What should I have done? Got up and intervened, in time to make her pay for the cakes? Told the waitress later, when I paid my own bill? Or said nothing at all? The third is (as you will guess) what I did do. The situation was not complicated by fear of being suspected of having taken the two other cakes myself, as I go there often and they know me quite well; if I had been a stranger to them, I should have mentioned it, I think. As it was, they lost their money and the thief got off.
What would Mr Johnston advise? The obviously easiest line is not to make a scene or interfere—though of course I should interfere if it was a question of more money than that, or objects of more value. But I don’t like to see shops cheated, even of a few cakes, and I never like to see thieves get away with it.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
23 July, 1932
Dearest Jeanie,
… I met a film king, very fat, with a large cigar, who wants to film Orphan Island, but I don’t expect he will. If he does, he will increase and concentrate on the love interest; he seems also to think the clash between 19th and 20th century very important, and that he must introduce a very modern girl who comes to the island. As a matter of fact his scenario would be very different from mine, but I said he could do what he liked. He said (looking very common) that it was very sad how vulgar popular taste, both in films and newspapers, was. I said (in effect) ‘it is people such as you who make it so, by your pandering to it’, but he thought not. The public will have their Barney case70 etc, he said, and a newspaper has to be vulgar before it pays its way. I suppose the remedy is to forbid any of them to be vulgar, then the refined ones wouldn’t have to suffer competition. But, as to films, I don’t know if he’s right…
[The end of this letter is missing.]
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
7 September, [1932]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I am so glad you like my book.71 What is the Church history you have been reading? It was a very stormy and interesting time in religion. The worst time for the Church was the Commonwealth, when all the sects broke out, and the Anglican service was forbidden. And the worst of that was that the Church returned, at the Restoration, more persecuting than ever, and gave the Conventicles a far worse treatment than they had ever had themselves. And the Papists too. And then James II came in, and wanted to persecute everyone except Papists, and made them hated worse than ever. And the poor Quakers, beaten and cropped and imprisoned by everyone. The one thing no-one thought of, but a few Congregationalists, was toleration. But it is all an interesting story.
I see Inge has been lecturing72 on the attraction of Catholicism (Roman and Anglo-) and on how many literary people in England become R.C. He says, what everyone says, that the Church is losing more adherents in R.C. countries than it is gaining in Protestant ones. It would be curious if, in another century, England should be the great R.C. country, surrounded by a heretic continent! It is just possible, I think.
But England will always have plenty of heretics of her own, if so, both Protestant and other…
Very much love.
E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
25 September, [1932]
Dearest Jeanie,
… Yes, I think Germany does well to turn on us. But our Note in reply was unsatisfactory.73 However, the leading articles in both the two important Sunday papers to-day take Germany’s side; the Sunday Times even takes the unusual step of commenting adversely on the remarks of its own Geneva correspondent about the situation—Wickham Steed, who is, I always think, rather a dangerous man, and who says to-day that any disarming would mean war, probably! Just what they used to be saying before the Great War. Apropos, I enclose a rather good picture of the man who suggested disarming at a Disarmament Conference. I’m afraid he is shrinking so small with shame that he will soon shrink quite away. There are some other jokes on the same page, which I throw in gratis, but that is the best…
I have just been reviewing a Life of Mary Kingsley.74 She was a most charming adventurer in West Africa—went exploring and trading in the 1890’s, all alone, among cannibals and traders, and never shot wild beasts, as she didn’t think it ladylike, but let them out of snares instead and then ran. You should read it sometime. She is not, I think, quite just to missionaries. She disliked the hymns they taught the blacks, with such refrains as ‘A little talk with Jesus, Makes it right, All right’. Also she didn’t think they understood West African negroes, and they forbade polygamy, which annoyed the wives, who didn’t care to run the house and husband all alone. How complicated missionary work must be!
