Schedule (Incorporating First Lines and Tweets)
Completed 15 September 2018. The date of publication of the Brixton Letters was the date of the letter plus 100 years. The first two lines are the first sentences of the letter. The tweets were posted at https://twitter.com/MacResColls on the centenary of each letter.
| 1 |
BR to Governor of Brixton Prison / Carleton Haynes |
1918/05/02 | 57173 | |||
| 2 |
BR to Frank Russell |
1918/05/06 | 46911 | |||
| 3 |
BR to Brixton Prison Visiting Committee / Sir Vansittart Bowater |
1918/05/10 | 57176 | |||
| 4 | BR to Home Secretary, UK / Sir George Cave I am applying to you for leave (1) to see my solicitor, J.J. Withers Esq, 4 Arundel Street, Strand, W.C.2, concerning a draft contract with a publisher, in which I desire … (Still early in his sentence, Bertie asks the Home Secretary for permission to publish from prison and to send out manuscripts to a fellow philosopher.) |
1918/05/15 | 57174 | |||
| 5 | BR to Frank Russell It is now decided that I am to have one visit and one letter a week. I assume that this does not include Withers and Wildon Carr, both of whom are business and … (Bertie has received a box of chocolates, but he wants more books — on psychology and the French Revolution.) |
1918/05/16 | 46913 | |||
| 6 |
BR via Frank Russell to Gilbert Murray |
1918/05/16 | 2076 | |||
| 7 | BR to Gladys Rinder Not having received a letter from my brother when it was due, I have decided, especially as he is likely to be much away, that it will save trouble and worry all round if … (Bertie sends a disguised message to “G.J.”, his lover, and offers a surprisingly strong defence of the Victorians against a mocking Bloomsbury critic.) |
1918/05/21 | 19307 | |||
| 8 | BR to Constance Malleson Je crains, ma bien-aimée, que la dernière lettre que je vous ai envoyée n’est pas arrivée, car je pense que j’aurais eu une réponse. (In a love letter cloaked as a transcribed historical document, Bertie plots a romantic and intellectual future with Colette.) |
1918/05/26* | 19309 | |||
| 9 | BR to Frank Russell They won’t allow me to use the nice paper you sent me, so you will have to endure this. I am very sorry I was so cross last week … (Bertie is politically pessimistic but intellectually energized: in prison after less than a month and he has almost finished writing a book.) |
1918/05/27 | 46915 | |||
| 10 | BR to Constance Malleson Savez-vous, ma bien-aimée, combien le manque d’action contribue à clarifier les idées? On vit d’habitude dans une espèce de fièvre … (Masquerading as a love-struck French Revolutionary, Bertie declares that his passion for Colette is “without boundaries, strong as death, profound as the sea”.) |
1918/05/27* | 19310 | |||
| 11 | BR to Constance Malleson Il te faut apprendre, ma chérie, à employer les livres comme moi je les emploie. Fais moi parvenir, je te prie, à chaque visite, un livre dont les pages … (Bertie again writes lovingly to Colette in French [translation supplied] and instructs her about smuggling letters in and out of Brixton.) |
1918/06*/ | 19308 | |||
| 12 | BR to Frank Russell Your letter just come — no other has come. I have just seen Withers. — Very many thanks for your successful efforts: MSS, light, and flowers are all now all right. (Bertie worries about money and life after Brixton, but maintains his impressive prison routine of 4 hours writing and 8 hours reading daily.) |
1918/06/03 | 46917 | |||
| 13 | BR to Constance Malleson Je ne saurais te peindre, ma douce amie, l’impatience qui me ronge. C’est en vain que je fais des efforts pour détacher mes pensées de toi. (Tortured by enforced separation from Colette, Bertie writes that her love helps him forget “all that is terrible in the world”.) |
1918/06/03* | 19311 | |||
| 14 | BR to Home Secretary, UK / Sir George Cave I am petitioning for permission to see on business weekly (not as regular visitors) Professor H. Wildon Carr, 107 Church Street, Chelsea, S.W, and Dr. A.N. Whitehead … (Bertie petitions successfully for extra prison visits from his philosopher friends.) |
1918/06/06 | 57177 | |||
| 15 | BR to Frank Russell / Elizabeth Russell Very many thanks for joint letter just arrived. Thanks also for messages. — If possible, let me know more about my finances when you (E.) come. Please pay solicitor … (Lytton Strachey, Katherine Mansfield, Siegfried Sassoon: Bertie was acquainted with all of these significant literary figures.) |
