But danger had overhung the experiment until experience proved the contrary. No one could be sure what would be the concussive effect on the crew when one of these bombs fell with great velocity on the head-cover. Hence the crews were all volunteers from the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Felixstowe. And in the first summer’s bombing practice, T.E. himself drove the boat on several of the earliest runs “to show the crews how.” if characteristic of him, the risk was less than on many of the trips he had earlier made in rough seas round the Atlantic and North Sea coasts in proving the seaworthiness of the original “crash-boats.” But all who were engaged in the tests had cause for relief when a bomb eventually fell on the armour-plate and had no ill effect; those that hit the unprotected wooden parts of the boat went straight through the hull, which was compartmented and filled with a compound of expanded rubber ten times lighter than cork; the crew then ran out and plugged the hole. “Wet feet” were a minor discomfort compared with the normal ordeal of being penned under the armour and close to the engines for two hours at a time, while under bombing attack, and of being at sea, often in rough seas, for twelve hours a day. But the practice given to the Air Force by these small and nimble targets brought such a great improvement in bombing accuracy that T.E. was led to predict that “in a few years aircraft will deal infallibly with ships.”
This statement was the more significant because T.E. rarely allowed his vision to outrun his analysis of the practical conditions. Thus, although he had done so much to create the opportunity for the Air Force to prove its powers in the Middle East, I found him more cautious in tracing its limits than many who had been late converts to the idea of air control. He remarked that as aircraft needed room for manceuvre, and had such a wide turning circle, they were not so effective in “narrow as in wide waters.” “Until they can hover, air control is not applicable to a crowded district.” Having spent eight months flying and driving over the North-West Frontier, he had come to the conclusion that air control was “applicable to Waziristan, not to the Mohmand country, and becoming less and less effective as you approach to Peshawar.” He went on to say that although a strong supporter of “air” he would have reservations over the North-West Frontier Province—“I would take over bits, evacuating Razmak tomorrow.”
His interest in affairs, as in the rest of his extraordinarily wide range of interests, seemed to be renewing itself in these last years. He was certainly less apt to strike his old note, that he had “cut completely out of the active world.” Even then, for a man self-confessedly out of touch, the way he kept in touch was amazing: and amusing. During one of his brief visits to London he would often see more of its leading people in a day than anyone else might have met in a month. It was a habit of his to make such a round; and an idiosyncrasy, to let you know whom he had seen. Piquancy was added by his other habit of spending the nights at the Union Jack Club, the hostel for the men of the services, where he could hire a cubicle for one and ninepence. In some degree, however, he became more luxurious as he grew older; whereas he had formerly travelled with no more than a toothbrush, in his pocket, he now carried a small attaché case. Also, for motorcycling, he had a special black oilskin overall suit made to his own design. Likewise, in the furnishing of his cottage his appetite for good things, and even for comfort, seemed to increase. But his indifference to the pleasures of the table remained; indeed, I came to feel that his readiness to eat a normal meal when in others’ company was due mainly to a desire to put them at their ease; that he preferred, if he knew that they would allow it without fuss, to sit and talk while his friends were eating. He felt he was fortunate in escaping “the bother” which the burden of taste or habit was imposing on them. If it may seem curious that one whose senses were so acute should find no pleasure in food or drink, his explanation was that with him sensation came mainly through the eyes.
This may be applied to cover the effect of things read as well as things observed. Reading to him was food, to be enjoyed for its flavour and not merely taken for nourishment. His sensations in reading were very acute and very subtle. They came from the texture of prose, from the shape of a sentence, from the choice of a phrase. And he found the typography no less exciting. No man I have known could so extract the whole flavour of a book—from the thought to a punctuation mark, and from the binding to the printer’s ink. During the years of his service as an aircraftman he ranged far and wide through contemporary literature—especially poetry, plays, and novels. One class of novel was excluded, however, for when I acclaimed the virtues of the detective novel as the best relief after heavy bouts of work, he retorted that they were “literary golf’—that they “wasted brain concentration on imaginary problems.” He read for enlightenment and not for exercise. If one heard a book beginning to be talked about by lovers of literature or pursuers of novelty, one was often reminded thereby of having heard it mentioned first by T.E.