… Very much love,
E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
24 November, [1932]
Dearest Jeanie,
... This is not another letter to be answered, but an answer to yours, and to enclose a cutting about the Buchmanites at Oxford which may interest you, and show you how right I am not to approve of them. I have heard worse tales than this from those who have been at the meetings. I believe it [public confession of sin] does not replace sin, but encourage [s] it, as they want new things to confess and make a stir with. I don’t like all that laughter, it is affected.
Shall I write a novel about it, after attending some meetings? No, you will reply, suspecting nasty cuts. But there would be none of those; I should treat it very respectfully, though with some regret. My hero or heroine, seeking religion, would try it, but retire after a time, debauched by and the worse for the experience. But I should need to know plenty about it first, and, in learning about it, I might get converted and stay to pray, you never know.
As to the obscenity, of course the obscene will be obscene anywhere, so long as they are allowed to be. The trouble is, the Groups do not only allow but encourage it, at least they did. There was some trouble about it, and they may censor the confessions more now, perhaps…
Much love.
E.R.M.
Between this letter and the next—written more than a year later—there is a gap in the surviving correspondence. During this interval Rose finished her short Life of Milton, travelled in the Basque country (the setting for her satire on the Oxford Group, ‘Going Abroad’), and compiled her anthology ‘The Minor Pleasures of Life’. At this time she also started writing the ‘Marginal Comments’ column for ‘The Spectator’. Rose was a loyal supporter of the League of Nations, and her pacifist sympathies were much in evidence at the time of the Abyssinian crisis.
Sunday [probably during May, 1934]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I have been very busy lately, and not able to do scarcely anything beyond my Anthology,75 which seems to demand more than one person’s full-time work, to get it done in the time. There is such a huge mass of literature to look at, in various languages and all ages; I don’t seem able to get past the fringes.
It was very nice seeing Miss Browne76 again—she is as nice as ever. It is good to find that we weren’t mistaken in our adolescent passion. It is nice to meet and talk as equals. I feel she has such an interesting mind that one could talk easily for hours. She is now 70; and I somehow felt a little sad in some ways—at least, she said she wouldn’t mind dying. I so much should that I am always sorry when people feel that. I think she would like to live alone; she has a great love of solitude and freedom, and does live with a sister. She was just off for 3 weeks by herself on the Yorkshire moors, which she obviously felt would be a great rest; not having to say (as she put it) when you are coming in, or where you’ve been, or whom you met, or anything else. We agreed that living alone is a wonderful thing—if one likes it. But we also agreed that there are very many who would hate it.
No, I don’t see the Church of England Newspaper. Do you take it in? I don’t feel very strongly about Intercommunion, but will join a society for it if you do. The whole thing is, of course, ludicrous; but I don’t actually understand it, it all seems too trivial to be visible, al
most, with all the important things to be done for people. I suppose Rome should lead the way—but won’t, of course…
12 o’clock striking, I must dash out with this. Very much love. Pepys says Deal77 was a very mean little place in 1661.
Your loving E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
9 December, [1934]
Dearest Jeanie,
... The League of Nations Union do publish a lot of rather useless stuff, I think. Still, I am sure one ought to support them. I have been sending ‘messages’ etc. to say I approve of the Referendum;78 I really can’t see what harm it can do, and I do think it is good for us to be made to think.
No, people don’t at all agree about the answers. Quite a lot of people don’t see any point in abolishing private arms manufacture, and don’t think it more dangerous than to have it in government hands. What we all are agreed on, of course, is in wanting peace; the rest is just a question of ways of obtaining it, and thousands of people say this is so much a matter for experts that it is a pity the public should even think about it. I can never see this point of view, and think the more we think and say about it the better. But the government says it may hamper them in their dealings with foreign governments, if the people of England have stated what they think about such things. It is all very difficult.
