With my love, yours affectionately,
R.M.
20, Hinde House, Hinde St., W.I
29th July, 1951
Dear Father,
I have had two very delightful letters from you lately (i.e. since I wrote to you on the 23 rd); air letter written 18th, and air paper posted 23rd. So much I want to say; that is the worst of writing to you, there is always so much I want to say. I mean, your letters start so many trains of thought, besides the various happenings, and thoughts of my own, that I like to relate. I am interested in what you say about these new-style Anglican priests, and I am sure it is all true. They are zealous and keen, and go to endless trouble to have their services as they think right. For my part, I rather like the variety, but do avoid the most extreme kinds, such as St. Magnus the Martyr’s and the Annunciation, Bryanston St.; that is, I so far have, but in August may go sometimes to week-day mass at the latter, as it is so near, and in the right direction for me. As you say, one explores in that way the rich variety of Anglican worship. I shall certainly prefer my chapel, and shall be glad when it re-opens on the 26th. What one admires in all these priests is the way they carry on daily with their early masses, however few come to them, and in the nature of things it can’t be many. It seems that next Sunday’s services at Grosvenor will be taken by the Rev. Cecil Wood, who functioned there during the war. I met a number of priests the other day at a St. Anne’s Day gathering to which I was invited at St. Anne’s House, Dean Street, a kind of centre of discussions, lectures, etc., connected with St. Thomas’s church and run by the clergy there. Fr. Patrick McLaughlin, the vicar, is a many-sided kind of priest, whom I like. They get up lectures at St. Anne’s (I was asked to give one, but refused, I was too busy). I see that during this past year they have had lectures from Dorothy Sayers, Norman Nicholson, Austin Farrer (a Balliol chaplain who produced some interesting Bamptons a few years ago)1 and others. They produce these religious plays also; on the advisory committee are people like T. S. Eliot, Canon Demant, Fr. Groser, an archdeacon, and others.
At the buffet lunch they had after Mass … I met Fr. Ross of All Saints, a nice, gentle, kind, able priest whom I liked, and several more, lay and clerical, including Fr…. [sic] of St. Patrick’s, Soho, the Unreformed Church across the street. So you see I move in these days in the best circles, and have to be careful what I say. I was interested in your memories of Canon Hood. I like him…. [It] is profitable and interesting … when and if … [all these various priests] talk on their own subjects, shedding fresh light on what they hold and what the church holds, and where they differ from some other church views, and discuss questions of Biblical criticism, etc. Fr. Gerard Irvine was talking the other evening to his brother (a young barrister) and me, at supper in his rooms after a religious play in the church to which he had invited a party. I said something about the confusion often made between Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene, and the “woman who was a sinner”; Fr. Irvine agreed that it was a pity and quite baseless, upon which his brother charged, him with having made the confusion (anyhow between the Magdalene and the woman of the town) in his sermon on the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene. He agreed that he had, because he thought it would be expected by his congregation, which seems, as his brother told him, rather immoral. His business certainly is to correct such confusions, not endorse them. The best Bible commentaries do correct this one. It seems especially hard on Mary of Bethany to be thus stigmatized, and I’m sure Martha and Lazarus would have been most annoyed. Perhaps the Magdalene story is too much now a matter of literary allusion down the ages (and Magdalene Homes, etc.) ever to be cleared up; but at least the other Mary should be immune. I remember my mother being very firm about this.
Your charming account of the young Wykeham-Fiemies1 at Cuddesdon made me wonder what on earth his ancestor, the Lord Saye and Sele of the civil war, would have said to him— “Old Subtlety,” who sat in the Westminster Assembly of 1643, and was a firm Puritan. He would no doubt have rebuked his descendant for “Popery,” and have thought Cuddesdon a nest of this. But how Cuddesdon would have pleased Bp. Andrewes, Dr. Cosin, and Archbp. Laud. Not that, I suppose, it is extreme in any way—but then, nor were they. Fr. Fynes-Clinton of St. Magnus would probably have thought them regrettably protestant. Times change; what further phases will our Church go through, I wonder? I like it as it now has come to be; it has built a City of God round the Eucharist; one can enter into it each day and be a citizen of that glorious city for a time, and remember its language and its light through the day, if only at rare intervals in the racketty hustle and business of life as lived. Yes: I must keep that up through August so far as I can.
