect,
two moderate dissertations do not count as one good one. He said that he
would not advise you about economics and suggested that you should write
to Marshall. Have you read Keynes’
17
book on the Scope and Method of
engagement 105Economics? I think that that perhaps might interest you. Marsh tells me that
McTaggart is rather horri?ed.
Your friend
Charles Percy Sanger
Trinity College, Cambridge
Oct. 23, ’94
Dear Russell
I’m very glad you’re coming soon and it’s all your eye to say you don’t
want to write a paper.
Your ?rst letter to Sanger was most subversive, the e?ect on us can only be
compared (in its humble way) to that produced on Europe by the Cabinet
Council last month – Sanger came rushing round here to say you were quite
mad, and ?nding me unprepared with an opinion o?ered me his. Not being
entirely satis?ed with my attitude he proceeded to spoil McTaggart’s appetite
by telling him the dreadful news as he was marching up to the Fellows’ table.
He’s since been more or less paci?ed by Ward – I don’t know anything about
the rights and wrongs of the case, but I can’t refrain from appealing to your
better nature to consider what o’clock it is, to consider what a long way
you’ve got to go before July, to consider anything – before embarking on a
rash project.
I was awfully glad to get your letter (the day before I left Heidelberg) and
hear you were happier in Paris; I don’t know how often I’ve nearly answered
it since – I seem to be working very hard this term, as I do nothing else in the
day except perhaps a game of 5’s, 30 pages of Zola, and of course meals, but
these very moderate and un-Heidelberg. Life a?ords few distractions. I know
lamentably few people, yet the temptation to call on freshers is one which is
easy to resist. The fact is I’m getting old and posé, even rheumatic, and almost
respectable; parts of this letter are in my new Mary Bennet style. Z.B., the idea
of life a?ording few distractions, though not perhaps wholly new, strikes me
as well expressed.
I saw Miss Pearsall Smith on Saturday at the Richter Concert, and we
discussed the comparative fascination of space and economics. She looked
very well – and had such a pretty green cloak with fur trimmings. Sanger said
he was going to tell you what had been happening in the Society. Last Sat.
was rather a failure, as I had discovered that my paper was all nonsense on
Friday; besides wh. Sanger and I were so completely done by the Concert that
we hadn’t an idea in our heads. I had ‘brain stoppage’ every time I was asked
a question. We are thinking of little Trevy,
18
but Moore who knows him
better than anyone else has scruples. I’m rather hoping that a young Babe at
King’s may turn out embryonic – He’s in?nitely the cleverest and most
fascinating of the family.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 106I’ve done a fabulous amount of work today so I’d better leave o?. esp. as I
shall see you so soon and talking is better than writing (esp. my writing wh.
has gone rather funny on this page).
Yrs. fraternally
E. M.
(Edward Marsh)
Trinity College, Cambridge
Oct. 22nd, ’94
Dear Russell
I am very glad that you can arrange to come up. I will see about the rooms.
We should be very glad if you would read a paper as there are only four of
us now.
Maggie Tulliver or Cleopatra sounds such a good subject that you had
better read on it and thus don’t trouble to send subjects for us to choose. Last
week Marsh read an excellent paper on ‘Do we like nature’, but unfortunately
the discussion was not so good as Marsh and I were quite stupid (we had
heard the Choral Symphony in the afternoon) and there were only Moore
and Dickinson besides. Dickinson was good and I expect that Moore was, but
I couldn’t understand him. In the letter that I wrote telling you what Ward
had said, I don’t know whether I su?ciently emphasised the fact that his
great point was that you should work at what you like (in distinction I think
to what you might think you ought to do). He was quite strong on the point
that if Metageometry bored you, it was better that you should do something
else. We are quite divided about George Trevey – that is to say Marsh and
Wedgewood are in favour of him, and I am, on whole, neutral but Moore
thinks that most of our discussions would not interest him. The spookical
[psychical] society have got hold of a medium who does things that they
can’t explain. Myers is, of course, triumphant and Sidgwick is forced to admit
that at the time he was convinced, but thinks that he isn’t now.
Yours frat.
