,14=/,15=#,23=%,24==> 6Norway 1913{-14 L~E~T~T~E~R~S to Russell suggest that July and most of August were spent on the Hochreith_a usual pattern. The weather was "constantly rotten' (LW to BR 22.7.13). The weather here is most abominable, it rains all day like mad. Just now a crash of thunder came down and I said "Hell!', which shews that English swear-words are well in my bones. (LW to BR summer 1913) The undergraduate slang and the mild swear-words are a characteristic sign of good spirits. His work was going exceptionally well. In the same letters he says that he felt nearer than he had ever felt before to the solution of all his problems. Delayed by flu he arrived in England in late August for a holiday with Pinsent. Pinsent indeed, less favoured than Russell, had been waiting with some anxiety for a letter. A trip to Spain had been planned, but now Wittgenstein suggested other possibilities. He was very anxious to shew no preference for any particular scheme and that I should choose unbiased: but it was obvious that his choice was Norway, so I eventually settled on that. I am not sure I shouldn't have preferred the Azores_the voyage would have been very pleasant_but the voyage was precisely what Witt: disliked, as he was sure that we should meet crowds of American tourists, which he can't stand!... Why Wittgenstein should have suddenly changed his mind at the last moment I can't think! (Diary 25.8.13) The plan was to go to Bergen and to make short walking tours etc. from there. Before they left, Wittgenstein had business in England: a visit to Cambridge_we hear of tea with Moore and_much more important_a visit to the Whiteheads at Marlborough and a meeting with Russell in London. Pinsent was the first to hear of Wittgenstein's "truly amazing' discoveries in logic. They have solved all the problems on which he has been working unsatisfactorily for the last year. He always has explained to me what he has been working at, and it is exceedingly interesting to see how he has gradually developed his work, each idea suggesting a new suggesion, and 180 Wittgenstein: A Life finally leading to the system he has just discovered_which is wonderfully simple and ingenious and seems to clear up everything. (Diary 25.8.13) Russell too was impressed_"extraordinarily good work' (BR to OM 29.8.13)_and (so Wittgenstein told Pinsent) Whitehead too: It is probable that the first volume of Principia will have to be re-written, and Wittgenstein may write himself the first eleven chapters. That is a splendid triumph for him! (Diary, August 1913) We shall make a guess how far he had got with his discoveries when we come to review his work during this year. Far enough at all events to make him feel that he could announce them to Russell and Whitehead. Probably it was chiefly Whitehead's blessing that he needed: Russell already recognized that the fundamentals of Logic were "Wittgenstein's job' and was now enormously relieved at his progress: You can hardly believe what a load this lifts off my spirits_it makes me feel almost young and gay. The oppression before was intolerable and affected my relation to you very much. (BR to OM 29.8.13) On Wittgenstein's side it is probable that the preference for Norway which Pinsent detected was really for solitude and the opportunity to continue working. It turned out to be more like a reading-party than a holiday. They were well enough provided with money though not as lavishly as in the previous year: Wittgenstein brought #70 for the two of them and also carried a Letter of Credit. They travelled comfortably_ single rooms at Grand Hotels, Second Class only when there was no First Class. As before, Wittgenstein tended to avoid fellow-passengers, while Pinsent was more solicitous about their feelings. It was on this trip that the incident of the intrusive smoker (see above pp. 121{-2) occurred. Arrived in Bergen they looked for a small place on a fjord where we can be quite alone from Tourists (upon this Ludwig is very firm). We want to settle down in such a place for say 3 weeks_and do some work (I at Law and Ludwig at Logic)_and get some walking and sailing on the Fjord also if possible. (Diary 3.9.13)1 1.Pinsent appears in the list of Wranglers for 1913. Two years earlier he had obtained a First Class in Part I of the Mathematical Tripos also. According to the first Lord Adrian (his future brother-in-law) he would have liked to put in for a Fellowship at Trinity, but was dissuaded by Barnes (the future heterodox Bishop of Birmingham). So after Part II he began to read for the Bar, as we here see. An uncle (later Lord Parker of Waddington) was already a chancery judge. 181 6Norway 1913{-14 They found such a place at O$3stenso$3, as it was then usually called (Wittgenstein at first and Pinsent always referred to it as O$3istensjo$3: today the spelling is O$3ystese). A tiny village in a little bay of the Fjord (Hardangerfjord) with hills rising straight behind. It seems the ideal place we want. They took two bedrooms and a sitting-room and spent three weeks there, almost exclusively in one another's company while the hotel gradually emptied. First there was their work: Pinsent would read Roman Law or whatever it happened to be: Wittgenstein would "mutter to himself in a mixture of German and English and stride up and down the room all the while' (Diary 3.9.13). This was work for Wittgenstein_the effort of concentration on problems that he saw plastically before him. Books by others, or even his own notes, were not necessary for him. His notebooks were the distillate of long periods of concentration_and anything prepared for publication was yet further distilled. Thus he could work perfectly well while sailing with Pinsent_as, later, he speaks of working while peeling potatoes. For recreation they sailed or went clambering on the rocks_ Wittgenstein was rather clumsy at both. In the evening they would play dominoes: We always begin by playing proper dominoes, and end up by building wonderful systems with the domino-pieces_with ingenious arrangements for knocking them down_also constructed out of domino-pieces! (Diary 7.9.13) On one occasion Wittgenstein went to Bergen to make some necessary purchases and brought back also a couple of volumes of Schubert songs, which they performed in their usual way. There were one or two scenes at first_we have mentioned the intrusive smoker; one in particular when they arrived at O$3stenso$3: Later we went out for a stroll. I took my camera with me which was the cause of another scene with Ludwig. We were getting on perfectly amicably_when I left him for a moment to take a photo: And when I overtook him again he was silent and sulky. I walked on with him in silence for half an hour, and then asked him what was the matter. It seemed, my keenness to take that photo: had disgusted him_"like a man who can think of nothing_when walking_but how the country would do for a golf course'. (Diary 4.9.13) 182 Wittgenstein: A Life A wounding remark_though not every non-photographer will think it as neurotic as Pinsent did. Actually the rift was quickly repaired: Wittgenstein was penitent and disgusted with himself, while Pinsent regarded such incidents as fits of madness that Wittgenstein was incapable of avoiding. But their relationship seemed now to be solidly based: He says that at times last year [on their Icelandic holiday] he was even uncertain whether to like or dislike me_but that since then we have got to know each other much better and he is never uncertain now. (Diary 2.9.13) And in fact there was even less friction than Pinsent feared. The dominoes alone show that with Pinsent Wittgenstein could be in that vein of simple and childlike gaiety which we find him in with his sister Helene and with some later friends, but not (or not clearly) with Cambridge friends from this early period. This year, as opposed to the previous one, there was no planning to spend some of the time apart. It was a nuisance, Pinsent thought, when Wittgenstein had to make his separate journey to Bergen. It is significant too that about this time (as the diary entry for 4 September shows) they began to use each other's Christian names_we shall follow their practice when speaking just of the two of them.2 Ludwig managed for most of the time to be quite cheerful, David thought: and on his side "Pinsent is an enormous comfort to me here,' Wittgenstein wrote to Russell. One thought haunted him, however, and comes in the same letter: I very often now have the indescribable feeling as though my work was all sure to be lost entirely in some way or other. But I still hope this won't come true. Whatever happens don't forget me! (LW to BR 5.9.13) Curiously enough, he did nearly lose his portmanteau with all his notebooks on the voyage out, part of a general absent-mindedness_he misplaced a travelling rug on the way back and a letter to Russell on the next journey out. Anxiety about his work was a recurrent shadow on his talks with David: he would explain his progress with the theory of types ("the beastly theory of types' (letter of 5.9.13)) but could be gloomy and unapproachable when there were serious difficulties. It was in these days (17 and 19 September) that he told David of his fear that death would 2.For comparison: Russell and Moore and Wittgenstein remained such to one another all their lives. (Moore is perhaps a special case: no one called him George, his family called him Bill, his wife Moore.) After 1925 "My dear Keynes' was always addressed by and always replied to "Ludwig'. 