• Grandmother
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when Bertie was 2 1 and fast making a name for himself at Cambridge as an intellectual, that he and Alys began to entertain serious thoughts toward each other. B.R., as he was also called, had had a most disagreeable and constricting early life. His parents died when he was little more than an infant. Reared by his grandmother and a maiden aunt, he had been educated at home in Pembroke Lodge, a house on the edge of Richmond Park that Queen Victoria had deeded for life to Lord John and his wife.
Lady Russell was a notable character—often referred to when her husband was prime minister as "the Deadly
Nightshade" because of the malignant influence she supposedly wielded over her husband. Pembroke Lodge was a terrible environment for a sensitive and highly intelligent little boy, who grew up lonely and solitary, isolated from other children. The old Lady Russell and her unmarried daughter, Agatha, subjected little Bertie to an unnatural, stilted Victorian piety.
Alys found Bertie congenial when they started courting in 1893. She was nearly as priggish as he. They discussed philosophical subjects for hours and began to write each other when they were apart. The courtship flourished as 1893 gave way to 1894. In February, Alys admitted that she loved him. Although they had conducted their relationship very circumspectly, almost secretly, Bertie's grandmother found out in March 1894. She hit the ceiling.
Bertie was summoned to Pembroke Lodge. He found his aunt and his grandmother waiting for him in the stiff, starched parlor with grim, set faces.
"Bertie, what is this I hear about you and that low-class American adventuress?" The crisp, cultured voice of his grandmother was icy.
"Grandmother, you met the Pearsall Smiths years ago at Friday's Hill. I was under the impression that you liked them," the young man said meekly.
"I was doing my duty and being civil to my neighbors.
Good manners demanded that I welcome them to Fern-
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hurst," replied Lady Russell sternly.
"I seem to remember your saying that you found them to be quite refined and genteel for Americans." Bertie struggled to hold his composure.
"I did find them pleasant, superficial acquaintances but this is different. This young woman is obviously taking advantage of your youth and inexperience to get herself a titled husband. Americans will do this sort of thing, you know," she said grimly.
"If you knew her better, Grandmother, you wouldn't say such a thing!" Bertie burst out. "She is as pure and guileless as any girl I ever met."
"What do you know of the world, my dear boy? She is years older than you, and you know little of the ways of experienced women of the world. Alys Pearsall Smith is nothing but an unscrupulous baby snatcher!"
Bertie gazed at his indignant grandmother and his silent but equally disapproving aunt in horror. "I simply will not let you talk this way about a sweet, earnest, sincere, truthful person like Alys," he managed to blurt out.
"Consider this, Bertie," his grandmother snapped. "You would not dare to bring her into our social circle. Her vulgarity would perpetually put us to shame!" 3
Bertie had taken all that he could endure. He could not stand another moment of this abuse of the lovely Alys. Yet he had been a dutiful and cowed child in that dreary household too long to act as rude as he was feeling. "I am a man now," he said firmly. "I must pursue my own course in life."
With that he rose from his chair, walked over to the two elderly women, gently brushed their papery-thin cheeks with his lips, and left the room.
Lady Russell continued to try to sabotage the relationship, especially after Bertie and Alys became engaged in April 1894. When she discovered that overt opposition was not working, she resorted to more subtle methods. There was, she said, insanity on both sides of the family. Bertie's father had been an epileptic, Aunt Agatha's engagement to
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a young curate, many years before, had been terminated because of her insane delusions. Bertie had an uncle in a mental hospital.
All of this was a terrible shock to the young Russell, who had never heard all these facts before. Then the old lady slyly pointed to the mental cases among the Pearsall
Smiths, not exactly news to Alys, who had grown up listening repeatedly to Robert's morbid litany of all his mentally disturbed relatives.
Lady Russell also mentioned somewhat venomously the rumors circulating to the effect that Mary was insane.
"Surely no woman in her right mind would run off from her husband and abandon her children." These attacks from Bertie's grandmother prompted another pleading letter from Hannah to Mary: Lady Russell is saying that Father is insane and that thee inherits it, which is the reason thee has forsaken thy husband and children.
. The fact is, to have the taint of insanity fastened on a family is a far worse misfortune than almost anything else in the world. It would blight poor little Ray and Karin as they grow older, and it bids fair now to put an end to Alyss happy prospects*
Hannah then went on to try to persuade Mary to take an apartment in Paris, away from Bernhard Berenson feeling that if Mary did this, Frank Costelloe might then be persuaded to let her have the children. We could then point to this fact and say, "You see, she cannot be insane or Mr.
Costelloe would not let her have the children," she wrote. It will be a very serious thing for thyself, not to mention thy children or Alys, if this taint of insanity gets fastened on them. 5
Mary was apparently unmoved by the desperate pleas of her mother. She had no intention of leaving Berenson:
Anonymous reports of her insanity circulating around England did not appear to trouble her very much.
