The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 2, 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  I didn’t mean this letter to draw out into such a fearful great screed. Such is the vanity of craftsmen that any expression of interest or approval provokes them to shocking outbursts of egotism. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that you (on the whole) think well of the play and were kind enough to write and say so. It’s always perilous for laymen to meddle with theology; but I gather you find the Incarnation part of it reasonably sound, and I hope you will allow the Trinity illustration, even though it’s not St. Augustine’s, but only a sort of marginal note on my own copy-book. I gave myself a fairly free hand over the Angels, because we don’t seem to know much about them that’s necessary to faith, so I gave them those attributes which seemed most useful dramatically.

  If the play is performed in London after Christmas, will you come and see it? Harcourt Williams16 (William) and Anthony Quayle17 (Michael) have promised to play in it again, and they are simply magnificent. I think you would like my angels – they stand eleven feet high in their wings and blaze with gold and colour. And with all its faults, the play does come off as a play. People come away from it with the idea that religion is interesting and exciting and practical, and not just a kind of dreary and sloppy emotion about something that has nothing to do with life. I’m sure it’s full of theological slips, but it can’t be worse for people than the perfectly incredible accounts of the Christian religion one gets in so many books and plays. The great thing is to get people interested, and then they can ask their questions in the right quarter. They are all asking questions – especially the young men – and it’s a funny thing, but practically any play that has so much as a whiff of any sort of religion about it can get an audience in London. Look at Murder in the Cathedral18 – look even at The First Legion19 which is all about Jesuits and miracles and hasn’t a woman-character in it, and which everybody said would be off in a week, and it did quite well at Daly’s (of all places) and is carrying on cheerfully at the Cambridge, which is a beastly theatre to play in.

  Well, please forgive my inflicting all this upon you, and thank you very much.

  Most gratefully yours,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 It was restored by Christopher Hassall in his production of the play in 1949.

  2 Voltaire said: “Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.” (If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him.) (Epîtres, 96)

  3 Referring to the Arian heresy, preached by Arius in the 4th century, who denied that Christ was consubstantial with God. (See D. L. S.’ play The Emperor Constantine)

  4 Referring to the heresy of Sabellius of the 3rd century, who preached that Father, Son and Holy Ghost were merely aspects of one Divine Person.

  5 The heresy according to which God the Father suffered with or in the Person of the Son.

  6 Cf. Introduction to The Man Born to be King (Gollancz, 1943, p. 19): “From the purely dramatic point of view the theology is enormously advantageous…never was there a truer word than that ‘except a man believe rightly he cannot’ – at any rate, his artistic structure cannot possibly ‘be saved’.”

  7 This sentence and the following four paragraphs constitute the essential thesis of The Mind of the Maker. She had then no intention of writing this book, which only came into existence after the project “Bridgeheads” was formed in September 1939.

  8 Words of William to the archangel Michael, The Zeal of Thy House, 4.

  9 Examples of such deficiencies are entertainingly illustrated in the chapter entitled “Scalene Trinities” in The Mind of the Maker.

  10 In his Preface, Laurence Irving omits all reference to the dogma of the Incarnation, which is the main theme of the play.

  11 See the final paragraph of “The Purple Wig” in The Wisdom of Father Brown.

  12 William’s words to Gervase (The Zeal of Thy House, 1) are: “…sometimes one has to damn one’s soul for the sake of the work”.

  13 John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, line 6. The line is often misquoted, as here. Milton wrote “And justifie the waves of God to men” (Oxford University Press, 1921).

  14 This Latin tag, which cannot be translated neatly, means literally “from the work done”, and is designed to safeguard the objectivity of the sacraments; that is, their reality does not depend on the state of mind of the participants. The alternative doctrine, that they are so dependent, can be expressed by the parallel phrase ex opere operantis, literally “from the work of the worker”. Broadly speaking the first phrase is “catholic”, the second “protestant”. But since it is also catholic teaching that sacraments are not beneficial to the participants without some response on their part, the difference expressed by the two phrases is less than is sometimes supposed, as D. L. S., with characteristic insight, realizes.

  15 Cf. “The Greatest Drama Ever Staged is the Official Creed of Christendom” (first published in The Sunday Times, 3 April 1938): “If this is dull [i.e. “the terrifying drama of which God is the victim and the hero”], then what in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting?”… “Now, we may call [the Christian] doctrine exhilarating or we may call it devastating; we may call it revelation or we may call it rubbish; but if we call it dull, then words have no meaning at all.” See also letter to Mrs Stevenson, 6 April 1938, note 2.

  16 See letter to Margaret Babington, 23 January 1937, note 2.

  17 See letter to Margaret Babington, 18 January 1939, note 3.

  18 Drama by T. S. Eliot, produced at Canterbury Cathedral, 1935.

  19 Drama by Emmet Godfrey Lavery first produced in London, 1934.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO H. L. LORIMER1

  6 October 1937

  Dear Miss Lorimer,

  I am most terribly sorry; yes, it was to me you lent The Common Reader2 and I had clean forgotten the fact. There it sat on my book-shelf, and the other day I actually looked at it in a vague kind of way and wondered why I had bought it in that edition and not to match Series I! I really am most terribly ashamed of myself.