183 6Norway 1913{-14 take him with his work unfinished or with no valuable work accomplished _we have quoted the passages above (p. 158). David would try to convince him that his work could not be entirely useless and had some success in calming him. Ludwig was in a mixture of moods. On one expedition We had a long conversation about this holiday and holidays in general. Ludwig says he has never before enjoyed a holiday as much as this. He is almost certainly speaking the truth_but it is curious considering how depressed he has been at times lately: but I suppose these fits of depression are always with him and nothing exceptional. He has certainly been very cheerful indeed when he has not been depressed. (Diary 23.9.13) Suspended between elation at his results and doubts about their completeness or presentiments about their future, Ludwig hit on two plans. The first he put to Russell: Types are not yet solved but I have had all sorts of ideas which seem to me very fundamental. Now the feeling that I shall have to die before being able to publish them is growing stronger in me every day and my greatest wish would therefore be to communicate everything that I have done so far to you as soon as possible. Don't think that I believe that my ideas are very important but I cannot help feeling that they might help people to avoid some errors. Or am I mistaken? If so don't take any notice of this letter. I have of course no judgement at all as to whether my ideas are worth preserving after my death or not. And perhaps it is ridiculous of me even to consider this question at all. But if this is ridiculous please try to excuse this foolishness of mine because it is not a superficial foolishness but the deepest of which I am capable. I see that the further I get on with this letter the less I dare come to my point. But my point is this: I want to ask you to let me meet you as soon as possible and give me time enough to give you a survey of the whole field of what I have done up to now and if possible to let me make notes for you in your presence. (LW to BR 20.9.13) He goes on to make suggestions for a meeting in early October. As for the plan_to stimulate himself to write by the presence of a colleague_ we shall come across something like it later in the dictation of the Blue Book and the Brown Book, the method of composition of the latter being strikingly similar to that planned in 1913. The idea that Russell should be given something for publication after Wittgenstein's death had already been canvassed (see our quotation from Pinsent on p. 158). We shall see shortly how the meeting went. It was preceded by Wittgenstein's telling Russell and Moore of a plan first mentioned to Pinsent: 184 Wittgenstein: A Life Ludwig was very cheerful this morning, but suddenly announced a scheme of the most alarming nature. To wit: that he should exile himself and live for some years right away from everybody he knows_say in Norway. That he should live entirely alone and by himself_a hermit's life_and do nothing but work in Logic. His reasons for this are very queer to me_but no doubt they are very real for him: firstly he thinks he will do infinitely more and better work in such circumstances, than at Cambridge, where, he says, his constant liability to interruption and distractions (such as concerts) is an awful hindrance. Secondly he feels that he has no right to live in an antipathetic world (and of course to him very few people are sympathetic)_a world where he perpetually finds himself feeling con- tempt for others, and irritating others by his nervous temperament_ without some justification for that contempt etc: such as being a really great man and having done really great work... He has not definitely made up his mind_but there is great probability of his adopting the scheme eventually. (Diary 24.9.13) Some sign of hesitation is to be seen in the fact that on the next day he worked with David on a paper which was to form the introductory lecture of the course to be given at the Working Men's College (see p. 170 above). Perhaps the arrangements for, or as it turned out the cancellation of, this course was part of the business he had to deal with in London in early October. He arrived in Cambridge on 2 October and at once told both Moore and Russell of his firm intention to leave Cambridge and retire to Norway. In an anecdotal letter (not to Lady Ottoline) Russell described what followed: Then my Austrian, Wittgenstein, burst in like a whirlwind, just back from Norway, and determined to return there at once to live in complete solitude until he has solved all the problems of logic. I said it would be dark, and he said he hated daylight. I said it would be lonely, and he said he prostituted his mind talking to intelligent people. I said he was mad, and he said God preserve him from sanity. (God certainly will.) Now Wittgenstein, during August and September, had done work on logic, still rather in the rough, but as good, in my opinion, as any work that ever had been done in logic by anyone. But his artistic conscience prevents him from writing anything until he has got it perfect, and I am persuaded he will commit suicide in February. What was I to do? He told me his ideas, but they were so subtle that I kept on forgetting them. I begged him to write them out, and he tried, but after much groaning said it was absolutely impossible. At last I made him talk in the presence of a short-hand writer, and so secured some record of his ideas. This business 185 6Norway 1913{-14 took up the whole of my time and thought for about a week. (BR to Lucy Mary Donnelly, 19.10.13)3 Russell liked nothing better than a good story_or, at any rate, than telling a good story. In his Autobiography he gives an even more syncopated version: At the beginning of 1914 he came to me in a state of great agitation and said: "I am leaving Cambridge, I am leaving Cambridge at once.' "Why?' I asked. "Because my brother-in-law has come to live in London, and I can't bear to be so near him.' So he spent the rest of the winter in the far north of Norway.4 Moore's diary, Russell's letters to Lady Ottoline, and Wittgenstein's to Russell all are not only silent about, but seem to preclude, a visit to Cambridge at the turn of the year. So Russell, looking back over seventeen years, has probably misplaced the October conversation. The selection from it of a colourful detail not mentioned to Lucy Mary Donnelly is a trick of memory or of style. As a fact, Gretl and her husband Jerome Stonborough did move to Besselsleigh, a large country house near Oxford, about this time and Wittgenstein did deeply disapprove of his brother-in-law. The idealistic young beauty had married an American, rich (though not richer than she), cultivated, an amateur scientist (he provided his own laboratory); like her father in his preference for a grand style of life and his ability to impose himself on any gathering and to alter its tone by the force of his personality. Later, certainly, her family resented his dominance and she suffered from the moroseness of his temperament. Eventually they lived almost always apart. Fleeing all contacts, Wittgenstein may have mentioned this one in particular. The need to work undistracted is a sufficiently rational motive and in the event Wittgenstein did achieve much during this stay in Norway, but the other arguments mentioned, even to Pinsent, seem more like pretexts covering a retreat from his friends. We are reminded of his father's running away from home; and we note a pattern in Wittgenstein's own life_away from home to Linz (as far west as possible); away from Berlin ("Enough!' Nichts mehr davon!) apparently when too great emotional demands were made; he was to quit his family later for reasons within 3.Mr Kenneth Blackwell kindly provided me with a copy of this letter: he comments on it in Russell, 197. The whole series of events is discussed, on the basis of somewhat inadequate information in my "Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein's {"Notes on Logic{'' in Revue Internationale de Philosophie 102 (1972). 