‘Justice’ is, of course, a fine slogan. But, in such an unjust world, a dangerous one. I mean, how are we to bring it about, except by force, and force is the thing to avoid. What is the good, e.g., of the League of Nations Union shouting for justice for German Jews, Socialists, and Democrats, or for Italian Democrats, or Russian bourgeoisie, or for Hungarians in Jugo-Slavia (though this they are doing) when it can’t enforce it? Of course the League itself is working half its time on all these European things, oppressed minorities, etc., but the drawback is that no one seems to care twopence about the oppressed of other nations except us, except when they are of their own political party. So we get called busy-bodies: as, indeed, we are, and always have been. We annoyed Europe dreadfully in the 17th century by sending deputations abroad to investigate continental cruelties and we are still at it. I think it’s a good thing, on the whole, though it makes us unpopular.
I am sending you the Christmas number of The Spectator, with a series of articles on the English character in it. I wrote on ‘Have we improved?’79 Of course we have. You might see if you agree (p. 792). If you have any time, read the others too…
Very much love…
E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
23 January, [1935]
Dearest Jeanie,
… Will writes that he is sorry to disappoint Uncle Regi,80 but that the chances of his marrying are negligible, whatever accrued to his bank account by doing so. He says that if he had been told this 20 years ago, he might have done something about it, though probably not, but that now it is n.b.g. Still, all this might be upset if he should meet the right woman, and I’m sure the knowledge that he would be able to support a family comfortably would put him in a better mood towards her…
Are you interested in the making of English Saints? I enclose an article I wrote for The Spectator on it,81 hoping the Archbishop of Canterbury might read it and act on it. I don’t see why the saints should all be left to the R.C.’s. They say no-one else knows where the dead are, whether in heaven or not, and you mustn’t saint a man who is elsewhere. More82 and Fisher83 are good ones, but are only sainted, of course, because they were executed by Henry VIII for not acknowledging him head of the Church. I think some of Bloody Mary’s martyrs should be sainted too…
Very much love. E.R.M.
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
17 February, [1935]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I am sorry I disappointed you about the saints. Perhaps I dislike that particular kind of sanctimoniousness too much to be fair to it. It always makes me think of Suor Commanina, at the Convent School,84 turning up her eyes like a Madonna, or, worse, turning them down in the street when a man passed, saying to us ‘Abasso gli occhi!’85 But even to that one should be fair, of course; and I dare say a sympathetic (and amusing) picture might be made of it; only a 600-word article about another person (Sir T. More) gives little time.86 To-day, I have been writing about the King of Abyssinia87—again, far too shortly, as I’ve been reading masses of stuff lately about both him and his country (some lovely 16th century travels there written by a Portuguese missionary,88 and other things) and a shameless Italian publication about how fertile the country is, and how it ‘fa piangere il cuore’89 to think how it is being wasted by not being cultivated by Italians. They are determined to get hold of it, I’m afraid. Of course I haven’t touched on that, only on the king, and legends of his country & history, and about his coronation 4 years ago. Really, I should like Italy to get the country, if they could without fighting, but of course they can’t. And, as someone lately pointed out, it is several centuries since Italians won a battle. They ran away every time in the last war. A British Tommy from the Italian front told some one I know that ‘the French used to shoot them in the back’—rather annoyed that he wasn’t allowed to do the same, apparently. Anyhow, out of all I’d been reading about Abyssinia I had to pick 600 words only, so it was very poor.
I don’t agree about human nature being the most delightful thing we know. I think many things are more so. Think of a lovely mountain side, smelling of lemons and silver with olives, and the sea below. Or a coral lagoon, with coloured fishes swimming in it. I won’t mention poetry, because you will say it is by human beings…
Very much love.
E.R.M.