Those 6 collects: how good they are. I find I already have “dirigere et sanctijicare”2 in Latin copied into my scrap book, my Preces Privatae, as Bp. Andrewes named his. Mine is the Breviary version, not Bright and Medd’s—but I can’t remember now where in the Breviary it comes. That is the worst of the Brev.: one loses prayers and can’t always find them again when one wants to. Of the “Prevent us” one, I think I like the English best, on the whole. I like the Latin of “Adesto”; but prefer the changes and chances of this mortal life to “omnes viae et vitae hujus varietates”—1as you see, I am quoting from Medd and Bright [sic], not from the Itinerarium,2 which I haven’t yet looked up. I should like to come to your Masses; I wish it were possible. Do you say any prayers aloud in Latin? I suppose not. We don’t at Grosvenor either. I expect it is better not; people wouldn’t understand. But I like my Bright and Medd; I have one which my mother used as a girl, given her by her “frater amantissimus,” a priest who nearly at the end of his life joined the R.C. church and was at last content. A strange man.3 He made my mother learn Greek as a child (he was 14 years older) because he said she would have to talk it in heaven, it being the language of that country.
I like Karl Adam very much. He conveys a vivid impression of the faith those early Christians had been apprehended of. I have been reading lately part of that volume in whichM. R. James collected the apocryphal N[ew] T[estament] writings; it makes one feel the wisdom of the selectors of the canonical writings. Nothing in the apocryphal ones can compare; nothing in them gives an account of Christianity which could have inspired the epistle-writers or the first missionaries with the faith they had. And much is silly. But I’ve not read all the book yet. I think The Vision of God (Dr. Kirk’s book) has something on them; I must look it up. Another book I am reading is Evelyn Underbill’s Life of the Spirit. One chapter in particular, “Psychology and the Spirit,” is really excellent. At her best, she can be v.g. She is, of course, deeply soaked in Boehme, and in Law’s Liberal and Mystical Writings, and has a very good intellect. She is never merely emotional. The emotional approach to religion can be so vulgar, if uncurbed by intelligence and education. I don’t think the R.C. approach of simple people, through images, etc., that you refer to, is vulgar, it’s only simple; but I turned on the wireless [recently] … and what should blare out of it but a Salvation Army service—really dreadful in its vulgar familiarity and sensationalism and irreverence (or so it sounded, but of course they never meant this). I don’t think the BBC should put on such services; they must put off many listeners from Christianity, and it isn’t fair. Shocking to relate, the accent of the conductor of this primitive orgy of sentiment wasn’t much worse than that of the Vicar of …, the Rev…, who broadcast a service … from his church, and preached on the Oxford Movement. I don’t think … [he] should talk of Universitee, Pusee, trewth, naow. I am surprised that they don’t learn to talk standard English at their theological colleges—but I don’t know what Mr. …’s upbringing was. Well, perhaps the apostles talked uneducated Aramaic and were scorned by the Pharisees and scribes, and perhaps S. Paul regretted S. Peter’s fisherman accent—no, he certainly didn’t, he probably thought it just right for the people they had to convince. Anyhow, I am quite sure that uneducated Aramaic wasn’t so ugly as uneducated English often is. Not always, of course; many country dialects a
re delightful; and probably it would sound good if Mr…. addressed us in West Country, or Norfolk, or Northumbrian; but his accent did sound particularly debased and wretched. Nor was there much good in what he said.
I’m sure you are wise not to begin corresponding with Norman Nicholson. Every fresh correspondence is a burden, and one simply hasn’t the time. I feel rather glad that you too have many people you “very culpably don’t write to”; I have so many myself. But how glad I am that you sometimes write to a doctor of letters; none among your Johnsons, Powyses, Upchers, or other of Johnny’s descendants, or the nephews and nieces in Africa, or the people who can’t pronounce Cowper, could value it more. I feel it is so endlessly good of you. Having pulled the doctor into the church, you might well have then left her to her own devices; but no. It must take far too much of your time; you won’t ever feel, will you, that I am expecting to hear, because when I don’t I shall always know you are too busy, and shan’t be in the least surprised, still less hurt.
Now I await two parcels; the Ovid, posted on the 16th, and the other, containing 3 tiny books, and chapel photographs in a showy and pretentious case, which I shall love to have, and be very proud of. I’m glad it is more showy than yours. The first parcel might, I suppose, arrive any time now. As I shall be here—or at furthest in the Isle of Wight for a few days in mid-August—I shall get it directly it comes. I am beginning to despair of Fr. Pedersen, who has perhaps been too impossibly occupied all the time, and too much all about the place, to approach me. Fr. Wilkin’s (kind man) said he would be sure to remind him of me when he was in London, so no doubt he will, or has. I shan’t bother him unless he writes or telephones, as I know he will if he has time.
It is time I went to bed.
30th. This done, I got up in due course and repaired to the last Mass for the present at my Chapel. Rather sad; I shall miss it. Then I went on to my swimming bath, and slid down the shoot —lovely. And now I must settle down to my Ruins, at which I am resolved to be extremely industrious this next month. But to-morrow evening I am seeing The Gondoliers at the Savoy; nearly the nicest of the G. and S., I think, don’t you? Though I always think Pinafore the best of all. So goodbye for now, with my love and thanks.