4.This section of the autobiography seems to have been written about 1931. There is some reference (see p.96) to revisions in 1949, but throughout the text of the autobiography there is no reference to any event involving Wittgenstein later than the publication of Julian Bell's skit, in 1930. 186 Wittgenstein: A Life himself, going into lodgings, or into a gardening job, or an obscure village; there was to be another migration to Norway; he was to leave a wartime job in Newcastle not in order to return to Cambridge but to live in comparative isolation in Swansea; then towards the end of his life he resigned his chair and sought more and more remote parts of Ireland. Sometimes these retreats were productive_essentially we owe what is now called Philosophical Investigations to those of 1936 (to Norway) and 1944 (to Swansea)_but not always. No doubt many different factors influenced these distinct occasions, but it seems likely that on each of them the need to be relieved of the pressure of human relationships played an important part. Surely it was so in 1913{-14. During that year in Norway he quarrelled with two of his best friends and it is probable that he deliberately made no provision for David to visit him in the course of the year. These retreats had the same complex motivation as the neat parcelling of his life between various friends and activities, the beginnings of which we have already observed. To be sure, too much intimacy was a hindrance to work; but perhaps it was also important that work could serve as a hindrance to too much intimacy. Wittgenstein arrived in England on 1 and left on 11 October. Into this time he fitted five or six long conversations with Russell and two or three with Moore. Russell as usual was divided between exasperation and admiration: He is more intellectually intimate to me than anyone I have ever met, and yet I shall be thankful to see him go. (BR to OM 8.10.13) Wittgenstein's plan of going to Norway did not on reflection seem too bad, Russell thought. He would come back when he had written something and finish his residence for his degree, and thus qualify to be Russell's successor. Meanwhile Russell attempted to secure a record of what Wittgenstein had already achieved. There were apparently at least two sessions with stenographers_one in Birmingham5 with a German stenographer, another in Cambridge with a secretary of P.E.B. Jourdain's. Russell himself tried to write down some of Wittgenstein's remarks; and of the four manuscript translations in the Bertrand Russell Archive it is likely that some are translations of words dictated to Russell and some translations of manuscripts actually written by Wittgenstein, though it is impossible to tell which. At all events, we have from these eight days seven pages of typescript and 23 pages of manuscript (Russell's translation of Wittgenstein's German), constituting Logic or Notes on Logic, Wittgenstein's first philosophic work. As will appear 5.Russell's letter to Lady Ottoline of 9 October mentions that Wittgenstein was spending that day dictating in German in Birmingham. This confirms Russell's recollections of 1958, expressed in a letter to J.P. Griffin, see RIP 102 (1972). 187 6Norway 1913{-14 shortly Russell's translation and ordering of the material into the form it has in the 1960 edition of Notebooks 1914{-16 was done only in February 1914, but essentially the work dates from the autumn of 1913. The content is a matter for later discussion, the method of composition should be remarked on immediately: Wittgenstein had notebooks in which he wrote down from day to day the end-result of his thoughts. From these notebooks he would select and dictate, or select and compose. The Summary (seven pages of typescript evidently based on the dictation in English of 9 October) contains rather syncopated versions of remarks that reappear in the Tractatus: Wittgentein must have been either translating freely from, or recollecting, his notebook formulations. The four manuscripts translated by Russell contain a number of propositions which in the German original must have taken almost exactly the form that we find again in the Tractatus.6 It is natural to suppose that Wittgenstein kept the notebooks from which he read out or copied these remarks and that they were among the notebooks from which he eventually selected the remarks of the Tractatus itself.7 Wittgenstein's furniture, his books, and some of his papers were put in store; a casket with contents of real or sentimental value was entrusted to Russell; Moore made ready to move back into the abandoned set in Whewell's Court. Wittgenstein's Cambridge life was wound up, for longer even than he supposed, and on the 11th he left London for Norway. He will have been in Bergen by Tuesday 14th. It seems he had thought of going to the Lofoten islands in the far north8 (hence no doubt, Russell's remarks about how dark it would be). So hasty were his plans that the inn where he had meant to stay turned out to be closed for the winter. He contented himself with going as far north as Skjolden, deep inside Sognefjord, north of Bergen. So far as we know, pure chance took him to that particular spot. Even if he had been in Norway before (as Engelmann believed),9 this was the first stay in Skjolden that his friends there recall. Skjolden was to provide him with a hermitage throughout his life. It was a small commune in the 6.For an illustration of this see RIP 102 (1972) 451. 7.See G.H. von Wright's "Origin of Wittgenstein's Tractatus' in Prototractatus. Von Wright quotes from a letter of Paul Engelmann's to F.A. von Hayek: "His manuscript volumes were large office-books bound in black and green striped cloth, of the kind used in Austria as ledgers... The Tractatus is the final selection from seven books of this kind, which he destroyed after the appearance of the book.' My conjecture is that at least one of these notebooks contained Notes on Logic material, and it seems to be more probable that this material was copied out of a notebook than copied into one. 8.See LW to BR 17.10.13, with the notes in Briefe p.35. 9.Engelmann (in a letter to Hayek) argued that Wittgenstein had been in Norway in early 1911, because Wittgenstein told him he had read in Norway a poem in fact published in Die Fackel in February 1911. A visit in February is highly improbable: we have seen that Manchester University re-elected Wittgenstein to his Research Studentship in 1911, which is scarcely compatible with absence during the preceding academic year. Any stay must have been a short one (no Norwegian, or little, was learnt_see LW to BR 29.10.13). 188 Wittgenstein: A Life furthest recess of the largest fjord in Norway. Beyond it were the mountains and the great glacier. All who have been there speak of the contrast between the black waters of the main fjord and the blues and greens of the various lakes and inlets. For long stretches trackless mountains come down to the water's edge. In level patches there would be stands of conifers, scattered houses, then mostly wooden, and pasture and fruit-trees both yielding richly in the startling summer of that latitude. Again and again in his letters from Norway Wittgenstein mentions the view. Engelmann singles out Norway before the war as an occasion when Wittgenstein's surroundings mattered a great deal to him,10 and in 1936 Wittgenstein wrote to Moore, I can't imagine that I could have worked anywhere as I do here. It's the quiet and, perhaps, the wonderful scenery; I mean its quiet seriousness. (LW to GEM October 1936) New roads have made it slightly more accessible, but when Moore came in March 1914 Wittgenstein and he took a train from Bergen to Myrdal, ski-ed11 to "Fua' (perhaps Fla$6m is meant, for they spent the night there in an hotel kept open specially for them!) then by steamer to Sogndal, then by skis to Solvron, thence by motor-boat to Skjolden. The circumstances of Wittgenstein's life there are not altogether clear. Curiously enough he gave "c/o Halvard [really Halvar] Draegni' as his address, but as he explains to Russell in the same letter he had got "two nice rooms here in the Postmaster's house' and was being looked after very well indeed. Hans Klingenberg, the postmaster, was regarded as a man of some education. His son is now a schoolmaster in Skjolden and his daughter followed him in the local post office. The Draegni family had a factory where fruit-juice was bottled. When Moore was there (and presumably at other times of which we have no record), Wittgenstein would go to their house to make music. One of the Draegnis_ Arne_was a particular friend. Friends too were Arne Bolstad, later a market-gardener, a mere boy in 1913, when, however, he saw a fair amount of Wittgenstein, and Anna Rebni, a schoolmistress who, later at any rate, put up summer visitors on her farm some way from the town. They seem to have played in Wittgenstein's life the role of quiet, simple people, with modest needs and education and means, honest and plain-dealing Tolstoyan figures. Only with Anna Rebni (whom he respected greatly) have we any trace_and that much later_of the 10.Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, p.60: Engelmann perhaps underestimates the importance of physical surroundings to Wittgenstein. His love of the Cambridge and Vienna water-meadows; his choosing to live in a tower; his journeys to remote parts of Ireland are all examples of a certain taste for quietness. 11.In his diary Moore appears to speak of "skyds'. Perhaps some form of sledge is meant. 189 6Norway 1913{-14 storms that usually punctuated his friendships. In the course of his life Wittgenstein learnt to speak Norwegian well, as well as being able to read the literary language of Ibsen and Bjoernson: it is natural to assume that he acquired most of this facility during that first year. All the same, we have seen his own statement that he hardly met a soul, and his time in Skjolden must have been a great contrast to the years in Cambridge. After a fortnight's influenza, he found it an ideal place to work in: All sorts of new logical stuff seems to be growing in me, but I can't yet write about it. (LW to BR [November 1913]) New ideas were pressing in on him so fast that he had hardly the time or the patience to answer the questions Russell put to him about the result of his week's dictation and discussion in England. Russell sent Wittgen- stein a typescript with some questions about it and also asked questions about a manuscript. Evidently the typescript was the result of the dictation to Jourdain's secretary and is still preserved as the nine-page "Summary' in Russell's version of the Notes on Logic mentioned above, while the manuscript was the German original of some of the material now represented by the four manuscript translations in the Bertrand Russell Archives.12 Russell was fascinated by the work: he made Whitehead read it_along with an exegesis by himself (now apparently lost)13 and Whitehead thought just as well of it. But Wittgenstein was moving on to new problems: he struggled with identity; he discovered, as we shall see, his decision procedure for the propositional calculus_he thought that it would fairly easily apply to the whole of logical truth; quite incidentally he brushed aside the axioms of infinity and of reducibility. It was a time for talking about the fundamental question, the big problem: I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me_or else that I needn't live much longer!... It's extraordinary, isn't it, what a huge and infinitely strange subject logic is? Neither you nor I knew that, I think, a year and a half ago. (LW to BR 15.12.13) Wittgenstein was by now writing to Russell in German. No doubt the October conversations about his work had convinced him at last of Russell's mastery of that language. At first he hesitated, uncertain 12.The questions that Wittgenstein reminds Russell of in R.21 and answers in R.20, so numbered in Letters to RKM, both probably early November 1913, can easily be related to the Summary and to the 3rd and 4th Mss (so-called). 13.BR to OM 18.10.13. 190 Wittgenstein: A Life whether to call Russell Sie or Du but Russell, as might be expected, quickly solved this problem for him. He depended enormously on Russell's letters_"Write soon!', he would say, "Every letter of yours gives me infinite pleasure!', "Your letters are a great boon to me. Do not feel sorry for writing to me so often.' "Pray for me and God bless you! (If there is such a thing.)'14 Russell was the recipient of his hopes and fears as well as of his thoughts. For his part Russell confided often in Lady Ottoline how relieved he was that Wittgenstein was away, yet he also sent her Wittgenstein's letters, to get her impression of Wittgenstein's state, or reported how Wittgenstein seemed. Wittgenstein was in his thoughts because he could not get over the criticism of Theory of Knowledge and because he was concerned about Wittgenstein's spiritual and mental health, but one has the impression once again that he was not involved with Wittgenstein in the way Wittgenstein was with him. Wittgenstein was conducting, in parallel, a correspondence with Frege.15 It is another instance of his liking for keeping friends in separate compartments that he did not tell Russell of this correspondence nor of the visit he planned to Jena, though it was planned as early as 22 October. To Russell he only said that unfortunately he had to visit Vienna and his mother at Christmas. The fact that he also wanted to communicate his results to Frege en route, just as he had done earlier to Russell, was not mentioned. At least three letters preceded the visit: the first prompted the objection from Frege that Wittgenstein placed too much weight on Bezeichnung (perhaps mode of signification is meant): Wittgenstein replied with remarks on what was requisite for setting up a list of fundamental concepts for logic_no doubt he here brought in his objections to an interdefinable set of primitive signs, which appear in Tractatus 5.42 but can be traced back to 1913. A further letter (29 November 1913) brought what Scholz thought important objections against Frege's theory of truth particularly in connexion with the assignment of meaning to functions_read "truth-functions' and we have here an anticipation of Tractatus 4.431. The visit followed ("before Christmas' according to Frege, hence presumably en route to Vienna): it was of great interest to Frege. He took down Wittgenstein's views in four pages of handwriting and wrote four sides of a letter continuing their discussion. We find him seeking Wittgenstein's address from Jourdain at the end of January_Wittgenstein must have been oddly silent about his intention to return to Norway. Jourdain seems not to have replied until 14.LW to BR October{-December 1913, R.19{-23. 15.What Frege retained was destroyed in the war and we only have Heinrich Scholz's notes on its general nature. Wittgenstein retained some of Frege's letters until at least 1936, when he declined to make them available to Scholz, saying that they had an Erinnerungswert for himself_a sentimental value_but were of no general interest. None have been found among his papers. 