Charles Percy Sanger
Trinity College, Cambridge
Wednesday (1894)
Dear Russell
I’ll send the paper o? tomorrow; the end part is rather muddling to an
uneducated person, but I’m glad I read it again.
I’ve just come back from a concert. I was next an old lady who was exactly
like the leg of mutton in Alice; the features were almost identical and she had
a becoming pink paper frill on her head, which a closer inspection revealed
as a dyed feather. I don’t think she can have known the picture.
engagement 107MacT.’s paper on Sunday was very interesting. Mackenzie remarked
afterwards that Hegel’s theory of punishment was quite di?erent, and MacT.
simply continued to smile – I don’t know wh. was in the right, but I never
saw MacT. shut up so easily. It was very funny to see Trotter follow him in the
room, humble and imitative – he had an air of being ‘also stark mad, in white
cotton’ (do you remember the Con?dante in the Critic?)
I had such a funny scene with my bedmaker the night you left. I was in my
bedroom, and heard a timid voice calling me. ‘Well’, I said. ‘Isn’t this a sad
a?air, sir?’ she began in her plaintive voice. ‘What?’ I asked (I thought Mrs
Appleton must have had twins at least) – ‘About your table, sir’. ‘Well?’
‘We ren’t you surprised to ?nd the leaf still in?’ ‘Very much, why was it?’
‘Didn’t the gentleman tell you, sir?’ ‘What gentleman? What’s happened?’ It
turned out she’d broken a bit of the wood, just as Tommy Booth came in with
a pipe of mine. Wasn’t it extraordinary how she couldn’t tell me straight out? I
hope when my wife dies, or anything like that, I shall always have someone to
make my troubles ridiculous by their exaggerated concern. I never can mind
when anything goes wrong in my room. I can’t resist Mrs Roper’s sympathy.
Oswald Sickert’s book is out at last, he sent me a copy this morning. It is
dedicated to me, which makes me very proud – it reads much better than it
did in ??. I think it’s splendid.
We’re going to have another enormous meeting next Sat. Mayor, Trevy,
Theo all coming to Moore’s paper. I dare say I’ll write to you about it. I think
this is the end of my news for the present and it’s near 12.
Goodnight
E. H. M. (Marsh)
Trinity College Cambridge
Nov. 21st ’94
My dear Russell
I’ve just come back from such a funny concert – not that it was particularly
funny, but I was put in a thoroughly unmusical frame of mind by the ?rst
performer who appeared – one of the wiry and businesslike kind (of mon-
keys, I mean – she is a monkey) – she played very much like a person, but not
quite. Of course it was very creditable to the result of so recent an evolution
to do it so well but it hindered one’s appreciation of the music. The next
person was a singer – one of those middle aged ladies who have an air of
being caricatures of their former selves – she made one of those curious
confessions which are only heard in Concert rooms about her behaviour once
in a state of drink, when she enlaced a gentleman in her arms – Te souviens-
tu de notre ivresse quand nos bras étaient enlacés? Conybeare remarked that if
she was in ivresse she was now in evening dress – her arch curtseys at the end
were a sight to be seen.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 108When did I last write to you? Have you heard about Moore’s paper on
Friendship? There’s not much to say about it, as it was a speci?cation of one’s
own ideal more or less, without much practical bearing. Of course our poor
old friend copulation came in for its usual slating, one wd. think from the way
people talk about it in the Society that it was a kind of Home Rule Bill that has
to be taken some notice of, but which everyone thinks a bore. The discussion
was interesting. Trevy, Theo and Mayor were all up. Mayor gave Theo occasion
to say he hadn’t expected to ?nd him such a middle aged phenomenon
so soon. Mayor took wings – Wedd was there too, he and Theo talked well.
19
Last Sat. McT. read an old paper. Why are roseleaves crumpled? on the origin
of evil. – It wasn’t quite satisfactory, as on the one hand MacT. has changed
his position since he wrote it, and on the other it was rather a nuisance no
one except him knowing the dialectic – one felt like the audience at an
extension-lecture. Sanger reads on What is education? on Sat. Crompton will
be up.
