A Life in Letters

by George Orwell

  You asked where Marrakech was. It's somewhere near the top left hand corner of Africa and immediately north of the Atlas Mountains. Funnily enough we've been having the cold snap even here and on Xmas eve there was a heavy frost--don't know whether that is usual here, but judging by the vegetation I don't think it can be. I had the queer and rather pleasant experience of seeing the oranges and lemons on the trees frosted all over, which apparently didn't damage them. The effects of the frost were very curious. Some nasturtiums I had sown earlier were withered up by it, but the cactuses and the Bougainvillea, which is a tropical plant from the South Pacific, weren't affected. The mountains have been covered with snow even on their lower slopes for some time past. As soon as I've done the rough draft of my novel we're going to take a week off and go into the mountains. The Romans thought they were the end of the world, and they certainly look as if they might be. It's generally fine and bright in the day time, but we have fires all the time. The only fuel is olive wood, because there simply isn't a wild tree for miles and miles. This is one of those countries which are very nearly desert and which just exactly support a small population of men and beasts who eat every eatable thing and burn every burnable thing on the surface, so that if there were one more person there'd be a famine. And to think that in Roman times North Africa was full of magnificent forests full of lions and elephants. There are now practically no wild animals bigger than a hare, and I suppose even the human population is smaller. I've just been reading about approximately these parts in Flaubert's Salammbo, a book which for some reason I'd always steered clear of but which is simply stunning.

  I'm not surprised at J.M.M[urry]* entering the Church. But he won't stay in it long. I suppose in the near future there will be a book called 'The Necessity of Fascism.'1 But I think it's really time someone began looking into Fascism seriously. There must be more to it than one would gather from the left press. Mussolini has been 'just about to' collapse ever since 1926.

  The French hardly celebrate Xmas, only the New Year. The Arabs probably celebrate the New Year, but it may not be the same as ours. They are pretty strict Mahomedans, except that owing to poverty they are not overscrupulous about what they eat. We simply haven't celebrated Xmas yet, but shall when we get a pudding that is coming from England. Eileen was ill on Xmas day and I actually forgot till the evening what day it was. It's all very gloomy, because my father is very ill and my sister who was to come out here consequently can't. Two friends have just got back from Spain. One is a chap called Robert Williams2 who has come out with his guts full of bits of shell. He says Barcelona is smashed out of recognition, everyone is half starved and you can get 900 pesetas for a PS. The other is George Kopp,* a Belgian, whom there is a lot about in my book. He has just escaped after 18 months in a G.P.U.3 jail, in which he lost seven stone in weight. They were bloody fools to let him go after what they have done to him, but I suppose they couldn't help themselves. It's evident from several things that the Communists have lost most of their power and the GPU only exists unofficially.

  My love to Mary and Peter. Eileen sends love and thanks Mary for the letter. I'll write again when I hear from the bank. I hope the cold will let up. It can be bloody in a small cottage. About February we'll have to think of getting Muriel mated, but there's no hurry. Whatever happens don't let her go to that broken-down old wreck of Mr Nicholls's,4 who is simply worn out by about twenty years of fucking his own sisters, daughters, granddaughters and great-grand-daughters.

  Yours

  Eric

  PS. Were you giving the pullets a forcing mash? Clarke's stuff is pretty good.

  [XI, 516, pp. 259-63; typewritten]

  1.Murry had a predilection for such titles: The Necessity of Art (with others) (1924), The Necessity of Communism (1932; New York, 1933), and The Necessity of Pacifism (1937).

  2.A fellow member of the POUM militia.

  3.Secret police of the USSR.

  4.A neighbour at Wallington.