191 6Norway 1913{-14 April, so that the correspondence, having faltered, was probably not renewed until after the war.16 Here we must revert to the account of his visits to Frege that Wittgenstein gave to R.L. Goodstein. After the visit from Manchester: Wittgenstein returned to England very disheartened, but a year later he sought another interview with Frege and this time he "wiped the floor with Frege, and though they met for tea many times after they never discussed philosophy again'.17 Memory is impressionistic and an anecdote aspires to point, not perspective. We have seen that the first meeting did not result solely in discouragement. We must now observe that, though a certain reversal of roles may have taken place, it was, in the first place, over three visits, not two; since there was a visit in 1912 which Wittgenstein at the time described in terms that exclude a feeling of defeat on either side.18 And even this third visit did not in fact give Frege a distaste for further discussion with Wittgenstein. We have seen that by his account given to Geach Wittgenstein was never allowed to discuss anything except philosophy with Frege;19 and that the last conversational interchange between the two was about whether it was easy to think of numbers as objects. (It is quite possible, by the way, that this last interchange took place in 1913. No later visit is attested and the one planned for December 1919 did not in fact take place.) It is idle to try to reconstruct the exact sequence of events in 1913. Probably Wittgenstein's account to Goodstein reflects his youthful certainty about his new solution set against Frege's habits of reserve and Frege's need to think over a new set of ideas. What it does not reflect_the perspective which only other anecdotes and remarks can give_is the enormous respect Wittgenstein retained for Frege, a respect which may have been partly owed to the fact that Frege did not belong to the Cambridge world of brisk and sometimes rather knockabout discussions. From Frege Wittgenstein went to Vienna. The visit could not be avoided: 16.This reconstruction of the correspondence is based on Scholz's notes on items (a) to (f) in the Wittgenstein-Frege correspondence he had available to him; and also on the Jourdain-Frege correspondence where it is preserved or Scholz's notes on it where it is not. See Frege, Briefwechsel (1972), pp.264{-8 and Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence (1980), pp.109{-33. 17.In Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Language (1972), edd. Alice Ambrose and M. Lazerowitz, pp. 271ff. See also pp. 75 and 83 above. 18.See p. 74 above. "I had a long discussion with Frege about our Theory of Symbolism of which, I think, he roughly understood the general outline. He said he would think the matter over.' LW to BR 26.11.12. 19.See p. 83 above. 192 Wittgenstein: A Life The fact is, my mother very much wants me to, so much so that she would be grievously offended if I did not come; and she has such bad memories of just this time last year that I have not the heart to stay away. (LW to BR [November{-December 1913]) Despite the anniversary of his father's death Wittgenstein had made some half-hearted attempts to stay away, telling his mother that he would have to use skis for a good part of the journey. To judge by his later life it was unusual for him even to think of being away from the family at Christmas: later memories are all of his last-minute irruption shedding presents. On this occasion, too, there is no doubt that he, the last-born, the gentlest of her surviving sons, will have sat with his mother, as was his custom, while she made music or while he read to her. But the cost was great. His mother, at best, was someone he had to support, not a source of strength to him. Last year his father's last illness had "lamed his thoughts'; now, without that object of concentration, "life among people' made work impossible for him. While still in Norway, he had thought he was going mad, the slow progress of his work had lowered his spirits, he had longed for everything to become clear to him or else for death to overtake him. There his whole life had seemed summed up in his work. Sometimes he thought he could do nothing, at other times that he would make a little progress and then be finished_then die, that is, and have his work published for him by Russell. Now back among his family he felt that his problems were not simply those of logic but ones rooted in himself. Back at home and quite unproductive, hoping only for a return to his solitude, he described his state to Russell: Here I feel different every day. Sometimes things inside me are in such a ferment that I think I am going mad: then the next day I am totally apathetic again. But deep inside me there's a perpetual seething, like the bottom of a geyser, and I keep on hoping that things will come to an eruption once and for all, so that I can ... into a different person. I can't write you anything about logic today. Perhaps you regard this thinking about myself as a waste of time_but how can I be a logician before I'm a human being! Far the most important thing is to settle accounts with myself!20 He gave a second account of the effect of the visit after his return: 20.LW to BR ?December 1913 (Briefe, 1980, pp.47{-8); previously dated to June/July 1914 but it seems to suit his Christmas mood and to precede the January letter ("once again no logical news'). R. Rhees (ed.): Recollections of Wittgenstein^2 (1984), p.191n questions my translation of the last phrase_mit mir selbst in's Reine kommen. Perhaps it would be better to say "to put my own house in order' (metaphorically understood, of course). 193 6Norway 1913{-14 It is VERY sad, but I have once again no logical news for you. The reason is that things have gone terribly badly for me in the last weeks. (A result of my "holidays' in Vienna.) Every day I was tormented by a frightful Angst and by depression in turns and even in the intervals I was so exhausted that I wasn't able to think of doing a bit of work. It's terrifying beyond all description the kinds of mental torment that there can be! It wasn't until two days ago that I could hear the voice of reason over the howls of the damned and I began to work again. And perhaps I'll get better now and be able to produce something decent. But I never knew what it meant to feel only one step away from madness. _Let's hope for the best! (LW to BR [January 1914]) Yet there is a striking parallel between his problems with his personality and his problems with logic. The ferment in him is sometimes clearly psychological, whereas at other times it slips over into "the big question'. The parallelism is a theme that runs through his notebooks and letters "Logic and his sins', we have seen already, could preoccupy him at the same time (p. 156 above). What he looked for in philosophy was das erlo$3sende Wort_the formulation that would solve a problem, but also the word of redemption, the word that would deliver us from evil.21 Conversion in its various senses is what he wanted both in logic and in life. The fundamental problem of logic had to be solved and he had to become a new person. In quite what respects, we can only guess: his aim was to be simple, direct, fundamental, understanding, strong; above all to be himself, not to be pretending to be any of these things. Yet other people, his family, precisely those for whom these qualities were needed, induced feelings in conflict with all these ideals, feelings which could at best be concealed. As to why these problems were felt particularly acutely at this time, it is natural to suppose that his father while alive had provided a framework of expectations within which Ludwig could live: now he was forced to define his own personality in a largely female family to whose standards he did not feel ready to submit. We shall return more than once to the parallel between his emotional moral life and his philosophical development. As usual in his case, the difficulty of making sense of the events of this year in Wittgenstein's life is not so much the nature of the stimulus as the intensity and violence of the response. Other men have reached maturity just as their fathers died. Other men have felt compelled to remove from their families and from environments which were their families writ large. Other men even, though few, have suffered the throes of seeming to see the answer to some great question and of struggling to formulate it. These things are inseparable from life, work, and growth; and most men are sustained by the positive elements in them. Not so Wittgenstein, 21.For das erlo$3sende Wort see Notebooks 20.1.15. 