Morrell, Ottoline
(Tunbridge Wells, Kent 1873-1938 London) : Artistokratin, Freundin von Bertrand Russell
Subjects
Index of Names : Occident
Chronology Entries (4)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1920.10.28 |
Letter from Bertrand Russell to Ottoline Morrell, 28. Okt. 1920. In : The Nation ; 8 Jan. 1921. I wrote the following account on the Yiangtse : To Ottoline Morrell. Since landing in China we have had a most curious and interesting time, spent, so far, entirely among Chinese students and journalists, who are more or less Europeanised. I have delivered innumerable lectures – on Einstein, education and social questions. The eagerness for knowledge on the part of students is quite extraordinary. When one begins to speak, their eyes have the look of starving men beginning a feast. Everywhere they treat me with a most embarrassing respect. The day after I landed in Shanghai they gave a vast dinner to us, at which they welcomed me as Confucius the Second. All the Chinese newspapers that day in Shanghai had my photograph. Both Miss Black and I had to speak to innumerable schools, teachers' conferences, congresses, etc. It is a country of curious contrasts. Most of Shanghai is quite European, almost American ; the names of streets, and notices and advertisements are in English (as well as Chinese). The buildings are magnificent offices and banks ; everything looks very opulent. But the side streets are still quite Chinese. It is a vast city about the size of Glasgow. The Europeans almost all look villainous and ill. One of the leading Chinese newspapers invited us to lunch, in a modern building, completed in 1917, with all the latest plant (except linotype, which can't be used for Chinese characters). The editorial staff gave us a Chinese meal at the top of the house with Chinese wine made of rice, and innumerable dishes which we ate with chopsticks. When we had finished eating they remarked that one of their number was fond of old Chinese music, and would like to play to us. So he produced an instrument with seven strings, made by himself on the ancient model, out of black wood two thousand years old, which he had taken from a temple. The instrument is played with the finger, like a guitar, but is laid flat on a table, not held in the hand. They assured us that the music he played was four thousand years old, but that I imagine muse be an overstatement. In any case, it was exquisitely beautiful, very delicate, easier for a European ear than more recent music (of which I have heard a good deal). When the music was over they became again a staff of bustling journalists. From Shanghai our Chinese friends took us for three nights to Hanchow on the Western Lane, said to be the most beautiful scenery in China. That was merely holiday. The Western Lake is not large – about the size of Grasmere – it is surrounded by wooded hills, on which there are innumerable pagodas and temples. It has been beautified by poets and emperors for thousands of years. (Apparently poets in ancient China were as rich as financiers in modern Europe.) We spent one day in the hills – a twelve hour expedition in Sedan chairs – and the next in seeing country houses, monasteries, etc. on islands in the lake. Chinese religion is curiously cheerful. When one arrives at a temple, they give one a cigarette and a cup of delicately fragrant tea. Then they show one round. Buddhism, which one thinks of as ascetic, is here quite gay. The saints have fat stomachs, and are depicted as people who thoroughly enjoy life. No one seems to believe the religion, not even the priests. Nevertheless, one sees many rich new temples. The country houses are equally hospitable – one is shewn round and given tea. They are just like Chinese pictures, with many arbours where one can sit, with everything made for beauty and nothing for comfort – except in the grandest rooms, where there will be a little hideous European furniture. The most delicious place we saw on the Western Lake was a retreat for scholars, built about eight hundred years ago on the lake. Scholars certainly had a pleasant life in the old China. Apart from the influence of Europeans, China makes the impression of what Europe would have become if the eighteenth century had gone on till now without industrialism or the French Revolution. People seem to be rational hedonists, knowing very well how to obtain happiness, exquisite through intense cultivation of their artistic sensibilities, differing from Europeans through the fact that they prefer enjoyment to power. People laugh a great deal in all classes, even the lowest. The Chinese cannot pronounce my name, or write it in their characters. They call me 'Luo-Su' which is the nearest they can manage. This, they can both pronounce and print. From Hanchow we went back to Shanghai, thence by rail to Nanking, an almost deserted city. The wall is twenty-three miles in circumference, but most of what it encloses is country. The city was destroyed at the end of the Taiping rebellion, and again injured in the Revolution of 1911, but it is an active educational centre, eager for news of Einstein and Bolshevism. From Nanking we went up the Yiangtse to Hangkow, about three days' journey, through very lovely scenery – thence by train to Cheng-Sha, the capital of Hun-Nan, where a great educational conference was taking place. There are about three hundred Europeans in Cheng-Sha, but Europeanisation has not gone