Brixton Letter 56
BR to Constance Malleson
July 31, 1918
- ALS
- McMaster
- Edited by
Kenneth Blackwell
Andrew G. Bone
Nicholas Griffin
Sheila Turcon
Cite The Collected Letters of Bertrand Russell, https://russell-letters.mcmaster.ca/brixton-letter-56
BRACERS 19338
<Brixton Prison>1
1st sheet2
Wed. July 31.
My Darling
Thank you for your letter.3 I am not worried or depressed any longer. I am afraid you never got a letter I sent you that should have arrived last Friday. Probably the wrapper4 came off. But I hope this will reach you. It contains a letter to Helen Dudley5 — you can tell Clare.6 I don’t know Helen Dudley’s address. No doubt Clare does.a I approve highly of your taking my flat from Sp. 1st. Never mind gossip — let the Attic to friends if necessary. But I hope Helen will take it, though I doubt it. — From what my brother has just told me, I may be let out quite soon after Parlt. rises.7 But it is doubtful. Please tell Miss Rinder to obey my brother. This is important.8 — Unless it is quite necessary,b I will not go to T.H. when I come out. I want to be with you. I cannot wait. I will make it all right with my brother. Here is everything cut and dried: [There is no need to worry about money for holidays.]
You take my flat Sp. 1, and let the Attic. LET US NOW TREAT PLANS
My nominal residence is still Gordon Sq. AS SETTLED
? We go 1st for 1 week to Ashford if they can have us and you have no work?
Then we accept Rinders’ kind offer of Winchelsea,9
or go to sea [Damn the expense] (But anyhow Winchelsea is close to the sea)c
When you have to come back to London we go to my flat, and I spend a good deal of the day-time at Gordon Sq. (eating and working).
Drop the question of shelves for my flat10
for the present.
I was set on 1 week at Ashford unless you see objections;d the 1st that I am free, if they can have us. I would go to T.H. if necessary for 2 or 3 nights after that, before Rinders’ cottage.11 How fearfully kind of the Rinders. What do you wish about Ashford?e Could we be freely together at night at the Rinders’ cottage? If so, I am less set on Ashford. Settle all this as you think best. I can well afford £20 for holiday.f
I am sorry you didn’t get the letter I wrote last Wed. evening, if you didn’t.g It was a letter saying how grateful I was for yours telling me about Ranalow12 etc., and how I sympathized with every word you said and how immensely glad I was to know more of your events.
I will tell my brother all about you, in a letter I will send by you next time. It is best. But you can hold up the letter if you think fit.
All the depression I had is past. I have new ideas, confidence in the future, absolute faith in your love. Since my brother saw Cave I have realized that this time will end.13 Beloved, I simply can’t put off being with you after I come out. You don’t know how I have been hungering for your arms. My mind is very active over philosophy. I expect to do a great deal of first-rate work during the winter, if the Govt. will let me. And you will be doing first-rate work too — and we shall be together. Is it possible we shall both live till then? Goodbye my Heart’s Comrade. Every thought of my heart yearns for you.
B.
Coal Ask Clare, and order as much as you are allowed.14 Servant Get some one to come at 11 or 12 (not earlier) every day. Make Mrs Saich15 (18 Little Russell Str.) put things back as I used to have them. Has Eliot brought the things I sent for?16 If not, please make Miss Rinder write to him and remind him. I shall give you the Persian bowl,17 if it arrives unbroken. — You can show Clare my letter to Helen.18
Get Helen’s address from Clare, and telegraph: Shall want flat September 1st if convenient. Russell.19 (Telegraph if you like)
Am writing by same post to Miss Rinder about flat and Miss Dudley and Clare, because I am afraid you may not get this before you go away. (Another sheet elsewhere)20
- 1
[document] The letter was edited from the initialled sheet in BR’s handwriting in the Malleson papers in the Russell Archives. The sheet was folded twice, leaving bare the quarter-sheets of the verso on which BR did not write. Tears in the sheet have been mended in two places by cellotape.
