Letters to a Friend
Page 7
When I think of the time I must cost you, and the trouble, and the stamps… [sic] Well, you do know how grateful I am—— But I have been such a job to you, on the top of all your others —I am ashamed. But—well, anyhow, I am
Yours affectionately,
R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St., W.1
15th February, 1951 †
Dear Father,
Thank you so much for your letter begun on Ash Wednesday, which came last night. I am so glad to have it. I wrote to you by air on the 10th, and by sea on the 7th. And on 30th Jan. I posted you poems, signed with a passport photograph. So we both sent packets; I much look forward to getting your two. I shall look closely in the pockets for the photographs, etc. I shall enjoy the Norfolk Diary1, and hope this and the former packet won’t tarry too long en route. Mine, I imagine, won’t, as it was only a large envelope, not a parcel. Also, I told my publishers to send you Fabled Shore, but don’t expect you to read it through; it’s really a book for those who have travelled to the same places, or are about to. I am still hoping to send Dangerous Ages. I loved the trip. I too went to Granada, Ronda, and Seville—but Seville is too far inland to be described in my book. I shall get Mr. Cram’s book from the London Library. By the way, of course don’t bother to send the 2nd copy of Here’s a Church—it was just a mistake of the despatchers obviously, and probably no one is the wiser.
I am sorry to say that poor Fr. Wilkins is ill; he wrote, in reply to mine, from St. Luke’s Hostel, saying that he had been there 3 weeks with bronchitis, and wouldn’t be allowed to work until some time after Easter. I am very sorry for this. I expect he, as I was, is being givenM. and B., which is our name here for tablets which doctors prescribe for anything wrong with the lungs, and I suppose bronchitis too. It is a very effective remedy, but depressing to the heart, and lowering, and not to be continued too long. I hope he will be better presently. I expect he would love a word from you.
As to confession, I suppose I could go to someone else. If I did, should I explain a little about the past, or just leave it and start from now? I don’t mean, of course, confess it again, but mention that there had been a long gap and that I was therefore rather at sea?
I read all your letter easily, though transparent. This doesn’t matter if one puts it against a white background. Thank heaven, your writing has not become like my crabbed and indefensible script; it is always beautifully legible and clear. I am glad, because there is nothing you say that I want to miss. I didn’t, you know, mean that some beliefs were “unimportant” objectively, or in themselves—of course they couldn’t be, being all part of the whole business—but that they didn’t happen yet to register with me, and so I didn’t bother about them. I suppose I mean that (as you say) they haven’t struck a match on my mind, or come to seem to matter. Life and one’s point of view shift about, and one never knows what aspects of them will attract this or that aspect of belief (I think I am cribbing this from you, and that it is just what you said in this letter, which I have absorbed so well that I feel I am originating its observations). But, if my mind can’t quite take certain things—such as the physical Resurrection—does it matter, so long as it doesn’t get in the way of belief in Christ as master and saviour and helper, to be sought and served? I know it mattered to the early church, and was perhaps the only way in which they could be convinced—but should one try to force or persuade one’s mind to it, if one feels one doesn’t need it? You say “we cannot be expected to do more than yield to God the minds which we actually possess,” so I suppose God takes them and does what he can with them. And of course in time they might develop new powers of faith; as you say, it depends on what happens to make connections. He keeps showing us new things, new light on the past, new roads for the future, and one hopes for new powers. But what moors, fens, crags and torrents lie all about.
You are so good to me, writing these splendid letters, which are like lanterns with many facets, shedding all kinds of light. And thank you for remembering my departed at requiem masses; I like to think of that. I suppose after this week I shall be able to go to communion myself again. What a magnificent business all this must have seemed to the first Christian converts! And does to those who have lost it and begun to come back a little. I think I shall try and get hold of that little Lent addresses book of Fr. Waggett’s1; it was so good.
