It’s terri?c to re?ect that I know you, and can speak to you, and even contra-
dict you. Oh! – I shall have this engraved on my tombstone –
?? ???? ????? ??? ???????
and nothing more.
Yours ever
G. L. Strachey
57 Gordon Square
London W.C.
3rd March, 1908
My dear Bertie
I see in the papers that you are to be made an ???! What an honour! at your
age too. Ever since I saw it I have have been strutting about swelling with
re?ected glory. It’s the ?rst sensible thing I ever heard of philosophy doing.
One can understand that if one can’t your books.
Seriously though I do congratulate you most heartily. I have always looked
on an ??? as superior to any position on earth, even Archbishop or Prime
Minister and the feeling still survives though I know a good many personally.
Yours a?ectionately
Russell
Charing Cross Hotel
October 4, 1908
Dear Russell
I was at Oxford for three days last week, and hoped until the last day, when I
found it was going to be quite impossible, to drive out and see you and Mrs
Russell. It was squeezed out by other necessities. I saw Schiller and spent a
night at McDougall’s most pleasantly. I would fain have spent a night with
you, to make up for the rather blunt way in which I declined your invitation
last June. I was done-up then, and am comparatively fresh now, but a daughter
and a son have come over since then and, as normal, their needs have seemed
more urgent than their parent’s, so the time has proved too short for many
things that I should have liked to accomplish. The son remains at Oxford, in
A. L. Smith’s family (tutor at Balliol). The rest of us sail in the Saxonia on
Tuesday.
‘principia mathematica’ 191One of the ?rst things I am going to do after I get back to my own library is
to re-read the Chapter on Truth in your Phil. of M., which I haven’t looked at
since it appeared. I want to get a better grasp of it than you have of my theory!
Your remarks on Dewey (sharp as your formulation is!) in the last Hibbert
shows that you haven’t yet grasped the thing broadly enough. My dying
words to you are ‘Say good-by to mathematical logic if you wish to preserve
your relations with concrete realities!’ I have just had this morning a three-
hour conversation with Bergson which possibly may account for this ejacula-
tion! Best regards to you both, in which my wife would join were she here.
Truly yours
Wm. James
8 Grosvenor Crescent
S.W.
26th April, 1909
Dear Bertrand Russell
It is a great pleasure to know that you are elected at the Athenaeum.
My own balloting – in 1877 – was su?ciently anxious to make me always
feel glad when any friend, however certain of success, is through the ordeal.
I was not wanting on the occasion and spent a solid part of the afternoon
there while your ballot was on.
Your membership will sensibly increase to me, and many others, the interest
and pleasure of the Club.
16
I remain
Yours very sincerely
George O. Trevelyan
Eleven, Cranmer Road
Cambridge
May 27/10
Dear Bertie
The College Council decided today to o?er you a lectureship in Logic and
the Principles of Mathematics to continue for ?ve years, the duties being
(i) to give a course (24 lectures) of lectures in each term,
(ii) to reside in Cambridge during term time –
Also provided that you are willing to satisfy certain conditions as to the
number of hours during which you will be present in College (15 hours
per week during term time, I think) they o?er rooms in College and dinner
(i.e. free dinner). The stipend is ￡200 per year.
All this is of course entirely uno?cial – I need not tell you how delighted
I am about it – It will give you a splendid opportunity to ‘expose’ the subject –
just what is wanted.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 192By the bye, I ought to mention that there is no implication that the lecture-
ship will be continued after ?ve years. – Of course the whole di?culty in this
respect comes from the extremely few students who, as far as it can be foreseen,
will be taught by you directly in lectures – I confess to a hope that there may
be much more to be done – now that we know our own subject – than any of
us can guarantee at present. – But the o?er is for 5 years and no more, directly
or indirectly.
The Council has been very spirited, for at the same time we elected a
‘prelector’ in Biochemistry.
No more news at present.
Yours a?ectionately
A. N. W.
Trinity Lodge
Cambridge
June 3, 1910
My dear B. Russell
We are delighted to hear that there is now more than a hope of having you
among us for some time to come. Not a shred of credit can I claim for the
step which we have so wisely taken, but I rejoice to have given the heartiest
assent to the advice of your scienti?c friends. I can hardly hope to last out
during the whole of your happy Quinquennium, but I may at least look
forward to giving you an early and a hearty greeting.
With our united kindest regards to Mrs Russell.