194 Wittgenstein: A Life whose thoughts turned to suicide more than ever during this year and who, in an unhappiness that was quite clearly more than theatrical, struck at the roots of friendships that supported him. The first friendship to be assailed was that with Russell: a year after losing one father, he rejected another. It is impossible now to say which of the gods brought them into contention. Russell blamed himself: "I have been too sharp with him,' he wrote to Lady Ottoline when he reported (obviously) the receipt of Wittgenstein's letter of January or February 1914 quoted at length below. Wittgenstein had written an earlier letter, now apparently lost, which tried at great length to resolve fundamental differences between the two men: and perhaps it was Russell's reply to this that was feared to be "too sharp'. The best guess one can make is that the matter concerned in the first instance Russell's lectures in America (later published under the title Our Knowledge of the External World). Perhaps they will give you [Wittgenstein had written] at any rate a more favourable opportunity than usual to tell them your thoughts and not just cut and dried results. (LW to BR [January 1914]) Perhaps this remark drew from Russell some comments on the contrast between his own readiness to publish and the perfectionism that kept Wittgenstein from completing any piece of work. Or Russell may have touched on one of the points concerning which (as we have already seen) he was critical of Wittgenstein_narrowness, intolerance, excessive absorption in thinking about himself. At all events, in order to understand the significance of the episode it is important to remember that contemporary documents show Russell to have felt indeed some impatience and even some resentment towards Wittgenstein but to have thought of him with a constant anxious affection and with some perception. We ought not to be guided by Wittgenstein's letters alone; still less by the tone of Russell's much later comments. Whatever the occasion of the quarrel_der Streit as Wittgenstein called it_Russell asked Wittgenstein to behave as if nothing had happened. Wittgenstein replied: But I can't possibly carry out your request...: that would go clean contrary to my nature. So forgive me for this long letter and remember that I have to follow my nature just as much as you. During the last week I have thought a lot about our relationship and I have come to the conclusion that we really don't suit one another. This is not meant as a reproach! either for you or for me. But it is a fact. We've often had uncomfortable conversations with one another when certain subjects came up. And the uncomfortableness was not a consequence of ill humour on one side or the 195 6Norway 1913{-14 other but of enormous differences in our natures. I beg you most earnestly not to think I want to reproach you in any way or to preach you a sermon. I only want to put our relationship in clear terms in order to draw a conclusion. _Our latest quarrel, too, was certainly not simply a result of your sensitiveness or my inconsiderateness. It came from deeper_from the fact that my letter must have shown you how totally different our ideas are, E.G. of the value of a scientific work. It was, of course, stupid of me to have written to you at such length about this matter: I ought to have told myself that such fundamental differences cannot be resolved by a letter. And this is just one instance out of many. Now, as I'm writing this in complete calm, I can see perfectly well that your value-judgements are just as good and just as deep-seated in you as mine in me, and that I have no right to catechize you. But I see equally clearly, now, that for that very reason there cannot be any real relation of friendship between us. I shall be grateful to you and devoted to you with all my heart for the whole of my life, but I shall not write to you again and you will not see me again either. Now that I am once again reconciled with you I want to part from you in peace so that we shan't some time get annoyed with one another again and then perhaps part as enemies. I wish you everything of the best and I beg you not to forget me and to think of me often with friendly feelings. Goodbye! Yours ever Ludwig Wittgenstein22 I dare say his mood will change after a while [Russell commented]. I find I don't care on his account, but only for the sake of Logic. And yet I believe I do really care too much to look at it. (BR to OM 19.2.14) And indeed Russell did write again, hoping Wittgenstein would relent: a letter that touched even that severe judge: Dear Russell, Your letter was so full of kindness and friendship that I don't think I have the right to leave it unanswered. So I have to break my resolution. Unfortunately, however, I can't put what I have to say to you in a few words and I have scarcely any hope that you'll really understand me. The chief thing, I must tell you again, is that our quarrels don't arise just from external reasons such as nervousness or over-tiredness but are_at any rate on my side_very deep-rooted. You may be right in saying that we ourselves are not so very different, but our ideals could not be more so. And that's why we haven't been able and we shan't ever be able to talk about anything involving our value-judgments without either becoming hypo- critical or falling out. I think this is incontestable; I had noticed it a long time ago; and it was frightful for me, because it tainted our relations with one another: we seemed to be sitting side by side in a marsh. The fact is, we 22.LW to BR February 1914, Briefe (1980), p.50. The heavily emphasized "E.G.' in the middle of the letter suggests that it was indeed some instance of diverging professional standards which occasioned the quarrel and was then taken by Wittgenstein as symptomatic of fundamental differences. 196 Wittgenstein: A Life both of us have weaknesses, but especially I have, and my life is FULL of the ugliest and pettiest thoughts imaginable (this is not an exaggeration). But if a relationship is not to be degrading for both sides then it should not be a relationship between the weaknesses on either side. No: a relationship should be confined to areas where both people involved have clean hands, i.e. where each can be completely frank without hurting the other. And that's something we can do ONLY by restricting our relationship to the communication of facts capable of being established objectively, with perhaps also some mention of our friendly feelings for one another. But any other subject will lead, in our case, to hypocrisy or to falling out. Now perhaps, you'll say, "Things have more or less worked, up to the present. Why not go on in the same way?' But I'm too tired of this constant sordid compromise. My life has been one nasty mess so far_but need that go on indefinitely? _Now, I'll make a proposal to you: let's write to each other about our work, our health, and the like, but let's avoid in our communications any kind of value-judgment, on any subject whatsoever, and let's recognize clearly that in such judgements neither of us could be completely honest without hurting the other (this is certainly true in my case, at any rate). I don't need to assure you of my deep affection for you, but that affection would be in great danger if we were to continue with a relationship based on hypocrisy and for that reason a source of shame to us both. No, I think the honourable thing for both of us would be if we continued it on a more genuine basis. _I beg you to think this over and to send me an answer only when you can do it without bitterness. Feel assured in any case of my love and loyalty. I only hope you may understand this letter as it is meant to be understood. Yours ever L.W. (LW to BR 3.3.14) The quarrel was made up but the friendship was ended: Wittgenstein would no longer lay bare his heart to Russell. Their correspondence would indeed contain some warm expressions of regard, but the content of it would be philosophical or factual rather than personal.23 Relations between the two men did not become bad_there was still to be a good deal of collaboration. Perhaps later there were harsher judgements on both sides but the correspondence and some reported conversations show that, within human limits, Wittgenstein did maintain the promised attitude of gratitude and loyalty.24 23.I am assuming the dating of the the "geyser' letter argued for in fn. 20 above. Russell's attitude can be gauged from his letter to Wittgenstein of 5 February 1915; from a wartime letter to Wittgenstein's mother; and from a number of references to Wittgenstein in his letters to Lady Ottoline. 