the autobiography of bertrand russell 462much worse. I ?nd that this time I am not a paci?st, and consider the future
of civilisation bound up with our victory. I don’t think anything so important
has happened since the ?fth century, the previous occasion on which the
Germans reduced the world to barbarism.
You may have seen that I am to be hounded out of teaching in America
because the Catholics don’t like my views. I was quite interested in this
(which involves a grave danger of destitution) until the present battle
began – now I ?nd di?culty in remembering it.
Yes, I have read Grapes of Wrath, and I think it a very good book. The issue of
the migrant workers is a burning one here, on which there is much bitter
feeling.
John and Kate are settling in to the university here, and Conrad (just 3) is
?ourishing and intelligent. We are all desperately homesick, and hope to
return as soon as it is ?nancially feasible.
Give my love to Bessie and tell her it will be very nice to hear from her.
John was most grateful for Lucretius.
Yours a?ectionately
Bertrand Russell
The Shi?olds
3 May 1941
My dear Bertie
We were so glad to hear from you about you and yours. I put in this line
just before the post goes. Yes Plato was a comic poet. He did also apparently
write some none too serious pseudo-philosophical dialogues, which got
taken too seriously. Some scholars say there were two Platos; but scholars will
say anything.
I am sending you a small book of Leopardi translations. I should never have
started them but for you asking me to do that passage from the Ginestra, so
you may look upon yourself as their ‘onlie begetter’.
Bessie keeps fairly well, though she is getting rather blinder. I go on trying
to work, and have lately been translating more Montaigne, not being able to
write poetry. Much love to you and all yours.
Yours ever
Bob
Little Datchet Farm
Malvern R.D.1.
Pennsylvania
20 August 1941
My dear Bob
I was delighted to have your Leopardi translations, which I thought very
good. I am glad to think I had a share in bringing them about.
america. 1938–1944 463A very short time after writing to you, I came across an allusion to Plato
the comic poet. He had been till then completely unknown to me.
How does George enjoy his new dignity?
6
I have only seen him once since
August 4, 1914. In old Butler’s days I once stayed at the Lodge and slept in
Queen Anne’s bed. Is it still there?
What led you to Montaigne? Do you disapprove of Florio? I was pleased to
?nd that ‘Lead Kindly Light’, vulgarly attributed to Newman, was really
written by Cleanthes in the 3rd century ??. There are whole chunks of the
New Testament in the Stoics.
I enclose a letter to Bessie. I hope her eyesight won’t go on getting worse.
Yours ever
Bertrand Russell
The Shi?olds
Holmbury St Mary, Dorking
2 October 1941
My dear Bertie
It was a great pleasure to hear from you again. Bessie no doubt will be
writing or has written. She is very well, except for her eyes. I am now reading
to her Nevinson’s memoirs in the evening, which are not at all bad. We read a
Willa Cather novel, which we both liked. I have not written much poetry
lately, but what I have written I shall soon be sending you in a volume with
some old ones, as all my collected poems were burnt in Longman’s ?re. There
are two or three quasi-philosophical poems among them, perhaps rather
too Santayanaish to meet with your approval. I have lately been reading his
book on the Realm of Spirit, which, though sometimes a bit wordy, pleases me
more than most philosophy – but then I’m not a philosopher. I wish I could
understand your last book, but it is rather too di?cult for me. I liked,
though, your little book of essays (most of which I knew before), and felt in
agreement with most of what you say.
As to Montaigne, I wonder whether you have ever compared Florio with
the French; if so I think you would see why I think it worthwhile translating
him again – though I am only doing the Essays, or parts of Essays, I like best. I
am also writing some prose myself, short essays and reminiscences; also I
want to write about a few of my friends, who are dead such as Tovey, C. A.,
Goldie and Roger.