1918/06/10 | 46919 | |||
| 16 | BR to George Allen & Unwin Ltd. I have read this MS. and am of opinion that it is quite worth publishing. It is very amusing, and at the same time by no means uninstructive. (Bertie endorses an ingenious spoof of his philosophy.) |
1918/06/10 | 47454 | |||
| 17 | BR to Constance Malleson Beloved, my Heart’s Refuge, tomorrow I shall see you — I shall see love in your dear dear eyes — You cannot know how I hunger for you and ache for your arms. (“It is only love that counts against despair”, Bertie tells his “Heart’s Comrade” as he anticipates her prison visit.) |
1918/06/11* | 19314 | |||
| 18 | BR to Clifford Allen / “Despair in Regard to the World” Despair in regard to the world is difficult to ward off in these days. All our previous hopes, one by one, have proved delusions. Our views as to human nature … (In a quasi-open letter circulated to others besides Clifford Allen, Bertie admits defeat of the peace movement and sees its main duty as being ready for the post-war.) |
1918/06/16* | 131594 | |||
| 19 | BR to Ottoline Morrell Your 2 letters were a great joy. In this place one values quite extraordinarily all marks of affection — your delicious flowers have been an immense delight. Thank you too … (Bertie has already sent messages to Lady Ottoline in letters to others, but this smuggled letter is his first from Brixton exclusively for his former lover.) |
1918/06/16* | 18678 | |||
| 20 | BR to Gladys Rinder Many thanks for your letter, which was full of just the things I wished to know. I think I should like you to write every other week, and I will write to you in return … (Bertie predicts another 10 years of war and compares himself to William Godwin during the Napoleonic wars.) |
1918/06/17 | 19326 | |||
| 21 | BR via Frank Russell to George Allen & Unwin Ltd. I saw Bertrand Russell yesterday on the result of your interview, and I now return the Agreement filled in. It is understood that Clause 10 … (Through his brother, Bertie discusses business with his publisher.) |
1918/06/18 | 48706 | |||
| 22 | BR to Constance Malleson I have had such a terrible longing to be with you these last days — it has made it very hard to be patient — I hate to think of your having the prospect of being out of work … (Bertie encourages Colette’s theatrical ambitions and worries that she has been seeing a former lover.) |
1918/06/18* | 19316 | |||
| 23 | BR via Frank Russell to J.B. Lippincott Company My brother, Mr. Bertrand Russell, being now in prison, I have to deal with his correspondence, and have received your letter of May 23. (Bertie objects to the American company that has developed cold feet about publishing his new book, Roads to Freedom, in wartime America.) |
1918/06/20 | 48709 | |||
| 24 | BR to Constance Malleson It is unbelievable how constantly and with what yearning I think about Boismaison and all that it stands for. The old world is crumbling … (“The old world is crumbling and cracking”, Bertie tells Colette as he recalls idyllic times with her. “I do not want the débris to fall upon me, I want to live”.) |
1918/06/21* | 19312 | |||
| 25 | BR to Constance Malleson — When we meet I do not know how to make the most of the time — either to learn all I want to be told or to show all I feel. I keep thinking as to what you are doing … (“One third of my time is up!” Bertie is already chalking off the days until his release.) |
1918/06/22* | 19313 | |||
| 26 | BR to Constance Malleson — The state of the world and its prospects are always in my thoughts, though they are too gloomy to write about. I am weighed down by it all … (In a gloomy political prognosis, Bertie foresees “a dreadful world after the war — poor, bitter, militarist, utilitarian”.) |
1918/06/24 | 19315 | |||
| 27 | BR to Frank Russell The weekly letter has not yet come but I will start on other things. I am much amused to see Lytton Strachey solemnly reproved by the Times … (Bertie seems to have abandoned plans to secure academic employment after his imprisonment as a safeguard against being called up for military service.) |
1918/06/24-25 | 46921 | |||
| 28 | BR to Constance Malleson — The newspaper today gave me the greatest joy. Tomorrow! I count the hours till these moments come, and then they are gone again and I feel how little … (Bertie responds to a clandestine message from Colette posted in The Times. But he wants his lover to smuggle letters into Brixton during her prison visits.) |