I am feeling rather pleased and grateful because I have a letter to-day from the Cambridge Vice-Chancellor2 saying that the Senate would like to give me an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, which I think is charming of them. So sometime in June I shall attend the Congregation in cap and gown and be en-doctored. I imagine it is actually more a tribute to my father and uncle, who were greatly esteemed in Cambridge, than to myself. But it is rather fun. After that, you could call me, if you so fancied, “my dear doctor”! Did I say, by the way, that I like anything you call me? (On the rare occasions of “my dearest R.M.,” my soul has been greatly comforted.)
Later. I seem to have a slight return of cough and temperature, and shall go to bed; probably all right to-morrow. I hope no moreM. and B!
I like my note-paper better than your new style one. But yours really is quite legible. I will send this by air again, to let you know about Fr. Wilkins.
Yours affectionately,
R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St., W.1
16th February, 1951
Dear Father,
Being in bed again, with another spot of temperature, I will please myself by writing a very beautifully written sea letter, just to show you that I can, if I try hard. It is a bore, this relapse when I thought I was recovered, and very interrupting to my life. However, I am not seriously ill, and have several nice books to read—one on Pompeii and Herculaneum, very detailed and exciting; one on the 1st Crusade (oh dear, what behaviour went on!); Wm. Law’s Liberal and Mystical Writings; a rather good and ingenious thriller; and St. Augustine’s Confessions. Do you think he really (as he says he did) liked sinning for sinning’s sake, stole the pears not to eat them but because he liked stealing? That does seem to be what actuates some juvenile delinquents and young hooligans—all that wanton destruction they do—but it must, I think, be unusual, in a character like his. Most people do it because they want the pears, and let higher principles go by the board—but he “non ob aliud, nisi quia non licebat”1—or so he says. But then of course he kept bad company, ran about in a gang. What interesting reading he is. But what a labyrinthine, intricatory soul (as Donne would say). All that about ought he, as praise is unwholesome, to lead a low and degraded life that no one can praise? And all his involved enquiries into the nature of time. But when he writes of God and the soul, he is often magnificent. I imagine that Francis Thompson was affected by him when he wrote The Hound of Heaven. And he is soaked in the psalms, and quotes them so effectively—“quoniam tu inluminabis lucernam meant, domine, deus meus, inluminabis tenebras meas”2 …“ut liberes nos omnino quoniam coepisti …,”3 one couldn’t want better “transitory prayers.” (17th Feb.) Did Marcus Aurelius ever steal pears? I am reading him too; about all he learned from his good examples—“ From my mother, the fear of God and generosity, and abstention not only from doing ill but from the very thought of doing it; and furthermore to live the simple life, far removed from the habits of the rich.” From other examples, not to be taken up with trifles, not to believe wizards and miracle-mongers, not to keep quails, not to resent plain speaking, to be aware that he needed amendment and training for his character, not to commit breaches of good taste, to shew himself ready to be reconciled to those who have trespassed against him, and meet them half-way when they seem to be willing to retrace their steps. Never to exhibit any symptom of anger or any other passion, but to be “at the same time utterly impervious to all passions and full of natural affection,” to possess great learning and make no parade of it, and to look to nothing else, even for a moment, save Reason alone.
And so on. What counsels of perfection! He w
as surrounded by good examples of all kinds, best of all his father, who did not build for the love of building, gave no thought to his food, and did not bathe at all hours. “Thou hast but a short time left to live. Live as on a mountain.” He would have been shocked by St. Augustine—except that Reason bade him be shocked by no one, seeing that men are as they are. They are an interesting contrast. Both commanding intellects, both full of good aspirations and self-awareness and God-awareness. I wishM.A. could have lived early enough to have met S. Paul; an interview between them would have been interesting. Both agreed on “Whatsoever things are, etc … think on these things.”
The question of the developing sense of morality is fascinating. When do we get to the point of rejecting War? I have long felt that one great international gesture would be worth while; saying, just once, to potential aggressors, “Go ahead if you must and do your worst; we do not intend to behave like barbarians, whatever barbarians may do to us.” This might mean occupation and domination by some barbarian power like Russia; very unpleasant, pernicious and horrible; but could not be more so than waging war ourselves, with all its cruel atrocities. And it just might help to start a new era. But I fear there is no hope of any such civility in a barbaric world, at present, and we shall go murdering each other by radio-active bombs, and destroying all that’s left of beauty. We here rather dread the American state of mind; it might lead to some rash act.
