Ah, had I encountered Russell earlier in my life!
This is from “My Religious Reminiscences” (1938):
My childhood was solitary, as my brother was seven years older than I was, and I was not sent to school. Consequently, I had abundant leisure for reflection, and when I was about fourteen my thoughts turned to theology. During the four following years I rejected, successively, free will, immortality, and belief in God, and believed that I suffered much pain in the process, though when it was completed I found myself far happier than I had been while I remained in doubt. I think, in retrospect, that loneliness had much more to do with my unhappiness then theological difficulties, for throughout the whole time I never said a word about to religion to anyone, with the brief exception of an Agnostic tutor, who was soon sent away, presumably because he did not discourage my unorthodoxy.