LAWRENCE ON ARRIVAL AT DAMASCUS
The variety of his taste, in search of something fresh in thought or expression, was matched by his generous eagerness to fan any fresh little flicker of light. Many young authors owed a debt to his help in making known their existence; some might have profited more by his criticism. For despite his assiduous watch on what the younger men were producing, he complained that too many seemed merely “to write for relief, as an ape scratches itself.” He wanted books that would provide a “square meal.” Among writers of established fame, his admiration for Bernard Shaw and, more qualified, for Thomas Hardy is well known; less known perhaps that for such as W. B. Yeats, Eugene O’Neill, Theodore Powys, E. M. Forster and James Joyce—whose “Ulysses” he regarded as a compendium of literary technique, to be studied if not enjoyed. Memory strives unsuccessfully now to recall all those of whom he spoke in conversations with me, where such talk was only an aside. Thus what comes back can only be an odd fragment, of interest for itself but not as evidence of his judgment’s proportions. I remember that it was he who sent me hurrying to see Sean O’Casey’s “Silver Tassie,” for the sake of that inspired second act, just before the untimely end of its run in front of puzzled London audiences. It was from him that I first heard glowing praise of Henry Williamson. The names of the Garnetts, Edward and David, were often mentioned; they were friends in the flesh and not merely in print. No friend received more attention from him, from high hope of the fruits, than Robert Graves; there was criticism too, and I took it to imply the measure of his expectations. When I dwelt on the merits of “I, Claudius,” T.E., while admitting its skill, expressed dislike of it because “all the characters were painted too blackly.” But for “Claudius the God,” which followed, he did not stint his praise. He hailed O’Flaherty’s gifts but then suffered disappointment—which inspired his comment that “Irishmen usually begin with a great rush and then die away. G.B.S. and Yeats are exceptions, and Swift, I think. But no Irishman goes much further, after he is thirty.”
For modern satire he cared little—“the satire that fetches me is Quixote, or Gulliver, or Rabelais, which deals more with nature than with manners.” My own deficient taste for poetry deprived me of hearing much of his views on modern poets, but I was struck once at the accent of near-awe which he used in mentioning the name of W. H. Auden. Of war books none appealed to him more than “Her Privates We.” When, after reading it, I asked him if he could tell me anything about the anonymous author, he replied—“Frederic Manning . . . an exquisite, and an exquisite writer. I wonder how he really got on in the ranks. Too fine a mind, I think, for real contact: but he has drawn a wonderful picture of the other ranks as I know them.” A few years later, Arthur Osburn’s “Unwilling Passenger,” coming on the ebb-tide of War books, attained a fresh high watermark in T.E.’s judgment.—He admired its photographic quality, and remarked that it had “a beauty of candour that was wonderfully restful . . . I don’t think the candour was innocent either.”
The influence of his study of photography is to be seen in a theory of literature wh
ich he set forth in one of his letters to John Brophy, another friend whose work he followed with interest. “I want a diary, or record of events to be as near slice-of-life as can be. Imagination jars in such instances. In novels, however, slice-of-life jars, because their province is the second remove, the sublimation of the theme. One is eyewitness, the other creative mind. In the first the photograph cannot be too sharp, for it’s the senses which record: in the second you need design. Any care for design renders the record infect.” That classification may seem too black-and-white for truth; if it justly rules out imaginative retouching, it ignores the part that digestive interpretation inevitably plays in any record. But one must here remark that T.E.’s views were not always consistent, nor his action consistent with these views.
There was an interesting sidelight on both the “Lawrences,” T.E. and D.H., in their views of each other. To judge by various aspects of T.E. that seem to be incorporated in several of the characters in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” D.H. seems to have been strongly impressed with T.E. as a person, if respect and doubt were intermingled. T.E., for his part, thought poorly of D.H. as a man, but had an immense respect for his work, especially his poems. To me, he several times said that D.H. was the Lawrence who would last, and he demurred to my intended title for his book, “Lawrence,” on the score of “D.H.L.’s ownership of that name.” Whether that objection simply represented his esteem for D.H.’s literary stature, I was not sure.
