Jack was at Little Lea when, on 8 January, The Times published the Military Service Act, which was expected to come into effect soon. In a section concerning the ‘Obligation of unmarried men to serve’ it stated that included among those who would have to serve were: ‘Every male British subject who, on the fifteenth day of August nineteen hundred and fifteen–(a) was ordinarily resident in Great Britain; and (b) had attained the age of eighteen years and had not attained the age of forty-one years; and (c) was unmarried or was a widower without children dependent on him’(p. 8).
In a ‘Service Act Proclamation’ published in The Times on 4 February 1916 King George V ordered that the Military Service Act come into operation on 10 February 1916. Even then, Jack had reason at this time to think he might not be required to serve. The Times of 8 January had published, along with the Military Service Act, notification of ‘A Bill to make provisions with respect to Military Service in connection with the present war’ (p. 8). ‘Exemptions,’ it declared, would include ‘Men who are resident in Great Britain for the purpose only of their education or for some other purpose.’
While the Military Service Act went into effect on 10 February, the question of exemptions for Irishmen was debated by the Government for many months, during which time Jack did not know whether he would qualify for exemption or not. By the time it was clear that exemption would apply to him, and that he was not required to serve, he had decided that he should serve nevertheless.
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 48–9):
[Gastons]
Postmark: 31 January 1916
My dear Papy,
One of the small consolations that a long experience of the continual change from term to holidays and vice versa brings, is the ability to settle down at once. I feel now as if I had been here for several months and have quite got into the old routine again. Everything at Bookham is of course in statu quo–I believe it would still be a hundred years hence. It is beautiful spring weather, as it was at home when I left you, and if only one could have that matutinal cup of tea, life would have nothing more to offer.
I spent the afternoon last Saturday in town, at the Shaftesbury, where there was a matinée of Carmen:1 the singing was very poor, especially our friend the bass, whose rendition–I fancy that is the correct term–of the Toreador song was a thing to make the angels weep. Carmen herself however was quite good, and the tenor tolerable, so that on the whole I might have fared worse. With the opera itself, apart from the performance, I was very pleased. Just about the right percentage of the tunes was (it ought to be ‘was’ not ‘were’ oughtn’t it?) familiar to me, and the ones which I had not heard before ‘discoveries’.
This afternoon I have been a long walk to a perfectly delightful village2 that I had never found out before, and I wish you could see it. It is rather like some of the places described in the ‘Upton Letters’ only more so. One old house–a thing as thick as a cottage and a good deal longer than Leeborough, all built on different levels, bears the legend ‘1666’. The best things however are the dragons and other monsters on the roof. Another most excellent codotta is the White Horse where you can drink tea, and a parlour that was used in the coaching days, and has not, by the look of it, been furnished since. If only they would dust the butter it would be quite ideal.
The ‘Faerie Queen’ which I told Mullens to send here as soon as it came has now arrived, and I am very pleased with it. If a bill comes from Osbornes for those records, please send it on at once as I have a cheque of W’s. made out (or whatever the phrase is) to T.E.Osborne to pay it withal. However, no bill ought to arrive as I am asking Arthur to tell the ‘young person’ to send it here. And by the by, talking about cheques, I am not sure whether I asked you to take the cheque out of my cash box in the little end room and turn it into money some time before next holidays. Would you please do this? Hoping you are carrying on all right.
your loving
son Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 50–1):
[Gastons
1 February 1916]
Dear little Archie,
Oh Gods of friendship, has such devotion ever been witnessed as mine! I am just at the beginning of a heavenly new book, I am just at the end of a long day’s work, and yet I spend my spare time in writing letters. I hope you duly appreciate the sacrifice of a fresh young heart offered up on the savage altar of 4–well to get on.
On the Saturday4 in London I wasted 7/6 on going to a matinee of Carmen. There was no one in the cast of whom I had heard before and no one whom I want to hear again. Carmen herself was tolerable, but the rest, especially the Toreador, were fiendish. With the opera too I was awfully disappointed, although there is certainly a lot of beautiful music in it–particularly in the preludes to the acts (oh, one thing was good–the orchestra: they played that intermezzo that I have exquisitely) and in the scene among the mountains. But one does get so sick of all the tedious melodrama, all the blustering orchestration, and sticky tunes of good old fashioned operas. Then too there are a pair of villains in it who have a ghastly resemblance in their clownings to that other pair in Fra Diavolo–do you remember those awful creatures? So on the whole I was very fed up with this world by the time I reached dear Bookham. I find–of course–my beloved fellow pupil.
Since then I have been cheered up by the arrival of my new ‘Faerie Queen’ in the red leather Everyman. I can’t see why you so dislike this edition: and if you have noticed the effect that their backs have when two or three are together in a shelf I am sure you do really appreciate them. I have read a good chunk of this and have also re-read Jane Eyre from beginning to end–it is a magnificent novel. Some of those long, long dialogues between her and Rochester are really like duets from a splendid opera, aren’t they? And do you remember the description of the night she slept on the moor and of the dawn? You really lose a lot by never reading books again.
The other book–which I am denying myself to write to YOU, yes YOU of all people–is from the library by Blackwood called ‘Uncle Paul’.5 Oh, I have never read anything like it, except perhaps the ‘Lore of Proserpine’. When you have got it out of your library and read how Nixie and Uncle Paul get into a dream together and went to a primaeval forest at dawn to ‘see the winds awake’ and how they went to the ‘Crack between yesterday and tomorrow’6 you will agree with me.
It was most annoying not getting my new records before I came back, wasn’t it? Tell the girlinosbornes–the next time you go to see Olive–to send the bill for them to my address here at once. I do hope my Caruso7 ‘E lucevan e stella’8 is going to be a success. Talking about that thing, does it convey anything to you? To me it seems to be just abstract melody. The actual scene I believe is a man on the battlement of a castle writing a letter–but you have probably read Tosca in that beastly potted opera book.
I was interested in what you said about the ‘Brut’.9 You ought to get it in Everyman.
Yours
Jack
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 51–2):
[Gastons
6? February 1916]
My dear Papy,
Thanks very much for the cheque, which I enclose, signed as you told me. I am afraid however that I must trouble you again: one of my pairs of shoes has finally given out ‘beyond the hope of uttermost recall’ and I want you please to get me a new pair, or else tell Annie to do so. The mysterious piece of paper which I am sending is a map of my foot so that the knave in the shop will know what size to give you. I am very sorry if this is a nuisance, and will take care next term to set out well equipped with hats, coats, shoes and other garments, like the men in the furnace.
That business about Warnie’s commission, though of course important in itself, is as you say a nice example of war office methods. If big things are managed in the same way as these small ones, it promises well for the success of the war doesn’t it? Another thing also struck me: we have often wondered and laughed at some of the people who have commissions. It becomes even funnier when one reads the formula, ‘reposing special trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage, and good conduct’: we remember that the Jarvey10 who drove the Colonel up to the office last time was one of those who hoped soon to enjoy this ‘special trust and confidence.’
By the way, you should get that ‘Spirit of Man’, Bridge’s anthology,11 that everyone is talking about. Mrs. K. has it from the library at present: it is one of the prettiest little books I have seen for a long time, and there is a lot of good stuff in it. One ‘nice point’ is that the names of the authors are printed at the end of the volume and not under each piece: it is very amusing–and somewhat humiliating–to see how many you know.