7
So you see I can’t do you yet; but I may come to living
friends if they don’t disappear soon enough. George8
did not want to be
Master, but his nolo episcopari was brushed aside by Churchill, and now he
enjoys being Master a lot. The Lodge has been done up, as it was in fearful
disrepair, and now is quite pleasant and well-furnished. I slept in the Junior
Judge’s room. Queen Anne’s bed is still there, though I think the bed-tester is
gone. We enjoyed our three days visit there. George is cheerful when in
the autobiography of bertrand russell 464company, but often sinks into gloom when alone. He feels the world he cared
for is at an end. I don’t quite feel like that myself, at least not often. He has
written a book on Social England, leaving out wars and politics etc. What I
saw was quite good. It will be out soon I suppose. His son Humphrey has
written a book on Goethe, which will be very good when it comes out (by
which I don’t mean that ‘coming out’ will make it good, though perhaps
that’s true too). Flora Russell and her sister called last week, and they talked
a?ectionately of you, and Flora said you had written to her, which had
evidently pleased her a lot. She is getting older and is rather crippled. I haven’t
seen Desmond9
since July, but hope he will come to see us soon. He is getting
older, and had a bad illness this spring, but he is as charming as ever. We liked
Virginia Woolf’s Life of Roger very much.
Well, you must write to us again before long, and then we will write to
you. I do hope you are both well, and that you both like America fairly well.
G. E. Moore, it seems, likes America and Americans very much. I am very glad
he is staying there this winter. I hope the children are both* well. I suppose
they are hardly children now. Much love to you both from
Yours a?ectionately
R. C. Trevelyan
* Conrad is an infant, not a child; but I hope he is well too.
Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R.D.1
Pennsylvania
9 July 1942
My dear Bob
For the last 6 months I have been meaning to write to you and Bessie, but
have kept on putting it o? for a moment of leisure. How very sad that your
Collected Poems were burnt in Longman’s ?re. I am all the more glad that my
copy is intact. I love getting your poems – if you don’t get thanks, please
attribute it to enemy action.
I haven’t read Santayana on the Realm of Spirit, as I had just ?nished writing
on him when it appeared. I was glad to ?nd he liked what I wrote on him.
Philosophers in this country lack something I like, and I have come to the
conclusion that what they lack is Plato. (Not your friend the comic poet.) I
can’t free myself of the love of contemplation versus action.
Did you realise that at a certain time Thales and Jeremiah were both in
Egypt, probably in the same town? I suggest your composing a dialogue
between them.
I wrote to George about the possibility of my son John going to Trinity
america. 1938–1944 465after the war, and what would be his standing if he did; he wrote a very kind
answer, showing he had taken a good deal of trouble. John is at Harvard, and
he is to be allowed to complete his course there (which ends in February)
before returning to England to join the British forces. For a long time this was
in doubt; we were very glad when it was settled. He will presumably be in
England in March. He knows a great deal of history, and reads both Latin and
Greek for pleasure. I am ploughing through my history of philosophy from
Thales to the present day. When Scotus Erigena dined tête-à-tête with the King
of France, the King asked ‘what separates a Scot from a sot?’ ‘Only the dinner-
table’ said the philosopher. I have dined with 8 Prime Ministers, but never got
such a chance. Goodbye, with all good wishes.
Yours a?ectionately
Bertrand Russell
The Shi?olds
Holmbury St Mary, Dorking
3 January 1942 [1943]
My dear Bertie
I have long owed you a letter. Your last letters to us were written to us in
July. For nearly two months I have been in hospital, as a consequence of my
bravery in crossing Hyde Park Corner diagonally during the blackout and so
getting knocked over. It might have been much worse; for now, after a month
at home, I can walk about much as usual, though I easily get tired. You were
only knocked over by a bicycle; I by an army-taxi. An army-lorry would have
been more honourable, though perhaps less pleasant.
Ted Lloyd was to have come to tea today, but has in?uenza, so only
Margaret and John came.