  To Herbert Read*

  4 January 1939

  Boite Postale 48

  Marrakech

  Dear Read,

  Thanks for your letter and the manifesto.1 Funnily enough I'd already seen it in La Fleche and had thought of making further enquiries. I'll certainly sign it, though if you merely want a few names to represent England you could get some much better-known people. But any way use my name for anything it is worth. You asked if I wanted to suggest any changes in the manifesto. The only point I am a bit doubtful about, though I don't press it, is this. On p. 2 you say 'To make Russia safe for bureaucracy, first the German workers, then the Spanish workers, then the Czechoslovakian workers, have been left in the lurch.' I've no doubt this is true, but is it strategically wise for people in our position to raise the Czech question at this moment? No doubt the Russians did leave the Czechs in the soup, but it does not seem to me that they behaved worse or very differently from the British and French Governments, and to suggest by implication that they ought to have gone to war to defend the Czechs is to suggest that Britain and France ought to have gone to war too, which is just what the Popular Frontiersmen would say and what I don't believe to be true. I don't press this point, I merely suggest it and any way add my name to the manifesto.

  I am spending the winter here for the sake of my lungs, which I think it is doing a little good to. Owing to this blasted health business I have had what is practically a wasted year, but the long rest has done me good and I am getting on with a new novel, whereas a year ago, after that awful nightmare in Spain, I had seriously thought I would never be able to write a novel again. Meanwhile, curiously enough, I had for some time past been contemplating writing to you about a matter which is much on my mind. It is this:--

  I believe it is vitally necessary for those of us who intend to oppose the coming war to start organising for illegal anti-war activities. It is perfectly obvious that any open and legal agitation will be impossible not only when war has started but when it is imminent, and that if we do not make ready now for the issue of pamphlets etc. we shall be quite unable to do so when the decisive moment comes. At present there is considerable freedom of the press and no restriction on the purchase of printing presses, stocks of paper etc., but I don't believe for an instant that this state of affairs is going to continue. If we don't make preparations we may find ourselves silenced and absolutely helpless when either war or the pre-war fascisingdeg processes begin. It is difficult to get people to see the danger of this, because most English people are constitutionally incapable of believing that anything will ever change. In addition, when one has to deal with actual pacifists, one generally finds that they have a sort of lingering moral objection to illegality and underground work. I quite agree that people, especially people who have any kind of notoriety, can get the best results by fighting in the open, but we might find it extremely useful to have an underground organisation as well. It seems to me that the commonsense thing to do would be to accumulate the things we should need for the production of pamphlets, stickybacks etc., lay them by in some unobtrusive place and not use them until it became necessary. For this we should need organisation and, in particular, money, probably 3 or 4 hundred pounds, but this should not be impossible with the help of the people one could probably rope in by degrees. Would you drop me a line and let me know whether you are interested in this idea? But even if you are not, don't speak of it to anyone, will you?

  I enclose the manifesto, which I have signed.

  Yours

  Eric Blair

  P.S. [handwritten] I'm keeping the leaflet of Cle 2 & will send in a subscription as soon as I can get into Marrakech & buy a money-order.

  [XI, 522, pp. 313-4; typewritten]

  1.Towards a Free Revolutionary Art. This called for the formation of an International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art. It was signed by Andre Breton, founder and leader of the Surrealist movement, and Diego Rivera, painter of the Mexican revolution, when they rejected the Third International
politically and culturally.

  2.La Cle: monthly bulletin of the International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art.

  To Francis Westrope*

  15 January 1939

  Boite Postale 48

  Marrakech

  Dear Frank,

  I wonder if you could be kind enough to send us the following:

  Thackeray's Pendennis (Nelson Double Vol. 2/-).

  Trollope's Eustace Diamonds (World's Classics).

  H. James' Turn of the Screw (Everyman No. 912.) J. S. Mill's Autobiography (World's Classics.) I think that about exhausts our credit, but if we owe you anything, let me know, won't you?

  I am afraid it is a long time since I have written, and I never answered the letter Mrs Westrope1 wrote me about the time we left England. We have been in this country about four months now and expect to be here till about the beginning of April. [Summary of descriptions of life in French Morocco as in 24.11.38, 26.11.38, and 26.12.38.]

