Lord Bertrand Russell

Karsh, Yousuf, 1908-2002 · 1949

The great pessimist was in good form that lovely summer day of 1949 at Llan Ffestiniog, Wales. I asked what he considered the greatest evil of our time. After a moment's thought, he answered, "That's hard to tell. But the world has become far, far worse in my time. There's more evil than when I was young. Really, one of the greatest evils these days is the torturing of children to make them betray their parents, as is being done in a very large country and was definitely done in Germany during Hitler's régime.' ~ Madame Karsh, who accompanied me, thought the sitting had become too sombre in mood: so she asked blithely why there were no great women philosophers. Lord Russell's retort was decisive: 'Lack of personal ambition. Not the singleness of purpose among women to make them willing to give up everything else in the way of human relationship.' ~ These tart comments on human happiness had produced the sort of revealing I desired from my subject. I told him I intended to use his portrait in a companion book to Faces of Destiny which would include 'men of peace' - writers, composers, artists, scientists and philosophers. Lord Russell gave me a wry smile. 'I wish,' he said, 'I could believe that men of that ilk rule our destiny as much as the men of war and state, but I'm very much afraid that it's definitely not so.' We left him chuckling in his cosmic pessimism (Karsh, 1959).