“Clark’s Fatuous Book”: Comments on Ronald W. Clark’s Life of Bertrand Russell (Part 2)

September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 30 (summer 2010): 31–56 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 ocument “CLARK’S FATUOUS BOOK”: COMMENTS ON RONALD W. CLARK’S LIFE OF BERTRAND RUSSELL (Part 2) Edith Russell Edith Russell had already written the lives of Carey Thomas and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt when she married Bertrand Russell in 1952. She ordered and preserved his Wles as no one before had, and took a great interest in his earlier years as she did, of course, in his current campaigns and family. When Clark’sz Life appeared in 1975, she reacted strongly to it. She wrote three drafts of comments, each draft more extensive than the last, and including information only she would have. She numbered the comments within the chapters and referred to them in her Wnal (and often diYcult) manuscript by page and comment number. On the verso of the dustjacket, having turned it inside out, she wrote: “Clark’s fatuous book”; then she replaced the jacket in its new state. Not all of her original comments are present in the Wnal version, which she headed “Comments on Clark’s Biography of BR; Rather Rough Notes”. She also made a summary of her overall attitude and complaints. Altogether Countess Russell laboured hard in her eTort to correct for researchersz—z especially future biographersz—zwhat she saw as imbalance, errors in fact, and appreciation of her esteemed husband. Along with similar but shorter critical notes on Dora Russell’s autobiography and a draft book by Michael Burn, the document was listed in the Wnding-aid to her papers (see S. Turcon, “The Edith Russell Papers”, Russell 12 [1992]: 61–78). This unabridged, second excerpt covers Chapters 8 through 20, up to the founding of Pugwash. My notes are in angle brackets. Michael Burn provides an insight into Edith Russell and her comments. “With people who wanted to interview her about Bertie she often felt ‘ a desperate sense of inadequacy to express what she knew to be true’. She was aware that whatever she said, that happened not to accord with what the interviewer happened to think, or wish to think, was lessened in his mind (she once wrote me) ‘by the fact that I love Bertie entirely’z” (Burn, Turned towards the Sun: an Autobiography (Wilby, Norwich: Michael Russell, 2003, pp. 267–8)).—K.B. September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd 32 edith russell Chapter 8 “Ottoline: Ebbing Tide” 200/1wwClark should have discussed this silly assessment of O’s +Ottoline Morrell’s,. There is much to be said against it, yet Clark apparently accepts it. Cf. my notes on Gathorne-Hardy’s two vols. 201/2wwClark doesn’t appear to recognize the diTerence betweencareful,considered statements and casual, superWcial talk. I think that Clark, in this discussion of ethics, should have pointed on to Human Society in Ethics and Politics. Why, in face of it, does he say that B. “stuck here” for only 30 years? “But he is a scoundrel”—characteristic dismissal and not intended to be taken too seriously. In context people usually understood this but, occasionally, there was an “earnest” interlocutor or one who wanted to use the denigration. 201/3wwExcept for a diTerence in scale, the mixture sounds remarkably like that in most human beings. 202/4wwClark almost never identiWes the characters whom he introduces. In this case he should have pointed out that the gathering was largely one of Stanleys . Mrs. Churchill and V.S. were B’s cousins. He derived the same sort of enjoyment in observing them as he did in observing the Stanleys in Albemarle Street. 204/5wwInteresting about the lack of civilizing power of music. Astute and perceptive about the limitations of W +Wittgenstein,. 205/6wwClark does not add, as I think he should, that B. later (in the 1950’s) thought that he had been only partially right...

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