15 September, [1935]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I am sending you an article by Inge on our animal brethren,90 to help you in your relations with them. I will also send the New Statesman presently, which has a nice article by Y.Y.91 on how much the nations value each other’s good opinion,92 and an article which interested me on contraception.93
Aren’t you relieved about France coming down on the League side?94 It seems to have had no effect so far on Mussolini, who announces that Italy is strong enough to fight the whole world, but it is a comfort to have France with us about it, instead of having to make a fuss alone. Only I expect we shall between us force some arrangement on Abyssinia which she doesn’t want. Mussolini seems to get madder & madder; I hear that when Eden tried to talk to him at Rome in the summer, it was quite impossible; he would only shout and thump the table and froth at the mouth, just like Goring. Dictatorship has a terrible effect on the human reason.
Will suggests that everyone should draw lots, and the shortest would have to shoot the Duce. I quite agree. It would be a noble death for the assassin. I do wish some one would; I don’t believe anything else can now stop this business. Do you think I ought to go out and have a try, as I feel so strongly about it? I don’t feel it would disgrace the family name, but rather honour it. I should have done that which was righteous in the sight of the Lord, also of the nations. I should probably be made an Abyssinian saint. Tyrannicides used to have statues erected to them in old days…
I think [H.G.] Wells is right about the moral character of the brain being affected by a flaw. One has to judge morality and immorality from the outside standpoint, and if a person has a brain that doesn’t see that stealing is wrong, and steals, he would be called immoral by others, I suppose (unless he was definitely imbecile). Still, I don’t remember the passage, and might not agree with it if I read it. Wells is very interesting to talk to about his family—he is fond of them, but they annoy him, he says, by their narrowness, and by ‘the accent of their minds’. He is a most loveable person, somehow, in spite of his faults; and very friendly and kind to me always, which I always feel rather odd, we are so different…
I had a beautiful day yesterday, driving to Surrey and walking for 3 hours over Leith Hill—very wild and beautiful. I went to see Stane Street,95 the bit
of Roman Road they’ve been clearing on Leith Hill common. They’ve cleared the brambles and trees away from about 100 yards of it, and come on Roman cobbles and flints that paved it; they are laying turf over it. It seems to have run for miles, right across that part of Surrey; a queer feeling it gives one, standing on it. I don’t wonder Mussolini gets maddened by his Roman heritage and wants to conquer the world…
[No signature]
7, Luxborough House, Northumberland St, W.1
6 October, [1935]
Dearest Jeanie,
Thank you for yours of Sept. 25th. Since then, the world has been turned upside down by this wicked man (‘the Duce, he goes too far’, the Italian fruiterer at the corner of East Street says)96... I see on the placards that Adowa has fallen; it was bound to, of course. It is all too ghastly. The one bright spot is the almost universal (outside Italy) feeling that it is a very wicked war. In England only Garvin in The Observer and the Daily Mail think otherwise. But I am dreadfully afraid, now that France has refused to take part in any but the mildest and most useless sanctions, that the League can do nothing to stop it. And that idiot Garvin going on ‘Do be cautious, or Italy will leave the League’—as if a country behaving like that was any use in the League. I went to Mass at the Italian Church in Hatton Garden97 this morning, to see if the sermon mentioned the war. It didn’t, but was on the text ‘Do to one another as you would be done by’, and was about how Christians should love each other, and especially Catholics; there was no hint that Christians were failing in this just now. I suppose he didn’t want to annoy his congregation of patriotic Italians.
Did you hear Inge the other evening on the Dangers of being Human? I didn’t, but read it later in The Listener, and thought it very good.98 To-night I shall hear Robert Lynd on Belfast99—only I don’t believe he will be audible, he has a very low, gentle, murmuring Irish voice…
I have changed my car… my new car is another Morris, only a year old, and with very little use before I had it; it is rather smaller than the other (10 h.p.) and handier, and goes much more quietly (I mean, makes less noise). I like it very much. Having a new car should have been one of my Pleasures.100 The temptation is to drive about all day and do no work. I went to Richmond Park yesterday, it was lovely, all yellowing, and the deer very tame...
Letters to a Sister Page 5