Believe me to be most truly yours
H. Montagu Butler
There cannot be many living who, like myself, saw Lord John Russell
starting from the Hotel at Callender in 1850, through a good Scotch Rain, for
‘Rest and be Thankful’. I wonder if you know those delightful regions.
Merton College
Oxford
April 11/10
Dear Mr Russell
Many thanks for your letter. I have no doubt that in what I wrote I have
misinterpreted you more or less. And that makes me unwilling to write at all,
only no one else seemed doing it. I shall look forward to reading the o?
prints of the article from the Revue and I will attend to what you have written
in your letter.
I feel, I confess, some alarm at the prospect of you being occupied with
politics, if that means that you will have no time for philosophy. Will it not
‘principia mathematica’ 193be possible to combine them? If not it is not for me to venture to judge in
what direction you feel the greater ‘call’. The only thing I feel clear about is
this that no one else will do your work in philosophy so far as human
probability goes. And more than this I don’t feel I have any right to say.
If you are able to write something for ‘Mind’ I am sure that it will be
welcome to the readers thereof and not least to myself.
Yours truly
F. H. Bradley
I have no idea as to who will get this Professorship. I hear that Webb’s
chances are thought good on the ground that the two clerics are likely to vote
for him and Warren also. But nothing is really known.
Merton College
Oxford
April 20/10
Dear Mr Russell
I am really glad to hear that you have no intention of going permanently
into politics which of course are very absorbing. It is quite another thing to
get a temporary change of occupation and you must have worked very hard
at philosophy now for some years.
Certainly in the study of philosophy, &, I presume, in many other studies,
the having to work alone so much is inhuman & trying. And I do not see any
remedy for it. The amount to which one can collaborate with another is so
small. My health has always been too bad for me to get a change by way of
another occupation, but I am afraid that I have been driven to take a great deal
of holidays instead. Another occupation might have been better.
I am too stupid now to read your article even if I had it but I shall look
forward to seeing it.
I have always had a high opinion of your work from the ?rst, & I feel no
doubt whatever that philosophy would lose greatly by your permanent with-
drawal. I don’t see who else is going to do the work there, which you would,
&, I hope, will do.
Yours truly
F. H. Bradley
the autobiography of bertrand russell 1947
CAMBRIDGE AGAIN
Principia Mathematica being ?nished, I felt somewhat at a loose end. The feeling
was delightful, but bewildering, like coming out of prison. Being at the time
very much interested in the struggle between the Liberals and the Lords
about the Budget and the Parliament Act, I felt an inclination to go into
politics. I applied to Liberal Headquarters for a constituency, and was
recommended to Bedford. I went down and gave an address to the Liberal
Association, which was received with enthusiasm. Before the address,
however, I had been taken into a small back room, where I was subjected to a
regular catechism, as nearly as I remember in the following terms:
Q. Are you a member of the Church of England?
A. No, I was brought up as a Nonconformist.
Q. And have remained so?
A. No, I have not remained so.
Q. Are we to understand that you are an agnostic?
A. Yes, that is what you must understand.
Q. Would you be willing to attend church occasionally?
A. No, I should not.
Q. Would your wife be willing to attend church occasionally?
A. No, she would not.
Q. Would it come out that you are an agnostic?
A. Yes, it probably would come out.
In consequence of these answers, they selected as their candidate Mr Kellaway,
who became Postmaster General, and held correct opinions during the War.
They must have felt that they had had a lucky escape.I also felt that I had had a lucky escape, for while Bedford was deliberating,
I received an invitation from Trinity College to become a lecturer in the
principles of mathematics. This was much more attractive to me than politics,
but if Bedford had accepted me I should have had to reject Cambridge. I took
up my residence at the beginning of the October term in 1910. Alys and I had
lodgings in Bridge Street, and I had rooms in letter I, Nevile’s Court. I became
very fond of these rooms, which were the ?rst place exclusively my own that
I possessed since leaving Cambridge in 1894. We sold our house at Bagley
Wood, and it seemed as if life were going to be settled in a new groove.
