China and the West

Letter from Bertrand Russell to Ottoline Morrell, German Hospital, Peking, 11 May 1921.
I am now much better, indeed quite well except for a tiresome aftermath in the shape of inflammation of the vein of a leg. It doesn't hurt, but the only cure is to keep the leg absolutely motionless, so I am tied to my bed, which is boring. The Doctors say it is bound to get well soon, but it has now lasted 3 weeks. My lungs are completely healed, which is a comfort, as bad pneumonia generally leaves a weakness. My nurse, who is very religious, says my recovery is literally a miracle, only explicable by the direct interposition of Providence. I suggested to her, in Gibbonian phrase, that Provicence works through natural causes, but she rejected this view, rightly feeling that it savours of atheism. Everybody who had to do with me when I was ill is amazed that I am alive. For my part, I am astonished to find how much I love life : when I see the sun I think I might never have seen him again, and I feel 'Ugh ! it is good to be alive'. Out of my window I see great acacia trees in blossom, and think how dreadful it would have been to have never seen the spring again. Oddly enough these things come into my mind more instinctively than human things.
I grow more and more like Voltaire – I have been having enemas constantly. (Dora complains that I scream for them, as he did). I have realized one ambition which I almost despaired of. I have read an obituary notice of myself. In Japan I was reported dead, and the 'Japan Chronicle' had a long article on me. My illness has not changed me in the slightest, in fact it has made hardly more impression than a bad toothache. I have missed much by not dying here, as the Chinese were going to have given me a terrific funeral in Central Park, and then bury me on an island in the Western Lake, where the greatest poets and emperors lived, died, and were buried. Probably I should have become a God. What an opportunity missed.
Goodbye dearest O. Fondest love. B.