Meanwhile, Lady Russell was milking the insanity possibility to the utmost. After Bertie had graduated with highest honors from Cambridge in the summer of 1894, she
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hustled the young couple off to a number of eminent medical specialists, hoping that professional opinions would scare them into canceling their engagement. The old lady made their lives so miserable that Bertie and Alys decided to marry anyway, but made a vow not to have any children.
The wedding was set for just before Christmas 1894, but Lady Russell never stopped trying to thwart their plans.
She complained that worry over her precious grandson had brought upon her a "disease like cancer," and through her doctors she got Bertie and Alys to agree to a three-month separation. Young Russell left England for Paris in September, with the understanding that he and Alys would marry immediately on his return.
Meanwhile, Alys and her mother visited Pembroke Lodge to discuss wedding arrangements. Lady Russell, who was still not reconciled to what she regarded as a deplorably unsuitable match, was inexcusably rude to Hannah.6
Nevertheless, the Honorable Bertrand Russell and Alys Pearsall Smith were married at the Quaker Meeting in Westminster in London on December 13, 1894. Lady Russell and Lady Agatha did not attend.
In February 1895, Hannah wrote a poignant letter to her newly wed daughter, eloquently urging Alys to hold on to her faith. In this letter she quoted from an old family friend who, when she heard of Alys's marriage, had said, / trust and assume she has married a Christian man who loves the Master s work. How else could they walk together? 1
In her letter to Alys, Hannah reminded her: From thy babyhood thee has always seemed to have an instinctive perception of spiritual things.
. Thee was evidently a born Christian philosopher, able as a baby to take the philosophical view of things and of life. Tell Bertie he must not upset this spiritual foundation of thy character by any of his speculations. And thee must guard it, precious daughter, as one of thy most sacred possessions. 8
How unfortunate for Hannah. Trying to keep her chil-
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dren from straying from their beliefs was like trying to stop an avalanche with two bare hands. Unbelief dominated the intellectual, literary, and artistic circles with whom Mary,
Logan, and Alys traveled. Logan claimed to have lost his faith as a boy of 1 1 , sitting in a cherry tree. Mary claimed that her unpleasant experience with Frank's Catholicism was cause enough for her to bail out of Christianity altogether. Alys married a brilliant and articulate atheist—and her faith did not last more than a month after their marriage.
Prominent leaders and writers rejected Christianity in large numbers during the period from 1890 to 1940. The wife of C.S. Lewis, who was born during this time, said that she had grown up in a generation that "sucked in atheism with its canned milk." None of those who disdained the Christian faith, least of all the supremely gifted Bertrand
Russell, realized that Christianity was the glue by which Western civilization was held together.
It was one of the strangest ironies, that Bertrand Russell, one of the most outspoken and persuasive atheists of the twentieth century—author of the atheist's bible, Why I Am Not a Christian, the man who said that he would not believe in God unless he heard voices from the heavens would be the son-in-law of Hannah Whitall Smith, one of the most persuasive advocates for Christianity during this period.
Perhaps it was inevitable that Bertrand Russell came to despise his mother-in-law almost as much as he did her
Master.
Grandmother Having seen Hannah through numerous periods of blackness, it may be hard to believe—but the decade of the 1890s was by far the worst period of her life. Robert's blatantly immoral behavior angered her. Lady Russell's opposition to the marriage of Bertie and Alys chafed her.
Mary's stubborn refusal to return to her children grieved her.
Nevertheless her indomitable, adventurous spirit managed to survive.
Things loosened up considerably in the Costelloe household by 1894. Emma had left and her place had been taken by Miss Claire. Miss Claire was not Hannah's favorite person in the whole world, but the two women managed to get along. Thus Hannah was able to spend more time with Ray and Karin.
Hannah brought joy and adventure into their lives to such an extent that after she died, Ray wrote a little book called A Quaker Grandmother. This little volume is full of the unselfish, loving side of Hannah, especially in her behavior toward the children.
In the mid1890s, Hannah's niece, Grace Thomas Worthington, fled to England from an unhappy marriage,
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bringing her three children. The fatherless family settled near the Smiths. Fortunately, Grace's children were close to Ray and Karin in age. The five children became close friends.
One day they all had set their hearts on having a real live elephant for a pet. The indulgent Grandma Smith was called upon to produce the elephant. Hannah actually drove her carriage to Whiteleys retailers (who advertised they would provide anything on earth) to ask them to hire an elephant for her little dears. When she discovered that the huge animal had to be fed a ton of hay each day, Grandma decided to buy toy elephants instead. This was one of the few times Ray could remember her grandmother disappointing their expectations.
Sometime in 1894, when the family had gone to Friday's Hill for the summer, Ray and Karin, now seven and five, persuaded 62-year-old Hannah to climb a haystack. The hay in the meadows of Friday's Hill had been put in huge stacks, as was the English custom. One of the stacks was put under a heavy tent cloth until there was time to thatch it with straw. The children climbed the ladder against the side of the haystack, using it as sort of an aerial playhouse.
