Aldous Huxley

by Nicholas Murray

  There were two nurses providing round-the-clock care and friends read to him constantly. Max Cutler, an exceptional doctor, it seemed to Laura, did not just ask the usual questions but asked what the patient was thinking and feeling about his situation. There was a tape-recorder by the bed and in This Timeless Moment a very detailed account is given of the last days and the conversations that passed between Aldous and Laura, and his accounts to her of his dreams. She also gives an account of the composition of what was now the final third of the essay on ‘Shakespeare and Religion’. It is a short but beautifully written and illuminating essay. In it he reviews Shakespeare’s attitude to religion and to death. Like Huxley the prophet in California, battling in his last decade with a range of obstacles from the studios, to the FBI, to the insentient reviewers, ‘the Shakespearian hero has to fight his ethical battles in a world that is intrinsically hostile.’29 Shakespeare – unlike Huxley – had ‘no ambition to be a systematic theologian or philosopher’ and preferred to ‘hold a mirror up to nature’. His religion, if it is to be equated with the accepting vision of Prospero in The Tempest, is ‘the doctrine of Maya’ that ‘our business is to wake up’. On his deathbed, Huxley framed his last expression of a world view which had been evolved over a lifetime:

  The world is an illusion, but it is an illusion which we must take seriously, because it is real as far as it goes, and in those aspects of reality which we are capable of apprehending. Our business is to wake up. We have to find ways in which to detect the whole of reality in the one illusory part which our self-centred consciousness permits us to see. We must not live thoughtlessly, taking our illusion for the complete reality, but at the same time we must not live too thoughtfully in the sense of trying to escape from the dream state. We must continually be on our watch for ways in which we may enlarge our consciousness. We must not attempt to live outside the world, which is given us, but we must somehow learn how to transform it and transfigure it. Too much ‘wisdom’ is as bad as too little wisdom, and there must be no magic tricks. We must learn to come to reality without the enchanter’s wand and his book of the words. One must find a way of being in this world while not being of it. A way of living in time without being completely swallowed up in time.

  On the next day, Sunday 17 November, they returned to the task, which was of the most extraordinary difficulty. He was hardly able to breathe, he was interrupted by coughing, his voice was faint, and he had never composed in this way, by dictating. He would sometimes bring out his magnifying glass to look at the written section of the essay. Eventually he got the hang of operating the machine and managed to dictate a letter – his last to be published – to Max Kester of Fosters’ Agency in London about a possible television version of ‘The Tillotson Banquet’ and a stage version of After A Many Summer. He took to his death the hope of theatrical success.

  Laura Huxley described the last week – from 15 to 22 November – as ‘a period of intense mental activity for Aldous’.30 Until the last day he ‘had not consciously considered the fact that he might die very soon’. She went on: ‘He was mentally very active and it seemed to me that some new levels of his mind were stirring.’ Around noon, on the last day, Friday 22 November, he asked Laura for a writing tablet and wrote on it: ‘Try LSD 100mm intramuscular’.31 She left the bedside and walked into the room across the hall to fetch the LSD from the medicine cabinet. She was rather surprised to see the doctor and nurses watching TV – hardly an appropriate moment to be doing so. Only later would she discover that they had been watching, shocked, the first footage of the assassination in Dallas of President John F. Kennedy. Laura, dismissing the doctor’s professional caution, administered the injection herself. It was 11.45 a.m. Some time later she gave him another 100mm shot because the first injection seemed not to have had any appreciable effect. She spoke to him – in the words he used to Maria, in the words used at the death of Lakshmi in Island – about letting go, about moving towards the light. ‘You are going towards Maria’s love with my love,’ Laura said. At around 3.15 p.m. he acknowledged her with a squeeze of the hand. At 5.20 p.m., peacefully, he died.