This, however, was not the case. In the Election of January, 1910, while I
was still living at Bagley Wood, I decided that I ought to help the Liberals as
much as I could, but I did not want to help the Member for the constituency
in which I was living, as he had broken some pledges which I considered
important. I therefore decided to help the Member for the neighbouring
constituency across the river. This Member was Philip Morrell, a man
who had been at Oxford with my brother-in-law, Logan, who had been
passionately attached to him. Philip Morrell had married Lady Ottoline
Cavendish-Bentinck, sister of the Duke of Portland. I had known her slightly
since we were both children, as she had an aunt named Mrs Scott,
1
who lived
at Ham Common. I had two vivid memories connected with Mrs Scott’s
house, but neither of them concern Ottoline. The ?rst of these memories was
of a children’s party at which I ?rst tasted ice-cream. I thought it was an
ordinary pudding, and took a large spoonful. The shock caused me to burst
into tears, to the dismay of the elders, who could not make out what had
happened. The other experience was even more unpleasant. In getting out of
a carriage at her door, I fell on the paving-stones, and hurt my penis. After this
I had to sit twice a day in a hot bath and sponge it carefully. As I had always
hitherto been taught to ignore it, this puzzled me. When Philip ?rst became
engaged to Ottoline, Logan was ?lled with jealous rage, and made unkind fun
of her. Later, however, he become reconciled. I used to see her and Philip
occasionally, but I had never had any high opinion of him, and she o?ended
my Puritan prejudices by what I considered an excessive use of scent and
powder. Crompton Davies ?rst led me to revise my opinion of her, because
she worked for his Land Values Organisation in a way that commanded his
admiration.
During the Election of January 1910, I addressed meetings in support of
Philip Morrell most nights, and spent most days in canvassing. I remember
canvassing a retired Colonel at I?ey, who came rushing out into the hall
exclaiming: ‘Do you think I’d vote for a scoundrel like that? Get out of the
house, or I’ll put the dogs on you!’ I spoke in almost every village between
Oxford and Caversham. In the course of this campaign I had many opportun-
ities of getting to know Ottoline. I discovered that she was extraordinarily
the autobiography of bertrand russell 196kind to all sorts of people, and that she was very much in earnest about
public life. But Philip, in common with all the other Liberal Members in the
neighbourhood, lost his seat, and was o?ered a new constituency at Burnley,
for which he was Member from December 1910 until the ‘Hang-the-Kaiser’
Election. The result was that for some time I did not see much of the Morrells.
However, in March 1911 I received an invitation to give three lectures in
Paris, one at the Sorbonne and two elsewhere. It was convenient to spend the
night in London on the way, and I asked the Morrells to put me up at their
house, 44 Bedford Square. Ottoline had very exquisite though rather startling
taste, and her house was very beautiful. In Alys there was a con?ict between
Quaker asceticism and her brother’s aestheticism. She considered it right to
follow the best artistic canons in the more public part of one’s life, such as
drawing-rooms and dresses for the platform. But in her instincts, and where
she alone was concerned, Quaker plainness held sway; for example, she
always wore ?annel night-gowns. I have always liked beautiful things, but
been incapable of providing them for myself. The atmosphere of Ottoline’s
house fed something in me that had been starved throughout the years of my
?rst marriage. As soon as I entered it, I felt rested from the rasping di?culties
of the outer world. When I arrived there on March 19th, on my way to Paris,
I found that Philip had unexpectedly had to go to Burnley, so that I was left
tête-à-tête with Ottoline. During dinner we made conversation about Burnley,
and politics, and the sins of the Government. After dinner the conversation
gradually became more intimate. Making timid approaches, I found them to
my surprise not repulsed. It had not, until this moment, occurred to me
that Ottoline was a woman who would allow me to make love to her, but
gradually, as the evening progressed, the desire to make love to her became
more and more insistent. At last it conquered, and I found to my amazement
that I loved her deeply, and that she returned my feeling. Until this moment I
had never had complete relations with any woman except Alys. For external
and accidental reasons, I did not have full relations with Ottoline that even-
ing, but we agreed to become lovers as soon as possible. My feeling was
overwhelmingly strong, and I did not care what might be involved. I wanted
to leave Alys, and to have her leave Philip. What Philip might think or feel was
a matter of indi?erence to me. If I had known that he would murder us both
(as Mrs Whitehead assured me he would) I should have been willing to pay
that price for one night. The nine years of tense self-denial had come to an
end, and for the time being I was done with self-denial. However, there was
not time to settle future plans during that one evening. It was already late
when we ?rst kissed, and after that, though we stayed up till four in the
morning, the conversation was intermittent. Early the next day I had to go to
Paris, where I had to lecture in French to highly critical audiences. It was
di?cult to bring my mind to bear upon what I had to do, and I suspect that I
cambridge again 197must have lectured very badly. I was living in a dream, and my surroundings
appeared quite unreal. Ottoline was going to Studland (in those days quite a
tiny place), and we arranged that I should join her there for three days. Before
going, I spent the weekend with Alys at Fernhurst. I began the weekend by
a visit to the dentist, who told me that he thought I had cancer, and recom-
mended a specialist, whom, however, I could not see for three weeks, as he
had gone away for his Easter holiday. I then told Alys about Ottoline. She ?ew
into a rage, and said that she would insist upon a divorce, bringing in
Ottoline’s name. Ottoline, on account of her child, and also on account of a
very genuine a?ection for Philip, did not wish for a divorce from him. I
therefore had to keep her name out of it. I told Alys that she could have the
divorce whenever she liked, but that she must not bring Ottoline’s name
into it. She nevertheless persisted that she would bring Ottoline’s name in.
