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Details
COMMONPLACE BOOK. Unruled notebook on heavy, straw-coloured laid paper, chainlines horizontal, 76pp. Untrimmed. 209mm x 150mm. Limp calf, front and backboards gilt (binding worn, especially at spine, remains of ties).
Manuscript copies in blue ink by Bertrand Russell of 26 poems, written on rectos only. Preceded by manuscript quotations in brown ink by Ottoline Morrell from Montaigne, Santayana and Milton ('Give me the Liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties'). Between Morrell's entries and Russell's is pasted 'God save the people' by Ebeneezer Elliott (1781-1849), cut probably from a pamphlet at the time of the First World War ('Shall crime bring crime for ever,/Strength biding with the strong?/Is this Thy will, O Father,/That man shall toil for wrong?') One manuscript correction has been made to this, the only printed poem in the collection, apparently in Russell's hand.
The poems chosen by Russell range from Walter Ralegh to G. Lowes Dickinson but are mostly conventional 17th and 18th-century fare. Shakespeare is the poet most often represented (five sonnets and songs from The Tempest and Cymbeline), with Blake the next most frequent. Leopardi's 'Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle' is given in Italian.
Some of the entries perhaps reflect the attitude towards war that Morrell and Russell shared ('Hey nonny no!/Men are fools that wish to die!/Is't not fine to dance and sing/When the bells of death do ring?'); others offer hopes of love expanding to embrace humanity:
'For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love ...' (Milton).
THIS LOVE TRIBUTE SHOWS THE EXTENT TO WHICH RUSSELL SHARED MORRELL'S TASTE FOR THE VISIONARY, THE RAPTUROUS AND THE ROMANTIC. A touching testament to the shared idealism that inspired his very public and her more private campaigns for a better world.
Manuscript copies in blue ink by Bertrand Russell of 26 poems, written on rectos only. Preceded by manuscript quotations in brown ink by Ottoline Morrell from Montaigne, Santayana and Milton ('Give me the Liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties'). Between Morrell's entries and Russell's is pasted 'God save the people' by Ebeneezer Elliott (1781-1849), cut probably from a pamphlet at the time of the First World War ('Shall crime bring crime for ever,/Strength biding with the strong?/Is this Thy will, O Father,/That man shall toil for wrong?') One manuscript correction has been made to this, the only printed poem in the collection, apparently in Russell's hand.
The poems chosen by Russell range from Walter Ralegh to G. Lowes Dickinson but are mostly conventional 17th and 18th-century fare. Shakespeare is the poet most often represented (five sonnets and songs from The Tempest and Cymbeline), with Blake the next most frequent. Leopardi's 'Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle' is given in Italian.
Some of the entries perhaps reflect the attitude towards war that Morrell and Russell shared ('Hey nonny no!/Men are fools that wish to die!/Is't not fine to dance and sing/When the bells of death do ring?'); others offer hopes of love expanding to embrace humanity:
'For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love ...' (Milton).
THIS LOVE TRIBUTE SHOWS THE EXTENT TO WHICH RUSSELL SHARED MORRELL'S TASTE FOR THE VISIONARY, THE RAPTUROUS AND THE ROMANTIC. A touching testament to the shared idealism that inspired his very public and her more private campaigns for a better world.
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