This business about matriculation and enlisting is ‘very tiresome’, as the Mikado said.12 Are you [sure] that it applies to those who are under age, and who are also Irish? If so, as you say, we must think it over together. Of course in dealing with such a point we must always remember that a period of something more than a year elapses between the time of joining up and one’s getting any where near the front.13 However, it can wait until we are together at Easter.
And now my dear parent, as the time alloted to correspondence is drawing to its close, I fear I must relinquish–or in other words it is time for Church. You will observe that this is one of those houses where we rise so early on Sundays that there is a long interval between breakfast and our Calvinistic exercises.
your loving son,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 53–4):
[Gastons
8 February 1916]
My dear Arthur,
You lucky devil! It makes me very envious to hear of all these good things going on at home while I am languishing in the wilds of Surrey.
I am surprised to hear that you never heard of Barkworth,14 as I have seen his name in the musical part of the Times and other papers: I believe he is one of the promising musicians of the day–that is if there are ever going to be English musicians and an English school of opera. Personally I should have been very much interested to hear his ‘Romeo and Juliet’. If the only fault is that it is blustering, you might say the same of the ‘Flying Dutchman’15 or the ‘Valkyrie’, mightn’t you? What did poor Willie Jaffe think of it? (I suppose you mean him by W.J.–) Hardly in his line I should fancy. I am sure ‘Pagliaci’ and ‘Cavalleria’ were lovely, and I would especially like to have seen ‘Rigoletto’, because I know the plot.16
I quite agree with you that a gramophone spoils one for hearing opera: the real difficulty is to find for what a gramophone does not spoil one. True, it improves your musical taste and gives you opportunities of hearing things that you might otherwise never know: but what is the use of that when immediately afterwards it teaches you to expect a standard of performance which you can’t get, or else satiates you with all the best things so that they are stale before you have heard them once on the stage? Or in other words, like everything else it is a disappointment, like every other pleasure it just slips out of your hand when you think you’ve got it. The most striking example of this is the holiday which one looks forward to all the term and which is over and gone while one is still thinking how best to enjoy it.
By all this you will gather that I am in a bad temper: well, so I am–that bloody little beast my fellow pupil has sneaked upstairs for a bath and I can now hear him enjoying it and I know there will be no hot water left for me. They only raise hot water here about once a month.
However. Let us proceed: do you read Ruskin at all? I am sure you don’t. Well I am reading a book of his at present called ‘A joy for ever’,17 which is charming, though I am not sure you would care for it. I also still employ the week ends with the Faerie Queene. I am now in the last three books, which, though not much read as a rule, are full of good things. When I have finished it, I am going to get another of Morris’ romances, or his translation of one of the sagas–perhaps that of Grettir the Strong.18 This can be got either for 5/-in the Library edition (my ‘Sigurd the Volsung’19 one) or for 3/6 in the ‘Silver Library’ (like my ‘Pearl Maiden’).20 Which would you advise?
By the way, why is your letter dated Wednesday? It has arrived here this evening–Tuesday–am I to understand that you posted it tomorrow, or that you have been carrying it about in your pocket for a week?
Isn’t it awful about Harding? I hear from my father that Hope is going out.21 I suppose that by this time the jeunes mariés have got into Schomberg.22 Why are your letters always so much shorter than mine? Therefore I stop.
Yours,
Jack
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 56–7):
[Gastons]
Postmark: 26 February 1916
My dear Papy,
‘Well I calls it ’ard’ as your friend used to say of the ’alf hour: I am accustomed, nay I am hardened to missing opera companies: but that I should be exiled in the wilds of England while Robin W. Gribbon and Lucius O’Brien23 are visiting Belfast–this is too utterly all but. But why might I ask are these nonconformist canals reciting in the school house of Saint Mark?24 What have they to do with us? Let them get behind us. Joking apart, one might get a ‘running river of innocent merriment’ out of their efforts, ‘extremely stretched and conned with cruel pains’. Perhaps however you have your own reasons for reverencing the school house. Is it not the theatre of an immortal rendition of that ‘powerful’ role of Gesler,25 and also of an immortal brick-dropping re an immortal preacher? There too the honey tongued tenor of Garranard–but we will draw a veil over the painful scene.
There is a certain symmetry of design in your list of books, a curiosa felicitas, a chaste eloquence and sombre pathos in the comments, ‘See no. 40’ and ‘see no. 2’ which I cannot but admire. I don’t know how they have bungled it, but so long as I actually have two copies of the ‘Helena’ it will be all right, as Mullen’s will make no difficulty about exchanging the unused one. If however the second copy exist (not exists) only on paper–why there we have the sombre pathos.
I am rather surprised at your criticism on ‘The Spirit of man’, and consider the reference to ‘rescuing’ both otiose and in doubtful taste. Of course it must be read, not merely as an anthology, but in the light of its title and avowed purpose, and we must not be disappointed when we find certain favourites left out because they could not rightly claim a place in such a scheme. In this sense indeed the book is rather an original work than a collection of poems: for just as the musician may weave together a symphony by using the melodies of others arranged to express himself, so I take it Bridges is here working out an idea of his own: and the medium he chooses–as one might choose marble and another chalk (which you know is deteriorating terribly)–is the collective poetry of his predecessors. Or indeed, if I am reading too much into him, this would be a plan for a better anthology than has yet been written. One thing in the book I admit is indefensible–the detestable translation from Homer, which, though you may hardly recognise it, is meant to be in the metre of ‘Oh! let us try’. For this Bridges ought to get ‘something with boiling oil’.26
After a January so warm and mild that one could almost have sat in the garden, we have suddenly been whisked back to winter. It has snowed all day today, and is freezing hard tonight on top of it. I am very sorry to hear what you tell me about Hope: as you say, it must be terribly lonely and trying for her out there, and I am afraid the patient brings a very second rate constitution to the struggle.
your loving son,
Jack
P.S. I forgot to say the list of books, with one exception, is correct. J.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):
[Gastons
28 February 1916]
Monday
My dear Galahad,
I suppose that by this time there is wrath and fury against me: however, there is no excuse, and you must just thole, as they say.
I don’t know what it is like with you, but for this last week we have had the most lovely snow here. There is no wind, so where the snow ‘falleth, there shall it lie’:27 which means that when you walk through the woods every branch is laden like a Christmas tree, and the mass of white arranged in every fantastic shape and grouping on the trees is really wonderful. Don’t you love to walk while it is actually snowing? I love to feel the soft, little touches on your face and see the country through a sort of haze: it is so exquisitly desolate. It reminds one of that scene in ‘The Lore of Proserpine’.
Poor thing! I do like the way, because a fellow asks you to join a corps, that you complain about ‘your troubles’. May you never do worse! It reminds me of the story of Wellesly and his rich friend: W. had been going on one of his preaching tours round the country, riding alone in all weather, being put in the stocks, insulted, & stoned by the mob, in the course of all which he stayed for a night at the luxurious mansion of the friend. During the evening, a puff of smoke blew out of the grate, whereupon the host exclaimed ‘You see, Sir, these are some of the crosses which I have to bear!’28 Indeed, however, I ‘can’t talk’ as you would say, for of course I am an inveterate grumbler myself–as you, of all people have best reason to know.
By the way, do you know a series of rather commonplace little volumes at 1/6 each called the Walter Scott Library? I have just run across them: they are not particularly nice–though tolerable–but the point is that they sell some things I have often wanted to get: among others Morris’ translation of the ‘Volsunga Saga’ (not the poem, you know, that I have, but a translation of the old Icelandic prose saga) which cannot be got in any other edition except the twelve guinea ‘Works’, of which you can’t get the volumes separately.29 If only the edition were a little decenter I’d certainly get it.
