Roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, French beans, braised tomatoes. T.o.
MENU (cont)
Sweets
Stewed blackberries and apples. Cornflower cream
Cheese
Coffee
Wines:
Sherry: present from Aunt Rosalie, rather a failure
Claret: Médoc
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Port: Cockburns
Brandy: stolen by May from the West London Hospitaclass="underline" a success So you will see that our problems are not quite what you expected or your Swami perhaps hoped. I must knock off now and have some Beefex with mother and Mrs Barger. The last named has been living with us for a year—
she is the widow of a Cambridge friend, eminent scientist. I had a very nice letter from you, which I meant to reread before writing this, but can’t think where I put it, and don’t want further delay in sending you my love. I do miss you very much—more lately than I have done in the past. For the first year or two I felt content that you should be where you are. I probably hoped your world would spread to me. But mine seems more likely to spread to you.
The P.E.N. Congress last month was a good one. Unluckily I neither saw nor heard Erika Mann. Her speech didn’t please Madariaga,19 Thorton Wilder, or Dos Passos, but I don’t know how they judge things. I met Arthur Koestler, and shall see him again, and have already seen again a young Chinese from Pekin[g], Hsiao Chien: he has offered me a banquet in London and been down here with a gift of a tea pot and tea. Oh dear how much easier and more charming are they than the Indians, and this reminds me of my broadcast.
Talking of Manns, though, did Klaus ever publish my article in Decision and if so will he pay me?
I had sometime back now, an extremely nice letter from your mother, and must answer it.
Leo and Tom, after some months with Miss Phillips & Miss Hayles at Teignmouth where Sandy remains are now back in Dover in their old flat.
The Slaughters are at Guildford I believe, but I have not sought them out despite Mr Slaughter’s Beethoven, which was most remarkable. William remains at the Admiralty. Mr N——[Norris] is I believe in——. John Simpson, George Thomson, are still at Birmingham. Bob has got across his superiors through refusing to cart dung to their back gardens, and, though a super driver in his qualifications, has been taken out of the garage and put on to ordinary duties. He has also been bad with what was called bur-sitis, but now they have called it fibrocitis instead, and he got better at once, and can do his squash and his rowing. He looks very fit, and you can take it that he is sending you fondest love. I shall see him again on Monday. Joe—
but perhaps I told Gerald this—has moved to Putney: a nice flat as regards view, near the end of the bridge and on the roof of a hotel.20 He looks a bit older. I don’t think I do—since you left me, I mean. But it is hard to know.
Well dear Christopher this shall do from your
Morgan
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LETTERS BETWEEN FORSTER AND ISHERWOOD
* * *
824 Buck Lane
Haverford, Penna.
January 11. [1942]
Dearest Morgan,
Here’s your letter of November 11 unanswered for at least a month since I got it.21 A busy Christmas, of course, came in between—but also, with you, I have a nice leisurely feeling. The mental communication, at any rate on my side, is still very strong. Also, I feel increasingly that I shall see you before long. I don’t know exactly how, but, as you say, “your” world has spread to “ours.” As soon as I’m drafted as a C.O. I shall see what possibilities there are of being sent abroad. The age group to which I belong is to register on February 16. Meanwhile, I am very busy here—at a Friends’
Service Committee hostel for refugees—since last October. The refugees are all teachers or lecturers who hope to fit into the U.S. educational world, a difficult but not impossible ambition. Meanwhile they study teaching methods at the neighbouring college, and also improve their English by private tuition from a number of people, including myself. Aside from this, my own job is social, menial, confessorial, advisory, interpretive, consola-tory, apologetic; in fact, whatever I choose to make it; and always profoundly interesting. Thee is so little one can materially do, but so much one can understand—if only the attention is focused unwaveringly on the problem. Needless to say, mine isn’t: so I’m guilty every hour of lapses, failures, minor cruelties. These people, especially the Jewish ones, register, like exquisite scientific instruments, every failure towards them in charity or understanding. They draw back quicker than snakes, and the work of weeks is spoilt in a couple of seconds. Mere pity is useless here. True charity is the intense alertness which Gerald so often writes about. Nothing less is any good.
Since the official declaration of war, we, as an “enemy alien” group, are naturally subject to restrictions.22 The authorities have been wonderfully reasonable, on the whole—though some local interpretations of the rules seem to prevent our people form [ sic] going to the post office or getting their hair cut, and similar absurdities. However, we are sure these little points will be straightened out later. In the meanwhile, many of course feel badly about being called “enemy” at all, even in official documents. They fought, when permitted to do so, during the French phase of the war, and are inclined to make obvious comparisons.
Deep snow here, which is beautiful, but I long for California, and the mountains and the desert. Also I miss Gerald and Aldous; and neither of pal-zeik-02 4/21/08 10:33 AM Page 101
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them are much [. . . ?] at letter writing. Benjy Britten is returning to England very soon, I believe: I hope to see him before he goes, and in that case shall give him personal messages to you and other friends.
I agree with you about prayer. It is like going to bed: just as “getting religion” (that horrible expression) is like falling in love. And prayer, in its turn, has various consequences, like consummation. After leading this kind of life—or intermittently trying to—for about a year and a half, there isn’t anything much I can say about it without embarrassment, except that “it pays,” in better balance, better integration, greater contentment, and, much more important, in an increasing appetite for it and commitment to it.
Anyhow, in my case, with all my backslippings, it’s still a lot more satisfactory than physical marriage ever was—not that the one excludes the other.
If the right person came along, that could be more wonderful than ever. At present there is nobody, and I’m quite fairly content to have it that way.
Oh dear, this is a hell of a stiff, censor-conscious letter! Chiefly because I can’t gossip, which would reassure you that I’m the same old Chris you used to know. But I can’t gossip about strangers, so you must just imagine that part of me functioning too, and know that my loving thoughts are very very often with you and Bob. Please remember me to William, John, Leo and Tom.
All my love,
Christopher
* * *
6-2-42
Dearest Christopher,
I have just got your letter of Jan. 11th, and I have just been giving Stephen a glass of sherry at the Reform Club and seeing an excessively nice letter he has had from Wystan. [B]efore which I had just been to tea with the Robin Majors, and mentioned you there, indeed this is just a row of justs, and I have just been broadcasting to India about Aldous’ book, which I think very good, and now I am just going to bed. Only 11.00 P.M., but I after all am 63. It has made me very happy to hear from you and to know that I am in your thoughts, and I am glad to know about your work too. I write in my Chiswick flat—the one that has been such a success, and bears so many signs of Bob’s love, energy and taste. Do you remember the sketch he made at Amsterdam? It has now become an oil painting and hangs in a Bond Street exhibition, and is to tour the provinces next month.