24.This is perhaps the place to comment on Ronald Clarke's remark that Russell and Wittgenstein did not get on at least partly because Russell disapproved of Wittgenstein's homosexuality (Life of Bertrand Russell (1975), p.172). What Russell is said to have said, forty years later, is slender evidence; and every contemporary indication speaks against it. It was Wittgenstein who ended the friendship and at a time when he was alone and evidently not in a homosexual 197 6Norway 1913{-14 The year in Norway was a crucial one also for Wittgenstein's relation with Moore. Moore, as so often in his life, was miserable about his work and told Wittgenstein so. He got a kind reply: I think the cause of it is that you don't regularly discuss your stuff with anybody who is not yet stale and is really interested in the subject. And I believe that at present there is no such person up at Cambridge. Even Russell_who is of course most extraordinarily fresh for his age_is no more pliable enough for this purpose. (LW to GEM 19.11.13) They ought to have regular discussions when Moore made his planned Easter visit to Norway. (Moore had "rashly'_to use his own word_ promised such a visit when Wittgenstein left in October.) The prospect frightened Moore_as indeed did many aspects of his friendship with Wittgenstein. At first he neglected to send an account of Johnson's paper at the Moral Sciences Club. Then when he did respond (at great length) to Wittgenstein's reminder, he was "afraid to open' Wittgenstein's reply, though "very pleased' when he did so. This was the letter of 18 February again urging him to come. Moore set himself to find out from Russell what Wittgenstein's latest views on logic were. It was an opportune moment to do so, for Russell had just finished "translating and copying and classifying the notes of Wittgenstein's work'_clearly those taken down or written in the autumn (see pp. 186f. above) in preparation for his lectures on logic at Harvard. Russell thought of Moore as going to visit Wittgenstein in the hope of understanding him.25 G.H. Hardy was also drawn into the discussions. None the less Moore's nerve failed him again (it seems) and he offered the excuse of a paper he had to write. Wittgenstein's telegram asking me to do paper there makes me very uncomfortable ... write Wittgenstein. (Diary 10.3.14) What Wittgenstein proposed and how he attempted to put Moore's mind at rest can be seen from his letter presumably sent off at the same time as the telegram: Why on earth won't you do your paper here? You shall have a sitting-room with a splendid view ALL BY YOURSELF and I shall leave you alone as much as you like (in fact the whole day if necessary). On the other hand we relation with anyone. Russell spoke frankly to Lady Ottoline both of Wittgenstein's faults and of men's being in love with one another when for some reason he found it irksome (see e.g. p. 118 above): he never combines the two themes. His comment on Pinsent and Wittgenstein's "talking to one another and ignoring the rest of the world' at one of his evenings (BR to OM 16.5.13) sounds amused rather than embittered. As for whether Wittgenstein was generally regarded as a homosexual, see p. 150 above, from which it is apparent that kind friends were quicker to suspect Russell of jealousy than Wittgenstein of intrigue. 25.BR to OM 28.2.14. 198 Wittgenstein: A Life could see one another whenever both of us would like to. And we could even talk over your business (which might be fun). Or do you want so many books? You see_I've PLENTY to do myself, so I shan't disturb you a bit. (LW to GEM March 1914) Moore's apprehensions are easily enough explained: we have seen how he was apt to find or to fancy Wittgenstein disgusted or disapproving. He was in any case a shy and sensitive man, not easily able to support weeks of constant contact with another single human being_he had done it for years in Edinburgh with a great friend (Ainsworth), but we know of no other example before his marriage. Finally he had presumably already heard of the quarrel with Russell (he told Curle_another great friend_about it "perhaps indiscreetly' in May, and Russell was in America from early March). Whatever their cause, the apprehensions were overcome. Moore left, by way of Newcastle, on 24 March. After much sea-sickness he arrived at Bergen at 10 p.m. on 26 March and was met by Wittgenstein, who talked, so Moore's diary puts it, till 1 a.m.26 They stayed in Bergen another day, shopping in the morning; then Wittgenstein talked till 6.30 p.m. More shopping and dinner till 8: "he abuses me till 12.15.' A strange reception, it may seem, for a guest: a stranger still reaction from an older man to a younger. It is as if all Wittgenstein's moral force had been banked up over the winter and was now loosed irresistibly on Moore. But indeed at all times Wittgenstein had the power to make others suffer under the awareness not of his superiority but of their own shortcomings. They left the next day, a Saturday, by the route already described (p. 188 above). Discussion was endless: physical things, Plato, suicide, misfortune, the bad. And so to Skjolden, where Moore unpacked and established himself in the hotel_with his sitting-room no doubt. At this point his nature rebelled: they walked by the lake that evening and quarrelled; and Moore (whom later only philosophy could anger) lost his temper. Moore was to stay in the little town for a fortnight. Generally he would work in his hotel until 2, when he would go to Wittgenstein's lodgings for dinner. Then there would be discussion ("he discusses,' Moore says in his diary) until 5, when tea would be brought. Then they would go for a walk or first play the piano. For the remainder of the evening Wittgenstein would talk. Visits were exchanged with the Draegnis (father and son), partly for the purpose of piano-playing; and no doubt the four-handed arrangement of Brahms's Schicksalslied that Moore had been asked to bring was then used. With Wittgenstein alone Moore seems to have played Schubert, as usual. One boat-trip on the 26.These details are all taken from Moore's diary. Comparison with the letters shows that the visit occurred a week later than Wittgenstein originally planned it. 199 6Norway 1913{-14 fjord was made. The passive role accepted by Moore, or at any rate allotted to himself in his diary, will again be noted. In one respect it bore fruit: from 1 April on Moore began writing to dictation. "Wittgenstein on Logic' fills two small exercise books full and a few pages of a third; it is now printed in the volume entitled Notebooks 1914{-16. Its content falls to be discussed later along with that of Notes on Logic. For present purposes it is only necessary to say that it was an advance on those notes, both in being better organized or more fully organized by Wittgenstein himself; and in introducing new notions which carried forward and made it possible to clarify the account of logic implicit in those notes. The most important of those new notions were those of tautology itself and (a key notion, perhaps even throughout Wittgen- stein's philosophical life) of what is shown rather than said by a proposition: Logical so-called propositions show the logical properties of language and therefore of the Universe, but say nothing is the opening of the first exercise book. The novelty of the notes dictated to Moore; and the circumstance that they seem to have arisen partly out of questions which worried Moore, Russell, and Hardy are important for understanding what followed. At the end of the fortnight Wittgenstein, with his usual good manners, took Moore back the two-day journey to Bergen and saw him off on the boat, after champagne for their parting supper and endless talks. By the 17th Moore was again in Trinity: Cambridge at 2{2. Unpack; bath; shop etc. till Hall. Hall at end next Capstick, MacTaggart opposite. Read New Statesman. (Diary 17.4.14) A don's life. Ten days later Moore met W.M. Fletcher in Hall. We have mentioned Fletcher already as Wittgenstein's tutor. This time Moore congratulated him_either on his Sc.D. degree or on his appointment as secretary of the newly formed Medical Research Council (both occurred about this time). He also put to Fletcher a question about Wittgenstein which we can reconstruct as being the question whether Wittgenstein's treatise on logic would serve as the dissertation required of a Research Student if he was to obtain the B.A. degree. He wrote off the next day to Wittgenstein and on 11 May got the following reply: Your letter annoyed me. When I wrote Logik I didn't consult the Regulations, and therefore I think it would only be fair if you gave me my degree without consulting them so much either! As to a Preface and Notes; 200 Wittgenstein: A Life I think my examiners will easily see how much I have cribbed from Bosanquet. _If I'm not worth your making an exception for me even in some STUPID details then I may as well go to Hell directly; and if I am worth it and you don't do it then_by God_you might go there. (LW to GEM 7.5.14) A breathing example of the directness and rudeness of which Wittgen- stein's friends sometimes spoke: an example too, we are bound to think, of paranoia and lack of proportion. For the facts were these: the regulations required an applicant to state, generally in a preface to his dissertation and specifically in notes, the sources from which his