- 2
1st Sheet A second sheet was not located. It may exist in transcribed form only, as the second part of the typescripts at document .052423, BRACERS 99884, and Letter 55.
- 3
your letter Presumably it was Colette’s letter of 28 July 1918 (BRACERS 113146).
- 4
the wrapper BR put wrappers around some smuggled-out letters to identify their intended recipients.
- 5
Helen Dudley An American from Chicago with whom BR become involved during his 1914 trip to the United States. She followed him back to London, was rebuffed by him, and ended up renting his Bury Street flat in late 1916 or early 1917. In May 1918 she sublet it to Clare Annesley.
- 6
you can tell Clare Clare Annesley (1893–1980), an artist and Colette’s sister, who was subletting BR’s flat from Helen Dudley. It was all right now to inform Clare of Colette’s relationship with BR.
- 7
I may be let out … after Parlt. rises Since Parliament was set to adjourn for the summer on 8 August 1918, this statement stands as BR’s most optimistic forecast about the remission of his sentence. It was made after Frank had pushed the Home Secretary for a release date early in August, but a few days before Sir George Cave’s dispatch of a rather discouraging letter to BR’s brother (5 Aug. 1918, BRACERS 57178). BR’s hopes had obviously been boosted by Frank’s report of his audience with Cave on 26 July, delivered verbally during his prison visit earlier on the day that Letter 68 was written.
- 8
Rinder to obey my brother The purpose of this strong injunction is unclear. It does not help that in Rinder’s letter of 8 August 1918 she told BR that she was “obeying your brother ‘in all things’, but am sorry it means leaving all the work to him” (BRACERS 79624). Frank did make extended trips outside London.
- 9
Rinders’ kind offer of Winchelsea Rinder offered her family’s cottage as a place to stay once BR left prison. Windmill Cottage was in Icklesham, near Winchelsea. Although not on the coast, it was not far away. BR was then able to go there because the prohibited areas order had been withdrawn.
- 10
shelves for my flat BR had previously asked Colette to investigate the installation of shelves in his Bury Street flat to accommodate his extensive library.
- 11
Rinders’ cottage See note 9 above.
- 12
didn’t get the letter … about Ranalow Frederick Ranalow (1873–1953), a baritone, was born in Dublin and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. In a message as G.J. in a letter from Frank and Elizabeth Russell, 6 June 1918 (BRACERS 46918), Colette wrote: “At Manchester I made friends with Ranalow, who sings Figaro.” Colette had written more expansively about Ranalow two days earlier in a letter she later designated “official”, which BR did not receive (BRACERS 113134). “On my way up to Manchester I found myself in the same railway carriage as Frederick Ranalow (nice though naive) who sings in Figaro for <Sir Thomas> Beecham.” Thus BR’s query in Letter 28. Again, a response was not forthcoming until Colette’s letter of 26 July 1918 (BRACERS 113145): “Ranalow. But I never saw him again; and had told you all there was to tell in a previous letter. On tour one runs into theatre people in that way, specially on Sunday trains.…”
- 13
Since my brother saw Cave … time will end When Frank met the Home Secretary Sir George Cave on 26 July, he was assured that BR would be granted “6 weeks remission for work” (BRACERS 46929). However, this was a verbal promise, perhaps even a misunderstanding. When Frank pushed for an even earlier release of early August in his letter to Cave on 29 July (BRACERS 57181), he replied on 5 August (BRACERS 57178) that the Prison Commissioners would be justified in granting a release date of the end of September. BR told Ottoline and Colette on 8 August that it was a “blow” (Letters 61 and 62 respectively). Privately Cave wrote Frank that he “intend<ed> to re-consider the matter towards the end of August; but I am unwilling that your brother should be told this, as I must keep a free hand” (11 Aug. 1918, BRACERS 57182).