Lady Trevy was up today. I always like her very much, she has such an
essential gaiety. I met a lovely person on Sunday, Miss Stawell, whom
Dickinson was nice enough to ask me to meet. I think she’s very superior
indeed – she seems to have quite a rare feeling for beauty in art, I hope we
shall see more of her.
20
Mayor’s sister was there too, she seemed rather
common and ?ippant in comparison. It’s great fun seeing so much of Verrall
as I do now – (I go to him for composition again), the other day I asked him
the meaning of something in the Shelley we had to translate – ‘I’m sure I
can’t tell you my little dear’, he answered, ‘you pays yr money and you takes
your choice.’ That kind of thing makes me very cheerful.
The day’s coming very near now, isn’t it? What a wonderful thought.
Remember to tell me how your grandmother is when you write.
Yrs. fraternally
Edward M. (Marsh)
By the way thanks for the photograph, it’s good on the whole, tho’ you
look rather bumptious.
Pembroke Lodge,
Richmond, Surrey
Sep. 16/’94
Dearest Bertie
I can’t say I am much disappointed with your second letter – for ‘I mean’ to
do so and so in yr ?rst left little hope of yr considering any other course. Of
course I am very sorry, as U.R.
21
and Auntie will be – she writes as if she cd
not think you wd. wish to be out of the country this winter – but that is
nothing.
22
You must do what you think best, and I must remember
engagement 109As one by one thy hopes depart
Be resolute and calm—
They have been departing in rapid succession of late – but when I turn my
mind to good and happy Dunrozel, to human perfection in Agatha, to the
goodness and unceasing a?ection of my old children and their children, to
other relations and to many faithful friends, I feel how much beauty there
still is in life for wch in my old age I have to thank God. And for you, my too
dear boy, I can only try to hope, though the way is not easy to ?nd. Have you
called on the people to whom the Baronne gave you letters? She asked me
yesterday. The Warburtons are gone, and Lotty,
23
dear wonderful Lotty,
come. You know what it is to her and me to be together. I’m glad you like Mr
Dodson (no g) – I think there must be everythg. to like in Mr Hardinge or Ld.
Du?erin wd. not call him ‘a great friend’ – I did not imagine Ld. Terence to
be very nice – Ld. D’s children seem to be rather disappointments. Of course
one cannot ?nd everybody with whom one has intercourse having the same
interests as oneself, but one can often be the better for entering into theirs – I
do hope that as time goes on and you know more people, you will enjoy Paris
thoroughly – there is so much to enjoy there. Very good accounts of Auntie
you’ll be glad to hear but this is horrid letterless Sunday. Rollo proposes
to come to me the 20th when Lotty goes – brings Arthur and Lisa – for
10 days – such a joy in prospect.
Goodbye and God bless you my dearest Child.
Yr. ever loving
Granny
My letters are for you alone – Remember I am more than willing to believe
that you will pro?t by yr German experience, as regards yr studies.
Pembroke Lodge
Richmond, Surrey
Oct. 9, ’94
Dearest Bertie
I am glad you have had more Embassy work to do. I guessed it would be so,
owing to the ‘tension’ I think that’s the diplomatic word – between England
and France – it must also have been more interesting work I shd think? I
hope and trust that both countries will behave well, in wch case peace and
goodwill will be preserved. I shd think the Govt of both likely to do so. I am
also very glad Mr Austin Lee is back – he is a man well worth knowing. By this
time, accordg to the D.E.’s (d’Estournelles), a good many of their friends are
returning to Paris and I shall be anxious to hear how you get on with the
scienti?c, the political, the musical and charming among them to whom you
have letters....