1918/06/25* | 19334 | |||
| 29 | BR to Constance Malleson All the letters I have ever had were less wonderful than this one, my Heart’s Comrade, my Beloved — I could not have imagined any letter that would so light up my prison … (Bertie pours his heart out to Colette again and looks forward to living with her openly after prison.) |
1918/06/27* | 19317 | |||
| 30 | BR to Frank Russell This week your letter has duly arrived in the morning. Thank you for it. — Should like Margaret Davies 17th. Will do review for Stout. Can’t imagine why letter was held up … (Bertie is excited about philosophy again: “Approaching the old questions from a radically new point of view … makes new ideas possible”.) |
1918/07/01 | 46922 | |||
| 31 | BR to Ottoline Morrell All your many kindnesses to me ever since I have been in here have been so wonderful, and have given me great happiness. One becomes here very dependent … (The lover of peace proclaims the value of hate: “Hatred of some sort is quite necessary … without some admixture of hate one becomes too soft and loses energy.”) |
1918/07/02* | 18679 | |||
| 32 | BR via Frank Russell to George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Mr. Bertrand Russell says you are to have the contract with Lippincott, and we are at present searching for it here but have not yet found it. (Bertie wants his new book about political ideology and practice to be published in Britain as soon as possible.) |
1918/07/04 | 48710 | |||
| 33 | BR to Constance Malleson Beloved I do long for you. I keep thinking of all the wonderful things we will do together. I think of what we will do when we can go abroad after the war. (Foreseeing romantic travel adventures with Colette, Bertie imagines them visiting Spain, Morocco, Italy and Ireland together.) |
1918/07/05 | 19318 | |||
| 34 | BR to Frank Russell Thanks for letter just come. I hope you are right in expecting me at T.H. in Aug. or Sept. — Find out, please, if Miss Wrinch has incurred any expenses over my books … (The scourge of British war policy nevertheless admits that “when the Allies do well I feel cheerful, when they do badly I worry over all sorts of things”.) |
1918/07/08 | 46924 | |||
| 35 | BR to Constance Malleson The most glorious flowers and red leaves came from you on Saturday — chocolates too — a thousand thousand thanks — but really you mustn’t spend a whole fortune on me … (Only after he is confined to Brixton do the authorities lift restrictions on Bertie’s freedom of movement imposed when he was at liberty.) |
1918/07/08* | 19335 | |||
| 36 | BR via Frank Russell to C.D. Broad Lord Russell is desired by Mr. Bertrand Russell to convey the following message to Mr. Broad … (Bertie applauds a recent logical article by C.D. Broad but takes issue with the philosopher’s notation.) |
1918/07/11 | 53925 | |||
| 37 | BR to Constance Malleson O my Dear, my Dearest, your letters are so wonderful — I can’t tell you what they are to me. I was shy yesterday with Dickinson there, and couldn’t say even as much as … (Colette has just visited Bertie in Brixton, but he wants to see her alone; he consoles himself with memories of their “wonderful times together”.) |
1918/07/11 | 19319 | |||
| 38 | BR to Ottoline Morrell Your letters are a great great joy to get. I can’t tell you the thousandth part of the happiness that all your kindnesses have brought me since I have been here … (Hinting at his restored philosophical ambition, Bertie claims to have “hit on big important new ideas … but they will take a long time to bring to fruition”.) |
1918/07/14 | 18680 | |||
| 39 | BR to The Nation Your review of Mr. Sassoon’s poems, in your issue of July 13, lays down certain dogmas which, ancient and respectable as they are, should not be regarded as … (Bertie defends the war poet and war hero Siegfried Sassoon from anonymous literary attack.) |
1918/07/14* | 131571 | |||
| 40 | BR to Ottoline Morrell I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your letters — they are the greatest joy to get — and for the flowers, which I love — I love the mixture of colours and sorts … (Prison is taking its toll on Bertie: “I grow dull and heavy. I find it harder and harder to work — it is so difficult to feel the necessary excitement”.) |
1918/07/14* | 18681 | |||