- 14
Coal … allowed. Coal had been rationed since the end of 1916, due to the displacement of men and railway transportation from the mines in favour of military needs. Colette noted, in her message in Frank's letter of 1–2 August 1918 (BRACERS 46931), that she not only “found a very desirable tenant but have been given 3 ton of coal as a present!”
- 15
Mrs Saich BR’s cleaning lady. “The charwoman at my flat” (Auto. 2: 58n.).
- 16
Has Eliot brought the things I sent for? T.S. Eliot did come to tea with Colette at her flat (After Ten Years [London: Cape, 1931], pp. 126–7). Some of BR’s things were still at the Marlow cottage he shared with the Eliots.
- 17
Persian bowl “Would you also perhaps say that your Persian bowl had been (and is) your most important objet d’art?” Colette posed this question in her letter of 2 January 1950 (BRACERS 98449). In Letter 103 BR asked Colette to put the Persian bowl on its ebony stand on the mantelpiece in place of a bust of Voltaire.
- 18
my letter to Helen Not extant.
- 19
Get Helen’s address … convenient. Russell He drew a line through these words and then added the sentence in parentheses, thus cancelling his strikeout of the telegram’s text.
- 20
(Another sheet elsewhere) This sheet, placed elsewhere in the book used for smuggling letters, was not identified.
- a
I don’t know … Clare does. Inserted.
- b
Unless it is quite necessary, Inserted.
- c
(But anyhow … to the sea) Inserted; and the closing parenthesis was substituted for a closing bracket.
- d
unless you see objections Inserted.
- e
How fearfully … Ashford? Inserted.
- f
If so … £20 for holiday. Inserted.
- g
, if you didn’t Inserted.
57 Gordon Square
The London home of BR’s brother, Frank, 57 Gordon Square is in Bloomsbury. BR lived there, when he was in London, from August 1916 to April 1918, with the exception of January and part of February 1917.
Boismaison
Colette and BR vacationed at a house, The Avenue, owned by Mrs. Agnes Woodhouse and her husband, in the countryside near Ashford Carbonel, Shropshire, in August 1917. They nicknamed the house “Boismaison”. Agnes Woodhouse took in paying guests. Their first visit was idyllic. They returned for other vacations — in 1918 before he entered prison and in April 1919. Their plan to go soon after he got out of prison failed because their relationship faltered for a time. They discussed returning in the summer of 1919 — a booking was even made for 12–19 July — but in the end they didn’t go. See S. Turcon, “Then and Now: Bertie and Colette’s Escapes to the Peak District and Welsh Borderlands”, Russell 34 (2014): 117–30.
Brixton Prison
Located in southwest London Brixton is the capital’s oldest prison. It opened in 1820 as the Surrey House of Correction for minor offenders of both sexes, but became a women-only convict prison in the 1850s. Brixton was a military prison from 1882 until 1898, after which it served as a “local” prison for male offenders sentenced to two years or less, and as London’s main remand centre for those in custody awaiting trial. The prison could hold up to 800 inmates. Originally under local authority jurisdiction, local prisons were transferred to Home Office control in 1878 in an attempt to establish uniform conditions of confinement. These facilities were distinct from “convict” prisons reserved for more serious or repeat offenders sentenced to longer terms of penal servitude.
Frank Russell
John Francis (“Frank”) Stanley Russell (1865–1931; 2nd Earl Russell from 1878), BR’s older brother. Author of Lay Sermons (1902), Divorce (1912), and My Life and Adventures (1923). BR remembered Frank bullying him as a child and as having the character and appearance of a Stanley, but also as giving him his first geometry lessons (Auto. 1: 26, 36). He was accomplished in many fields: sailor, electrician, house builder, pioneer motorist, local politician, lawyer, businessman and company director, and (later) constructive junior member of the second Labour Government. Frank was married three times. The first marriage involved serious legal actions by and against his wife and her mother, but a previous scandal, which ended his career at Oxford, had an overshadowing effect on his life (see Ruth Derham, “‘A Very Improper Friend’: the Influence of Jowett and Oxford on Frank Russell”, Russell 37 [2017]: 271–87). The second marriage was to Mollie Sommerville (see Ian Watson, “Mollie, Countess Russell”, Russell 23 [2003]: 65–8). The third was to Elizabeth, Countess von Arnim. Despite difficulties with him, BR declared from prison: “No prisoner can ever have had such a helpful brother” (Letter 20).