His own he certainly rated too low—and this may explain much. For his highest admiration was reserved for the creative artist: and to be one was the ambition he had pursued after the War. To quote his own words—“I had had one craving all my life, for the power of self-expression in some imaginative form—but had been too diffuse ever to acquire a technique.” Literature seemed to him the art least dependent on a long apprenticeship, and his experiences in the Arab Revolt had offered a ready-made theme. The “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” was the sequel. Reflection should vie with description. In style, in form, in printing, too, he aimed at perfection. But the result to him was dissatisfaction. Suffering from the divine discontent of the artist, but not recognizing the state, he came to the conclusion that he was no artist.
That feeling was reinforced by the results of a too severe test, if also by reaction from the excitement generated in writing his book. Unwilling to draw help from his fame, he submitted a number of anonymous contributions to various editors in the years immediately following the War. They came back, not unnaturally. Many great writers have suffered a similar fate in their early days and often with their best stuff. T.E. too readily jumped to the explanation that the fault lay with him. He deemed himself too imitative.
Once, as we stood at the end of a Cornish headland, watching the waves surge over the rocks, we drifted into talk of writing. He remarked that he had no difficulty in expressing the picture that he saw: words rushed in like the waves. It was otherwise with me, I replied; often hard to find the exactly right words to fit ideas that took shape gradually, the more so because these were themselves remodelled in the process of definition. T.E., however, contended that his own aptness with words was offset by difficulty in bringing ideas into relation. He remarked that he had the power of description and analysis, but not of synthesis or creation. I think there was some truth in his judgment; but the fuller truth was that he had too high a standard, and was so constituted that he suffered too great a strain. In a letter to Kennington from Karachi, in 1927, he remarked, “I’ve bust all my head’s blood vessels in an abortive effort to create, and am condemned not to exert myself in future. What would you do in such a case. Say ha ha and blow your brains out? Too messy. If only it were all over.” That awareness of his own overstrain he confirmed to me later, saying that he was “nearly dotty” at the time of his enlistment. And his service in India was, I thought, a hindrance to the process of recovery, which only became marked some time after his return.
Seven years later, writing to a friend, he said, “in 1922 I decided not to go on writing” (a statement which ignores his fresh attempt, this time at supreme realism, in that record of daily life in the Air Force which he christened “The Mint”). With characteristic humour he added, “I think I did write better than the average retired military man: but between that and ‘writing’ there is a gulf.” A further proof to him, of his artistic deficiency was that, instead of “joy in the creation,” he “had never anything but weariness and dissatisfaction.” Once again I question his judgment; for it is difficult to believe that anyone could produce more than a thousand words an hour for twenty hours on end without being possessed by the urge that is the mainspring of writing, and without the absorption that, in his own recognition, is the secret of happiness. The fecundity and felicity of his letters increases my doubt. Through them, he may even live longest in literature, taking rank as the supreme letter-writer. They are works of art, unforced: if consciously pursued. He wrote them with purpose; each was aimed at his picture of the person to whom he was writing, and strove to make touch with the individual there seen. While he wrote with a care that is rare in these days, he only wrote when the impulse came—for writing. It was an urge for expression, in general, rather than duty to an individual. And when one reads the letters, and takes account of the number that were written in a batch when the periodical impulse came, one can hardly credit that the writing of them was unmitigated labour. There is significance, too, in the fact that he used Indian ink—“it lasts for ever”—in his fountain pen. That at other times he used pencil may have been due not merely to chance but to a revulsion of feeling—against the prospect of endurance. To such changes he was peculiarly liable.
His complexity became more manifest to me during the course of the writing of this book. In October, 1929, I was approached to undertake a book that should attempt to put the Arab Revolt, and Lawrence’s part, into historical perspective. The time had come, it was urged, to estimate the significance of that achievement, to bring it into relation with the war as a whole and the course of events subsequently. My initial doubt whether the episode offered adequate scope was not by the contention that here, above all, was a case where the growth of legend threatened to obscure the real-outlines. Even so, I had a further ground for hesitation. I had found too much interest in my contact with T.E. to be willing to risk its growth by embarking on such a book if he were unwilling—as I thought was likely. But when I mentioned the suggestion to him, his reaction was more favourable than I had expected; he seemed to like the idea of such historical treatment, and only questioned the possibility of finding enough material for it.