at all far. The town is just like a mediaeval town – narrow streets, every house a shop with a gay sign hung out, no traffic possible except Sedan chairs and a few rickshaws. The Europeans have a few factories, a few banks, a few missions and a hospital – the whole gamut of damaging and repairing body and soul by western methods. The Governor of Hun-Nan is the most virtuous of all the Governors of Chinese provinces, and entertained us last night at a magnificent banquet. Professor and Mrs Dewey were present ; it was the first time I had met them. The Governor cannot talk any European language, so, though I sat next to him, I could only exchange compl8iments through an interpreter. But I got a good impression of him ; he is certainly very anxious to promote education, which seems the most crying need of China. Without it, it is hard to see how better government can be introduced. It must be said that bad government seems somewhat less disastrous in China than it would be in a European nation, but this is perhaps a superficial impression which time may correct. We are now on our way to Peking, which we hope to reach on October 31st. |
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| 2 | 1920.12.17 |
Letter from Bertrand Russell to Ottoline Morrell. 2 Sui an Po Hutung, 17 Dec. 1920. Dearest O. … We have settled down to a regular life here, very hard working, and most of the work very futile. A great deal of lecturing (by both of us) to students who are eager and enthusiastic, but ignorant and untrained and lazy, expecting knowledge to be pumped into them without effort on their part. A good deal of writing articles in Chinese and Japanese papers. Less social life than at first, but still too much. The Europeans here are mostly old-fashioned and boring, polite to us because they are afraid of what I may say to the Chinese (the Bolsheviks are in touch with them, not very far from Peking), but of course really hating us and furious at having to condone our flouting of conventions and decencies. It makes an odd situation. The Chinese are infinitely polite and flattering, but one always feels they have secrets, and that they say things to each other of which we get no hint. However, on the whole we live a quiet life. Our house is near the walls, which are immensely broad and go all round the City (14 miles) and are said to have been built under the Ming dynasty. We walk on the walls in the afternoons, and get a wonderful view of the whole town and the Western hills. The news from home in the papers is the worst part of the day… Last night for the first time we had visitors to dinner in our house. One of them a man named Johnston, who writes on Buddhism with praise and on Christianity with censure. He finds that the missionaries still preach that every heathen 'Chinee' must go to hell, and he writes amusing blasphemies on the subject – he is a belated Voltairian. In the middle of dinner, while we were listening to these blasphemies, there was an earthquake ! So we changed the subject. I never was in an earthquake before – it was slight, and at first we each thought we were taken suddenly ill – it felt like sea-sickness. Then we saw the lights swaying about and we realized what had happened… All love. Your B. |
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| 3 | 1921.05.11 |
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. |
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| 4 | 1922.01.31 |
Letter from Bertrand Russell to Ottoline Morrell. 31 Sydney Street, 31 Jan. 1922. Dearest O. … The other day Dora and I went to a Chinese feast given by the Chinese Students here. They made speeches full of delicate wit, in the style of 18th century France, with a mastery of English that quite amazed me. The Chinese Chargé d'Affaires said he had been asked to speak on Chinese Politics – he said the urgent questions were the General Election, economy and limitation of armaments – he spoke quite a long time, saying only things that might have been said in a political speech about England, and which yet were quite all right for China – when he sat down he had not committed himself to anything at all, but had suggested (without ever saying) that China's problems were worse than ours. The Chinese constantly remind me of Oscar Wilde in his first trial when he thought wit would pull one through anything, and found himself in the grip of a great machine that cared nothing for human values. I read of a Chinese General the other day, whose troops had ventured to resist a Japanese attack, so the Japanese insisted that he should apologize to their Consul. He replied that he had no uniform grand enough for such an august occasion, and therefore to his profound sorrow he must forego the pleasure of visiting a man for whom he had so high an esteem. When they nevertheless insisted, he called the same day on all the other Consuls, so that it appeared as if he were paying a mere visit of ceremony. Then all Japan raised a howl that he had insulted the Japanese nation. I would do anything in the world to help the Chinese, but it is difficult. They are like a nation of artists, with all their good and bad points. Imagine Gertler and [Augustus] John and Lytton set to govern the British Empire, and you will have some idea how China has been governed for 2000 years. Lytton is very like an old fashioned Chinaman, not at all like the modern westernized type. I must stop. All my love. Your B. |