Gladys Rinder
W. Gladys Rinder worked for the No-Conscription Fellowship and was “chiefly concerned with details in the treatment of pacifist prisoners” (BR’s note, Auto. 2: 88). More specifically, she helped administer the Conscientious Objectors’ Information Bureau, a joint advisory committee set up in May 1916 and representing two other anti-conscription organizations — the Friends’ Service Committee and Fellowship of Reconciliation — as well as the NCF. One C.O. later testified to her “able and zealous” management of this repository of records on individual C.O.s (see John W. Graham, Conscription and Conscience: a History, 1916–1919 [London: Allen & Unwin, 1922], p. 186). Rinder exhibited similar qualities in assisting with the distribution of BR’s correspondence from prison and in writing him official and smuggled letters. Her role in the NCF changed in June 1918, and after the Armistice she assumed control of a new department dedicated to campaigning for the immediate release of all imprisoned C.O.s. She appears to have lost touch with BR after the war but continued her peace advocacy, which included publishing occasionally on international affairs. In 1924 she travelled to Washington, DC, as part of the British delegation to a congress of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Decades later Colette remembered Rinder to Kenneth Blackwell as somebody who “seemed about 40 in 1916–18. She was a completely nondescript person, but efficient, and kind” (BRACERS 121687).
Heart’s Comrade
Colette first called BR her “heart’s comrade” in her letter of 17 November 1916 (BRACERS 112964). On 9 December (BRACERS 112977), she explained: “I want you as comrade as well as lover.” On 9 April 1917 (BRACERS 19145), he reciprocated the sentiment for the first time. In a letter of 1 January 1918 (BRACERS 19260), BR was so upset with her that he could no longer call her “heart’s comrade”. After their relationship was patched up, he wrote on 16 February 1918 (BRACERS 19290): “I do really feel you now again my Heart’s Comrade.” The last time that BR expressed the sentiment in a letter to her was 26 August 1921 (BRACERS 19742).
Home Secretary / Sir George Cave
Sir George Cave (1856–1928; Viscount Cave, 1918), Conservative politician and lawyer, was promoted to Home Secretary (from the Solicitor-General’s office) on the formation of the Lloyd George Coalition in December 1916. His political and legal career peaked in the 1920s as Lord Chancellor in the Conservative administrations led by Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin. At the Home Office Cave proved to be something of a scourge of anti-war dissent, being the chief promoter, for example, of the highly contentious Defence of the Realm Regulation 27C (see Letter 51).
Ottoline Morrell
Lady Ottoline Morrell, née Cavendish-Bentinck (1873–1938). Ottoline, who was the half-sister of the 6th Duke of Portland and grew up in the politically involved aristocracy, studied at St. Andrews and Oxford. She married, in 1902, Philip Morrell (1870–1943), who became a Liberal M.P. in 1910. She is best known as a Bloomsbury literary and artistic hostess. BR and she had a passionate but non-exclusive love affair from 1911 to 1916. They remained friends for life. She published no books of her own but kept voluminous diaries (now in the British Library) and was an avid photographer of her guests at Garsington Manor, near Oxford. (The photos are published in Lady Ottoline’s Album [1976] and mounted at the website of the National Portrait Gallery.) In the 1930s she had a large selection of BR’s letters to her typed, omitting sensitive passages. BR’s letters to her are with the bulk of her papers at the University of Texas, Austin.