I seem to be getting better to-day, and shall soon be fit to do a little typing. I fear this letter may have deteriorated in script as it proceeded. Oh I do get bored with being ill, it fogs the mind so—I should like to be intelligently systematic about prayer, e.g.
Don’t you dislike all this eloquent bombast about defending “the British Way of Life”? After all, it’s not so good, nothing to boast about. I prefer frank jingoism to sanctimonious patriotism, on the whole.
Well, I have enjoyed writing to you, and must now stop. “Not to write to Fr. Johnson at all hours,”M. Aurelius’s father might have resolved.
Yours affectionately,
R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St., W.1
20th February, 1951 †
Dear Father,
Yesterday was a grand day—at breakfast-time your letter of St. Valentine’s Day, at lunch-time the packet posted 31st Jan. with that dear little Juvenal, the American P[rayer] B[ook] and the photographs; at tea-time the Norfolk Diary with the reviews and photographs in the side-pockets, and the Penguin Norfolk, which had made very good speed indeed. So you see it was a good day, and very timely, as I was still half invalided and not yet out. This afternoon I have been out; I drove to the London Library and got the Hesketh-Johnson letters,1 which I have been enjoying immensely. In fact, their elegant style is infectious. “Miss Macaulay’s best compliments wait on Mr. Johnson, and takes the first opportunity to acquaint him that she received the Invaluable Items he was so obliging to send her, yesterday; they arriv’d very safe, and not even a little Damp, though they had crossed the Ocean. Miss Macaulay thinks herself particularly obliged to thank Mr. Johnson for the kind trouble he has taken….” “Johnny of Norfolk” appears to great advantage in the correspondence, and must have been a kind and charming person. I shall get pleasure out of this book.
Also from the Norfolk Diary. Particularly with your annotations, and the photographs. 1 always feel there is something very nostalgic about those spacious old country rectories that one’s ancestors inhabited. For you, familiar with all the ground, all the villages, it must be fascinating. But to me too, being familiar by hearsay with so much clerical life of that time. All those references to the E.P.,1 Mr. Mackonochie,2 the quarrels between the E.C.U.3 and the Protestants, were frequent in my mother’s reminiscences of her girlhood of the 70’s and 8o’s (she was born in 1855) when she was a keen Anglo-Catholic and sat under Dean Liddon4 and Fr. Stanton. Did you ever come across Ecclesiastical and Social Essays by my grandfather, W. J. Conybeare? He has an interesting essay (written, I think, for the Edinburgh Review, in 1851) about the three Church parties. He called them High, Low and Broad; or Tractarian, Evangelical, and—I forget what he called the Broad (which he himself rather inclined to). I see, by the way, that Mr. Armstrong5 has a note on his grandfather’s use of “Anglo-Catholic” in 1850 as remarkably early. But it was used before that. See the Oxford Diet., which mentions the “Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology,” a series of reprints, 1841. Pusey speaks of “Anglo-Catholicism” in 1842; and Charlotte Brontë in Shirley of a dish “that an Anglo-Catholic might eat on Good Friday” (1849). But I think my mother and her friends used to call themselves simply “Catholics.” Later, having married my father (an agnostic) she became “Broad-High.” Mr. Armstrong would have called himself a Tractarian, I suppose. What a contrast to the clerical life of half a century before! I see he speaks (1851) of “more than 70 years ago, and in the midst of the church’s deadness and imbecility.” Which recalled to me the Diary of a country parson, also about a Norfolk rector, of the late 18th century, edited by J. B. Beresford, a most instructive and entertaining work in several vols. No, it was called The Diary of Parson Woodforde.1 Notable points in it are the huge meals he ate, the few services he held, and the fewer people who attended them. Whereas Mr. A. had large congregations, very keen and attentive, regular services, and well-kept churches. While in Dublin both the “Romish” and “our own” were apparently filthy. This book is going to interest me a lot. He was a kind man, obviously. None of his comments are malicious. Whereas the diary kept by my Conybeare grandfather was full of such acid remarks about his acquaintances (most of whom he found stupid and ill-informed) that it couldn’t possibly have been published; though I suppose it could now. Matthew Arnold was “a prig.” his brother Thomas “a weak character,” the Macaulays “given to talking for effect,” most bishops and deans lamentable. He was a brilliant and charming person, but can’t have been kindly. He was consumptive, which perhaps is bad for the temper.