Perhaps you laugh at my everlasting talk about buying books which I never really get: the real reason is that I have so little time here–indeed only the weekends as I spend all the spare time on week-days in reading French books, which I want to get more fluent in. However, I am now nearing the end of the ‘Faerie Queene’, and when that is done the Saturdays & Sundays will be free for something else. Really, whatever you say, you have much more time than I.
I wonder why Osborne’s have sent no bill to me yet? I am not sure whether I asked you to give them my adress and tell them to send in the account or not: anyway, be a sport, and do so–AT ONCE. I have had a grisly dissapointment this week: Mrs K. said she was going away for a fortnight & I was gloating in the prospect of privacy & peace. But it has turned out a mare’s nest. Ochone!
be good,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 58–9):
[Gastons
7 March 1916]
Tuesday
My dear Galahad,
I was very glad to get your interesting letter–which was fortunately longer than some of them–as I was beginning to wonder what had become of you; I think your ‘lapse’ this term puts you on a level with mine last, so that we can cry quits and admit that we are both sinners.
I have had a great literary experience this week. I have discovered yet another author to add to our circle–our very own set: never since I first read ‘The well at the world’s end’ have I enjoyed a book so much–and indeed I think my new ‘find’ is quite as good as Malory or Morris himself. The book, to get to the point, is George Macdonald’s ‘Faerie Romance’, Phantastes,30 which I picked up by hazard in a rather tired Everyman copy–by the way isn’t it funny, they cost 1/1d. now–on our station bookstall last Saturday. Have you read it? I suppose not, as if you had, you could not have helped telling me about it. At any rate, whatever the book you are reading now, you simply MUST get this at once: and it is quite worth getting in a superior Everyman binding too.
Of course it is hopeless for me to try and describe it, but when you have followed the hero Anodos along that little stream to the faery wood, have heard about the terrible ash tree and how the shadow of his gnarled, knotted hand falls upon the book the hero is reading, when you have read about the faery palace–just like that picture in the Dulac book–and heard the episode of Cosmo, I know that you will quite agree with me. You must not be disappointed at the first chapter which is rather conventional faery tale style, and after it you won’t be able to stop until you have finished. There are one or two poems in the tale–as in the Morris tales you know–which, with one or two exceptions are shockingly bad, so don’t TRY to appreciate them: it is just a sign, isn’t it, of how some geniuses can’t work in metrical forms–another example being the Brontes.
I quite agree with what you say about buying books, and love all the planning and scheming beforehand, and if they come by post, finding the neat little parcel waiting for you on the hall table and rushing upstairs to open it in the privacy of your own room. Some people–my father for instance–laugh at us for being so serious over our pleasures, but I think a thing can’t be properly enjoyed unless you take it in earnest, don’t you? What I can’t understand about you though is how you can get a nice new book and still go on stolidly with the one you are at: I always like to be able to start the new one on the day I get it, and for that reason wait to buy it until the old one is done But then of course you have so much more money to throw about than I.
Talking about finishing books, I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say ‘at last’, I almost wish he had lived to write six books more as he hoped to do–so much have I enjoyed it. The two cantos of ‘Mutabilitie’ with which it ends are perhaps the finest thing in it, and if you have not done so already, you should read them whenever you have the time to spare.
I am now–by the same post–writing for a book called ‘British Ballads’ (Everyman) 31 in the chocolate binding of which I used to disapprove: so you see I am gradually becoming converted to all your views. Perhaps one of these days you may even make a Christian of me. Yes: I have at last heard from the girlinosbornes: but like the minstrel in Scott,
‘Perhaps he wished the boon denied’32
as the bill is rather a staggerer and my finances are not very blooming at present–I am thinking of sending it out to my brother to pay.
I well remember the glorious walk of which you speak, how we lay drenched with sunshine on the ‘moss’ and were for a short time perfectly happy–which is a rare enough condition, God knows. As Keats says ‘Rarely, rarely comest thou, spirit of Delight’.33 I do hope we shall have many more pleasant hours such as that the days are running in so fast now, and it makes me so sad to think that I shall have only two more sets of holidays of the good old type, for in November comes my 18th birthday, military age, and the ‘vasty fields’34 of France, which I have no ambition to face. If there is good weather and you get some days off next hols., we should go for some walks before breakfast–the feel of the air is so exquisite. I don’t know when I can expect to come home.
Jack
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 60–1):
[Gastons]
Postmark: 10 March 1916
My dear Papy,
‘I wonder’ said Demetrius, and so do I. You know it is a terrible thing for a young boy to get into the hands of a rascally old firm of solicitors to be cajoled into signing all sorts of mysterious documents. How do I know to what I have committed myself? Perhaps my three moors are being made over, or you are putting an entail on my little place in Rome. (What is an entail) Ha! Ha! The missing heir. Indeed the whole proceeding savours of the novelette: you must cut your moustache shorter and call yourself Richard or Rupert. However, I herewith enclose the enigmatic slip of paper, with the forged signature inked over ‘avec d’empresment’ (French language). By the way, I see that I have acknowledged £16-13-10. Well what became of this…this…business…this tea business?
I hope you have read your Times Literary Supplement this week: do you see that the commonwealth of letters is the richer by a great new poet? Now let the stars retire for the sun has risen: let Hemans and M’K-itrick Ros35 be silent, for Mr. Little has come! It is really too good to be missed. I love the fine impassioned address to the sea, as much greater than Tennyson’s ‘Break, break, break’36 as that is than the one in the Prometheus, the one you will have noticed beginning
‘Oh, wave! Thy clemency is open
To shrewd suspicion’.37
What melody! What masterly phrazing and gorgeous imagery! We may pass over such minor beauties as the lioness which becomes the ‘formidable sultaness’ and go on to the last piece which contains the gems about the ‘golden brawn’ of the sunrise, the ‘various viands of the rainbow’ and nature ‘gorgeous, great, gratuitous’. Why this is a more exquisite song than the other about ‘Presumption, pride, pomposity’, though there is a certain likeness. This I suppose is the modern school that has got beyond Tennyson. Well perhaps they have: but I for one had sooner walk on the earth than soar on any Pegasus which bears such a disquieting resemblance to a rocking horse.
St. John’s, the school at Leatherhead whither my fellow pupil is wont daily to repair for gentlemanly and vertuous discipline and schooling in the humane letters, has got an epidemic of influenza and is breaking up for the term. So I suppose we shall have our well beloved Ford more in evidence now. Tell Arthur to write. I am sorry to hear what you say about Grandmother: I feel that we ought to have seen more of her, but it was not easy.38 Your loving,
son,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 63–4):
[Gastons
14 March 1916]
(You ought to know the date.)
My dear Galahad,
It must have been a very old Everyman list on which you found ‘Phantastes’ as one of the new ones, since, to my knowledge, the copy I got had been on the bookstall for weeks. Everymans with us have gone up 1d. in the shilling: I suppose it is just the same at home? By the time you get this you will probably have finished Phantastes, so you must give me your verdict on it as a whole: when one has read a book, I think there is nothing so nice as discussing it with some one else–even though it sometimes produces rather fierce arguments.