However, as further reassurance to myself, and to give him a chance of changing his mind after reflection, I wrote Mm on his return to Plymouth. His reply showed signs of a reaction that I came, later, to regard as characteristic—although in this instance the Schneider Cup storm that had just burst over his head may well have accounted for it. Because of this, as he pointed out, he could not associate himself with any book that dealt with his career, although he would do what he could, privately, to help me avoid errors. If I could find sufficient material elsewhere “to get the other side of the story, then it might well be the subject of a military thesis of some value. If not—and I haven’t the time, or the inclination, or the heart, to dig very much into my own memories of those times for anyone’s sake. Sorry not to be explicit: but it’s as explicit as I feel. I don’t care a bit, either way.” This dubious attitude damped my own; while I did not want any kind of direct authorization that might limit my freedom of criticism, I foresaw difficulty in prosecuting my research adequately unless I could call on his knowledge of events. So I put the project on a back-shelf, although continuing to browse in the subject and collect material as opportunity offered.
Three years passed before, freshly prompted, I took up the study in earnest. Decision was clinched by practical evidence of T.E.’s fresh change of attitude. He gave me much more help, and took a far greater interest in the progress o
f this work, than I had ever conceived that he would: submitting to an immense load of questions, and to continuous cross-examination on points that arose in the evidence. He covered the typescript draft of my chapters with supplementary notes that made invaluable additions to the historical narrative. By the end of the year he was well justified in recalling “how many hours and pages I have spent on your next-appearing book.” I could, however, retort that during those months he had caused me disturbance, if also amusement, by his intermittent reactions. He would follow up an elucidation of his personal attitude or action by the complaint a little later, that my narrative was becoming too biographical. He would often express indifference to what was said about him, yet protested that certain criticisms in my draft were too hard upon him; and took pains to furnish the evidence that I required to satisfy me before modifying them. When the draft was at last ready to go to the publishers, he went through it again and approved it; a few weeks later, after reading it afresh he had a sudden qualm that it was too personal, and came to see me; he began by suggesting that the biographical part should be drastically curtailed, and ended by deleting only one insignificant passage. Pure kindheartedness may have been the explanation—he had it, and gave it, in abundance to help others. Or a reluctance to damage what someone else had created. Or an inward recognition of the justice of my complaint of his oscillation. Possibly a combination of these influences. Yet during these months I had a growing feeling that in him a desire for historical recognition and perpetuation struggled perpetually with his nihilism.
That feeling was strengthened in dealing with his collection of wartime photographs. He had several times told me that he thought they had been burnt in a fire at Lionel Curtis’s house near Oxford—“a good job too.” Later an historical point arose which one of his photographs, he said, would settle; he offered to find out if the photographs had survived. Soon afterwards they were sent to me, and instead of the few dozen I had expected, they ran to over two thousand; I saw signs of the care with which they had originally been arranged and classified, although they were now jumbled. When I wrote to tell him of the state in which they had come, reproaching him for his deficient sense of a duty to history, he retorted with his usual “ha ha”; but he turned up himself a few days later to help me in sorting and identifying them, completing the task the next time he had some days to spare on leave in London. Once engaged on the job, it was amusing to see how immersed he became, down on the floor amidst the piles of photographs. Often they would take him back step by step on journeys he had made, and incidents which he had never disclosed were now related to me. One large packet of negatives was found to comprise those he had taken of churches and castles in France and Syria during his youthful wanderings: they were still in amazingly good condition, and when printed off, were testimony not only to his skill but to his gift for choosing unobvious angles. When I asked him what he wished me to do with this war-collection, he expressed complete indifference—I could keep it if I wished or, if it irked me, throw it back on “the long-suffering Lionel Curtis.” But when I went on to argue that it ought to be preserved for the nation and suggested various alternatives for its disposal, he began to show interest, and gave reasons for rejecting the others in favour of the Imperial War Museum, my first suggestion.
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