| 41 | BR to Frank Russell Your letter came early, but it was sadly short, owing to Miss King. Lippincott. If you have looked through the large cabinet and the drawers of the desk, I have nowhere to … (Bertie has been reading about the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars but is desperate for more novels.) |
1918/07/15 | 46926 | |||
| 42 | BR to Constance Malleson In a learned work I was reading I came upon this passage: “Darwin giebt an, dass Australier, Papuaneger, Fidschiinsulaner, Maoris, Taiti- und Somalineger, Eskimos” … (Colette has been visited by a detective suspicious that The Times personals column has been publishing her coded messages to Bertie.) |
1918/07/20* | 19320 | |||
| 43 | BR to Constance Malleson I don’t suppose you will ever have time to read all I write, but it is a comfort to write — I have such endless leisure, and writing is the nearest approach to you … (Bertie encourages Colette to read about two storied 18th-century lovers and worries about their own “great love [being] destroyed by violent separation”.) |
1918/07/21? | 19322 | |||
| 44 | BR to Frank Russell Thank you for your letter — but I am sorry that after all you didn’t allow E. to fill up the back page? I imagine you told her she must do it in 3 minutes … (More on the Comte de Mirabeau and Bertie’s shortage of novels. Ottoline’s husband has also jumped to the defence of Sassoon.) |
1918/07/22 | 46928 | |||
| 45 | BR to Constance Malleson I feel you are unhappy, and I don’t know how I can bring you back to joy. I feel the emissary from S.Y. worried you, as he did me. I am very anxious to know … (So “restless” is Bertie over his continuing separation from Colette that he has resorted to pacing his cell, “like the lions and tigers in the Zoo”.) |
1918/07/22? | 19324 | |||
| 46 | BR to Constance Malleson Yes, it makes one very lonely having the sort of power you wrote of — I seek out those few women who are not subservient … (Although Colette’s marriage to Miles Malleson has always been “open”, Bertie encourages her to make a definitive break from her husband.) |
1918/07/24 | 131599 | |||
| 47 | BR to Constance Malleson It was dreadful seeing you so sad — I did want to put my arms round you and kiss your eyes and say words of love, and let your tears come. It is dreadful when you suffer. (Colette’s most recent visit to Brixton did not go well: “It was dreadful seeing you so sad”, he tells her.) |
1918/07/24? | 116361 | |||
| 48 | BR to Ottoline Morrell It was most delightful finding your letter — so exciting not knowing whether one has come to the last sheet, going on, and finding another! I loved your letter. (Bertie rakes over his earlier romance with Ottoline. They were compatible in “mind” and “spirit”, but the relationship foundered on “the clash of instincts”.) |
1918/07/25* | 18682 | |||
| 49 | BR to Constance Malleson Your letter has made such a difference to me — it has made me much happier. I feel now that I am not losing touch with the movement of your life and your growth. (Having obtained much-needed reassurance from Colette, Bertie is now “much happier”. He wants them to revisit a place from the idyllic early days of their romance.) |
1918/07/26* | 19336 | |||
| 50 | BR to Constance Malleson I do so understand that you dare not let your imagination dwell on things that bring impatience. I find I can’t keep my thoughts away from you, so I make plans endlessly … (Bertie plots a post-war future as a public intellectual, dividing his time between “unofficial teaching”, “writing on social questions”, and “work on philosophy”.) |
1918/07/27? | 19321 | |||
| 51 | BR to Frank Russell Your letter has just come — thank you for it. I feel your news by no means discouraging; I quite realize the unpropitiousness of the moment. What else there is to say can wait … (Bertie pays tribute to his brother: “I can’t begin to tell you how profoundly grateful I am for all you have done for me since I have been here.”) |
1918/07/29 | 46930 | |||
| 52 | BR to Constance Malleson There is a message from E. about a possible job for you which has put me on tenterhooks — I should be happy if it came off — I hardly dare think of it. (Bertie disliked Bergson’s philosophy intensely but finds one of his books ideal for smuggling letters in and out of Brixton.) |
1918/07/29-30 | 19337 | |||
| 53 | BR to Gladys Rinder / “All and Sundry” Many thanks for Spectator review. Is it not odd that people can in the same breath praise “The Free Man’s Worship” and find fault with my views on the war? (In a letter for friends and associates, Bertie responds to a recent appraisal of his landmark essay “The Free Man’s Worship”.) |
