Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies

Genius in retrospection by Margaret Moran A. O. J. Cockshut. The Art of Autobiography in 19th and 20th Century England. New Haven and London: Yale U.P., 1984. Pp. x, 222. C$27·4°. IN "ON HISTORY", Russell argued amusingly about the need for the study of documents in that discipline: "And a history written after the event can hardly make us realize that the actors were ignorant of the future; it is difficult to believe that the late Romans did not know that their empire was about to fall, or Charles I was unaware of so notorious a fact as his own execution."l When it came to the understanding of his own life, he anticipated comparable constraints. After his publisher , Stanley Unwin, proposed in 1930 that his next undertaking might be his autobiography, Russell demurred, though he soon embarked on the project: "I have a certain hesitation in starting my biography too soon for fear of something important having not yet happened . Suppose I should end my days as President of Mexico; the biography would seem incomplete if it did not mention this fact."2 Eventually, Russell solved the challenge of creating a sense of immediacy by including a large quantity of material that had been written to the moment. Extracts from his journals and representative selections from his private correspondence provide an indication. of the uncertainties and the fluctuations in the life as it was lived, without the softening effect that comes from a long passage of time. These letters and journals also help to compensate for the "emotional unreliability of memory", as Russell termed it.3 Gradually, he satisfied his desire to tell virtually his whole story by making minor revisions and vast additions to the draft he had written in 1931 and by delaying publication until the three volumes appeared year by year late in the 'sixties. While this prolonged process of composition had undeniable advantages , it led to unavoidable variations in style and approach. The document produced in 1931, "My First Fifty Years", formed the basis I Philosophical Essays, new ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966), p. 61. 2 Quoted by Ronald W. Clark in The Life ofBertrand Russell (London: Jonathan Cape and Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975), p. 451. J The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 vols. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967-69), II: 97. 85 86 Russell summer 1985 of Volume 1 and a substantial part of Volume II. And it set a standard of excellence that could not be maintained in some later portions composed in extreme old age. Notwithstanding the decline in quality of Volume III, Russell's Autobiography figures as the prize exhibit, "one of the finest and most satisfying of this century" (p. 135), in A. O. J. Cockshut's The Art of Autobiography. Since Russell's work is one among fifty discussed or mentioned by Cockshut, detailed study could not be given exclusively to it. Cockshut requires a large sample to further his argument that autobiographies must be accepted as rich and diversified, like the lives they record. Respecting the uniqueness of each self-portrait, Cockshut insists on the resistance of this genre to the formulation of theories which other literary forms might more readily allow. He begins by imposing some limits on the subject through a consideration of authors whom he judges to have lacked a sufficiently powerful sense of their own development to qualify as authentic autobiographers. Then, the longest section of the book treats the importance of childhood for writers ranging from Edwin Muir to Augustus Hare and from John Ruskin to Stephen Spender. Russell finds himself accompanied by Beatrice Webb and H. G. Wells in a chapter titled "Defined by the World". There follows "The Quest", a section devoted to writers, like DeQuincey and John Cowper Powys, who were idiosyncratic enough to imagine their inner search impervious to external measurement. Cockshut's own religious convictions come clearly into focus in the penultimate chapter. Called "Conversion", it analyzes Newman, Ronald Knox, Dom Bede Griffiths and others. But since the concern with autobiography rather than theology always predominates, Cockshut's Catholicism presents no impediments to his carefully judged appreciation of the writings of a person as heretical as Bertrand...