{"id":85845,"date":"2015-05-18T18:39:45","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T22:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=85845"},"modified":"2015-05-19T11:32:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-19T15:32:12","slug":"a-perfect-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/18\/a-perfect-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"A Perfect Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_85846\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/honourable_bertrand_russell.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-85846\" class=\"wp-image-85846\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/honourable_bertrand_russell.jpg\" alt=\"Honourable_Bertrand_Russell\" width=\"600\" height=\"454\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/honourable_bertrand_russell.jpg 1006w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/honourable_bertrand_russell-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-85846\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bertrand Russell in 1916.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>A letter from D. H. Lawrence to Bertrand Russell, February 1916. When the two men had met the previous year, they became fast friends, and had even planned to give a lecture series together\u2014but their friendship quickly soured.<\/em> <em>\u201cGradually I discovered that he had no real wish to make the world better, but only to indulge in eloquent soliloquy about how bad it was,\u201d Russell later wrote of Lawrence. \u201cIf anybody overheard the soliloquies so much the better, but they were designed at most to produce a little faithful band of disciples who could sit in the deserts of New Mexico and feel holy. All this was conveyed to me in the language of a fascist dictator.\u201d <br \/><\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">PORTHCOTHAN, ST MERRYN, CORNWALL<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Saturday [February 19, 1916]<\/p>\n<p>My dear Russell,<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t like your letter. What\u2019s the good of living as you do, anyway. I don\u2019t believe your lectures are good. They are nearly over, aren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the good of sticking in the damned ship and haranguing the merchant-pilgrims in their own language. Why don\u2019t you drop overboard? Why don\u2019t you clear out of the whole show?<\/p>\n<p>One must be an outlaw these days, not a teacher or preacher. One must retire out of the herd &amp; then fire bombs into it. You said in your lecture on education that you didn\u2019t set much count by the unconscious. That is sheer perversity. The whole of the consciousness and the conscious content is old hat\u2014the millstone round your neck.<\/p>\n<p>Do cut it\u2014cut your will and leave your old self behind. Even your mathematics are only dead truth: and no matter how fine you grind the dead meat, you\u2019ll not bring it to life again.<\/p>\n<p>Do stop working &amp; writing altogether and become a creature instead of a mechanical instrument. Do clear out of the whole social ship. Do for your very pride\u2019s sake become a mere nothing, a mole, a creature that feels its way &amp; doesn\u2019t think. Do for heavens sake be a baby, &amp; not a savant any more. Don\u2019t do anything any more\u2014but for heavens sake begin to be\u2014start at the very beginning and be a perfect baby: in the name of courage.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and I want to ask you, when you make your will, do leave me enough to live on. I want you to live forever. But I want you to make me in some part your heir.<\/p>\n<p>We have got to clear out of this house in a week\u2019s time. We are looking for another house. You had better come &amp; live near us : but not if you are going to be a thinker and a worker, only if you are going to be a creature, an infant \u2026<\/p>\n<p>My love to you. Stop working and being an ego, &amp; have the courage to be a creature.<\/p>\n<p>Yours,<br \/>D. H. Lawrence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A letter from D. H. Lawrence to Bertrand Russell, February 1916. When the two men had met the previous year, they became fast friends, and had even planned to give a lecture series together\u2014but their friendship quickly soured. \u201cGradually I discovered that he had no real wish to make the world better, but only to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1900],"tags":[4863,1760,18158,182,504,18157,7403,1457],"class_list":["post-85845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-correspondence","tag-bertrand-russell","tag-d-h-lawrence","tag-hostility","tag-letters","tag-literature","tag-pacifism","tag-philosophy","tag-teaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>D.H. 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