1918/07/30 | 116687 | |||
| 54 | BR to Gladys Rinder I have been thinking out some casuistical conundrums which I desire to submit to the collective wisdom of the National Committee, including the hon. officers in partibus … (Bertie mocks the dogmatism of some of his pacifist allies.) |
1918/07/30 | 116688 | |||
| 55 | BR to Constance Malleson The wrong sort of Wednesday, but I hope for a letter. Darling, your letters are the most unspeakable joy to me. They make just all the difference … (Although jubilant that two thirds of his sentence has been served, Bertie finds even greater solace in Colette’s letters — which are “so beautiful”.) |
1918/07/31* | 116363 | |||
| 56 | BR to Constance Malleson Thank you for your letter — 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. (Bertie is planning some post-Brixton travel with Colette and making longer-term living arrangements for them. Meanwhile, his “mind is very active over philosophy”.) |
1918/07/31* | 19338 | |||
| 57 | BR to Ottoline Morrell It was delightful seeing you yesterday, dearest O., and you wouldn’t believe how I loved your letter. I was sorry you had such a dreadful cold … (After lamenting the dissipation of his “creative mood”, Bertie vents against the rotten “Bloomsbury crew” for turning on the poet Sassoon.) |
1918/08/01 | 18683 | |||
| 58 | BR to Constance Malleson I am sorry I wrote such a worried letter — I didn’t know you need not answer Mr. Cubitt. And your letter that time was so very short. I thought that was because … (Bertie tells Colette: “I am full of happiness now, really believing in our future — feeling very full of life and creativeness — and so filled with love”.) |
1918/08/01* | 19339 | |||
| 59 | BR to Constance Malleson Now that it is settled that you move into R.C. I feel a new beginning can really be made. I want to say (however I may have spoken before) that I will not let my prejudices … (Anticipating a “new beginning” after Colette has agreed to move into his London flat, Bertie also feels he is at “the beginning of something very big” in philosophy.) |
1918/08/04 | 19340 | |||
| 60 | BR to Gladys Rinder Thanks for letter. Have been reading about Voltaire and Frederick, always amusing. Frederick unmitigatedly loathsome. (Jailbird Bertie admits that he has “not thought about prisons and the criminal law at all”.) |
1918/08/05 | 116691 | |||
| 61 | BR to Ottoline Morrell It is a joy getting your letters, Dearest O., they bring me in touch with your world, and that is most delightful. Thank you 1000 times for the snuff … (Bertie’s political philosophy: “A good social system is not to be secured by making people unselfish, but by making their own vital impulses fit in with other people’s.”) |
1918/08/08 | 18684 | |||
| 62 | BR to Constance Malleson You are gone and I have read your dear dear letter — such a wonderful letter — O my Heart, I do do love you — Don’t talk about wishing to be worthy of my love … (Bertie talks to Colette about sex and power after praising his lover’s “Passion, force [and] will”, and vanity as a spur to ambition.) |
1918/08/08 | 19341 | |||
| 63 | BR to Dorothy Cousens / Dorothy Mackenzie (aka) How nice of you to write to me, and how very glad I am you are happy and H.C. too — It is all so good — it cheers one to think of … (Placing his hopes for the future on the shoulders of the young, Bertie thinks only that generation can repair this “world of wreckage”.) |
1918/08/08 | 55812 | |||
| 64 | BR to Constance Malleson There is no good life of my grandfather, and there couldn’t be, because he was such a dull dog. The official biography is by Spencer Walpole. (Starved of philosophical reading, Bertie has resorted to reading the Bible, providing Colette with his distinctive commentaries.) |
1918/08/10 | 19342 | |||
| 65 | BR via Gladys Rinder to Gilbert Murray BR is most anxious to know whether you found it possible to take any steps about his being called up. He said something about a “list” … (Bertie entrusts his friend Gilbert Murray with securing him an academic post as insurance against being called up for military service after his release.) |
1918/08/11 | 131590 | |||
| 66 | BR to Ottoline Morrell It is quite true what you say, that you have never expressed yourself — but who has that has anything to express? The things one says are all unsuccessful attempts … (Explaining his sense of detachment, Bertie tells Ottoline that he feels like “a ghost, floating through the world without any real contact”.) |