Russell Chambers
34 Russell Chambers, Bury Street (since renamed Bury Place), London WC1, BR’s flat since 1911. Helen Dudley rented the flat in late 1916 or early 1917. In May 1918 she sublet it to Clare Annesley. Colette moved in on 9 September 1918 and stayed until June 1919. BR did not give up the lease until December 1923. See S. Turcon, “Russell Chambers, Other London Flats, and Country Homes, 1911–1923”, Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin, no. 150 (Fall 2014): 30–4. “Russell Chambers, Other London Flats, and Country Homes, 1911–1923”, Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin, no. 150 (Fall 2014): 30–4.
T.S. Eliot
The poet and critic Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965) was a student of BR’s at Harvard in 1914. BR had sensed his ability, especially “a certain exquisiteness of appreciation” (to Lucy Donnelly, 11 May 1914; SLBR 1: 491), but did not see a genius in embryo. After Eliot travelled to England later the same year, to study philosophy at Oxford under H.H. Joachim, BR became something of a father figure to the younger man. He also befriended Eliot’s (English) wife, Vivienne, whom he had hastily married in 1915 and with whom BR may have had an affair the following year. BR shared his Bloomsbury apartment (at 34 Russell Chambers) with the couple for more than a year after their marriage, and jointly rented a property with them in Marlow, Bucks. (see Letter 78). He further eased Eliot’s monetary concerns by arranging paid reviewing for him and giving him £3,000 in debentures from which BR was reluctant, on pacifist grounds, to collect the income (Auto. 2: 19). Eliot’s financial security was much improved by obtaining a position at Lloyd’s Bank in 1917, but during BR’s imprisonment he faced uncertainty of a different kind as the shadow of conscription loomed over him (see, e.g., Letter 27). Nine years after the war ended Eliot returned the securities (BRACERS 76480).
Telegraph House
Telegraph House, the country home of BR’s brother, Frank. It is located on the South Downs near Petersfield, Hants., and North Marden, W. Sussex. See S. Turcon, “Telegraph House”, Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin, no. 154 (Fall 2016): 45–69.
The Attic
The Attic was the nickname of the flat at 6 Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1, rented by Colette and her husband, Miles Malleson. The house which contained this flat is no longer standing. “The spacious and elegant facades of Mecklenburgh Square began to be demolished in 1950. The houses on the north side were banged into dust in 1958. The New Attic was entirely demolished” (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”, p. 109; typescript in RA).
Constance Malleson
Lady Constance Malleson (1895–1975), actress and author, was the daughter of Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley, and his second wife, Priscilla. “Colette” (as she was known to BR) was raised at the family home, Castlewellan Castle, County Down, Northern Ireland. Becoming an actress was an unusual path for a woman of her class. She studied at Tree’s (later the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), debuting in 1914 with the stage name of Colette O’Niel at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London, in a student production. She married fellow actor Miles Malleson (1888–1969) in 1915 because her family would not allow them to live together. In 1916 Colette met BR through the No-Conscription Fellowship and began a love affair with him that lasted until 1920. The affair was rekindled twice, in 1929 and 1948; they remained friends for the rest of his life. She had a great talent for making and keeping friends. Colette acted in London and the provinces. She toured South Africa in 1928–29 and the Middle East, Greece and Italy in 1932 in Lewis Casson and Sybil Thorndike’s company. She acted in two films, both in 1918, Hindle Wakes and The Admirable Crichton, each now lost. With BR’s encouragement she began a writing career, publishing a short story in The English Review in 1919. She published other short stories as well as hundreds of articles and book reviews. Colette wrote two novels — The Coming Back (1933) and Fear in the Heart (1936) — as well as two autobiographies — After Ten Years (1931) and In the North (1946). She was a fierce defender of Finland, where she had lived before the outbreak of World War II. Letters from her appeared in The Times and The Manchester Guardian. Another of her causes was mental health. She died five years after BR in Lavenham, Suffolk, where she spent her final years. See S. Turcon, “A Bibliography of Constance Malleson”, Russell 32 (2012): 175–90.