  1 am afraid I can tell you very little about Hybrias the Cretan3, except that it was a baritone song of the full-blooded sort much performed by parsons at village concerts at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. My Father used to sing it, and it had a powerful crescendo passage, if I recollect rightly, about “with my good sword I plough, I reap”; I thought I still had my Father’s copy here, but it seems to have disappeared. I will make enquiries about it.

  I’m glad you had your account of the Appeal Meeting from so sympathetic a source as Helen Waddell;4 I felt I was being very rude and making myself highly unpopular, but I really was exasperated by the real incompetence with which that literature was sent out. And it seems so difficult to make Oxford people understand how the non-academic world lives – always in a hurry, always worried by a thousand other things, and so often troubled, not by immediate poverty, but by insecurity of income. Then the lack of central organisation – different bodies sending out different times and overlapping one another so that people received the Appeal either three times over or not at all. I felt in my bones that I was going to misbehave myself, and that was why I retired to the Clarendon instead of asking for a room in College! I was very sorry to miss a glass of sherry with you, but when one’s temper is unreliable, it is well to avoid opportunities of saying things that one might afterwards regret.

  With again very many apologies about the book,

  Ever yours sincerely,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 Hilda Lockhart Lorimer, a classical tutor and Fellow of Somerville, described by Vera Brittain as “one of the most brilliantly eccentric of women dons” (V Brittain, The Women at Oxford: A Fragment of History, London, 1960, p. 91).

  2 By Virginia Woolf, first published 1925.

  3 Hybrias of Crete, a warrior poet, is supposed to have lived in the 7th century B.C. All that exists of his work is a poem of two strophes expressing the scorn of Dorian warriors for t
illers of the soil. (See Paulys Real-Encyclopadie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, H. W. Smythe, Greek Melic Poets.) Translated into English verse by Thomas Campbell (1777–1814.) and set to music by James William Elliott (1833–1915), a church organist and composer of several anthems and cantatas. The song is mentioned in Busman’s Honeymoon (novel), chapter 5. It was “generally considered one of the finest bass songs ever written”. Musical Times, 1 March 1915. An edition “entirely revised by the composer in the year 1897” was published by Edwin Ashdown, Ltd. for both baritone and bass voice. It was advertised as sung by “Signor Foli”, a celebrated Irish bass, A. J. Foley (1835–1899). Orchestral parts were available from Messrs Goodwin and Tabb.

  4 Helen Waddell (1889–1965), novelist, mediaeval scholar and translator.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO FATHER HERBERT KELLY

  19 October 1937

  Dear Father Kelly,

  Thank you very much indeed for your long and friendly and most stimulating letter. I was really ashamed when I thought what a fearful great screed I had sent you to wrestle with.

  One thing I expressed badly. I am all for encouraging laymen to meddle with theology on their own account – the more they go in for a little hard thinking as a change from woolly emotionalism the better. I should have said, “it is perilous for laymen to meddle with expounding theology” – it is so easy to get confused and give a totally wrong impression, owing to lack of practice in handling technical terms.1

  That is one of the reasons why I feel sure that the artist’s business is to present and not to expound. (I’d back Shakespeare against Shaw every time!) Another is, that when the dramatist abandons his own technique and starts to argue, he is apt to lose grip on the thing, and become so eager to split hairs and justify himself that he fetters his own work. And thirdly, I believe people are more ready to be persuaded by a religious drama if it is not preceded by anything that looks like preachment.

  Actually, in practice, I don’t think any of the people who saw Zeal of Thy House acted were in much doubt about what I was trying to say as regards the Incarnation doctrine. What they found great difficulty in believing was that the doctrine as presented was orthodox C. of E.2 Their attitude was, not so much “this is too good to be true” as “this is too exciting to be orthodox”. Even if the book were prefaced by a certificate of orthodoxy signed by the entire bench of Bishops, they would probably not be persuaded.

  Arians:3 Yes – I think Arians is about right – or let us say that the highest point most of them get to is to imagine that the Church’s position is Arian. They range from a wholly “human Jesus” up to a position in which they allow that “some unique kind of divineness” is to be imputed to Jesus. What exactly they mean by this latter I don’t know. One woman said: “Isn’t it the sort of divine spark that there is in all of us, only in a unique degree – the same thing only more so?” I said I thought that wasn’t quite what was meant, because Christ was held to be the same – here the word “Person” loomed up like a trap, but I avoided it, since she might remember the Athanasian Creed and convict me of heresy – “the same personality as God the Creator – the same Thing – this sounded merely irreverent – “in fact the same God and just as much God – really God, in a very different way from you and me”. Which is where explanations land you. As a dramatist, of course, one just puts the idea over, not by explanation at all, but by re-iterated statement; “Crucify God”, “Those … . . Hands that bear the sharp nails’ imprint and uphold the axis of the Spheres”. “God bore this too”, “God died”, and so on – leaving them to draw the conclusion, “if it was God who was crucified, then Christ = God”. But it isn’t really the dramatist’s job to say “this is orthodox”; that’s the parson’s job.