1918/08/11 | 18685 | |||
| 67 | BR to Frank Russell I wish you to know exactly the reasons why I am anxious to be released as soon as possible. My reasons are not only, or even principally, that prison is disagreeable … (Frank Russell forwarded this letter to the Home Secretary, to make a case for Bertie’s early release on the grounds that his philosophical work was of national importance.) |
1918/08/12 | 55846 | |||
| 68 | BR to Constance Malleson Your letter last time was such a joy — it is so lovely that you are happy with the work of the Expal. Theatre, and that with any success it will be a continuing work. (Prison “is making me tired and tame”, Bertie complains: “It is only a temporary effect, but for the moment I am very dead.”) |
1918/08/13 | 19343 | |||
| 69 | BR to Constance Malleson I am longing for a letter from you and hoping there will be one today — I long to know how Expal. Theatre is going … (The “plan and outline of the big book” of philosophy that Bertie wants to write is beginning to take shape in his head.) |
1918/08/14* | 19344 | |||
| 70 | BR to Ottoline Morrell Your letters are such a joy to me — the more you write the better pleased I shall be — I am grateful — for sympathy, and affection, and the atmosphere of friends … (Bertie describes the “thoroughly disagreeable situation” of his imprisonment. “Being cut off from friends and love and talk ... having always to fight off an insane rage.…”) |
1918/08/14 | 18686 | |||
| 71 | BR to Constance Malleson It was a great relief to get your letter today — the one yesterday was such a wretched scrap that it made me very unhappy … (Bertie admits to being “tortured by jealousy” but then tells Colette of his lingering affection for an American lover he had spurned.) |
1918/08/15* | 19345 | |||
| 72 | BR to Constance Malleson Oh if I could only have one hour with you in freedom — I want you so — I am losing the courage that is needed for hope … (From a dark mental place, Bertie writes: “I can’t believe we shall be happy — and then it all grows black”.) |
1918/08/16* | 19346 | |||
| 73 | BR to Gladys Rinder Your letter has not yet arrived, but I will begin with various odds and ends.… I have been reading simultaneously Voltaire and Tchehov … (“I have a furious desire to get things done”, Bertie writes of his philosophical ambitions, encouraged that Voltaire’s signal intellectual achievements mostly came after age 60.) |
1918/08/19 | 79640 | |||
| 74 | BR to George Allen & Unwin Ltd. / Stanley Unwin Your letter has duly reached me, but I could not have got an answer to you by 11 a.m. today. That, however, does not matter … (Bertie still hasn’t found an American publisher for his forthcoming study of socialist political ideals, Roads to Freedom.) |
1918/08/19 | 47455 | |||
| 75 | BR to Ottoline Morrell Your letter this afternoon was such a joy to get. I love getting your letters — I should be dreadfully disappointed if you didn’t come next week. (“I dare say you will always think of this as the time when I wrote the best letters — but not the best books”. Let readers of the Brixton Letters be judges of Bertie’s appraisal.) |
1918/08/21 | 18687 | |||
| 76 | BR to “Elizabeth” Russell Will you give these 2 Chinese poems to Frank? Much love and thanks … (Bertie sees his own plight in “Captivity”, a 2,000-year-old Chinese poem.) |
1918/08/21 | 80396 | |||
| 77 | BR to Constance Malleson I have recovered my sanity and no longer feel the impulse to quarrel with you. This is chiefly due to hearing that my brother … (Bertie aspires to become a 20th-century Voltaire and arguably succeeded in the decades after his imprisonment.) |
1918/08/21 | 19347 | |||
| 78 | BR to Constance Malleson My Beloved, my Heart’s Joy, forgive me that I gave you pain. All the black thoughts are gone — gone absolutely … (According to Bertie, Colette possesses that “indefinable quality that has belonged to all the women who have been famous for inspiring love.”) |
1918/08/21-22 | 19348 | |||
| 79 | BR to Constance Malleson Colette, my Life, your letter was so infinitely wonderful — and you yourself were so divine yesterday — I wish I didn’t have these black fits … (Acknowledging the “black fits” that have sometimes seized him in Brixton, Bertie is now cheerful and thinks that his “best work lies ahead”.) |