I too am rather disappointed. The ‘British Ballads’ has come, and though I am awfully bucked with the edition–I can’t think why I didn’t appreciate it before. This must be a triumph for you–the reading matter is not nearly so good as I expected. For one thing, instead of being all made up of real old ballads as I hoped, it is half full of silly modern imitations and even funny ones. Don’t you loathe ‘funny’ poetry? However, as it is not your style of book, I suppose I am boring you.
All the same, when you begin to write a letter you just go on babbling–at least I do–without thinking whether the person at the other end is interested or not, till you come to the last page and find that you haven’t really said what you wanted to. But perhaps that sort of rambling is the right kind of letter. I don’t know whether you personally write that way or not, but the result is charming, and you can’t think how eager I am to see the atrocious but familiar scroll waiting for me on the hall table. And yet, every letter is a disappointment: for a minute or two I was carried back to your room at Bernagh–don’t you remember rooms by their smells? Each one has its own–and seem to be talking to you, and then suddenly I come to the end and it’s all only a little bit of paper in my hand and Gastons again. But come. We are being mawkish. I think you and I ought to publish our letters (they’d be a jolly interesting book by the way) under the title of lamentations, as we are always jawing about our sorrows. I gather it was that beastly girl in Mayne’s who ‘flared up’ as you say. Aren’t they rude in that place? I think we ought to start a movement in the neighbourhood to boycott them. Only we’d have to join in it ourselves, which would be a pity.
No: I have never yet seen Kelsie’s book. I daresay she doesn’t know that I take an interest in such things, and you are lucky in having a reputation as a connoisseur which makes you free of every library in Belmont–tho’ there aren’t very many to be sure. I am afraid our Galahad will be growing a very stodgy mind if he reads nothing but Trollope and Goldsmith and Austen. Of course they are all very good, but I don’t think myself I could stand such a dose of stolidity. I suppose you will reply that I am too much the other way, and will grow a very unbalanced mind if I read nothing but lyrics and fairy tales. I believe you are right, but I find it so hard to start a fresh novel: I have a lazy desire to dally with the old favourites again. I think you’ll have to take me in hand and set me a ‘course’ when I come home.
By the way what about the piano and the gramophone these days? We don’t seem to talk of music so much now as we did: of course your knowledge on that subject is so much greater than mine that I can really only express a philistine’s taste. Are you still going to Walker? For my part, I have found my musical soul again–you will be relieved to hear–this time in the preludes of Chopin. I suppose you must have played them to me, but I never noticed them before. Aren’t they wonderful? Although Mrs K. doesn’t play them well, they are so passionate, so hopeless, I could almost cry over them: they are unbearable. I will find out the numbers of the ones I mean and we will have a feast next holidays.
By the way, you speak in your last letter of the difference between music and books: I think (to get back to an old argument) it is just the same difference as between friendship and love. The one is a calm and easy going satisfaction, the other a sort of madness: we take possession of one, the other takes possession of us: the one is always pleasant the other in its greatest moments of joy is painful. But perhaps I am rating books and friendship too low, because poetry and great novels do sometimes rouse you almost as much as music: the great love scenes in Shirley for instance, or the best parts of Swinburne etc.
I am sorry I always make the mistake about your address. Hullo–I’ve done it again.
Yours,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 64–5):
[Gastons
21 March 1916]
My dear Galahad,
So here we are at the weekly letter, and very glad I am too; but Heavens!–how the weeks run on don’t they? While I was at Malvern I used to count the days and long for the end of term, so of course time crawled; now-a-days when I am quite comfortable the whole thing goes on far too quickly. And it’s all so many days, months etc., not of the term or the year, but of one’s life–which is tiresome. ‘Help!’ I hear you muttering, ‘Is he going to moralize for four pages?’ (Cheer up, I’ll try to hold it in.)
I’m awfully bucked to hear that you think the same about Phantastes as I, though if you only began to enjoy it in the eleventh chapter, you must have missed what I thought were the best parts–that is to say the forest scene and the faery palace–or does that come after chapter XI? You will gather that the book is upstairs and that I am too lazy to go and get it. I hope that by this time you have bought ‘Sir Gibbie’39 and will be able to advise me on it. Some of the titles of his other books are, to me at least, even more alluring than the one you quote: for instance ‘At the back of the north wind’.40
Isn’t it funny the way some combinations of words can give you–almost apart from their meaning–a thrill like music? It is because I know that you can feel this magic of words AS words that I do not despair of teaching you to appreciate poetry: or rather to appreciate all good poetry, as you now appreciate some. This is however off the point: what I meant to say was that lots of his titles give me that feeling. I wish there were more in Everymans, don’t you?
Talking about Everymans, do you know what their 1/6 binding is like? I can’t remember whether you have anything in it or not, but I have been thinking of trying it, so tell me what you know on the subject. What? you ask, still new books? Well really the length of the Faerie Queene was a godsend, because so long as I turned to it every weekend with the regularity of clockwork I could keep my money in my pockets: now however the temptation to get a nice new book for the longed for Sunday rest is overwhelming.
I am glad to hear that you have moved into Lily’s room as I think you–or ‘we’ shall I say in selfishness–will be more comfortable there: at the same time I have a sort of affection for the old one where we have had such good times: we should call it ‘joyous garde’.41 Still, I am longing to find myself in your new quarters with all the old talk, the old music, and the old fingering of rich, friendly books.
You know, Galahad, that though I try to hide it with silly jokes that annoy you, I am very conscious of how unfair our friendship is, and how you ask me over continually and give me an awfully good time, while I hardly ever bring you to us: indeed though he is a good father to me, I must confess that he–my father–is an obstacle. I do hope you understand? You know how I would love if I could have you any time I liked up in my little room with the gramophone and a fire of our own, to be merry and foolish to our hearts content: or even if I could always readily accept your invitations without feeling a rotter for leaving him alone. I don’t know why I’ve gone off into this discussion, but perhaps it is just as well. Indeed the only thing to be done is to get my father married as quickly as may be–say to Mary Bradley. Or lets poison old Stokes and give him the widow. In which case of course our imagined snuggery in the little end room would be brightened up by a charming circle of brothers and sisters in law.
I know quite well that feeling of something strange and wonderful that ought to happen, and wish I could think like you that this hope will some day be fulfilled. And yet I don’t know: suppose that when you had opened the door the Ash had REALLY confronted you and turning to fly, you had found the house melting into a haunted wood–mightn’t you have wished for the old ‘dull’ world again? Perhaps indeed the chance of a change into some world of Terreauty (a word I’ve coined to mean terror and beauty) is in reality in some allegorical way daily offered to us if we had the courage to take it. I mean one has occasionally felt that this cowardice, this human loathing of spirits just because they are such may be keeping doors shut? Who knows? Of course this is all nonsense and the explanation is that through reading Maeterlink,42 to improve my French, too late at night, I have developed a penchant for mystical philosophy–greatly doubtless to the discomfort of my long suffering reader.