  I’m afraid I haven’t read your books, but I will, especially as “my” theology turns out (and I am very happy to know it) to be “your” theology also. I didn’t think it was “my” theology exactly; I thought it was the Church’s, so far as it went, and am a little startled to hear that your “brothers” find such a personal flavour about it. Bits of my expression of it (notably the Prior’s speech about John and Peter) are indebted to G. K. Chesterton;4 but I think the body of it emerges quite simply from the Creeds – always provided that one starts by supposing that the Creeds were intended to mean something sensible and are not just a lovely rumbling of hypnotic sound, suitable for stupefying congregations – “the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible and the Whole Thing incomprehensible”, as the old tale has it.

  De Trinitate:5 I admit that my use of the word “Idea” is a little confusing – but only, I think, to theologians, not to the ordinary person, for whom it has no special metaphysical connotation. The artist uses it as I use it – you will notice that William is made to use it twice: “I’ve had an idea about this.” – thus “planting” it (as we say) for later use in the Trinity speech. The word you use, “expression”, would do admirably for the Second Person, but that, of late years, it has become horribly contaminated by “expressionism” and “self-expression”, used to convey the pouring-out of one’s feelings higgledy-piggledy, without regard either to form or to “good form” – a meaning as far removed as possible from the blood and sweat and discipline of the genuine craftsman’s “energy”.

  Prior: I’m glad that, on the main point, your Prior feels I’ve got hold of the right end of the stick. (The actor, by putting the right emphasis here, can help a lot to give the right sense.) Most Protestants labour under the delusion that: “It must be nice to be a Catholic, because you can get all your sins cleaned off by the priest every Saturday and start again”. (Or alternatively, of course, it must be dreadful, because the priest has a high old time licking his lips over your sins in the Confessional and then pursuing them into your private life and brandishing them in your face so as to “get a hold over” you.)

  Crucifixion: In a play (which only takes about two hours and has a story to tell) one can’t give a complete exposition of Christian doctrine. One has to take the bit that is important for the story and concentrate on getting that “planted” all through, so as to make its effect when the time comes. For William, the point where he comes smack up against it is that line “For lo! God died, and still His work goes on”. Everything else has to be sub-ordinated to that dramatic effect. But you’ll notice I’ve left out all those disgusting ideas about “satisfaction” and “paying-off”. I’ve tied it up with the “knowledge” question all through. Man says, “You say I mustn’t know – but I intend to know”. God replies, “Very well. If you insist, I shall not prevent you; nor shall I annihilate My creation or stop My work on that account. But I have to inform you that the price of that particular kind of knowledge is toil, suffering, renunciation and death. And since I made you with free-will, (and what we make we love), I will stand by you. I will go every step of the way with you. Further, I will turn your evil to good, so that, in the end, and by holding on to Me, you will attain all, and more than all, I originally intended for you, and a ‘crown such as the angels know not”’.6

  Angels: That is why, dramatically, the Angels are made to stand so far apart from this business of “wanting to know”. I quite agree that it is a pity for man to obey man implicitly; but for an Angel to take God’s orders for granted isn’t quite the same as for Tommy Atkins7 to take Colonel Blimp’s8 orders for granted. (My professional actors, trained to display human passion, had a shattering task! “You’ve got to imagine”, said I, “that you are beings who have never known passion, grief, remorse, rebellion, irritability, doubt, hesitation, pain, sickness, fatigue, poverty, anxiety or any of the ills flesh is heir to; you may show a divine anger, but you mustn’t sound cross; you may be tender, but on no account emotional; you may be joyful but not excitable; and although you have to stand for two mortal hours on a very hot day in heavy robes and uncomfortable wings, you must try and imagine that you have no bodies to speak o
f, that your legs do not ache, that your harness is not digging into your shoulders, that the sweat is not rolling down your faces and that two of you are not, in fact, sodden and streaming with hay-fever!” And very nobly they did it, poor lambs!)

  Well, I do hope the play will come to Town, and that you may yet be able to see it – it looks so beautiful. I will see that you have the centre of the front row of the stalls, if you do come, and perhaps, with the electric contraption, you might hear some of it. My Michael has the grandest voice, like a silver trumpet – when he says “all the Sons of God shouting for joy” it sounds like it! It is good of you to say you will send people and will try to get Toe H9 interested – that would be a tremendous help. Of course, it’s a great job trying to get managers to do anything about a “religious” play – the very word fills them with dreary discomfort and sends their financial spirits down to the soles of their boots. They don’t like Christ very much (since half of them are Jews, that is not so very surprising). They only know two versions of Him. There is “gentle-Jesus-meek-and-mild” (dull, and suitable for Christian plays for amateurs); and there is “Suppose-Christ-came-again-today” (usually strongly Communistic and all about working-class prophets in drab surroundings). But a Christianity with colour and humour and suitable for use under ordinary conditions of life is a very queer thing, for which they feel nobody is likely to pay good money. As Lord Melbourne10 is once said to have remarked, “Nobody has a greater respect for the Christian religion than I have, but really, when it comes to intruding it into a gentleman’s private life…!”