ABSTRACT
On returning to England, Russell went directly to Cambridge from where he had obtained leave of absence for the Easter term. He was happy to be back in England, and wrote to Lucy Donnelly on 25 June 1914:
‘… Ten days now I have been back in this country—very happy in the complexities and diversifications of old Europe. In America one gets so few surprises—it is all as one expects. I am reminded of Dora Sanger’s uncle, who going to Palestine, arranged a cabling code with his family in which one word meant “the flora and fauna of the Holy Land have surpassed even my expectations.” So I might have arranged to cable that the skyscrapers surpassed my expectations or that Niagara fell below them. I saw Niagara in company with a German doctor who knew no English. I asked him if he had seen the Rockefeller Institute and he replied: “Ach nein, das haben wir ja alles viel besser in Frankfurt.” Insufferable race.
‘England is as usual in a political turmoil; no one knows what the outcome will be. As for the suffragettes, no issue is possible except to give them the vote. They are ready to die, but the government dare not let them die. …’