  Nearly three weeks earlier, Isherwood had come away from the hospital ‘with the picture of a great noble vessel sinking quietly into the deep; many of its delicate, marvellous mechanisms still in perfect order, all its lights still shining’.32 A few days after the death he wrote to the Swami Vidyatmananda that Laura ‘was and is shattered but behaved marvellously. I think she has been much misjudged.’33 He was one of the small group of people who met at Mulholland Highway – the body had been quickly cremated on the day after the death with no-one present and without any kind of service – on Sunday afternoon. This group included Laura and Virginia, Matthew and Judy, Maria’s mother, Rose and her son Siggy, Betty and Sanford Wendel, Peggy Kiskadden and Isherwood. As Sybille Bedford puts it: ‘They went for the walk Aldous had gone for every day as long as he was able to stand up, the track along the canyon with the view over the Hollywood hills and the tree-lined reservoir he had called the Lake.’34 On 17 December, at Friends House in London, there was a Memorial Gathering at which many of those who knew him spoke and at which Yehudi Menuhin played the Bach Chaconne. On 27 October 1971 Huxley’s ashes were buried in his parents’ grave at Compton in Surrey, close to the Watts Memorial Chapel. On 10 October 1972, Maria’s ashes joined him there.

  The anonymity of that interment – today the grave is untidy and neglected and the fact that Huxley’s remains are buried in it is not disclosed – seems an ungrateful coda to the life of one of twentieth century England’s most distinguished writers, a constantly inquiring spirit, an intellectual presence with no parallel in the current literary scene, a ‘multiple amphibian’ living in all the elements of art and science and perception that his omnivorous mind could gather into itself.

  1 Laura Archera Huxley in conversation with the author

  2 Reading, Letter to Ian Parsons 2 January 1962

  3 Reading, Letter from Ian Parsons to Aldous Huxley, 12 January 1962

  4 Reading, Letter to Herbert Herlitschka, 22 March 1962

  5 Reading, Letter from John Rosenberg to Ian Parsons, 21 November 1961

  6 Cyril Connolly, The Sunday Times, 1 April 1962, p30. Watt, pp446–49

  7 P.N. Furbank, The Spectator, 30 March 1962. Watt, pp449–50

  8 Frank Kermode, Partisan Review, Summer 1962, xxix, pp472–73. watt pp453–54

  9 This Timeless Moment, p197

  10 Ibid., pp163–86

  11 L.936

  12 HRC, Letter to Peggy Lamson, 29 December 1962

  13 L.929

  14 This Timeless Moment, p261 quoting letter to Laura Archera Huxley, 31 May 1962

  15 L.936

  16 L.942

  17 L.946

  18 King’s College Cambridge, Letter to Rosamund Lehmann, 20 February 1963

  19 L.949

  20 HL, Letter from Gerald Heard to Christopher Isherwood, 10 August 1963

  21 Julian Huxley, Memories II (1973), p220

  22 Reading, Letter to Dorothy Elmhirst, 24 August 1963, typed copy of letter written from Turin

  23 Juliette Huxley, Leaves from the Tulip Tree, pp232–33

  24 SB in conversation with the author

  25 This Timeless Moment, p241

  26 Mem. Vol. p127

  27 Mem. Vol. p161

  28 SB2.354. Quoting from Letter from Laura Archera Huxley to ‘the family’, 17 November 1963

  29 ‘Shakespeare and Religion’ in Mem. Vol., pp165–75

  30 This Timeless Moment, p298

  31 Ibid., p303. SB2.358 gives a slightly different form of words: ‘LSD- Try it intermuscular 100mm’. In an appendix (p372) SB appears to differ with LH about Max Cutler’s interpretation of the efficacy of the LSD. MC told SB that he had allowed the injection because it would make no difference at this stage. LH was surprised when told of this conversation and believed MC to have been of the opinion that it had a marked beneficial effect

  32
My Guru and His Disciple, p259

  33 HRC, Letter from Christopher Isherwood to Swami Vidyatmananda, 25 November 1963

  34 SB2.359

  The man of letters is tempted to live too exclusively

  in only a few of the universes to which,

  as a multiple amphibian, he has access.