10
I expect you know Ted is going East. It seems he is
sorry not to come back to America. We hope to see him next Sunday and then
we shall hear from him about you both. I am very glad you are writing some
sort of history of philosophy and philosophers. No one could do it better
than you. You will no doubt trace the in?uence of Jeremiah upon the cos-
mology of Thales. Yes, a dialogue between them might be well worth doing;
but at present I know almost nothing of Jeremiah and his little book. By the
way, if you want a really ?rst-rate book on the Greek Atomists, you should
have a look at Cyril Bailey’s Greek Atomists (Clarendon Press) 1928. But I dare
say you know it. It seems to me he really does understand Epicurus, which
our friend Benn never
11
did. Bailey is, I think very good too about Leucippus,
Democritus etc.
I have not written any poetry for nearly two years; and not much prose;
though I am bringing out a book of Essays and Dialogues some time this year,
which I will send you, if I can manage to get it to you. All the mental e?ort
I have been able to make lately is a little easy ‘mountaineering’, by which
the autobiography of bertrand russell 466I mean translating Montaigne – not all of him, but the less dull parts.
Sometimes he can be really good. For instance, I have just translated a
famous sentence of his: ‘When all is said, it is putting an excessively high
value on one’s conjectures, to cause a man to be roasted alive on account
of them.’
If you can get hold of a copy, you should read Waley’s translation of Monkey
a 15th century Chinese fairy story about Buddhism, Taoism, and human
nature generally, a superbly Rabelaisian, Aristophanic, Biblical Voltairian
book. It came out last summer (Allen & Unwin).
When John comes over here, I hope we may have some opportunity of
seeing him. We still take in the Manch. Guardian, so have seen your and P’s
letters, with which we are quite in agreement.
We wish you could have spent Christmas here with us. Perhaps next
Christmas? – but hardly so soon I fear.
There’s an amusing Life of B. Shaw by Hesketh Pearson, but mostly written
by G.B.S. himself. Yet I got a little tired of Shaw before I came to the end.
Raymond Mortimer’s Essays are not at all bad (Channel Packet). There’s a good
review of the Amberley Papers; but I expect you have seen that. It’s just on
dinner-time, so I must stop. Much love to you both from Bessie and me,
Yours a?ectly
Bob
Desmond was quite ill this autumn; but he seems fairly well again now.
To and from Gilbert Murray The West Lodge
Downing College, Cambridge
3.3.37
Dear Gilbert
Thank you for your letter. C.A. lies in his throat. The speech was
against armaments, & it is nonsense to suggest that Tory Peers are against
armaments.
Spain has turned many away from paci?sm. I myself have found it very
di?cult, the more so as I know Spain, most of the places where the ?ghting
has been, & the Spanish people, & I have the strongest possible feelings on the
Spanish issue. I should certainly not ?nd Czecho-Slovakia more di?cult. And
having remained a paci?st while the Germans were invading France &
Belgium in 1914, I do not see why I should cease to be one if they do it again.
The result of our having adopted the policy of war at that time is not so
delectable as to make me wish to see it adopted again.
You feel ‘They ought to be stopped’. I feel that, if we set to work to stop
them, we shall, in the process, become exactly like them & the world will
have gained nothing. Also, if we beat them, we shall produce in time some
america. 1938–1944 467one as much worse than Hitler as he is worse than the Kaiser. In all this I see
no hope for mankind.
Yours ever
B.R.
Yatscombe
Boar’s Hill, Oxford
Jan. 5th. 1939
My dear Bertie
A man has written to the Home University Library to say that there
ought to be a book on the Art of Clear Thinking. There is plenty written
about theoretic logic, but nothing except perhaps Graham Wallas’s book
about the actual practice of clear thought. It seems to me that the value of
such a book would depend entirely on the writer; I found Wallas’s book,
for instance, extremely suggestive and helpful, and I think that if you felt
inclined to write something, it might make a great hit and would in any
case be of real value. It might be a little like Aristotle’s Sophistici Elenchi, with
a discussion of the ways in which human thought goes wrong, but I think
it might be something more constructive. I wonder if the idea appeals at all
to you.
I read Power the other day with great enjoyment, and a wish to argue with
you about several points.
Give my respects to your University. Once when I was in New York, there
was a fancy dress dinner, to which people went as celebrated criminals. One
man was dressed as a trapper, but could not be identi?ed till at the end of the
evening he confessed he was the man who discovered Chicago.