the autobiography of bertrand russell 110My dearest Child, you must not wish time to pass more quickly than it
does! There is little enough of it for us to make the use of that we ought. Of
course I understand as anybody would that you regret even this short separ-
ation – but perhaps you don’t know how very much you would have su?ered
in the estimation of the many who wish you well in the highest sense and care
for us and know what we had always thought and felt about you, had you
remained in England leading the life you were leading – indeed you had
already su?ered greatly and so had she and I felt that having work to do abroad
was the only chance to prevent increasing blame and if you are to marry her,
before you have learned to know anybody else, I do most earnestly wish that
there may be as little unfavourable impression as possible. You wrote to me
once, dear boy, that you dreamed of me constantly by night and thought of
me by day and wondered how you cd make me happier about you – and I
have sometimes thought of puttg down on paper what has made me and yr
Uncle and Aunt so unhappy – in regular order of events and incidents –
to help you, even now, to make us happier. Shall I do so? There is nothing
I wish more ardently than to have good reason to love dearly the person you
marry if I live to see you married. I am going on pretty well – only a very
slow downward progress of the disease – so that I am still able to do pretty
much as usual, except breathing in bed – I have discomfort but nothg worth
callg pain.
If you write to Auntie only say about me that you hear I am going on
very well.
Yr most loving
Granny
Pembroke Lodge
Richmond, Surrey
Oct. 23/’94
Dearest Bertie
We were glad of your letter to Tat,
24
but sorry that no notice had yet been
taken of your cards. The cycling in the Bois de Boulogne must be great fun. I
suppose you go with the others? You don’t mention Lord Du?erin having
arrived; which according to newspapers ought I think to be the case. What a
pity Frank’s visit was no pleasure. I think he really went out of good nature
to you on my telling him how lonely you felt, but we quite understand what
you mean. I am better for the moment. I hope it may turn out for more than
the moment – for Agatha’s sake especially. She, poor darling, is far from well,
and obliged to stay very late in bed. Dear good Isabel [Mrs Warburton] went
yesterday – her visit has been touchingly delightful, in spite of or indeed
partly because of my being very unwell most of the time – she is so
simpatica, and we had much solemn conversation intermingled with
engagement 111pressing topics. – You have never answered my next to last letter, which
I thought you would like but I will not enter upon the subject of you and
Miss P. S. – writing is so unsatisfactory – except just to say her refusal to see
me makes everything very di?cult to me. It is the ?rst time in my long life
that such a thing has happened to me. I don’t think it is doing her any good
and tho’ for her sake I put it as gently as I can. She was so good and thanked
me when from my interest in her I several times told her where I thought she
had been wrong – and on her various visits after that she was altogether nice,
and I was growing happy and hopeful that we should ?nd her deserving of
the love we were more than ready to give. Then came the sudden and to us
utterly unaccountable change – and I cannot but be saddened by the thought
that the person you love is one who refuses to see me and whom therefore I
can never know any better even if I live longer than is likely. However
nothing can pain me much longer here below, and in the meantime I try
as a duty not to think about all this, as it seems that mental troubles are
particularly bad for my kind of illness. God bless you, my boy, and her too, is
my most earnest prayer.
Yr ever loving
Granny
Pembroke Lodge
Richmond, Surrey
Oct. 30, 1894
Dearest Bertie
Granny is much less well again – bad nights, pains and weakness. She is
quite kept to bed today – and yesterday. Of course she cannot see yr. letters. I
have told her of them. She long ago saw Alys’s letter to her and I think you
will remember that in hers to Alys she said she wished once to say what she felt
on that subject of yr proposed course – and never again. I suppose you will
come here on yr way to Cambridge? Let me know at once. Granny I’m certain
will be medically ordered never to touch on painful subjects and of course, I
never shall, and she has once for all said what she felt and what was her duty
to say if she cared for you and Alys. Dearest Bertie I cannot write more I am so
disheartened seeing Granny su?er. It pains me beyond expression that you
think I have been ‘hard’ and without sympathy. If my words have ever
seemed so you must remember and will know some day that only love was in
my heart and that nothing but love prevented absolute silence on my part for
speaking was far more painful than you now understand.
Your loving
Auntie
the autobiography of bertrand russell 112Pembroke Lodge
Richmond, Surrey
Nov. 19, 1894
My dear Alys
Rollo reminded us that Dec. 14th was the day of the death of Prince Albert
and of Princess Alice – and considering our situation with regard to the
Queen, we feel we could none of us like the Wedding being on that day. I am
sure you will not mind our mentioning this. Would not the 15th do? We did
not quite understand the reasons against that day. I hope you and Bertie had a