The tent cloth was stretched high enough above the top of the hay so that there was a kind of secret hidey-hole in between. Nothing would do but for Grandmother to climb the ladder and experience the joys of haystack living. So poor Hannah hoisted her stout, complaining, arthritic old body up the ladder to the hidey-hole and sprawled on the hay.
Several years later, Ray and Karin talked their grandmother into taking them to the Earl's Court Exhibition in London. At the exhibit was a water slide that the little girls found delightful sport. Of course Grandmother must be persuaded to try it too. So there was the 66-year-old Hannah with her stately black gown and her little lace cap zooming down the water chute with eleven-year-old Ray and nine-year-old Karin. Hannah's "inside self" usually got
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the better of her creaky old joints, for she was unable, as she had been so many times before in her life, to resist trying a new experience.
The British, not having any Fourth of July to celebrate, had to resort to setting off fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day.
Year after year, Grandmother Smith could be seen on her balcony on Grosvenor Road "resolutely setting off rockets and Roman candles, her serene Quaker face shining incongruously in their lurid light. The five children danced like five savages around her. The young ones loved the smell of gunpowder that made her drawing room almost uninhabitable for days and believed that Grandmother really loved the smell too."
In the 1890s, Hannah was still very much the crusader.
She wrote one friend: This May I found myself booked day after day for one meeting after another. And now, June threatens to be almost as bad: From the 14th to the 24th we are to have one continuous string ofmeetings every day and all night long in connection with the world's W.C.T.U. I wonder how many of our tombstones will have the epitaph, "Died of Too
Many Meetings"? 2
Though Hannah could be patient and forbearing toward disagreeable people, she had a very short fuse whenever she encountered injustice of any kind. Once she was driving in a carriage along a crowded London street. At this time she was a stout, middle-aged lady, dressed in black, with her white lace cap on her head. Suddenly she saw on the sidewalk a young bully abusing a smaller child.
Without waiting for the carriage to stop, she jumped out with umbrella in hand and began to rain blows on the bully, subjecting him to a fierce tongue-lashing at the same time.
The bully fled.
Another incident occurred at Friday's Hill. The Smiths were popular with their neighbors and frequently had visitors. On this particular occasion, some visiting neighbors brought a young man to tea.
It was a decorous gathering. The ladies and gentlemen
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were distributed around the large parlor. The ladies wore wide-brimmed hats, most of them trimmed with flowers.
They had on gloves and carried parasols. A maid was circulating with trays of watercress and cucumber sandwiches and scones. Mary was presiding over the teapot, pouring from a graceful silver urn into fragile china cups.
There was a murmur of polite conversation throughout the room as several clusters of guests and family members gathered into different groups to share genteel gossip about the weather, the crops, or the latest action of parliament.
Hannah was seated at the edge of a group of young people and was trying to listen to a querulous old lady on her right, who was boring her hostess with a seemingly endless catalog of her aches and pains. The visiting young man, who had been brought there by her neighbors, had his back to Hannah. During a lull in the conversation, she heard his somewhat strident voice bragging to Alys.
"When I was over in Africa," he said in the casual, clipped accent of what the British call a "public school" voice—meaning that he had probably attended Eton or Harrow—"I had a jolly good time."
"Tell me about it," said Alys politely. Alys was always kind, even to bores.
"One day," he continued, "I was stuck sitting on a riverbank near the coast, waiting for the guides to repair our canoes. It was terribly hot and muggy, don't you know, and I was bored. Fortunately I had my trusty little pistol with me. I began taking potshots at the niggers on the opposite shore of the river. Terribly entertaining, don't you know, seeing their frightened leaps and jumps as they faded into the jungle. I never laughed so hard! " And he chortled loudly.
He could not see Hannah's face as he related this tale.
She had turned quite pink. Dressed in her usual stately black gown, she rose majestically and limped over to stand face-to-face with the young man.
"You dare to call yourself a civilized Englishman," she began, her eyes shooting out sparks. "How can you sit here
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and brag so casually about shooting at human beings just like yourself who were simply minding their own business?"
She barely paused for breath. "Talk about the 'white man's burden,' " she sputtered, using a familiar imperialistic slogan of the day, "those so-called ignorant savages can hardly be as ignorant and savage as you, young man!"
The face of the Englishman was crimson now, and the room was so quiet everyone could hear Hannah's heavy breathing. The angry warrior was not finished.
"I can hardly imagine more disgraceful behavior from someone who regards himself as a member of the British upper class
And what makes you"—and she pointed an accusing finger at the squirming victim—"think that in the sight of God, you are any better than those unfortunate natives whose lives you hold in such little esteem? To God, they are every bit as precious as human beings as the most privileged peer in England.
"Young man," she finished with a fine flourish, "you are cowardly, unsportsmanlike, and certainly no gentleman. I request that you leave my home at once."
The fatuous young man, demolished by one of Hannah's famous steamroller tirades, fled. In total disgrace, he hid out in his cottage for the remainder of his visit, not daring to show his face again. 3