I am so pleased to have those photographs. One I saw in Cowley, and like it. In fact, I like them all. I shall keep them in a pocket of the Norfolk Diary, so that the whole book is “abundantly delightful.” I see that the gen. tree in the Hesketh book says your family is descended from the Dean,2 by the way. I thought you said that Aunt Katie3 said not. I think your family is the most wonderfully close-knit and involved of any I know of.
I like the P[rayer] B[ook] very much. Is it our 1928 Deposited Book? Or are there differences? (I haven’t got that book.) The order of the H[oly] C[ommunion] prayers is certainly better; and all the additions are improvements. I’m glad they have that sentence about “grant them continual growth…” The Penitential Office too is good. I don’t know if any churches here use the 1928 book; I suppose it is illegal, but perhaps they needn’t take notice of that. I am sure Mr. Armstrong would have used it. Bishop Hensley Henson, whose letters I have been reading, would not, I imagine. It is probably on sale, and I might get one. I know too little of the history of the Anglican Church in America. Did it follow the developments of our Book of Common Prayer, and adopt the 1662 book finally? But I imagine its congregations were always small, compared with the Puritan sects.
On separate sheet (too transparent) I have illustrated my Church position. Plenty of churches, but the nearest seem the least suitable. I incline to Grosvenor Chapel, or All Saints, Margaret St. I think my landlords should have built a chapel in these flats. S. Paul’s, Baker St., no doubt has midday communion, for those who can’t go early. Is this all right? One probably couldn’t do it at All Saints. I feel the important thing is to go somehow. But I am hoping to be fit for early going out soon. This second illness is tiresome. I see no reason for not going sometimes to Mass at St. James’s; but I don’t like it so well as ours, though it (I mean, the R.C. Mass) has many early associations for me, and I like much of the Missal, and use many of its prayers.
I wrote you a fair letter with mine own hand, very clear, when in bed the other day, and launched it on the sea. This
one I shall launch on the air, to express my pleasure in the packets. I look forward to Johannes Monachus. All that Byzantine period of the church is fascinating.1 I have been reading Procopius lately. He is hard on Justinian and Theodora —a thing I could not be, after seeing those glorious Ravenna mosaics.
Later. I passed Grosvenor Chapel to-day and looked into it, after many years, and liked it again. I see its early mass is 8.15, which is a better hour than 8, so I hope to get there. I was on my way back from having tea with Dr. Gilbert Murray at the Athenaeum; he had been at a United Nations meeting, where they had been deciding how firm U.N. ought to be. I am not for all this firmness myself. What with U.N., amending Aeschylus texts, and taking the chair at Hellenic Society meetings, he leads, for 84, a full life; but looks very frail now. How I hope he, and everyone else I am fond of, lives to be at least 90, like your Aunt Katie. Did you, by the way, ever come across Lord David Cecil’s life of Cowper, The Stricken Deer? It is an admirable and sympathetic book. He must have been a trying friend, and Johnny and Lady Hesketh were very good to him. His life is a lesson (if one needed it) against adopting the unhappier forms of Calvinism.
My poems I suppose you may have got by now, or should have, as they were posted 30th Jan. But don’t bore yourself with them, or feel you must try and like them. One has to write poetry (at least I always have) to express things that don’t go into prose so easily; also, I like playing with metres and rhythms; it was, in childhood and youth, one of my forms of insobriety; and I still do it, though with less ease. I don’t read nearly so much poetry as I did; I remember, as a child and girl, being poetry-drunk; it meant more than anything to me. It was so good for saying to oneself on walks alone. Alas, my memory is less good in these days; I suppose everyone finds that. De senectute, eheu.1
Goodnight, and thank you so much.