Sometimes Hardy’s enthusiasm got the better of his judgment. Those legendary 1965 Mellon Lectures turned out to be a dated book on The Roots of Romanticism. Even an otherwise co-operative author occasionally baulked at the resuscitation of some of his lesser efforts. In the case of The Soviet Mind, he was probably right. But that Berlin has so significant a posthumous intellectual reputation is in no small part owed to the indefatigable labours of one who rarely claimed much credit for himself. Family, friends and admirers should be eternally grateful.

Then something strange happened. Having exhausted all other possibilities, Hardy proposed to Berlin, sometime in the late 1980s, that they might round off their joint venture with “a selective . . .  volume of letters . . . intended for the general reader”. It is easy to envisage what the superficial attraction of such an enterprise might have been. Enthusiasts for this sort of intellectual bowdlerisation might wish to consult — and compare — Andrew and Stephen Schlesinger (eds.), The Letters of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a fine example of that insipid art. For now, let Hardy continue the story:

His response, which came without any noticeable pause for reflection, surprised me, since it was so unlike his reliably self-deprecating reaction to suggestions about publishing his academic writing. He brushed aside any instinct for selectivity and said that, if the job was to be done, it should be done thoroughly. The edition should be full-bottomed, free of half measures.

His orders were faithfully executed. Indeed, three volumes were initially planned.
Why did Berlin wish it this way? We do not know. Even with all the evidence now in front of us, the answer to that question remains elusive. It has been suggested that he hoped to bequeath to the world a body of papers comparable to those of his hero, Chaim Weizmann. This seems unconvincing. Berlin never was, nor ever claimed to be, a “man of action”. Perhaps he believed that this massive repository of intellect, learning and wit might stand in lieu of the great work he never wrote. Yet the best information we have suggests that he was often unaware of much of the content of many of these letters. He had either forgotten that he had written them, or no longer remembered what they said. Perhaps we can only conclude that his otherwise disarming observation, expressed late in life to Dr Elizabeth Chang — “How would I like to be remembered? I could not care less. I do not mind in the least if I am completely forgotten” — is not to be taken at face value.

This point is worth labouring since it would be idle to pretend that the initial reaction to Berlin’s correspondence was entirely favourable. Sycophants and stargazers aside, many thoughtful critics expressed dismay at much of what it revealed. Here was a “mother’s boy”, distastefully deriding his estimable father. Here too, was a young man on the make, eager to please in public but willing to wound in private. Above all, there was a certain underlying triviality about both the tone and content of the first two volumes. The coming of the National Government in 1931 passed unnoticed, similarly Hitler’s accession to power. The Spanish Civil War merited one letter, the Munich Agreement much the same. There was nothing on Kristallnacht. Berlin’s donnish backbiting quickly became tiresome, his social mountaineering little short of embarrassing. There is too little about what he and others were actually thinking at the time. This was no modern Clarke-Leibniz correspondence — nor, indeed, anything like it.