1918/08/22 | 19349 | |||
| 80 | BR to W. Gladys Rinder “ON FINDING A PAINTING OF BUDDHA ON THE WALL OF HIS PRISON-CELL” By Liu Ch’ang-ch’ing, 8th cent … (Bertie’s shifting prison moods are reflected in ancient Chinese poetry.) |
1918/08/23* | 81177 | |||
| 81 | BR to Constance Malleson I am so happy — happier than I have been any time since I came to prison. Ever since I came — ever since I knew I should have to come … (Bertie recalls fondly the start of his affair with Colette and, assessing his intellectual responsibilities, declares that he must add to the sum total of wisdom in the world.) |
1918/08/24 | 19350 | |||
| 82 | BR to Constance Malleson Don’t think, please, because I have moments of violent impulse, that my tenderness towards you is not very real … (“A very strong affection” — as opposed to passion — is needed to sustain their love, Bertie tells Colette.) |
1918/08/25 | 19351 | |||
| 83 | BR to Ottoline Morrell You mustn’t think of me as being “tortured” here — I really am not. My months here belong with the happier half of my life. (In Brixton, Bertie has surprisingly achieved an elusive “inner harmony…. Logic and imagination have fought a long fight in me, but I think they are reconciled at last.”) |
1918/08/26 | 18688 | |||
| 84 | BR to Gladys Rinder Tell Bob Trevy I love his book about Thibet from which I am collecting Great Thoughts: “The arch spirit in this conspiracy … (Bertie has enjoyed reading about Tibet and is thinking about knowledge and the place of Desire in the analysis of mind.) |
1918/08/26* | 79641 | |||
| 85 | BR to Ottoline Morrell I have been reading Marsh on Rupert. It makes me very sad and very indignant. It hurts reading of all that young world now swept away … (Bertie lambasts the “respectable liars and oppressors and corrupters of youth” he holds responsible for the destruction of an entire generation.) |
1918/08/27 | 18689 | |||
| 86 | BR to Constance Malleson Your dear letter this afternoon was a great happiness. I do so understand all you felt by the sea. It must have been wonderful beneath the moon. (Seeking solace in the past and in “strange quiet places”, Bertie gives Colette a history lesson along the way.) |
1918/08/28 | 19352 | |||
| 87 | BR to Constance Malleson Your letter from the sea was so full of sadness — the deep-down sadness that is hard to overcome — and it makes me feel such a tender love … (“To have lived through this war and emerged not numbed or crushed or brutalized is to be one of a small number, who will have a great and splendid work after the war….”) |
1918/08/29-30 | 19354 | |||
| 88 | BR to Dorothy Brett Thank you for your letter. It is a kindness writing letters to me when I am here, as they are the only unhampered contact I can have with other people. (Words of compassion and support for the deaf Bloomsbury artist, Dorothy Brett, in a smuggled letter which, sadly, remained accidentally concealed until 1923.) |
1918/08/30 | 116694 | |||
| 89 | BR to Ottoline Morrell It was a delight seeing you — tho’ you do not seem in very good health — and those times are difficult for talking … (An increasingly restless Bertie is now insatiably hungry for “civilization and civilized talk”, while also yearning for “the SEA and wildness and wind”.) |
1918/08/30 | 18690 | |||
| 90 | BR to Ottoline Morrell / “Any One Whom It May Interest” There never was such a place as prison for crowding images — one after another they come upon me … (Bertie assembles some beautiful and striking images that have crowded his mind in prison and enabled him to preserve his mental freedom, even behind bars.) |
1918/08/31 | 131572 | |||
| 91 | BR to Constance Malleson I am wanting you so much. It is so difficult to forget the horror of the world. There is knowledge that has come to one, during the war, that one can never forget. (Bertie laments the horror of the world, but is at least buoyed by the thought of his release “One month from today!” It ended up being sooner than that.) |
1918/09/01-02 | 19355 | |||
| 92 | BR to Constance Malleson I told Gladys to assure you of my “unalterable esteem” and I very nearly added, to show what I meant by “esteem” … (Unbelieving Bertie rhapsodizes about some erotic verses in the Song of Solomon.) |
1918/09/02 | 19356 | |||
| 93 | BR to Constance Malleson Tomorrow, blessed day when I see my Darling. How I long to see you on your pillow, with your hair all round you … (More love and tenderness from Bertie for Colette.) |