  Aldous Huxley ‘Foreword’ to You are not the Target

  by Laura Archera Huxley

  Meanwhile, one must be content to go on piping up for

  reason and realism and a certain decency.

  Aldous Huxley, ‘Introduction’ to Texts and Pretexts

  By the same author

  BRUCE CHATWIN

  A LIFE OF MATTHEW ARNOLD

  AFTER ARNOLD: CULTURE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME:

  THE LIFE OF ANDREW MARVELL

  Poetry

  PLAUSIBLE FICITONS

  Fiction

  A SHORT BOOK ABOUT LOVE

  Chronology

  1894

  26 July: Huxley born Godalming, Surrey.

  1901

  Huxley family leave ‘Laleham’, the house at Godalming for Prior’s Field nearby where Huxley’s mother, Julia, opens a school the following year.

  1903

  Huxley goes to Hillside Preparatory School (to June 1908).

  1908

  Huxley goes to Eton in September as King’s Scholar; his mother dies, 29 November.

  1909

  Huxley’s father, Leonard, moves to Westbourne Square, London.

  1911

  Huxley forced to leave Eton in March because of an eye infection; tutored at home; stays with various relatives; nearly blind for at least a year; learns Braille.

  1912

  Leonard Huxley remarries to Rosalind Bruce; Huxley possibly writes first (lost) novel; travels to Marburg, Germany.

  1913

  Stays with brother, Trevenen, at Oxford; visits Grenoble with Lewis Gielgud; enters Balliol College, Oxford in October.

  1914

  Suicide of Trevenen, 23 August; October lodges with Haldanes in Oxford for second year.

  1915

  First visit to Garsington, 29 November; first meeting in same month with D.H. Lawrence in Hampstead; meets future wife, Maria Nys, at Garsington in December or early the following year.

  1916

  Rejected on health grounds by Army; helps to found Palatine Review; gains First in English; July and August temporary master at Repton School; September first book published, The Burning Wheel (poems); September goes to stay at Garsington for next seven months working on Philip Morrell’s farm; proposes to Maria on lawn at Garsington during late summer or autumn.

  1917

  April to July clerical job at Air Board; living with father and stepmother at 16 Bracknell Gardens, Hampstead; 18 September takes up post as master at Eton (until Feburary 1919); December, Jonah.

  1918

  The Defeat of Youth (third book of poems), August; at work on first piece of fiction, ‘The Farcical History of Richard Greenow’

  1919

  Leaves Eton in April and visits Maria Nys (after a separation of more than two years) at her parents’ home in Belgium; officially engaged; April starts work on The Athenaeum magazine (until October 1920); May moves into 18 Hampstead Hill Gardens, London; 10 July marries Maria at Bellem in Belgium.

  1920

  February first volume of short stories, Limbo; April, Matthew born; dramatic critic of Westminster Gazette; May, Leda published; part-time job with Chelsea Book Club; October moves from Athenaeum to House and Garden; December leaves Hampstead flat; Maria and Matthew go to Belgium for winter.

  1921

  January to March lodges Regent Square, Bloomsbury; begins to see Mary Hutchinson; April rejoins Maria at Villa Minucci, Florence; May to August writes first novel on Tuscan coast at Forte dei Marmi, Crome Yellow (published November); October returns to London to flat at 155 Westbourne Terrace (to December 1922) working again for Condé Nast.

  1922

  May, Mortal Coils; August to September holiday at Forte in Villa Tacchella.

  1923

  January, move to flat at 44 Prince’s Gardens, London; signs first three-year publishing deal with Chatto; May, On The Margin; June to July, summer in Forte dei Marmi, writes Antic Hay (published November); August moves to Florence, Castel a Montici (to June 1925).

  1924

  May, Little Mexican and The Discovery; travels in France and Italy; writing Those Barren Leaves.