information is derived, the extent to which he has availed himself of the work of others and the portions of the dissertation which he claims as original. Moore had not framed these regulations, nor was it his office to enforce them; he was merely reporting the view taken of them by an experienced university administrator. He may, of course, have seemed lukewarm or despondent or detached in his letter to Wittgenstein: it was often to be a cause of offence to Wittgenstein that his English friends seemed to put rules and procedures before the claims of friendship. Every Austrian is an exception and Wittgenstein was an exception even among Austrians. Moore was shattered: Wittgenstein's letter at lunch: makes me feel sick and can't get it out of my head. Very miserable first part of walk. ... (Diary 11.5.14) Walk Parallelogram [Moore's quaint name for one of his usual walks]: still can't help thinking of Wittgenstein's letter. (ibid. 12.5.14) Concert 3{2{-4{2 then think of Wittgenstein's letter till Hall ... Go on thinking of Wittgenstein before and after Hardy's lecture. (ibid. 13.5.14) Walk Madingley 2{1{-4{2, very pleasant but can't help thinking of Wittgenstein's letter first half... (ibid. 14.5.14) Be$0ka$0ssy comes to tea ... asks about Wittgenstein's logic. Hall between Fletcher and Hardy: ask Fletcher about Wittgenstein. (ibid. 15.5.14) A fortnight later Moore had his great friend Curle to stay and the talk was chiefly about Wittgenstein (this was when he repeated the story of Russell's quarrel). Somewhat similarly we find him in October (though of course many things had changed by then) telling Desmond MacCarthy "all about Wittgenstein'. The excerpts, like Russell's letters, show how far Wittgenstein was from being neglected or forgotten or held in low esteem by them all. They also show the inadequacy of Moore_the older man_to deal with so passionate a friend. Fifteen 201 6Norway 1913{-14 years later, when they met again, Moore, married and better established in his own life, was able to stand up to Wittgenstein and became a central and stabilizing figure in his life. "Logik'_von Wright supposes that the Germanic spelling may indicate a work written in German: it is more likely to indicate a letter written in haste.27 It seems to me, in fact, a probable conclusion that the dissertation shown to Fletcher was the actual set of dictated notes that we now refer to as "Notes dictated to Moore'. It was these that Wittgenstein expected Moore to show and explain to Russell in order to acquaint Russell with his discoveries in Norway.28 Had he had another manuscript, fit or thought to be fit for a dissertation, he would surely have shown that instead. The other possibility, of course, is that Moore simply described to Fletcher a manuscript shown to him by Wittgenstein.29 It makes little difference_the content must have been roughly the same since the notes dictated to Moore were an attempt to sum up Wittgenstein's views on logic. Evidently Moore returned no answer to Wittgenstein's letter and there was silence between the two men until a remarkable letter of 3 July 1914 from Vienna: Dear Moore, Upon clearing up some papers before leaving Skjolden I popped upon your letter which had made me so wild. And upon reading it over again I found that I had probably no sufficient reason to write to you as I did. (Not that I like your letter a bit now.) But at any rate my wrath has cooled down and I'd rather be friends with you again than otherwise. I consider I have strained myself enough now for I would not have written this to many people and if you don't answer this I shan't write to you again. Yours, etc. etc. L.W.30 A lame apology, but an apology nonetheless_and it might have had its effect if the war had not intervened. Wittgenstein's letter comes. Think I won't answer it because I really don't want to see him again. Doubt if I oughtn't to. (GEM Diary 13.7.14) 27.Note on M.4 in Letters to RKM, p. 150. Von Wright is correct, however, in pointing out that the work entitled Logic or Logik was still in progress in February and March 1914, and so cannot have been identical with Notes on Logic, as I at one time supposed. 28.Letters to Russell of summer 1914, winter 1914{-15, and May 1915. Moore was disgusted when Russell told Wittgenstein of Moore's inability to explain the notes to him: "he has no right to say this, because he has never tried to get me to explain them.' Moore's Diary for 20.1.15. 29.There is reference to this in the letter received by Russell in January 1915_Mein Manuskript, welches ich damals Moore zeigte... "The manuscript of mine that I showed to Moore at the time'). 30.Von Wright supposes (Letters, p. 151) that 3 July is the date of receipt_but Moore's diaries show that that was 13 July. 202 Wittgenstein: A Life Hall next Russell who asks about Wittgenstein and talks about their quarrel. Makes me doubt again whether I oughtn't to write to Wittgen- stein. (ibid. 23.7.14) There was talk about Wittgenstein in the intervening years, but no contact until their accidental meeting in 1929, which falls to be described later. After Moore's return to England in April, Wittgenstein stayed on in Skjolden until the tourist season, which he was anxious to avoid. He was certainly in Vienna at the beginning of July. Writing to Russell at some time in May or June he says that his work has made great progress in the last four or five months, but also that he is now exhausted; he implies that he has not made any progress beyond the position as he explained it to Moore. This agrees with the wartime letter to Russell (quoted above) which speaks of a manuscript shown to Moore and of one written during the war_with the implication that nothing much came in between. Thus the late spring and early summer in Norway seem to have been a time of recuperation. Wittgenstein began to plan for a yet longer stay in Norway, perhaps an indefinite one. Some distance above the fjord there was a lake, skirted on one side by a road, on the other by a mountain. On that mountain_accessible only by boat across the lake_Wittgenstein built himself a house "miles from anyone' (in der Einsamkeit) as he told Russell. My translation here is a bit free_the house was about a mile from the village, though the journey would be quite a long one. The plan Wittgenstein drew for Moore is reproduced in editions of his letters.31 The house was of wood, 27 feet by 24 feet, a hundred yards from the lake. At some point (for he lived there later) Wittgenstein fixed up a rope-railway with pulleys to bring water and other supplies up to the house from the lake. The entrance was on the side away from the lake, under a gable, into the living-room; opening off this room on the right were a bedroom and a kitchen.32 The litle house had a wonderful view across the lake and the fjord to the south-west and itself looked cheerful enough in the summer when overgrown with creepers and surrounded by greenery. But it would take the temper- ament of a hermit or even a stylite to live there through a winter: some courage too_Wittgenstein was of a nervous enough disposition to spit into the lake for luck when he took his little boat across on a stormy day. There is some conflict of testimony whether Wittgenstein stayed there at all in 1914 but he can hardly have stayed there long. It was only built after Moore's departure (Moore did not know its site when he wrote in 31.Letters RKM (1974), p.166, Briefe (1980), p.199. 32.The house was taken down in 1957 and re-erected in the village (where it may still be seen) in a slightly altered form. 203 6Norway 1913{-14 1936) and the plan was to bring furniture up from Christiania (Oslo) after the summer. Dis aliter visum, one is inclined to say about all plans of that summer; but Wittgenstein was the last person to view the future with confidence. Everything he did was somehow provisional: it is symptomatic of this that at various times he wanted to give away the house, make it over to someone else, notably to a comrade during the war which delayed his return to it. In that spring of proverbial false security, he had discussed with Moore what he would do in case of a great war. People used to be impressed, perhaps a little too readily, by Wittgenstein's prescience. He always expected the worst, so his correct forebodings were naturally remembered. He even preferred bad news, his sister Gretl used to say. One of his favourite quotations was from Gottfried Keller: Always remember, when things are going well, that they don't have to.