It is rather restful to be in Istanbul for a few days, though I am again in a room unfit for a goat. I sit in a lounge outside it, where it is much cooler. I hope to get on with my writing here—novel, poetry, articles etc., and, except Troy & seeing a few people, shan’t try to do anything much. I do look forward to the cold wet sponge. I had an interesting talk with a German this morning who has lived in Turkey … for 17 years. He thinks Turks on the whole (as I do) the stupidest people in the world, and not really belonging to Europe, which they drifted into over the centuries from the eastern plains. He thinks Ataturk has done something to improve them, but even now the taxi-drivers can’t find their way about, and the trains can’t do more than about 20 miles an hour, and the economy of the country is getting worse and worse. He thinks the women (outside the large westernized towns) will take at least 50 years more to recover from the Koran and cast off their hot muffling clothes. The Prophet was very firm about their not letting men see their faces or hair. Perhaps in the Middle Ages it would have been rather rash of women to let Turkish men see much of them. But the men aren’t told to behave decently, it is the women who mustn’t tempt them. He says the women usually die early of such unhealthy clothes. He asked the Turkish maid why she didn’t dress like his wife in hot weather; she said she couldn’t, her religion forbade it. An awful life it must be. Besides being hot, they are scorned and unfit to pray.
Very much love.
E.R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 4 February, [1955]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I should certainly encourage your catechumen to hope. But if she can also do a little believing, she will pray with more confidence and on a firmer basis. But very likely she can’t. Mere hope is rather frail under the stresses of life. But of course everyone must do what they can, and not worry....
I am getting very confident on the bicycle.38 As my porter says, it will keep my weight down. No mishaps so far. At least, not to me, though a bus banged into the back of a car which stopped for me while I crossed at the pedestrian crossing. Bus drivers are taken by surprise when cars stop for crossings, it seems to them so odd and wrong. My car got banged in that way once. Buses are the rogue elephants of the road, and probably unteachable. I think it is being so powerful, and power corrupts. Now great new roads are being planned, which will speed up traffic dangerously….
The car sounds not too badly damaged, and I hope in a few weeks to get it back.
A lot of talk about abolishing war going about. I wish they’d think of a way!
Very much love.
E.R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 20 February, [1955]
Dearest Jeanie,
I hope you still survive, and aren’t having an awful time walking about in the snow and ice. I find this much more tiring than bicycling, & less safe. Today cars and pedestrians were glissading all about the roads, while my rubber tyres gripped the icy surface firmly, and I only glissaded when I jumped off or walked. The snow lay deep when I first went out, coated with ice; later they had thawed some of the streets with salt, though not the pavements. I went to early Mass at the Chapel and the later one to S. Paul’s,39 where Fr Henderson40 preached a really splendid beginning-of-Lent sermon, the best of its kind I have heard, I think. I am glad he is so near me, so that I can get there even without the car….
I have a Shrove Tuesday party here; after that, says Fr Henderson, parties should be laid aside for Lent. Also smoking, drinking, eating nice things, idling, self-indulgence, spending money except when necessary—he made it sound like a hard campaign; and, he added, if we don’t behave better by the end of it, it will all have been wasted effort. I’m sure bicycling instead of driving is very Lenten. And certainly your bicycling about in the snow is. I wish your colleagues would take Lent to heart, & be content to be a little put upon.
I saw a ridiculous film yesterday instead of coming to you, a Japanese film about Samurai,41 detestable creatures, gibbering and yelling and fighting.... I thought Sailor Beware42 good, which we saw for the ‘Critics’ for next week.
Very much love.
E.R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 22 February, [1955]
Dearest Jeanie,
I had better hurry and give my [definition of] minimum Christianity before I finish your letter; I’ve not read yours yet. I haven’t much time for mine, as I am fighting against time this morning. But I think I should call a person a Christian if he believes in God, (I call it ‘believe’, but you can translate it into ‘hope’, as we probably mean the same—I mean ‘believe enough to pray to’) and in something that may be called Christ’s ‘divinity’, i.e. that he was connected with God in some way we are not, that he survives in spirit, and can be communicated with. I think this is what distinguishes a Christian from (say) a Unitarian. A non-Christian may make his communion and get good from it, of course, though it can’t well mean quite as much to him as to someone who thinks there was (and is) something special about Christ and his relationship both to God and to human beings. Of course one may say none of it is ‘belief, but only ‘hope’, but that is just a question of words and names. It has nothing to do with behaviour, as non-Christians can be as good, and Christians as bad, as anyone else. Now I will look at yours. I have. Of course the two great commandments were pre-Christian, as Christ himself said, so I don’t think that can be a definition. I’m not sure what ‘love incarnate’ means, it is too vague, and doesn’t imply any special relationship of Christ to God, which I think is one of the ingredients. I feel my definition is more exact. Yours would almost cover Jews, who accept the two great commandments in the Old Testament and believe (some of them) that Christ was full of love though not divine.
