I think I have no news of the sort called real. My visit to Oxford, to the university of the Lawrence plaque, was curious. One ought to unveil more.
Lunch afterwards at All Souls. Lindemann, who makes bombs, to my left.
Sir Arthur Salter, who hopes they won’t go off, to my left.49 Winston Churchill opposite, saying there won’t be no war—just yet, so that was no news, and deploring the turning of human beings into white ants, which wasn’t news, even at the time. His neighbour, and on-hanger, turned towards him the whole time, and never looked at Captain Liddell Hart once.50 But the Warden had the instincts of a gentleman. Mr Lionel Curtis, our host[,] spared me a moment on a sofa.51 Sitting down as if we should chat for hours, he said that the most terrible calumnies had been spread about [T. E.] Lawrence, and that what was so dreadful was that people who were like that themselves tried to make out all others were the same—for instance[,] a man who had been in prison had come with an incredible tale to Sir Herbert Baker. Then he sprang up and was gone. I know, from papers which oughtn’t to have come into my hands, that they are worried about me. I was worried too, but the evidence does point to asceticism.
With love—which Bob too will send when I see him.
Morgan
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* * *
October 25 [1936]
70 Square Marie Louise
Bruxelles.
Dear Morgan,
Thank you for your letter, not to mention them kind words in the Listener. I felt very honoured: I’m sure Wystan did too. Actually, we’re neither of us satisfied with the play as it’s printed, and have been trying to alter it; or, to use your phrase, to discover a kind of spectacles through which the whole subject could be seen at once. We are doing this partly by attempting to show more clearly how Ransom was, at the critical moment in the Monastery, forced into going up the mountain by his followers, like every dictator. And we’re also making Mrs Ransom more like a dictator’s public; submitting to him and yet preying on him. I don’t know quite how this will work out. In the last resort, of course, every play is a kind of mad rugby scrum, out of which the players fish balls of various colours and sizes and rush off with them in all directions.
We are back from Spa, where the enormous hotels—some of which have existed since 1780 and housed Tsars, Kaisers and notorious novelists—are empty and the leaves are falling and there is a non-stop casino which nobody visits. We had a very nice room, with the kind of stove in it which killed Zola. I returned with a few pages of a new book; very defeatist, because it is all about the twenties. I am writing it in the spirit of the ship-wrecked sailor who puts an M.S. into a bottle. Getting back, I found Stephen’s book waiting in proof, and felt inwardly rebuked, because, instead of putting things into bottles, he is doing something which may really be some use and help to clear peoples’ ideas. It is awfully good, I think. There is no index, but don’t worry: you are mentioned all right. On page 173, you are “a defender of freedom and a great writer” and you express “a real and important doubt” about communism.
To return to the ignoble trivialities of my life, I recently spent a night in quite the most unpleasant pension I have visited in all my long and terrible travels. A Scottish lady, speaking French with a Scottish accent, argued with a young Persian student, speaking French with a Persian accent, throughout supper about why Persia (pardon, Iran) had a French superscription
[on] its stamps and not an English one. She then went upstairs into the room next ours and began feeding her canary, which sang till 2a.m. From 2
to 3, the cats obliged with rapes. At 3, the Scottish lady got up and performed an intimate function, no nuance of which was lost on us: a peculiarly irritation sharp high note was given off by the utensil. At 3.15, a special all-night service of trams came into being. At 6:30, the landlady’s pal-zeik-01 4/21/08 10:51 AM Page 63
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family started to get up and immediately turned on the wireless. At 8, we gave notice. We are now at another pension, called La Source, but of what we do not yet know. So, I prefer to give Hamilton’s address for post. Heinz, poor dear, is to be operated in a fortnight: the chief operation, this time, on the nose. He is scared; but I suppose we shall have to go through with it.
Meanwhile, Mexico proceeds satisfactorily and may be settled, barring accidents, in about a month. Please don’t mention this however, as far too many people are talking about it already.
How are you? How are your feet? How are Lawrence’s letters? Have you read Auden’s new book of poems? If so, do you like them? I have just got a copy, but maybe they aren’t out yet.
You have probably seen in the papers about the Rexist demonstration which was to have taken place here today and how the Govt has forbidden it.52 Until this evening, we shan’t know what’s going to happen; but I’m afraid that Rex is very strong here. Everywhere you go, you see their filthy paper in people’s hands.
Tomorrow, we are going to see a play about a boy of fourteen who has a baby. I mean, he becomes a father. It is called “Dame Nature” or rather Darm Nattyour (I never knew you could say that in French). It was a great success in Paris, it seems, and the juvenile lead is said to be brilliant.
We think and talk chiefly about Spain.
How is Bob and how are [ sic] his family? Well, I hope?
Best love from us both to you both
(did I tell you that my Mother understood his name as Robert Button on the telephone?)
Christopher
* * *
29-12-36
West Hackhurst,
Abinger Hammer,
Dorking.
Dear Christopher,
In the first place thank you for the sweet Christmas card, both. I had no idea there were snow and robins on the continent, only imagine, though I don’t think the breasts are quite as red as those of our dear English
“robins”—“robin-redbreast.”
Then I get your letter. I will get forward with Bob. If he can’t come that weekend, I think I shan’t come either—aha! not come then but a little later in the month. This is so that I may have a visit from him in London instead, pal-zeik-01 4/21/08 10:51 AM Page 64
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which I have not had for a very long time, owing to Christmas, etc.
However we’ll see and I’ll write again in a few days’ time.
I had not known about Auden or even about Tony. W[illia]m [Plomer]
certainly has been worrying, says he knows he’s not a pacifist, but with both parents ill & dependent on seeing him is not likely to enlist. He is very irritated and wretched about everything, and has not the comfort of being satisfied with his work—the prose has certainly gone downhill for the last few years, though I think he does poetry as well as ever.
This letter is rather “robin” style all through, but I am engaged in starting with my mother for London, she is sewing on a button, reading [a] letter from housemaid’s sister aloud, dealing with cat which now will now won’t sit on her lap, etc. and so on.
I want to get off something to you. I may finish in the flat. I have had rather a tiresome Christmas.
Flat
Bob has rung up— yes the 16th does look all right—that’s to say the 15th, we would hope to arrive that evening[;] he would have to return Sunday evening unless he flew Monday morning. I would stop till Monday or Tuesday.
I shall want to talk over your plans. Would Heinz go too if you did? Feel muddled too. I am sure you oughtn’t to go, but these matters are seldom decided by one’s sense of duty.
Flat full of relatives. Trying time continues. Joe—trying Christmas. We go to the Witch of Edmonton this evening.53