Thereupon I told her quietly but ?rmly that she would ?nd that impossible,
since if she ever took steps to that end, I should commit suicide in order to
circumvent her. I meant this, and she saw that I did. Thereupon her rage
became unbearable. After she had stormed for some hours, I gave a lesson in
Locke’s philosophy to her niece, Karin Costelloe, who was about to take her
Tripos. I then rode away on my bicycle, and with that my ?rst marriage came
to an end. I did not see Alys again till 1950, when we met as friendly
acquaintances.
2
From this scene I went straight to Studland, still believing that I had cancer.
At Swanage, I obtained an old-fashioned ?y with an incredibly slow horse.
During his leisurely progress up and down the hills, my impatience became
almost unendurable. At last, however, I saw Ottoline sitting in a pine-wood
beside the road, so I got out, and let the ?y go on with my luggage. The three
days and nights that I spent at Studland remain in my memory as among
the few moments when life seemed all that it might be, but hardly ever is. I
did not, of course, tell Ottoline that I had reason to fear that I had cancer, but
the thought of this possibility heightened my happiness by giving it greater
intensity, and by the sense that it had been wrenched from the jaws of
destruction. When the dentist told me, my ?rst reaction was to congratulate
the Deity on having got me after all just as happiness seemed in sight. I
suppose that in some underground part of me I believed in a Deity whose
pleasure consists of ingenious torture. But throughout the three days at
Studland, I felt that this malignant Deity had after all been not wholly success-
ful. When ?nally I did see the specialist, it turned out that there was nothing
the matter.
Ottoline was very tall, with a long thin face something like a horse, and very
beautiful hair of an unusual colour, more or less like that of marmalade, but
rather darker. Kind ladies supposed it to be dyed, but in this they were
mistaken. She had a very beautiful, gentle, vibrant voice, indomitable courage,
the autobiography of bertrand russell 198and a will of iron. She was very shy, and, at ?rst, we were both timid of each
other, but we loved profoundly, and the gradual disappearance of the timidity
was an added delight. We were both earnest and unconventional, both
aristocratic by tradition but deliberately not so in our present environment,
both hating the cruelty, the caste insolence, and the narrow-mindedness
of aristocrats, and yet both a little alien in the world in which we chose to
live, which regarded us with suspicion and lack of understanding because
we were alien. All the complicated feelings resulting from this situation we
shared. There was a deep sympathy between us which never ceased as long as
she lived. Although we ceased to be lovers in 1916, we remained always close
friends.
Ottoline had a great in?uence upon me, which was almost wholly
bene?cial. She laughed at me when I behaved like a don or a prig, and when
I was dictatorial in conversation. She gradually cured me of the belief that I
was seething with appalling wickedness which could only be kept under by
an iron self-control. She made me less self-centred, and less self-righteous.
Her sense of humour was very great, and I became aware of the danger of
rousing it unintentionally. She made me much less of a Puritan, and much
less censorious than I had been. And of course the mere fact of happy love
after the empty years made everything easier. Many men are afraid of being
in?uenced by women, but as far as my experience goes, this is a foolish fear.
It seems to me that men need women, and women need men, mentally as
much as physically. For my part, I owe a great deal to women whom I have
loved, and without them I should have been far more narrow-minded.
After Studland various di?culties began to cause trouble. Alys was still
raging, and Logan was quite as furious as she was. The Whiteheads, who
showed great kindness at this time, ?nally persuaded them to abandon the
idea of a divorce involving Ottoline, and Alys decided that in that case a
divorce was not worth having. I had wished Ottoline to leave Philip, but I
soon saw that this was out of the question. Meanwhile, Logan went to Philip,
and imposed conditions, which Philip in turn had to impose upon Ottoline.