I have just heard that my car will be 3 weeks more, as they haven’t yet started on the repairs. I am furious, and not full of love at all. But my bicycle is a great comfort, it is very safe in snow and ice, but so much colder and slower than a car, of course. All right for Lent. I don’t call Lent self-denials ‘penances’ but training in self-control and hardness, as Fr Henderson said, which is useful at any age….
Very much love.
E.R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 13 March [1955]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I am nearly all right now. No temperature, in fact too little. For some time I thought I was normal and didn’t know why I felt queer, but, knocking the therm, down further, found I was between 95 and 96. It sometimes now reaches normal, but is variable, and I go on feeling rather tired. No doubt, as you suggest, I am radio-activized: perhaps we all are. If so, it’s not too bad, and perhaps it wont be the end of civilization. All the same, I’m glad Richard Acland has made his gesture.43 I wish he had put it rather differently; if I were him I would have said that it very likely wouldn’t bring peace or non-aggression at all, why should it, but in any case we mustn’t commit so dreadful a cruelty. I think I would rather we were wiped out or ruled by Communists than do it; but then I am old. I complained of the same thing in the pacifists of the war and before the war; they would go on saying that non-fighting would make Hitler not fight too, as he would be so touched, instead of simply that fighting was a barbarity not to be committed in any case, which is a strong position. Did you hear that Cardinal Griffin said that, in case of a just war, it would be all right to drop atom bombs on the ‘unjust and violent aggressor’?44 Really he ought to be deprived of his job for imbecility. I don’t know if he thinks the bomb can pick out the Kremlin and have no further effects, or that all the people of a hostile country are unjust and violent enough to deserve radio-activization or mutilation and death. Yet no one protests against his speech in public. What a world of humbug it is! I had an interesting talk yesterday with a young Jew, whom I met travelling in Palestine etc. in ’53. We made friends there, and went to several places in Israel together. His father is a London barrister, and he is down lately from Cambridge, and writing on art. He isn’t himself a believing Jew, but knows about it
of course. He thinks Christianity most extraordinary; he was taught it at Rugby. He thinks the main difference between it and Judaism is that Christians seem to look back to Christ’s life and death, as the mainspring and centre of their faith, while Jews look forward to the gradual coming of God’s kingdom on earth. He doesn’t see why Christians speak of being ‘redeemed by Christ’ and the world being so also, when obviously it isn’t redeemed at all. He can’t understand what Christians think Christ did for them, beyond teaching. Like most non-Christians, he accepts as Christianity a theological system which is still taught, both in pulpits and in schools, but which most thoughtful and educated people have laid aside as primitive. It was complained of in a book I was reading by an old Etonian.45 Religion must be very badly taught in schools, I imagine. He was at Eton over 50 years ago; it may be better now; but this boy was at Rugby only a few years back. He thought it odd that I, for instance, should put my own interpretation on things, quite different from the orthodox one; he thought that Christianity should be either accepted, or discarded, not stretched and lopped to fit different minds & periods. Perhaps it is a pity so much got written down about it, to crystallise it, and that it is never revised. Meanwhile we must just take what we can and as we can, and leave the rest.
No, we don’t mention Billy Graham in any church I attend. I believe we think he mustn’t be discouraged, as he is on the side of the angels, but that it is a pity he doesn’t mention the sacraments, and takes this sudden & emotional view of conversion….
I only heard a bit of Dr Matthews on Psychical research.46I don’t see the football poolers listening to him….
‘Any Questions’ panel must of course know as much about conscience as we do; what is the matter is that they dislike giving serious answers to any but political questions. I think this is a great pity. I wonder if ‘Any Answers’ will put them right.47 There might be letters from women who choose the dull job of living at home with invalid parents, and married people who decide to stay with their boring spouses instead of going after a more amusing one whom they love, and people who choose dull jobs because they feel they must support someone, besides from every one whose conscience tells them to write dull letters and clean the house instead of doing something more interesting and agreeable.
I enclose some cuttings to amuse you. The letters are about whether reporters ought to pester surgeons while they operate on Siamese twins; it seems they climbed up the walls to get a view and take photographs.48 I am glad medical opinion is so much against them. The other cutting is about how Stephen Spender walked out.49 Do you think it was rude? A reporter asked me after lunch why he had gone, and I said I supposed he had an appointment, as I am always purposely dull to reporters. But it seems he got on to Stephen afterwards and was rewarded. He was angry at Dylan Thomas, a friend of his, and lately dead, being read aloud for ridicule. Of course Lord Samuel should have talked about Betjeman’s poetry, not the poetry he disliked. But he is over 80, and should be listened to patiently, at least at someone else’s lunch party at which one is an honoured guest, as S.S. was….
Very much love.
E.R.M.
p.s. The great news is that my Car returns to me on Thursday! I can scarcely believe it—and feel it will have a collision en route from Peterboro’ or something.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 22 March, [1955]
Dearest Jeanie,
… My young Jew was surprised at the way I ‘trimmed and shaped’ theological doctrine, as written down in the creeds and the Prayer Book, to my own taste and needs. He thought a religion should be either accepted wholesale, as defined by its formulas, or discarded, as he has discarded Judaism. Though he admitted that most of his educated Jewish friends who hadn’t discarded it only accepted it with reservations. I told him that it seemed to me nonsense about wholesale acceptance, which wasn’t either necessary or usual, anyhow among Anglicans. There is no idea of his becoming a Christian, though I suppose any one might. But he seems quite happy as an agnostic.
