The other is nice but has been sacked because she utterly refuses to get up till 10 or 11 in the morning, and she is the cook. Anna is learning to read and write, in her spare time. As far as I can make out, she believes that all foreign languages are simply “writing,” and that, when she learns to read she will immediately understand English, French and German as well.
As I think I told you in my last letter, Stephen went off, more than two months go, with Tony, to Spain and Greece. Then Wystan came and we wrote another play together, called: “The Ascent of F.6.” It is about an expedition up a mountain and attempts to explain why people climb them. It will be published soon, I hope, and perhaps produced this autumn. I wonder how you will like it. It is far better than old Dogskin, anyhow.
Am also at work on my new novel. Part of it is a most disgusting crib on The Longest Journey. By the way, I must get hold of that book on the great novelists. I want to see what Mrs Alphabet Jones writes about you. I always feel slightly aggressive when people write about you, and promptly add a few mental pages to that classic Essay on Forster which I like to pretend I shall one day produce.
As I have said before and shall say again—I do wish you’d come out here. Sea-air. 900 feet. Every comfort. Private sitting room provided. I suppose it’s too much to hope you really will come; but you once trifled with the idea of the Canaries, which are three days further on.
Anyhow, do get well, and write me a letter.
Best love
Christopher
My best love to Bob. How is he?
[postscript in different handwriting] Hoping that you are well again. How is Bob? Best love to both of you. Heinz
* * *
pal-zeik-01 4/21/08 10:51 AM Page 53
THE 1930s
53
[May 20, 1936]
[West Hackhurst]
Dear Christopher,
Morgan middling.
(i) Legal. Sir Murdoch MacDonald, M. P., a wealthy & elderly consultant engineer is bringing a libel action against Arnolds & myself in respect of the article A Flood in the Office in Abinger Harvest. Article (written 1919) reviews a pamphlet (written 1918), which, though none of us knew, was condemned as libelous [Br] in a consular court in Egypt in 1921.
Consequently republishing of review in 1936 is libelous [Br]. We have no case, and that Sir M.M. should demand withdrawal of book, public apol-ogy in court or elsewhere, payment of costs, and possibly a small sum for charity did not seem to us unreasonable. We staged him as a nice cross old gentleman. He has however tried to get £1000 damages out of us, and we shall certainly have to pay £500, which he will spend on himself.41
(ii) Medical ( a) bladder. This, though it does not hurt, remains infected and I swallow some rather terrifying medicine four times a day, tastes like something off another planet, followed by cachets which after dissolution
“repeat” like decayed sweetbread. ( b) feet. These, though they do not hurt except when I walk, have dropped their arches owing to the carelessness of the Nursing Home when I was in bed. Altered shoes arrived by the Portuguese post this morning. ( c) teeth. These though they do not hurt are said to have to come out. ( d) rash on chest and back may have been measles, but I dared not say so in case my lawyers were afraid to see me. It did not hurt.
So it would be idle to pretend I’m not depressed and scared, and I’ve found I difficult to write to friends because the whole thing’s a bore and all they can do is to write back and say they are sorry. I have often thought of you though and am very glad you wrote again, as it has got me over the edge. As to the international situation[,] I am terrified like every one else, nothing original.
Oh well, to have lived to have loved etc., and I am glad to have done both, yet it isn’t a comfort to say so as it seems to have been to the Victorians. Too like the Great Tune at the end of an Elgar Symphony.
Am now out of bed, and my mother in very good spirits and a black dress which arrived too late for King George’s funeral, is preparing for a long drive to Uncle Philip near Orpington, having hired a comfortable car for that purpose. What do I want to write about though? You knew that it is fixed up that I edit a selection from T. E. [Lawrence]’s letters for his trustees, and as they are practically his brother, whom I like, it will be [a]
suitable full-time job. I have already read several 100 letters, more keep pal-zeik-01 4/21/08 10:51 AM Page 54
54
LETTERS BETWEEN FORSTER AND ISHERWOOD
coming in, and in the flat, unread, are hundreds of letters to him, and many documents. Brother well says the shorter book the better, but how is it to be done? A difficult job for which I am as well suited as anyone. Dear me what an odd chap. I want more than ever to read your and Auden’s play. I don’t really get behind him. I think he felt [more] the acuteness of his separation from the ordinary man than I do mine. When the o[rdinary] m[an] is nicely encased I can usually make some sort of contact with him. T. E. was always apart, straining or striving. A sad fun.
Bob was bounding when I saw him last week, but in trouble since, as his wife has gone pregnant, neither knows how. I had letters from both of them this morning, and she is to have an operation, apparently super rosam[?], presumably because she is tuberculous. She has turned out into a very decent sort. I go up about once a week to Bob or business, otherwise lie about here in the sun. Also by Portuguese post, I receive the unpublished parts of De Profundis, sent me with much empressement [french, meaning display of cordiality] by Leo Charlton.42 They are from shorthand notes illegally taken down at the Ross-Douglas trial, and it seems that everyone except myself & Leo knows of them. Forrest Reid, now here, says that they have been published in America.
Now here, indeed! This letter is hamstrung. I am trying to maintain it—
is all written at a go. Whereas somewhere after the ink begins[,] Monday passes into Tuesday. I have not seen your story yet, but have reread the Memorial. News of a new novel from you makes me very happy, and the Longest Journey is far from incapable of improvement. I have just written a bawdy short story—I do them sometimes when feeling upset, they tend more and more to occur in heaven of course. Joe and Jack Sprott like them but they don’t quite tickle William’s bell. I didn’t ever write to you about the Dog—I have read it twice and seen it once. I enjoyed it, and more than the Dance of Death. Bob let a shout of “that’s Christopher” when we heard the Virgin Policeman, but it seems it wasn’t.
I’ll lead this letter to a close, anyhow I’ll send my love to Heinz and much love to you and sign it
Morgan
Will write again soon. Much love again. It is a great pleasure to hear from you and about the Portuguese.
* * *
pal-zeik-01 4/21/08 10:51 AM Page 55
THE 1930s
55
Villa Alecrim do Norte
May 23 [1936]
Sao Pedro. Sintra.
Dear Morgan,
I am sorry to have to write and say I am sorry, but your letter leaves me no choice. What ailments! What accidents! I am torn with indignation, against the idiotic nursing-home, for failing to prop up arches of your feet, and the unspeakable MacDonald. The mentality of these libel-bandits leaves me simply speechless. You’d think that a man like that would have his share of vanity; yet, when he is advertised from one end of the English speaking world to the other, put on the literary map in block capitals and assured of a footnote in all your biographies—he resents it! But let us be charitable: perhaps he is being blackmailed by a Piccadilly poof and is at his wit’s end for cash. William, in a letter also received today, refers to the case but remarks “it seems that the business will be settled fairly soon and satisfactorily.” Does this mean that he doesn’t yet know the worst, or have there been stop-press developments? I should have thought that if anything in Abinger Harvest really was libellous, it was the reference to Churchill in the Gallipoli Graves dialogue. Has nothing been heard of that? Churchill is pretty snappy at actions, as a rule.