These conditions were onerous, and interfered seriously with the happiness
of our love. The worst of them was that we should never spend a night
together. I raged and stormed, along with Philip and Logan and Alys. Ottoline
found all this very trying, and it produced an atmosphere in which it was
di?cult to recapture the ?rst ecstasy. I became aware of the solidity of
Ottoline’s life, of the fact that her husband and her child and her possessions
were important to her. To me nothing was important in comparison with her,
and this inequality led me to become jealous and exacting. At ?rst, however,
the mere strength of our mutual passion overcame all these obstacles. She had
a small house at Peppard in the Chilterns, where she spent the month of July.
I stayed at Ipsden, six miles from Peppard, and bicycled over every day,
cambridge again 199arriving about noon, and leaving about midnight. The summer was extra-
ordinarily hot, reaching on one occasion 97? in the shade. We used to take
our lunch out into the beech-woods, and come home to late tea. That month
was one of great happiness, though Ottoline’s health was bad. Finally, she
had to go to Marienbad, where I joined her after a while, staying, however, at
a di?erent hotel. With the autumn she returned to London, and I took a ?at in
Bury Street, near the Museum, so that she could come and see me. I was
lecturing at Cambridge all the time, but used to come up in the morning, and
get back in time for my lecture, which was at 5.30. She used to su?er from
terrible headaches, which often made our meetings disappointing, and on
these occasions I was less considerate than I ought to have been. Nevertheless,
we got through the winter with only one serious disagreement, arising out of
the fact that I denounced her for being religious. Gradually, however, I
became increasingly turbulent, because I felt that she did not care for me as
much as I cared for her. There were moments when this feeling disappeared
entirely, and I think that often what was really ill-health appeared to me as
indi?erence, but this was certainly not always the case. I was su?ering from
pyorrhoea although I did not know it, and this caused my breath to be
o?ensive, which also I did not know. She could not bring herself to mention
it, and it was only after I had discovered the trouble and had it cured, that she
let me know how much it had a?ected her.
At the end of 1913 I went to Rome to see her, but Philip was there, and the
visit was very unsatisfactory. I made friends with a German lady whom I had
met in the summer on the Lake of Garda. Sanger and I had spent a month
walking from Innsbruck over the Alps, and had arrived at Punto San Vigilio,
where we joined a party of friends, consisting of Miss Silcox, the mistress of
St Felix School, Melian Stawell, and the latter’s protegée, whose name I have
forgotten. We observed a young woman sitting at a table by herself, and
discussed whether she was married or single. I suggested that she was
divorced. In order to settle the point, I made her acquaintance, and found that
I was right. Her husband was a psychoanalyst, and apparently professional
etiquette required that he should not get on with his wife. Consequently, at
the time when I knew her, she was divorced. But as soon as honour was
satis?ed, they remarried, and lived happily ever after. She was young and
charming, and had two small children. At that time my dominant passion was
desire for children, and I could not see even a child playing in the street
without an almost unbearable ache. I made friends with the lady and we made
an expedition into the country. I wished to make love to her, but thought that
I ought ?rst to explain about Ottoline. Until I spoke about Ottoline, she was
acquiescent, but afterwards she ceased to be so. She decided, however, that for
that one day her objections could be ignored. I have never seen her since,
though I still heard from her at intervals for some years.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 200An event of importance to me in 1913 was the beginning of my friendship
with Joseph Conrad, which I owed to our common friendship with Ottoline.
I had been for many years an admirer of his books, but should not have
ventured to seek acquaintance without an introduction. I travelled down to
his house near Ashford in Kent in a state of somewhat anxious expectation.
My ?rst impression was one of surprise. He spoke English with a very strong
foreign accent, and nothing in his demeanour in any way suggested the sea.
He was an aristocratic Polish gentleman to his ?ngertips. His feeling for the
sea, and for England, was one of romantic love – love from a certain distance,
su?cient to leave the romance untarnished. His love for the sea began at a
very early age. When he told his parents that he wished for a career as a sailor,
they urged him to go into the Austrian navy, but he wanted adventure and
tropical seas and strange rivers surrounded by dark forests; and the Austrian
navy o?ered him no scope for these desires. His family were horri?ed at his
seeking a career in the English merchant marine, but his determination was
in?exible.
