Brixton Letter 80
BR to Gladys Rinder
August 23, 1918
- MS
- 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-80
BRACERS 81177
“ON FINDING A PAINTING OF BUDDHA ON THE WALL OF HIS PRISON-CELL”1
By Liu Ch’ang-ch’ing, 8th cent.
Little I thought in a house of chastisement
To meet the gaze of the All-Compassionate.
Lying alone on a bed of bramble-thorns
I see before me the world of rain and flowers.
But the wall is narrow: the green lotus few;
The castle high: the sun late to rise.
Though ever with me the might of Buddha’s Grace,
Can He save me from the dragon that rages in my heart?2
“A Vision”
In the Nine Provinces there is not room enough:
I want to soar high among the clouds,
And, far beyond the Eight Limits of the compass,
Cast my gaze across the unmeasured void.
I will wear as my gown the red mists of sunrise,
And as my skirt the white fringes of the clouds:
My canopy — the dim lustre of Space:
My chariot — six dragons mounting heavenward:
And before the light of Time has shifted a pace
Suddenly stand upon the World’s blue rim.3
“The Red Cockatoo”4
Sent as a present from Annam
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.
Anon 1st century B.C.
“I am a prisoner in the hands of the enemy;”5
I am a prisoner in the hands of the enemy,
Enduring the shame of captivity.
My bones stick out and my strength is gone
Through not getting enough to eat.
My brother is a Mandarin
And his horses are fed on maize.
Why can’t he spare a little money
To send and ransom me?
_________ .. _________
Green, green,
The cypress on the mound.
Firm, firm,
The boulder in the stream.
Man’s life lived within this world
Is like the sojourning of a hurried traveller.
A cup of wine together will make us glad,
And a little friendship is no little matter.6
_________ .. _________
Man in the world lodging for a single life-time
Passes suddenly like dust borne on the wind.
Then let us hurry out with high steps
And be the first to reach the highways and fords:
Rather than stay at home wretched and poor
For long years plunged in sordid grief.7
Chinese Poems.
She does not regret that she is left so sad,
But minds that so few can understand her song.
She wants to become those two wild geese
That with beating wings rise high aloft.8
Business Men by Chen Tzu-ang (A.D. 656–698).9
Business men boast of their skill and cunning
But in philosophy they are like little children.
Bragging to each other of successful depredationsa
They neglect to consider the ultimate fate of the body.
What should they know of the Master of Dark Truth
Who saw the wide world in a jade cup,
By illumined conception got clear of Heaven and Earth:
On the chariot of Mutation entered the Gate of Immutability?
- 1
[document] The “letter” was edited from three sheets, unsigned, one typed and two written in BR’s hand, in the Malleson papers in the Russell Archives. They contain the text of Chinese poems, translated by Arthur Waley, almost all of them in his A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (London: Constable, 1918). One is typed on Rinder’s typewriter, and seven are in BR’s best handwriting. He surely copied out the poems while he was in prison, for he used the same stock of ruled paper on which he wrote many prison letters. On the verso of the typed page, folded several times, BR wrote “Miss Rinder” but no other message; this also indicates the period of BR’s imprisonment. He had quoted two of the poems for Elizabeth Russell to give Frank (Letter 76) and others to Colette (21 Aug. 1918, Letter 78), which she mentioned in her letter of 2 September. Another poem, “Crossing an Old Battlefield at Night” (not quoted by BR), had been published in The Nation 27 (17 Aug. 1918): 526, to which Colette referred on 25 August (BRACERS 113153). BR also wrote out “On Paying Calls in August” (Waley, p. 57) for her (Letter 86). The titles or first lines and page numbers in Waley are noted editorially. The date of these sheets may be a little later than BR’s copying out of Waley’s translations on 21 August 1918 (Letter 76), for on 3 September Rinder noted to BR that last week she had received a copy of Waley’s book for him (BRACERS 79631). This might have been “The New Chinese Poems” that Rinder mentioned on 8 August that R.C. Trevelyan was going to send BR. A conjectured date of c.23 August seems appropriate. Almost every poem reflects one or more of BR’s prison moods, even his good humour.
- 2
Little I thought … in my heart? Not found in Waley. BR’s source is unknown.
- 3
In the Nine Provinces … blue rim. Found only in a later edition of Waley. BR’s source is unknown.
- 4
“The Red Cockatoo” Waley, pp. 149–50. BR quoted “The Red Cockatoo” in his Autobiography (2: 34).
- 5
“I am a prisoner in the hands of the enemy;” Quoted from Waley, p. 36, where it is titled “The Other Side of the Valley”. In quoting it also in Letter 76, BR titled it “Captivity”.
- 6
“Green, green … no little matter.” Waley, p. 40. Quoted to Colette in Letter 78.
- 7
“Man in the world … sordid grief.” Waley, p. 41. BR omitted the quote marks around the five lines, as he did in quoting it in Letter 78.
- 8
She does not regret … high aloft. Waley, p. 42. Quoted to Colette in Letter 78.
- 9
Business Men Waley, p. 95. BR quoted it also to Elizabeth for Frank’s benefit in Letter 76.
- a
depredations Misspelt as “depradations”.
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.
Elizabeth Russell
Elizabeth Russell, born Mary Annette Beauchamp (1866–1941), was a novelist who in 1891 married Graf von Arnim-Schlagenthin. She became known as “Elizabeth”, the name she used in publishing Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898), and she remained widely known as Elizabeth von Arnim, although the Library of Congress catalogues her as Mary Annette (Beauchamp), Countess von Arnim. She was a widow when she married BR’s brother, Frank, on 11 February 1916. The marriage was quickly in difficulty; she left it for good in March 1919, but they were never divorced and she remained Countess Russell (becoming Dowager Countess after Frank’s death in 1931).
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).
The Nation
A political and literary weekly, 1907–21, edited for its entirety by H.W. Massingham before it merged with The Athenaeum and then The New Statesman. BR regularly contributed book reviews, starting in 1907. During his time at Brixton, he published there a book review (14 in Papers 8; mentioned in Letters 4 and 102) and a letter to the editor (Letter 39). In August 1914 The Nation hastily abandoned its longstanding support for British neutrality, rejecting an impassioned defence of this position written by BR on the day that Britain declared war (1 in Papers 13). For the next two years the publication gave its editorial backing (albeit with mounting reservations) to the quest for a decisive Allied victory. At the same time, it consistently upheld civil liberties against the encroachments of the wartime state, and by early 1917 had started calling for a negotiated peace as well. The Nation had recovered its dissenting credentials, but for allegedly “defeatist” coverage of the war was hit with an export embargo imposed in March 1917 by Defence of the Realm Regulation 24B.
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).