  I must say I was very thankful to be out of Europe for the war crisis. Here the people paid very little attention to it, partly I think because they did not want to excite the Arabs but also because they evidently didn't believe war was coming. I think one of the determining factors of the situation is that the French people can't be got into war unless France is invaded, and their politicians are aware of this. I suppose the next bit of trouble will be over the Ukraine, so perhaps we may get home just in time to go straight into the concentration camp if we haven't been sunk by a German submarine on the way. I hope and trust it won't be so. I have just finished the rough draft of my novel, and then we are going into the Atlas mountains for a week before I begin the revision, which will take till about the beginning of April. I think the climate has done me good. I cough very little now and I have put on a bit of weight, about half a stone already. It does seem so infuriating to be interrupted all the time by these wars and things.

  I don't think by the way I ever thanked you for very kindly sending me that book of Arabic. I'm sorry to say Eileen and I have learned practically no Arabic, except the few words one can't help learning, because all the Arabs speak a kind of pidgin French, at any rate if they are at all in contact with Frenchmen. They also, of course, in these parts, speak a kind of dialect with Berber and even Spanish words mixed up in it. A lot of the people round here are Chleuh, a race the French only conquered quite recently, and there is also a certain amount of negro blood. We had to pass through Spanish Morocco coming down here. I didn't of course get more than glimpses, but I saw a few Franco troops, who looked indistinguishable from the Government troops I used to see a year earlier. The French here are mainly pro-Franco, and I think when all is known it will come out that they have given Franco a good deal of help, direct and indirect. There is a huge Jewish population here and in consequence a lot of anti-Jewish feeling, though most of the Jews are terribly poor and live much the same life as the Arabs. I hadn't realised before that much of the characteristic Moroccan work, coppersmithing and so forth, is done by Jews. Most of the native work is lovely and, of course, extremely cheap, though unfortunately many of the best things aren't portable.

  Please give all the best to everyone. I trust when we next meet it won't be behind the barbed wire.

  Yours

  Eric Blair

  [XI, 527, pp. 319-20; typewritten]

  1.Myfanwy Westrope, wife of Francis Westrope, proprietor of Booklovers' Corner, where Orwell had worked as a part-time shop assistant, 1934-35. Orwell mistakenly addresses Francis Westrope by the first name of another bookseller, Frank Simmonds.

  To Lady Rees

  23 February 1939

  Boite Postale 48

  Marrakech

  Dear Lady Rees,1

  I do so hope all is well with Richard.* The last I heard from the Plowmans some months back was that he was still in Barcelona, but since the retreat I have had no news of him, of course. I hope and trust he got out all right and isn't too overcome by all he must have been through. If he is home and cares to write, our address is the above until about the end of March. I think my wife told you I had been ill with what they finally decided after a lot of X-raying was not tuberculosis but something with a long name. I spent about six months in a sanatorium and then they told me I should spend the winter here. I don't know how much good it has done me, but I have no doubt it was as well to be out of England for this winter, which seems to have been a very severe one. Of course this business has set my work back a lot, however I have nearly finished another novel and we are going to come home as soon as it is done, about the beginning of April. They said I ought to live further south, so I dare say we shall settle in Dorset or somewhere like that when we can find another cottage.

  It is very quiet and peaceful here. We have a little house a few miles out of Marrakech and we don't see any other Europeans except when some of the soldiers from the Foreign Legion come and see us. A short while back we spent a week about 5,000 feet up in the mountains, where the Berber race called the Chleuh live. They are rather interesting people, very simple, all free and equal, very dirty but splendid to look at, especially the women. They have beautiful little pastures with grass almost like England, and you can lie about on the snow in blazing sunshine. Down here the country is flat and very dried up, with no natural trees, much like northern India, I should think. The Arabs are terribly poor and most of the people work for about a penny an hour. For Europeans living isn't very cheap, not so cheap as France, I should say, though certain things are fantastically cheap, for instance you can buy a camel for three hundred francs, supposing that you wanted one. The brass & copper work that they do here is beautiful, but the most attractive thing of all is the very cheap native pottery, which unfortunately it is almost impossible to bring away.