  1925

  January, Those Barren Leaves; March to April travels in Tunisia; July, London; August Belgium; September, Along The Road; 15 September Huxleys sail from Genoa (leaving Matthew for eleven months) on a round-the-world-trip beginning in India, then south-east Asia, United States until June 1926.

  1926

  May, Two or Three Graces; July, London; August, St Trond, Belgium; August to December, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy; renews acquaintance there with D.H. Lawrence; December, Essays New and Old.

  1927

  January and February, Cortina; starts Point Counter Point; March to May, London and Belgium; May to December, Forte at Villa Majetta; November, Proper Studies; December, spends Christmas with D.H. and Frieda Lawrence in Florence.

  1928

  January to February, Les Diablerets, Switzerland; March to May, Onslow Mews, London; June takes house (until April 1930) at 3 Rue du Bac, Suresnes, Paris (but not in full residence until October, spending summer in Forte); November, Point Counter Point.

  1929

  January, Bandol with Lawrence; February, Florence; April, Spain; May, Arabia Infelix; in London; June to September, final summer at Forte; August, Apuan mountains; September, Suresnes; October, Do What You Will; October to November, motor tour of Spain.

  1930

  London production of This Way to Paradise at Daly’s Theatre; March, with Lawrence on his deathbed at Vence; April move in to Villa at La Gorguette, Sanary-sur-Mer until February 1937; May, Brief Candles; September to October, London, Paris, Berlin, Nottingham; November, Vulgarity in Literature.

  1931

  January to March, London, Dalmeny Court, Duke Street; March The World of Light at Royalty Theatre; May, The Cicadas; May to August at Sanary, writing Brave New World; September, Music at Night; October to December, London.

  1932

  February, Brave New World; May to June, Belgium, Germany; June to December at Sanary writes play Now More Than Ever (finished in October); September, The Letters of D.H. Lawrence edited by Huxley; November, Texts and Pretexts; starts Eyeless in Gaza; December, London.

  1933

  January to May, travels in West Indies, Guatemala, Mexico; 3 May Leonard Huxley dies; June to December at Sanary; November, travels in Spain.

  1934

  April, Beyond the Mexique Bay; at work on Eyeless in Gaza; October to December in London at 18 St Alban’s Place, Regent Street; December, takes out seven year lease on flat at E2, Albany, Piccadilly whilst retaining Sanary; Huxley in poor physical and mental health; beginning of crucial turn in his life.

  1935

  January to March, Albany (with visits to Paris); March to October at Sanary working on Eyeless in Gaza; October to December at Albany, taking lessons with F.M. Alexander; November joins Dick Sheppard’s Peace Pledge Union; 3 December gives address on pacifism at Friend’s House, London.

  1936

  January to March at Albany active in PPU; March finishes Eyeless in Gaza; April to September, Sanary; April, What Are You Going to Do About It?; June, Eyeless in Gaza; October to November, London; December, The Olive Tree; at Sanary.

  1937

  19 February finally leaves Sanary; 7 April Huxleys sail with Gerald Heard for New York; five week journey across states by car to San Cristobal, Taos, New Mexico, to stay the summer with Frieda Lawrence at her ranch; July, An Encyclopaedia of Pacifism; October to November, Colorado and Hollywood (North Crescent Heights Boulevard); November, Ends and Means; November to December, Hux
ley and Heard lecture on peace; December, Maria at Rhinebeck NY where Huxley joins her.

  1938

  February studio accepts screenplay so cancels plans to return to Europe; takes house at North Laurel Avenue, LA; Huxley in hospital with bronchitis for weeks; April begins never to be completed novel; July house at North Linden Drive, Beverly Hills; August to September works on script about Madame Curie at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; November, explores the Bates method of improving eyesight.

  1939

  February to July working on After Many A Summer; April move to 701 Amalfi Drive, Pacific Palisades (to February 1942); summer first meeting with Christopher Isherwood; August works on screenplay of Pride and Prejudice; October, After Many A Summer.