By the way, is the girlinosbornes beginning to ask about my bill yet–which is not paid? Write soon AND LONG mon vieux, to,
yours,
Jack
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 70):
[Gastons]
Postmark: 1 April 1916
My dear Papy,
The little plans of mice and men, it would seem, must a’ gang aft aglee.43 You ask me when I am thinking of going home. Well I was thinking of the 15th, as instructed by the Colonel, so that his next leave would fall nicely at the end of my holydays. Mrs. K. suddenly turns up with the pleasing news that Terry is going on Tuesday the 4th., and Osbert Smythe with mother is coming down on the same date to convalesce from a wound, and–ah–when was I thinking of going home? Or in other words, after a little pow-pow, I have been ‘kicked out’ (Perhaps they were right to dissemble their love, but why–).44 So I fear me Tuesday it must be. I hardly think a letter from you can reach me before that, so I shall borrow from K. By the way, Terry tells me that all the Belfast boats are off; if this is so, will you please wire and tell me, as in that case I shall have to go by Larne: I suppose the same ticket and payment of difference will do–or is the fare by Larne just the same? Of course if Liverpool and Fleetwood are still running, I will go by either–whichever is running on Tuesday night. In any case please wire and tell me. I am sorry to be such a nuisance, but it is quite as annoying for me, and more so for W. Sunt lacrimae rerum.45
your loving son,
Jack
P.S. On second thoughts, Monday would be better if you get this in time; if I go on Tuesday I shall have to travel with Terry and a lot of his friends, which would be terrible–for one thing I know they don’t want me. So Monday be it: please wire. J.
Lewis was at home from 5 April to 11 May 1916. Writing to Albert about him on 7 April 1916, Mr Kirkpatrick said:
The very idea of urging or stimulating him to increased exertion makes me remind him that it is inadvisable for him to read after 11 p.m. If he were not blessed with such a store of physical health and strength, he wd. surely grow weary now and then. But he never does. He hardly realizes–how could he at his age–with what a liberal hand nature has bestowed her bounties on him…I notice that you feel adverse at present to let him enter the university at the close of next Autumn…But as far as preparation is concerned, it is difficult to conceive of any candidate who ought to be in better position to face the ordeal. He has read more classics than any boy I ever had–or indeed I might add than any I ever heard of, unless it be an Addison or Landor or Macaulay. These are people we read of, but I have never met any. (LP V: 74)
Mr Kirkpatrick wrote again on 5 May 1916:
The case of Clive is very perplexing, but let us make a few points clear. I think he ought to be able to gain a classical scholarship or exhibition at entrance in any of the Oxford Colleges next Novr. or Dec., when the exams are held. But suppose I gave my opinion that he could with advantage do another years work with me. Do you not see what you are in for? Clive will be 18 in Dec., and if he remains in this country after that date, strictly speaking one month after that date, he will be liable for military service. There is no escape from that now…Ireland is exempt from the Act. Will it be brought in, as Carson46 before, and now Captain Craig have asked? I find it hard to believe it. But we shall see. At any rate we may give up the idea that the war may be over before Jany. 1917…What is to become of the Eng. Universities under this new Conscription Act? I cannot say, but I do not see how they are to go on. Suppose Clive gained an entrance exhibn. next Decr. He would not be able to attend lectures. At the end of one month he would be liable to conscription. (LP V: 78–9)
Albert replied on 8 May 1916: ‘Clive has decided to serve, but he also wishes to try his fortune at Oxford’ (LP V: 79).
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 80–1):
[Gastons
16 May 1916]
My dear Galahad,
I wonder what you are doing tonight? It is nearly ten o’clock and I suppose you are thinking of bed: perhaps you are at this moment staring into the good old bookcase and gloating over your treasures. How well I can see it all, exactly as we arranged it a few days ago: it is rather consoling for me to be able to follow you in imagination like this and feel as if I were back in the well-known places.
Now let us get on with what you really want to hear; no, I did not go to the ‘Starlight Express’47 nor could I see it in the ‘Times’ list of entertainments. Perhaps after all it is not an opera but a cantata or something. What I did go to see was a play called ‘Disraeli’48 which I liked immensely, though I am not sure the Meccecaplex would have cared for it. It’s about the real Disraeli49 you know, the part being taken by Dennis Eadie–whom you saw in ‘Milestones’50 didn’t you; he looks exactly like the pictures of the said politician in the old Punches. However, it is a thoroughly interesting play and I shall never repent of having seen it: I think you agree with me that a good sensible play is far better than a second rate opera, don’t you?
By the way, you have really no right to this letter, old man: that one of yours which you have been talking about all the holidays is not here, and Mrs K. says that nothing came for me while I was away. So now I shall be no longer content with your continual ‘as I said in my letter’, but will expect it all over again–especially the remarks about ‘The Back of the Northwind’ (by the way doesn’t it sound much better if you pronounce that last word ‘Northwind’ as one word, with the accent slightly on the first syllable?).
Talking of books–you might ask, when do I talk of anything else–I have read and finished ‘The Green Knight’,51 which is absolutely top-hole: in fact the only fault I have to find with it is that it is too short–in itself a compliment. It never wearies you from first to last, and considering the time when it was written, some things about it, the writer’s power of getting up atmosphere for instance, quite in the Bronte manner, are little short of marvellous: the descriptions of the winter landscapes around the old castle, and the contrast between them and the blazing hearth inside, are splendid. The last scene too, in the valley where the terrible knight comes to claim his wager, is very impressive.
Since finishing it I have started–don’t be surprised–‘Rob Roy’,52 which I suppose you have read long ago. I really don’t know how I came to open it: I was just looking for a book in the horribly scanty library of Gastons, and this caught my eye. I must admit that it was a very lucky choice, as I am now revelling in it. Isn’t Die Vernon a good heroine–almost as good as Shirley? And the hero’s approach through the wild country round his Uncle’s hall in Northumberland is awfully good too.
In fact, taking all things round, the world is smiling for me quite pleasantly just at present. The country round here is looking absolutely lovely: not with the stern beauty we like of course: but still, the sunny fields full of buttercups and nice clean cows, the great century old shady trees, and the quaint steeples and tiled roofs of the villages peeping up in their little valleys–all these are nice too, in their humble way. I imagine (am I right?) that ‘Our Village’53 gives one that kind of feeling. Tell me all about your own ‘estate’ as Spenser would say, when you write.
Have you finished ‘Persuasion’54 and has the De Quincy come yet, and what do you think of both? Have there been any particular beauties of sun and sky since I left? I know all that sounds as though I were trying to talk like a book, but you will understand that I can’t put it any other way and that I really do want to hear about those kind of things.
This letter brings you the first instalment of my romance: I expect you’ll find it deadly dull: of course the first chapter or so must be in any case, and it’ll probably never get beyond them. By the way it is headed as you see ‘The Quest of Bleheris’. That’s a rotten title of course, and I don’t mean it to be permanent: when it’s got on a bit, I must try to think of another, really poetic and suggestive: perhaps you can help me in this when you know a bit more what the story is about.
Now I really must shut up. (That’s the paper equivalent of ‘Arthur, I’m afraid I shall have to go in a minute’.) Oh, I was forgetting all about Frankenstein.55 What’s it like? ‘Really Horrid’?, as they say in ‘Northanger Abbey’.56 Write soon before I have time to feel lonely.
Yours,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 82–4):
[Gastons
22 May 1916]
Monday. 10 o’clock.
My dear Arthur,
Many, many thanks for the nice long letter, which I hope you will keep up for the rest of the term, in length. I see that it has taken four days to reach me, as it came only this morning, so I don’t know when you will be reading this.