  We were most thankful to be out of England during the war crisis, and I trust we shan't get back just in time to meet another. The idea of war is just a nightmare to me, and I refuse to believe that it can do the slightest good or even that it makes much difference who wins. If Richard is back and doesn't feel up to writing, could you give him all our love and say we hope to see him when we get back?

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair

  [XI, 532, pp. 329-30; typewritten]

  1.Sir Richard Rees's mother. Rees was serving as an ambulance driver in Spain.

  To Jack Common*

  23 February 1939

  Boite Postale 48

  Marrakech

  Dear Jack,

  Did you write to Miss Woods about Muriel's mating? If not, could you be good enough to drop her a card? I don't remember the exact address, but I think it's Woods, Woodcotes, Nr. Sandon, and any way they'll know at the pub. [Orwell was anxious that Mr Nicholls's 'old wreck' should not be mated with Muriel (see 26.12.38) and on 12.1.39 had asked him to contact Miss Woods.] Incidentally I hope there's no foot and mouth this year. I suppose they are right in not letting animals be moved about while it is on, though they don't stop men and dogs, but it is really time they stopped that insane business of slaughtering a whole flock of cattle because of one case.

  I don't know exactly when we'll be back, but some time in April, and will let you know the exact date later. I've got to finish the novel, which has been set back because I have again been ill and was in bed a fortnight, though I'm all right now, and then there's the question of a boat. If possible we want to go all the way from Casablanca by boat, but there's only one a month and I can't obtain the date yet. After we get back I must go straight down to Southwold and see my father, and Eileen as soon as possible is going to look for a new house. This is all supposing war hasn't broken out by then, because if it has I don't want to be caught with my pants down and shall keep the cottage. But if it would suit you to stay on at the cottage till about the end of April, it would suit us. On the other hand if you wished to leave a bit earlier we could fit that in as well, because in any case either E. or I will have to come down to Wallington to superintend moving the stuff. We shall
take the hens, of course, in spite of their failure to make good, but shall probably dump the fowl houses and buy new ones, which would not be dearer than transporting and less fag. I wonder if anything is coming up in the garden. There ought to be a few snowdrops and crocuses soon.

  I don't know whether the world situation is better or worse. I look at it now simply with a meteorological eye, is it going to rain or isn't it?, though I suppose once it's started one will fail as usual to keep out of it. If I was biologically a good specimen and capable of founding a new dynasty I would devote all my energies during the war to keeping alive and keeping out of sight. I haven't heard of or from Richard [Rees], but I've just written to his mother to know what the news is. I suppose he got out all right. It's all a ghastly mess, and if one is not personally involved the most ghastly thing of all will be the complete failure of left-wingers to learn anything from this disaster, the awful sterile controversies which will go on for years, everyone laying the blame on everybody else.

  I wonder if Murry's* ordination is going through all right? I suppose as he's got a degree already he won't have to study for very long. But is he quite sound on the 39 articles 1 etc.? I shouldn't have thought so. It would be comic if he ended up as a bishop. By the way, have you run across the rector of Rushden cum Wallington, Mr Rossborough. Although not very prepossessing he's a nice little man and has a very nice son. The son, Rob, is at Haileybury and he joined the P.P.U.2 and refused to enter the O.T.C.3 What impressed me was not so much this as that his father after thinking it over decided to back him up. He has been a missionary in Africa and seen the way the natives are treated, and this has given him slightly heterodox views on some questions, as often happens with missionaries. His wife though very nice impresses me as being a bit off her rocker. By the way her praying circle pray regularly for my health (don't tell anyone this as it's supposed to be a secret even from me, Mrs R. having told Eileen in confidence).