RUSSELL'S PORTRAITS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 738, 4 September 1953, Page 7

RUSSELL'S PORTRAITS

T the age of 81 Bertrand Russell looks back on a life filled with intellectual adventure, for through the years he has known intimately some of the most remarkable British figures of the ‘present Century. Four reminiscent talks by him about some of these people -Portraits from Memory-will be heard on BBC transcriptions from 3YC, starting on Tuesday, September 8, at 7.44 p.m., and from 2YC, starting on Friday, September 11, at 10.3 p.m. They will be broadcast later by other National stations. Bertrand Russell’s first portrait is of a philosopher and mathematician who profoundly; influenced the intellectual life of his generation by his books and his teaching. One of these books was Principia Mathematica, of which Bertrand Russell was joint author. In this talk he recalls the early days of this century when he and Alfred North Whitehead were collaborating in their famous work. The friendship between the two men began when Russell, as an undergraduate, attended Whitehead's lectures at Cambridge, and it lasted until the latter’s death in 1947, although by then’ they had reached a stage of disagreement on philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead came of a family which for many generations had sent its sons into the Church. He received many academic honours from universities in Britain and the United States. In Britain he was honoured mainly as a.mathematician; in America mainly as a_ philosopher. In 1945 King George VI bestowed the. Order of Merit upon him. When Lord -§ Keynes's posthumous volume, Two Memoirs, was published a few years ago, it contained, as a frontispiece, a photograph of three figures sitting at ease in the garden of a «country home. They were Maynard Keynes himself, Lytton Strachey and Bertrand Russell. In his second talk Russell speaks of Keynes and Strachey who belong to a Cambridge generation about 10 years. junior to his own, The average listener will remember Lord Keynes as the financial expert who led a British delegation to Washington to negotiate the American Loan in 1945. He may remember him, too, as the connoisseur of art-wHo was a trustee of the National Gallery and married the ballerina Lydia Lopokova. In his memories of Lytton Strachey, Bertrand Russell draws an amusing picture of his first dinner with the Strachey family and the number ‘of sons and daughters "almost beyond computation and all to my unpractised eyes exactly alike . . . who dropped in me by one at intervals of 20 minutes. had to look round the room to make ‘sure that it was a new one that had appeared and not merely one of. the previous ones that had changed his cr her place." Russell’s acquaintance with D. H. Lawrence was brief. He says: "We did not see eye to eye. When it» appeared that I would not be his mouthpiece he quarrelled with me." When the two were introduced in 1915 each was in a state of rebellion against the world, and it looked .at first as though there was a considerable measure of agreement be-

tween them. During an. intensive and increasingly bitter correspondence it became evident that their outlooks were fundamentally opposed. In this third talk Bertrand Russell says that Lawrence had developed the whole philosophy of Fascism before the politicians had thought of it, He tells how his disagreements with Lawrence came about. The last talk in Portraits from Memory is about Sidney and Beatrice Webb, whom Bertrand Russell knew well. for many years. "Their methods of collaboration were interesting," he says. "Mrs. Webb had the ideas and Webb did the work. In spite of the fact that they and I were Socialists we disagreed profoundly." But though the Webbs went their different ways and though Sidney and Beatrice were people of very different background, Bertrand Russell’s cousidered judgment is that theirs was the most successful marriage he has ever known. In his reflections on his 80th birthday which he broadcast last year, Bert-

rand Russell said: "If individuals sre to retain that measure of initiative and flexibility which they ought to have, they must not all be forced into oneé rigid mould. . . Diversity is essential in spite

of the fact. that it precludes universal acceptance of a single gospel." Such diversity is shown strongly in the people discussed in Portraits from Memory.