Yours ever
G.M.
University of Chicago
January 15th 1939
My dear Gilbert
Thank you for your letter of January 5th. I think a book about how to think
clearly might be very useful, but I do not think I could write it. First, for
external reasons, that I have several books contracted for, which I am anxious
to write and which will take me some years. Secondly – and this is more
important – because I haven’t the vaguest idea either how I think or how one
ought to think. The process, so far as I know it, is as instinctive and
unconscious as digestion. I ?ll my mind with whatever relevant knowledge I
can ?nd, and just wait. With luck, there comes a moment when the work is
done, but in the meantime my conscious mind has been occupied with other
things. This sort of thing won’t do for a book.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 468I wonder what were the points in Power that you wanted to argue about. I
hope the allusions to the Greeks were not wholly wrong.
This University, so far as philosophy is concerned, is about the best I have
ever come across. There are two sharply opposed schools in the Faculty, one
Aristotelian, historical, and traditional, the other ultra-modern. The e?ect on
the students seems to me just right. The historical professors are incredibly
learned, especially as regards medieval philosophy.
I am only here till the end of March, but intellectually I enjoy the place very
much.
Yours ever
B.R.
212, Loring Avenue
Los Angeles
21.4.40
My dear Gilbert
It is di?cult to do much at this date in America for German academic
refugees.
12
American universities have been very generous, but are by
now pretty well saturated. I spoke about the matter of Jacobsthal to
Reichenbach, a German refugee who is a professor here, and whom I admire
both morally and intellectually. He knew all about Jacobsthal’s work,
which I didn’t. The enclosed is the o?cial reply of the authorities of
this university. I must leave further steps to others, as I am at the mo-
ment unable to save my own skin. In view of the German invasion of Norway,
I suppose it is only too likely that Jacobsthal is by now in a concentration
camp.
Yes, I wish we could meet and have the sort of talk we used to have. I
?nd that I cannot maintain the paci?st position in this way. I do not
feel su?ciently sure of the opposite to say anything publicly by way of
recantation, though it may come to that. In any case, here in America an
Englishman can only hold his tongue, as anything he may say is labelled
propaganda. However, what I wanted to convey is that you would not ?nd me
disagreeing with you as much as in 1914, though I still think I was right
then, in that this war is an outcome of Versailles, which was an outcome of
moral indignation.
It is painful to be at such a distance in war-time, and only the most
imperative ?nancial necessity keeps me here. It is a comfort that my three
children are here, but the oldest is 18, and I do not know how soon he may
be needed for military service. We all su?er from almost unbearable home-
sickness, and I ?nd myself longing for old friends. I am glad that you are still
one of them.
Please give my love to Mary even if she doesn’t want it. And do write
america. 1938–1944 469again, telling me something of what you feel about the whole ghastly
business.
Yours ever
Bertrand Russell
July 29th, 1940
My dear Bertie
I was very glad to get your letter, though I feel greatly distressed by it. I
should have thought that the obviously unjust attack on you as a teacher
would have produced a strong and helpful reaction in your favour; there was
quite a good article about it in the Nation (American). I still hope that it may
have the result of making your friends more active.
I do not suppose you are thinking of coming back here. It would be easy
enough if you were alone, but children make all the di?erence. I suppose this
country is really a dangerous place, though it is hard for the average civilian
to realise the fact; life goes on so much as usual, with no particular war
hardship except taxes, only news every day about battles in the air and a
general impression that we are all playing at soldiers. I am inclined to think
that one of the solid advantages of the English temperament is that we do not
get frightened or excited beforehand as Latins and Semites do, we wait till the
danger comes before getting upset by it. I suppose this is what people call
lack of imagination.