I am rather surprised at your remark about ‘Persuasion’, as it seemed to me very good–though not quite in her usual manner. I mean it is more romantic and less humorous than the others, while the inevitable love interest, instead of being perfunctory as in ‘Emma’57 and ‘Mansfield Park’ is the real point of the story. Of course I admit that’s not quite the style we have learned to expect from Jane Austen, but still don’t you think it is rather interesting to see an author trying his–or her–hand at something outside their own ‘line of business’? Just as it is interesting to see Verdi in ‘Aida’58 rising above himself–though I suppose I have no right to talk musical criticism to you–or indeed to anybody.
I am glad that you are bucked with your De Quincy, and am eager to see the paper. By the way I suppose you notice that the same series can be got in leather for 5/-. I wonder what that would be like. I am thinking of getting the two volumes of Milton in it, as soon as I am flush or have a present of any sort due to me: one wants to get a person like Milton in a really worthy edition you know. Tell me what you think about this.
On Wednesday I had a great joy: I went up to town with the old woman59 (by the way I have just seen the point of your joke about ‘byre’ and liar. Ha! Ha!) to see the Academy.60 I have never been to one before, and therefore cannot say whether this year’s was good as they go: but anyway I enjoyed it immensely and only one thing–your company–was lacking to make it perfect. How I wish we could have been there to enjoy some things together–for there were ones that would have sent you into raptures. Particularly there was a picture called ‘Nature groaning’ that exactly reminded me of that wet walk of ours, although the scene was different: it represented a dull, gloomy pool in a wood in autumn, with a fierce scudding rain blown slantways across it, dashing withered leaves from the branches and beating the sedge at the sides. I don’t suppose that makes you realize it at all, but there was a beautiful dreariness about it that would have appealed to you. But of course it is really no good trying to describe them: I wish you would get that Academy book which one always finds in a dentist’s waiting room so that we could compare notes. If you do, you must particularly notice ‘The Egyptian Dancers’ [‘A Dancer of Ancient Egypt’], ‘The Valley of the Weugh or Sleugh’ or something like that [‘The Valley of the Feugh’] (a glorious snow Scene), ‘The deep places of the earth’, ‘The watcher’ and a lovely faery scene from Christina Rosetti’s ‘Goblin Market’. It costs only a shilling I think and tho’ of course the black and white reproductions lose a lot, still they are quite enjoyable.61
Talking about pictures etc., I was very pleased with your description of the mist and the night sky: you are by no means such a contemptable artist in words as you would like people to believe–in fact to be honest, if you weren’t lazy you could do big things–and you have brought a very clear picture to my mind: one does get topping effects over the Lough sometimes, doesn’t one? Really, after all, for sheer beauty of nearly every kind, there is no place I know like our own good county Down.
I am still at ‘Rob Roy’ which I like immensely, and am writing by this post for the first volume of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ in the Everyman 2/2 edition:62 am I wise? I have dipped into them very often latterly in the Kirk’s horrible old copy, and think I shall like them, while, as I told you before, the paper of that Everyman is especially nice. I have also got a French prose romance of ‘Tristan and Iseut’63 which promises very well as far as I can see: in the meantime however since like all French firms’ books it is paper back, I have sent it away to be bound in a very tasty binding of my own choice. Tell me more about ‘Frankenstein’ in your next letter so that I may decide whether to buy it or no. Any new records? I imagine that the success of your late venture may buck up your taste for your gramophone may it not?
This brings you the next chapter of my infliction. By the way I don’t know how I actually wrote it, but I certainly meant to say ‘The quest of Bleheris’ and [not] ‘of THE Bleheris’, since Bleheris is a man’s name. However, as I wrote to you before, that title is only waiting until I can get another better one. Your advice as to fighting and brasting exactly falls in with my own ideas since like Milton I am,
‘Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars……….’64
I am afraid indeed that like ‘Westward Ho’65 my tale will have to dawdle about a bit in the ‘City of Nesses’ before I can get poor Bleheris off on his adventures: still you must do your best.
Oh vanity! vanity! to think that I can waste all this time jawing about my own work. Oh, one thing: I can’t agree with you that Kelsie is at all like Diana Vernon: for if–to talk like Rashleigh,66 ‘My fair cousin’ has a fault, it is a certain deadly propriety and matter-of-factness that will creep in even when she’s at her best, don’t you think so.
And now I’ve scrawled for a whole hour (it’s just striking) so good night.
Jack
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 81–2):
Gastons,
Great Bookham.
28/5/16.
My dear Papy,
I hear from the colonel that you are expecting a letter:67 so, as they say of a sheep in a picture book, ‘here it is’, although, to be exact, I don’t see why I should owe you one–the score so far this term being exactly equal on both sides.
Well, how have things been since I left home? I hope the laurels are coming on nicely. Everything here is of course very much the same, and the weather is glorious. On my way back I went to a play that would have appealed to you–‘Disraeli’, which you will remember to have seen reviewed in Punch’s ‘At the play’.68 If the real man was at all like the character in the piece he certainly must have been a prince of cards. I suppose that most of the bon mots that I heard at the Royalty are actual historic ones, preserved in his letters and so forth. I wonder too whether it be true to life when, having said good thing, he is represented as making his secretary take a note of it ‘For Manchester next week: that’ll just about suit Manchester’. Which reminds me how are you getting on with the fourteenth–or is the twentieth volume of his life?69
The only other excitement I can think of was a jaunt up to town with Mrs. K. to see the Academy, last Saturday. I had never been to one before, and therefore cannot say whether this was good, as they go, or not. At any rate it seemed to me that there were a lot of very nice things there, while even watching the other watchers was a great amusement.
My reading at present is very sober and old fashioned–‘Rob Roy’ and the ‘Canterbury Tales’, both of which are most satisfactory. The former I suppose you have read years ago: at least I have tracked to its lair one of your favourite quotations, ‘Do not mister or Campbell me: my foot is on my native heath and my name is MacGregor’.70 But what a pity it is to see such good ‘yarning’ as Scott’s spoilt and tripped up at every turn by his intolerably stilted and pedantic English. I suppose we must thank Dr. Johnson and ‘Glorious John’71 for first making such prose possible.
I met Warnie on Friday, according to instructions, and saw him go off by his 4.0 troop train. I am sorry to hear from him that you are bothered with some sort of rheumatism, and hope that it is now on the mend.
your loving
son Jack
P.S. I am one up in letter now: so don’t forget to write soon. J.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP XI: 259–60):
[Gastons
30 May 1916]
My dear Galahad,
I don’t know whether you quite realized how mysterious your last letter was: on page III I read ‘have just begun a tale called “Alice for short”’. Very good, say I, remembering William de Morgan’s novel of that name:72 but you are ‘doubtful whether you’ll finish it’: remembering the size of the volume on our landing book case I am not surprised: then I read on a bit and see that you ‘daren’t let it out of your hands, even to me’. Ah! Ce devient interèssant (is there an accent on that word?), I think something tremendously improper. But imagine my even greater confusion on learning that de Morgan’s long and heavy looking novel is a continuation of Alice in Wonderland!73 Of course as soon as I turned the page I saw that you meant ‘began to write’ and not ‘began to read’ as I had naturally thought, being as you know cracked absolutely.
Well as to the information itself: I cannot urge you too strongly to go on and write something, anything, but at any rate WRITE. Of course everyone knows his own strength best, but if I may give any advice, I would say as I did before, that humour is a dangerous thing to try: as well, there are so many funny books in the world that it seems a shame to make any more, while the army of weird and beautiful or homely and passionate works could well do with recruits. But perhaps your ‘Alice’ is not so much humorous as lyric and fantastic? Anyway, you might as well send me along what you have done and let me have a look at it: at the worst it can’t be more boring than ‘Bleheris’ and of course it’s much easier to criticise each other’s things on paper than viva voce: at least I think so.
