It is now decided that May gives up her job at the West London in the autumn, and that Robin comes home to them. But Bob is longing to go and fight, so I dunno. Nothing seems to fit. Luckily for me, indeed for us all, the police won’t release him, so we all go steadily forward. Even Ted—dim Ted and dimmer Vi—are in the group.
I keep reading about the Roman Empire from about 370 to 450, and seeking parallels with the present. Incidentally I get a lot of fun (from the letters of St Jerome for instance) and a lot of beauty out of illustrated books (Wilpert’s Mosaics; Peirce & Tylers L’Art Byzantine).31 But I wish Gerald was here to talk about it. He would tell me where the parallels stop, and why, and he might say something illuminating on the topic of chastity. I cannot understand why, for several hundreds of years, all the more sensitive people thought going to bed was wrong.
I don’t know how I am, which you will wish to know. After the news of Torquay I looked and felt like a very old man for a little, but that premonition has passed.32 Have been away more than usual lately—weekend to Sassoon, to John Simpson[,] and the Wilsons with Bob, and to the Bells and Leonard last week—L[eonard]. is much the same, though encamped amongst piles of Virginia’s bombed library from London. V[irginia] seems always in the next room. I can never get clear in my mind as to whether she was right or wrong to go: at any rate she gave us something to think about.33 I once told you dear Christopher that I might one day go mad (running slowly in large circles with my head down—an unhelpful spectacle and easily handled by the authorities). I don’t feel any extra inclination to do this, but must be beware of melancholy as you of rage. Wonder if you’ll get to China. Please write again on getting this. It helps. I owe Gerald a letter. Give him my love, and lie a lot in the sea. I haven’t even seen it (until at Leonard’s, faintly) since the war began. There’s provincialism! William, like Day Lewis, overworked in his office. He came here for two lovely days not long ago, and was [. . . ?] looking down at the grass at insects. [the following written in margin of front side of letter:] Yes, I read the Curyon
[Caryon?] and broadcasted on it. Lovely.—Do hope that Wystan will lend me his chewing gum when he gets over here as a Yank. I wish that I, like Britten, could get America into my landscape a little.
[written on top of the front page:] Love from Morgan [underlined three times, twice in red ink], which would otherwise be lost in this shuffle.
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* * *
28.12-42
As from: West Hackhurst, Abinger Hammer, Dorking
Dearest Christopher,
Your health was drunk first of anyone’s at Bob’s party yesterday. We had roast goose, plum pudding, and lots of wine to drink with. Later on we toasted Joe, William, John Simpson, and other absents, but you seemed uppermost in our hearts, and Ted and Vi, whom you may have forgotten, recalled how competently you nursed their baby at Dover. The party was a little marred by May developing a sick headache, but she rallied towards the close and your galloping pony from China looked down. (You have many here who love you [and count upon your love.])34
I have a clearer idea of your outlook (no—I mean inlook) partly from your letter, partly from your article in John Lehman’s Penguin,35 and partly from a few words with Benjamin Britten. I say, how nice he is. We have not fixed a real meeting yet, engagements swirl between, but I talked to him at Cambridge, and ate some food with him and Pears after their Michelangelo at the National Gallery.36 I have also seen some photographs of you at John L’s—why wasn’t I given one? They are good—and a drawing of you by Paul Cadmus: not good, but I was pleased to think you were in touch with him, for he once wrote me the nicest letter any stranger ever has. Do you still see him? If so, convey kindness and cordialities.
Do you still see anyone? For all I know you are in some training camp, and this is the sort of doubt which suddenly checks a pen. It may be enquir-ing so widely off the mark. I’ll return to myself. I know where I am: on a chair: in my (Chiswick) flat: and on the tiled mantel are: three bits of holly, two green plates, a little rowing cup of Bob’s, two Chinese wine cups of yours, and a clock which has just struck 1.00. I ought to go to bed. I lunched today with William at Victor’s, now confined to the ground floor but otherwise unchanged: then I bought a sponge with difficulty; then had tea with an Austrian refugee—an authority on Byzantine Mosaics. [S]o we interned him in Canada. Then I got back here—difficulty again: no trolly-bus, and black pitcher than black—and have since been conning the Beveridge Report.37 I speak to and with a Search Light Unit about it on my way home tomorrow. I go to them every week. I am not the least suited to the subjects they want, but anything which interrupts army-routine is mer-itorious. Actual Christmas I spent with my mother. She is well, but of course very old, and restless. I will post this letter when I get home.
I go on broadcasting to India. I do it for George Orwell now, and am getting to like him, but he is strange and I dislike something in what he writes without being able to chase it into daylight. Stephen I don’t often pal-zeik-02 4/21/08 10:33 AM Page 110
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see. His new wife is well spoken of, but not in my judgement anything of a pianist. (Each sentence I write has a “but” in it. That is because I went to a university.) Occasionally, and in likely places, I see Mr N—[Norris]: but we do not contact.
Did I tell you I have been reading about the 4th and 5th centuries? I wondered, and still wonder, whether they resemble the times we live in now. Did they contain Christophers, Geralds, Benjamins, and Morgans?
Oh by the way they did—a Morgan, I mean: Pelagius means “Morgan,” and he provided a heresy to which I should not object to subscribe.
I must write to Gerald. If possible, give him my love.
Morgan
* * *
[early winter 1943?]38
I hope no more will go during the next month or two.
Lionel Fielden, with whom I lunched lately, said the Breughels had vanished from Brussels.39 Had you heard? Were put into a lorry by Belgians, he said, and never seen again. I remember seeing them with you, and asking you, in a larger room near them, to become my literary executor. (Released you since) I feel flustered that these Brueghels should be lost.
The cold is endless—ever since Christmas. This week I go to town to broadcast on Stefan Zweig40—sorry that this letter should end much as it began, but it can’t be helped. Come and see me if possible—it would do me good.
Ever so much love again from
Morgan
* * *
7-6-43
West Hackhurst,
Abinger Hammer,
Dorking
Dearest Christopher,
Things were bad during the past month and I nearly wrote and whined across the Atlantic to you. Permitted by Police regulations, Bob volunteered for almost certain death, for the post of engineer on a bomber. May was in tears, Robin said “But Daddy, aren’t you happy at home?” [T]he pal-zeik-02 4/21/08 10:33 AM Page 111
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Board recommended him specially, physique perfect, and then Christopher would you believe it they discovered that his eyes are of the type which go completely blind at 25,000 feet and so it has gone by like a nightmare. He will volunteer again for anything when he has the chance, but anyhow he won’t be able to go up into that filthy sky. His argument—divested of some boyish frills—is that he has hated Fascism for years, and that thousands of people who don’t mind it in the least have been forced to go and fight against it and be killed; so why shouldn’t he fight? Not a bad argument.