Perhaps one day I will write that book, if I live long enough.1I have an intuition that I shall die in three years, i.e. in 1958, so must bustle about and do a lot of things in the time. When do you expect to push off? My own death is very credible to me now, tho’ it usedn’t to be. I must go before you, as it will be my turn first; also, I couldn’t go on without Saturdays at Romford….
I thought the ‘Critics’ rather dull, as most of the subjects were dullish. If I had been there, I would have said that a good programme about modern Sheffield would be impossible, it is such a dreadful place, and the only possible programme would have been about it as it was once, when it was a market town set among the hills; that might have been interesting; I like towns (as they were once) recalled. No interest to be got out of steel etc., or cutlery. But it is beautiful country, only now ruined by these awful towns. I suppose a country can’t be both commercially prosperous and remain beautiful, it has to choose. Just as it has to choose between cheap living, I mean low prices, such as we once had, and high wages for those who work. We have quite rightly chosen the last, so nothing will ever be cheap again. A flower shop once told me that flowers will never be cheap again because the growers now have to pay such high wages to their people. The same with books, rents, fares, everything. Luxborough House, now replaced by a new block of flats, is now asking £400 a year for flats of two rooms, kitch. & bathroom; I paid £200 for four rooms, and much better ones.
I don’t approve of the new Highway Code, which seems to me to be aimed at letting cars drive faster. It advises users of Zebra crossings to wait for gaps in the traffic before crossing. One might wait 10 minutes for that; besides, if there is a gap in the traffic a zebra is needless, one can cross without it. I am sorry about this, as the traffic is already very bad about zebras, and this will encourage them. Also drivers are advised to switch their headlights on in badly lit streets. This makes a most dangerous dazzle and causes accidents, but of course lets the driver go faster. I think the code has a strong pro-motorist bias, whereas I regard vehicles as dangerous creatures which badly need curbing. Not a word I think (however) about pedestrians and traffic lights, which did need saying…
Very much love.
E.R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 27 June, [1955]
Dearest Jeanie,
… Why is anyone shocked that God should know we aren’t all equally good? I don’t understand it. If he thought we were, I suppose he must see no difference between one kind of behaviour and another, in the same person at different times, which would be very discouraging. But there seem no limits to folly in thoughts about God.
I liked Fr Huddleston’s article in the News Chronicle.50 I’m glad he goes on hammering away at it; it may in the end have an effect, specially if the Commissioner reports to his government how shocked we all are by them here.51 There wasn’t nearly enough of that kind of outspokenness here in the thirties when Hitler was ill-treating the Jews, and the anti-Nazi Germans say that if there had been more of it we could probably have stopped it without a war. I wish the U.N. would condemn our behaviour re Cyprus; it might in the end persuade us to hand it over and let the Cypriotes determine their own fate.52 I am not sure there shouldn’t be some outspokenness about the Turks’ treatment of women. I have just read a book by a young Turk about life in the country districts there, giving a very bad account of it. If they have to go out with their husbands on some business, such as seeing a doctor, they have to walk several yards behind him with their shawls over their mouths, and not pass any men, or overtake any, and if they are heard to speak the husbands can beat them, and they can’t even speak to the doctor, who has to be told what is the matter by the husband or son, and they may only nod or shake their heads. Tho’ the law doesn’t allow him to kill them, public and religious opinion does, and it is continually done with impunity. The little girls are still often married when quite small, & often ruined in health and nerves by it, as the husbands don’t wait till they are older t
o live with them. This too is against the law, but the law doesn’t seem to run much outside the large cities. We seem to need another crusade! They behave better in New Guinea, about which old Canon Benson here [at St Paul’s, Knightsbridge] has just written a book53 & has handed the MS to me to read…
I have a poem about Trebizond in The Times Lit. Sup.54; do you see it?…
Fr Derry55 was very pleased with the success of his appeal last Sunday week in his sermon that the congregation at Sunday early Mass should make the responses, which before that no one but me did, so far as I could hear. This Sunday there was quite a noise, and in his sermon at noon he thanked us. I told him he had better tell us to do something else now and we might do it. He might even beg us to be good, which he doesn’t do enough, though his sermons are quite interesting. I wonder if I have the courage to suggest this sometime. I like him very much, and he has a sense of humour.
How brave Mary Stocks is! One week she says she doesn’t like cooking, another that she doesn’t like watching games. I thought the clapping after this remark was very slight, and showed shock.56
Very much love.
E.R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 18 October, [1955]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I didn’t hear the ‘Critics’, but shall this afternoon, and will notice what they said about the book57. I don’t expect it is like my style; very few people judge rightly about styles; as someone once said in reviewing me, foolish people sometimes compare me in style to Jane Austen, to whom I am completely unlike in way of writing. I shall be interested to hear what this book is.
Letters to a Sister Page 13