1918/09/03 | 19357 | |||
| 94 | BR to Ottoline Morrell Your letters are an immense joy and refreshment to me. You are so right not to pollute your soul with hatred, as you say, and I do try not to hate. (Bertie is utterly serious about his future ambitions, which will only be satisfied by combining “technical work” in philosophy with “teaching and writing on social questions”.) |
1918/09/04 | 18691 | |||
| 95 | BR to Constance Malleson My Beautiful, my Darling, it was heaven seeing you today, and feeling the touch of your dear hands. And your letter is a very very dear letter. (Meticulous planning by Bertie for the hours, days and weeks he will spend with Colette immediately after his imprisonment.) |
1918/09/04 | 19358 | |||
| 96 | BR to George Allen & Unwin Ltd. / Stanley Unwin Re Scandinavian rights, writing hastily to Miss Rinder on Monday I did not observe that it was Political Ideals you were alluding to. I believe the rights of this … (Scandinavia appears to be interested in Bertie’s political writing — although no translations of the book in question appeared there until the 1960s!) |
1918/09/04 | 47456 | |||
| 97 | BR to Gladys Rinder From B.R. I. Hopes Fellowship would not entail living out of London. II. More important. Hopes it will allow him time for research work. (Bertie still wants an academic teaching position — but not too far outside London. The unmentioned reason is that it would take him away from Colette.) |
1918/09/04? | 48712 | |||
| 98 | BR via Frank Russell to George Allen & Unwin Ltd. I note your correspondence with Mr. Russell which you sent me a week or so ago, and quite agree with what you say. (Bertie is now owed £50 by his publisher for the MS of Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, a payment most welcome to an incarcerated writer living on his earnings.) |
1918/09/05 | 121445 | |||
| 99 | BR to Constance Malleson Your last letter seemed somehow more filled with love than almost any you have ever written me — at least it brought your love wonderfully near me … (Writing from the heart to Colette, and of “business”, Bertie also hints at the vilification he and other peace campaigners experienced in wartime Britain.) |
1918/09/07 | 19359 | |||
| 100 | BR to Constance Malleson My Heart’s Love, when you get this it will be only 3 weeks till we meet. It seems now such a little time that I grow happier day by day … (“Freedom is THE great thing”, Bertie tells Colette, and it is what he proposes to live and work for after leaving Brixton.) |
1918/09/08-09 | 19360 | |||
| 101 | BR to Gilbert Murray Please communicate the following to Gilbert Murray and anyone else who may be able to give me the information I desire: I am trying to discover the essential principles … (Bertie, investigating symbolism, is intrigued by the structure and origins of language, but he never embarked upon the project he ponders here.) |
1918/09/09 | 52370 | |||
| 102 | BR to Ottoline Morrell You write such wonderful letters — this one especially — you can’t think what a joy it is to me. I am so glad of all you say about the visit to your brother and its effect. (Bertie discusses his fellow inmates, “debtors and bigamists” among them, as well as a leading Russian revolutionary.) |
1918/09/11 | 18692 | |||
| 103 | BR to Constance Malleson Your letter is such a joy, Beloved — Less than 3 weeks now — I shall breakfast here that day — And I shall ring your bell and you will open your door … (To forge “a well-rounded whole of philosophy, theoretical and practical”, Bertie will need good health, financial security, routine, holidays, and “above all personal happiness”.) |
1918/09/11-12 | 19361 | |||
| 104 | BR to Constance Malleson You wrote me such a lovely letter this week — thank you my Beloved — Yes, Ludlow Bridge with you! And when we have our meals in that room, there will be nothing to … (Setting himself up for romantic disappointment, Bertie’s last prison letter to Colette proclaims: “my whole soul is concentrated into love of you…. I do worship you.”) |
1918/09/13 | 19362 | |||
| 105 | BR to Edith Russell The lawyer’s nice young man brought me cheering news of you and told me I could write to you, which I had not known. Every one here treats me kindly … (Repeat offender Bertie is back in Brixton — 43 years after he was first behind bars. The “only thing” he minds is being away from Edith.) |
1961/09/15 | 20274 |