One development that interests me is this: assuming that the war is in a
sense a civil war throughout the world, or a war of religions or what they
now call ideologies, for a long time it was not quite clear what the two sides
were: e.g. some people said it was Communism or Socialism against Fascism,
others that it was Christianity against ungodliness. But now, as far as ideas are
concerned, it is clearly Britain and America with some few supporters against
the various autocracies, which means Liberalism v Tyranny. I found Benes
saying much the same the other day; he had been afraid that the war would
come on what he called a false issue, of Communism v Fascism. Now he
thinks it is on the right one.
If ever I can be of any use to you, please let me know.
Yours ever
Gilbert Murray
(As from) Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass. U.S.A.
September 6th 1940
Dear Gilbert
Thank you very much for your letter of July 29. My personal problems
have been solved by a rich patron (in the eighteenth-century style) who has
the autobiography of bertrand russell 470given me a teaching post with little work and su?cient salary. I cannot return
to England, not only on account of my children, but also because I could not
earn a living there. Exile at such a time, however, is in?nitely painful. Mean-
while, we have spent the summer in a place of exquisite beauty, like the best
of the Tyrol, and I have ?nished a big book, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth –
Hume plus modern logic. Sometimes I think the best thing one can do is to
salvage as much as possible of civilisation before the onset of the dark ages. I
feel as if we were living in the ?fth century.
I quite agree with what you say about the war of ideologies. The issue
became clear when Russia turned against us. Last time the alliance with the
Czar confused the issue.
Sympathy in this country is growing more and more emphatic on our side.
My belief, is that if we pull through this month, we shall win. But I am not
optimistic as to the sort of world that the war will leave.
Yours ever
Bertrand Russell
(Permanent address)
Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R.D.?. Pa; U.S.A.
January 18th 1941
My dear Gilbert
I was very glad to get your good letter of October 23. I am now established
in a small country house 200 years old – very ancient for this part of the
world – in lovely country, with pleasant work. If the world were at peace I
could be very happy.
As to the future: It seems to me that if we win, we shall win completely: I
cannot think the Nazis will survive. America will dominate, and will probably
not withdraw as in 1919; America will not be war-weary, and will believe
resolutely in the degree of democracy that exists here. I am accordingly fairly
optimistic. There is good hope that the militaristic régime in Japan will col-
lapse, and I do not believe China will ever be really militaristic. Russia, I think,
will be the greatest di?culty, especially if ?nally on our side. I have no doubt
that the Soviet Government is even worse than Hitler’s, and it will be a
misfortune if it survives. There can be no permanent peace unless there is only
one Air Force in the world, with the degree of international government that
that implies. Disarmament alone, though good, will not make peace secure.
Opinion here varies with the longitude. In the East, people are passionately
pro-English; we are treated with extra kindness in shops as soon as people
notice our accent. In California they are anti-Japanese but not pro-English; in
the Middle West they were rather anti-English. But everywhere opinion is
very rapidly coming over to the conviction that we must not be defeated.
america. 1938–1944 471It is rather dreadful to be out of it all. I envy Rosalind [his daughter] as
much as I admire her.
I am giving a 4-year course of lectures on history of philosophy in relation
to culture and social circumstances, from Thales to Dewey. As I can’t read
Greek, this is rather cheek; but anyway I enjoy it. I divide it into 3 cycles, Greek,
Catholic, Protestant. In each case the gradual decay of an irrational dogma
leads to anarchy, and thence to dictatorship. I like the growth of Catholicism
out of Greek decadence, and of Luther out of Machiavelli’s outlook.
I remember your description of Sophocles (which you afterwards denied)
as ‘a combination of matricide and high spirits’. I remember, also, when I
besought you to admit merit in ‘hark, hark the lark’ you said it ought to go
on ‘begins to bark’. I disagree with you about Shakespeare; I don’t know
enough about Sophocles to have an opinion. At the moment, I am full of
admiration for Anaximander, and amazement at Pythagoras, who combined
Einstein and Mrs Eddy. I disapprove of Plato because he wanted to prohibit all
music except Rule Britannia and The British Grenadiers. Moreover, he
invented the Pecksni?an style of the Times leading articles.
Do write again. Goodbye.
Yours ever
Bertrand Russell
Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R.D. ?
Pennsylvania
June 18th 1941