And by the way, while I’m on this subject, there’s one thing I want to say: I do hope that in things like this you’ll always tell me the absolute truth about my work, just as if it were by someone else whom we did not know: I will promise to do the same for you. Because otherwise there is no point in sending them, and I have sometimes thought that you are inclined not to. (Not to be candid I mean). So I shall expect your MS–‘Alice’ or anything else you have done–next week.
‘Rob Roy’ is done now, and (to pay you out for your remarks about ‘Persuasion’) I must admit that I only skimmed the last three or four chapters: the worst of a book with a plot is that when the plot is over, the obvious ‘fixing up’ is desperately tedious. On the whole however it was jolly good, and some of the scenery passages, as you say, are gorgeous: particularly where Frank is riding ‘near the line’ with the Bailey and the latter points out the Highland Hills–do you remember? That bit is almost as good as the scene where Clement Chapman shows Ralph the Wall of the World. But I suppose you would think it sacriledge to compare Morris to Scott. So would I for that matter, only the other way round.
You ask about the binding of my ‘Tristram’: well of course, apart from the binding itself, all French books are far poorer than ours: this one for instance cost 2/-(2fr.50) although it was only a paper back, of about the same size as my Gawain: the binding will come to another 2/-or perhaps 2/6. That sounds a lot: but after all if you saw a nice leather bound book in a shop of that size and were told it cost 4/-, I don’t think it would seem very dear. Of course it is true I may very likely be disappointed in it, but then, not being a prudent youth like you, I have to take risks occasionally.
With the Chaucer I am most awfully bucked: it is in the very best Everyman style–lovely paper, strong boards, and–aren’t you envious–not one but two bits of tissue paper. When I’ve collected enough in that way, I shall be able to put tissue in all my better class Everymans. As to the contents, although I looked forward to them immensely, they have proved even better than I hoped: I have only had time so far to read the ‘Prologue’ and ‘The Knight’s Tale’ (that’s Palamon and Arcite you know), but I adore them. The tale is a perfect poem of chivalry, isn’t it? And the pathos of Arcite’s death is really wonderful, with the last broken appeal,
‘Forget nat Palamon that gentil man’ 74
and the cry of ‘Mercy Emelye’.75
But God! there I go on talking like a book again, and you a poor invalid who ought to be consoled. Seriously though, I hope you’ll be quite alright by the time you read this: I don’t like to hear of your being in bed so often, especially as it affects your spirits so. However, cheer up, and whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago.
I quite appreciate what you say about my father, to whom I wrote on Sunday: but after all he hasn’t written to me, and as he had Warnie with him I thought he could ‘thole’. Still you are quite right in what you say and I must be more regular in future.
I thought you would like De Quincy, and hope you will go on reading him: it is always nice to feel that one has got a new friend among the book world, isn’t it? What an old miser you are though. I suppose I shall have to buy the Academy book myself now: and rest assured that you will never see one page of it. It is strange that ‘Frankenstein’ should be badly written: one would expect the wife of Shelley to be a woman of taste, wouldn’t one?
As to my brother’s talk about another ‘E Lucevan le Stelle’ I’m afraid the front must have turned the poor boy’s brain: considering how I pined after your copy for over a year it wasn’t very likely that I should have forgotten one if I had it. What put the idea into his head I can’t think.
Have been to Leatherhead baths for a swim today and am terribly stiff, as I always am after the first bathe of the year. Sorry this is not much of a letter this week, old man, but it’s after 11, and everyone is going to bed. This brings you the next instalment of Bleheris–criticise freely.
Yours,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 84–6):
[Gastons
6 June 1916]
My dear Arthur,
I was rather surprised to see the note paper of your last letter, and certainly wish that I could have been with you: I have some vague memories of the cliffs round there and of Dunluce Castle, and some memories which are not vague at all of the same coast a little further on at Castlerock, where we used to go in the old days. Don’t you love a windy day at a place like that? Waves make one kind of music on rocks and another on sand, and I don’t know which of the two I would rather have.
As to your remarks about my ‘promise’ to join you on some future holiday, I must call your attention to the fact that all I promised was not to contract any engagement with my Aunt that could stand in the way of it, always warning you that I might not go anywhere. However I hope to do so, and will certainly try my best.
By the way, in future, if possible, don’t write your letter on so many different ‘levels’, so to speak: I keep them all on a pin now, and so far, all being written the same way up, I have been able to turn to any one I wanted, like a book: the latest one is a hard nut to crack. Always grumbling you see.
You may well ask ‘when’ my ‘Tristan’ is coming: I have asked the same question myself more than once, and it’s beginning to be like those famous Columbia records the holydays before last. As to the binding, if it is what the girl in the shop told me, it will be boards with leather back, and those little triangular pieces of leather on the corners. I don’t know if you understand this description, so I have drawn it for you: though perhaps indeed you find the picture quite as hard. In other words it is a glorified edition of the 2/-Everyman. The reason I’m not quite certain is that the girl showed me a much larger book done in the same style, only red. As I didn’t care for the colour, she said she thought it could be done like that in brown; so I’m still waiting the result.
With my last parcel–the Canterbury Tales–I got Macmillan’s and Dent’s catalogues, where I find much of interest: I suppose you know it all already however. For instance I never knew before that Macmillans would send you–through a bookseller–books on approval. Of course when things are so out of joint as you’re only allowed to keep them for a week, perhaps you could hardly manage it over in Ireland. Being so near town myself, I think I shall try it, wouldn’t you? I also notice that Dents have a series of ‘Classiques Francaises’ corresponding to the English Everymans Library. Does that mean that they’d be bound the same way? Among them I’m very pleased to find a rendering of the ‘Chanson de Roland’ into modern French:76 this, as you probably know, is the old French epic, equivalent to our Beowulf,77 and for years I have been wondering how to get it. Now, as things sometimes do, it just turns up. Of course talking about Beowulf reminds me again what hundreds of things there still are to buy: if you remember it has been ‘the next book I’ll get’ ever since you have known me.
I know very well what you mean by books getting tiresome half way through, but don’t think it always happens: for instance ‘Phantastes’, ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Shirley’ (which in fact only begins to get interesting about then) might be cited–good word that–as examples. Tell me more about ‘John Silence’78 when you write, and also let me know the publisher and price, as I have forgotten again and may want it one of these days.
I don’t like the way you say ‘don’t tell anyone’ that you thought ‘Frankenstein’ badly written, and at once draw in your critical horns with the ‘of course I’m no judge’ theory. Rot! You are a very good judge for me because our tastes run in the same direction. And you ought to rely more on yourself than on anyone else in matters of books–that is if you’re out for enjoyment and not for improvement or any nonsense of that sort. Which reminds me, I came on a phrase in Maeterlinck the other day which just suits my views about youth and silly scientific learning. ‘L’ignorance lumineuse de la jeunesse’,79 the luminous ignorance of youth is exactly our strong point, isn’t it?
Great God, how I must be boring you! But you ought to know by now that your friend Chubs with a pen in his hand is a very dangerous object: that extemporising goes a bit far at times: though seriously, to harp back to the eternal subject of self–I think Bleheris has killed my muse–always rather a sickly child. At any rate my verse, both in quality and in quantity for the last three weeks is deplorable!! Before you get any further in the aforesaid romance, let me hasten to warn you that when I said [of] the first chapter, that Bleheris was like you, I hadn’t really thought of what I should make him. However I take that back, so that in future when my poor hero does anything mean you won’t think I am covertly preaching at you.
In odd moments last week I read an excellent novel by–you’d never guess–Bernard Shaw. It is called ‘Love among the Artists’, and is published in Constable’s shilling series.80 I want you to get it: there are one or two extraordinary characters in it, and I think the whole gist of the thing, all about music, art etc. would appeal to you very strongly. Tell me if you do. I wonder what the good author who takes his own works so seriously would think if he knew that he was read for pleasure to fill up the odd moments of a schoolboy. If you do get the book, don’t forget to read the preface which is very amusing.
I can’t understand why you are willing to let me see your tale in the holydays, but are unwilling to send it by post. I refuse point blank to read it in your presence: that means that you spend your time thinking of what the other person is thinking and have no attention left to give to the work itself. So you may as well send it along.
Since I last wrote to you I have found the thought of a book done and yet not done intolerable, and therefore gone back and finished ‘Rob Roy’. I am very glad I did so, as otherwise I should have missed the very vigorous scene in the library, and the equally satisfactory death of Rashleigh.
I have written from 10 to quarter past 11 and the others are going up; so good night my Galahad,
from yours,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 89–90):
[Gastons
14 June 1916]
My dear Arthur,
I must begin by apologizing for being a day late this week: I suppose by this time you have worked up quite a flourishing grievance. However, you will be glad to know that there is a genuine excuse this time–not just laziness. The reason is that there were visitors here last night, and tho I don’t usually turn up on these occasions, I was so warmly urged ‘just to come into the drawing room for a minute or two when I had finished my work’ that I really couldn’t refuse. So the hour between 10 and 11 which on Tuesday nights is usually taken up with your letter was lost.
The reason why Mrs K. pressed me was that the visitors were some neighbours of ours and with them a girl who is staying with them–that’s an elegantly arranged sentence for a literary man–who has a voice and is being trained for opera. Well I am certainly glad I didn’t miss it, as she has a very fine contralto and sang two good songs–your record from ‘Orfeo’81 and a very queer thing of Debussy’s which I would like to hear again. Of course with that exception she sang rubbish, as the fools asked for it: horrible old ballads like ‘Annie Laurie’ etc. Still it was worth sitting talking about the war and wasting my time even for two good things. Why are singers always so plain I wonder?
I can’t help smiling at the thought of your sitting in the garden on Sunday morning, as we have had nothing but thunderstorms for the last week and it has just now turned so cold that we’ve gone back to fires. There, I’m talking about the weather! By the way I don’t know if you ever noticed how topping it is to see a fire again suddenly in the middle of June: it is so homely and cozy and is like having a bit of the good old Winter back again.
The remark about the cows with which you credit me really comes from your newly made friend De Quincy. I think it is just before the description of the flood–the ‘Bore’ as he calls it. Look it up and see if I’m right.82 Anyway I quite agree with it: but perhaps even nicer is a humorous looking old horse, living contentedly in a field by himself, it’s those little things that keep one from being lonely on a walk–there is one horse here that I have got to know quite well by giving him sugar. Perhaps he may save me from a witch some day or lead me home in a fog?
You will be amused to hear that my ‘Tristen’ has not YET come: that is nearly three weeks now, and I am beginning to get angry. You ask at what shop it’s being done: well you see it’s being worked indirectly through the village stationer here who will send books to be bound for you in London, I don’t know where. The reason for its taking so long, I imagine is that the wretch really waits until he has several to do and then makes one parcel of them so as to save himself the postage. In any case I shall not give him another opportunity, as there are people in the neighbouring town of Leatherhead who bind books themselves.
I am glad you like ‘John Silence’ and must get it too. I have now read all the tales of Chaucer which I ever expected to read, and feel that I may consider the book as finished: some of them are quite impossible. On the whole, with one or two splendid exceptions such as the Knight’s and the Franklin’s tales, he is disappointing when you get to know him. He has most of the faults of the Middle Ages–garrulity and coarseness–without their romantic charm which we find in the ‘Green Knight’ or in Malory. Still, I only really expected to enjoy some of the Tales, and feel that the book was worth getting for their sake. I am not sure whether you would like him or not, but you should certainly not start poetry with him.
Which reminds me, have you ever carried out your plans of reading ‘Jason’?83 I am wondering what I ought to get next, or whether I ought to save money and read some of the Gastons books–perhaps finish the Brontes or take up another Scott. I have found that Sidney’s romance the ‘Arcadia’84 is published at 4/6 by the Cambridge University Press (what are they like?) and am strongly tempted to get it. One thing that interests me is that Sidney wrote it for his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, sending it to her chapter by chapter as he wrote it as I send you ‘Bleheris’. Perhaps we were those two in a former state of existence–and that is why your handwriting is so like a girl’s. Though even my self conceit will hardly go as far as to compare myself with Sidney.
What a queer compound you are. You talk about your shyness and won’t send me the MS of ‘Alice’, yet say that you are willing to read it to me–as if reading your own work aloud wasn’t far more of an ordeal. By the way I hope that you are either going on with ‘Alice’ or starting something else: you have plenty of imagination, and what you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if it’s thrown into the fire next minute, I am so much further on. And you too who have been so disappointed at the technical difficulties of composing, won’t you find it a relief to turn to writing where you can splash about, so to speak, as you like, and gradually get better and better by experience? Or in other words, I shall expect an MS of some sort with your next week’s letter: if I don’t get it, I may have recourse to serious measures.
I like the way you say ‘why don’t’ I ‘take’ a day in town! As if I could just stroll down one morning and say that I wasn’t going to do any work today: no Galahad, that sort of thing may do in Franklin Street, but where people WORK–note that word, you may not have met it before–it can’t be did.
I am being fearfully lacerated at present: thinking that Pindar is a difficult author whom we haven’t time to read properly, Kirk has made me get it in the Loeb library–nice little books that have the translation as well as the text.85 I have now the pleasure of seeing a pretty, 5/-volume ruined by a reader who bends the boards back and won’t wash his filthy hands: while, without being rude, I can’t do anything to save it. Of course it is a very little thing I suppose, but I must say it makes me quite sick whenever I think of it.
In case you despair of ever getting rid of the ‘City of the Nesses’, I promise you that in the next chapter after this one Bleheris actually does get away. Don’t forget the MS when you write, and tell me everything about yourself. Isn’t this writing damnable?
Yours,
Jack
The time had come for Lewis to apply to an Oxford college, and it was to this end that Mr Kirkpatrick had been preparing him. Seventeen colleges then made up the University of Oxford, and the question before Lewis was which to apply for. The practice at the time was to list at least three on the entry form, stating one’s order of preference. The ‘big group’ of colleges mentioned in the following letter to his father included New College, Corpus Christi, Christ Church, Oriel, Trinity and Wadham, and of these New College became Lewis’s first choice. Before being accepted by a college, Jack had to sit a scholarship examination in the subject he wished to read, Literae Humaniores, or Classics, to be given in December 1917. If accepted by an Oxford college, this would not make him a member of Oxford University. For that he would need to pass Responsions, the entrance examination administered by the University. Meanwhile, in preparation for the scholarship examination, Mr Kirkpatrick obtained some of the examination questions used in previous years so that he and Jack would have a better idea of how to prepare.