Yours affectionately,
R.M.
August
20, Hinde House, Hinde St., W.1
3rd August, 1951 †
Dear Father,
Your air paper posted 30th July came this morning; thank you so much for it. I had been wanting to write again anyhow, (I wrote last on 30th, and before that on 23rd; both sea), to tell you that Fr. Pedersen has materialised! He rang up the other day from St. Edward’s House, and I asked him to come to lunch at my club, as he had to leave London again next day. He was so nice, really delightful, and we had a most pleasant talk, largely, I needn’t say, about you. I did enjoy hearing about you and your doings. He said, inter alia, that you were the most popular confessor there, which didn’t surprise me at all. He also said that you were so much better in health than a few years ago; I hope this is true. He admired your Latinity, as he should, and is obviously devoted to you. He himself has been having very much of a busman’s holiday in England, sent about everywhere on missions, retreats, etc. He said he actually rang me some time back when he was in London, but I was out. He is now (I think) gone to Norfolk, your family country, and will see your brother1 at Norwich. Then he goes to Ireland, I think he said. (Or perhaps that is later.) Anyhow he will be in London again soon, and we made a date for 28th August (when I shall be back from my week in the Isle of Wight). He asked me to dine with him and go to a play, if I can find one worth while—if I can’t, a cinema, but he wants a play. He has left it to me to choose one and get the seats. That will be very nice. I conducted him (drove him in my car) to St. Thomas’s, Regent St., where he wanted to get a ticket for Christopher Fry’s play that they are doing there just now, A Sleep of Prisoners. I think he thought of getting the people who are responsible for it, and who are taking it to America soon, to give some performances of it at S. John’s, Boston. He is such a nice zestful person. I like his expression “Good enough!”
Your letter is full of salus and Veritas. What a lot of good those thoughts, and those verses and texts, might have done to the Dangerous Ages people in their various needs. I think none of them had religion, except Grandmama, who was an old-fashioned Broad Church Evangelical. Neville could have had, if she had been turned to it; perhaps her mother too, who would have found in it the help that the psycho-analyst didn’t permanently give. Had I been writing the book now, not then, I think I should have brought in something of this—or anyhow, if not, implied the lack they had.
I am reading just now what I think a very good book indeed, Evelyn Underhill’s The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day. If you can come by it, I wish you would read it and tell me what you think of it. Excellent sections on “History and the Life of the Spirit,” “Psychology and …” “Education,” “Life of the Spirit in the individual,” etc. Her point of view is particularly sympathetic to me, and I would like to know what you thought of it. If I can find another copy somewhere, in the bookshops new or 2nd hand, I would send it you. I think you would like it, and be interested in it.
Oh I forgot to say, the Teubner Ovid has come; thank you so much, I am delighted with it. I am looking forward much to the other “odds and ends”; the newspaper cuttings have come, and I read with interest Cecil Day Lewis on A Year of Grace, Alan Pryce-Jones on the future of fiction (I’m glad he doesn’t think it over and like to die, as some people do), and other articles. Did you say “tiresome”? Goodness! You know how I love to get all you send me. For their own sakes, because I always like them, and because you have sent them, which, you know, adds so much to their value; I mean, the fact that you thought I might like them, and took the trouble to do them up and send them, and have used and liked them yourself (particularly this is so with the Greek Testament and the Latin, and all the religious books—but also with the classics). It makes a red letter day for me when I see anything in your handwriting on the mat, whether parcel or letter.
I miss Grosvenor Chapel sadly. I have been to two Masses since it closed, and didn’t benefit by either really. They seemed unreal, and kind of tatty. At the Annunciation (Bryanston St.)… the celebrant … didn’t say most of the prayers aloud, usually only “World without end” at the end of each, so I didn’t know what they had been. He was a bearded monk. Another Mass I went to somewhere else was most peculiar, I thought. I find I grow more Prayer-book minded, C. of E., every day, under these influences. So now I say my prayers by myself in my Chapel, which is fortunately kept open, either on my way to or from my early bathe, and feel much more at home. The altar book used at Grosvenor is compiled by a member of the S.S.J.E., some years ago. It is very good, and I wish I had a small copy of it, but they don’t exist. It has a beautiful variety of what I believe are called “propers” for each day, which I like much, so you see [I] am not wholly P.B. minded. I’m not sure it isn’t really rather a good and profitable thing, for a change, to find silence in church and try to find God for oneself for a few minutes. In ordinary life, I don’t usually get those minutes, everything is such a rush. Of course I say prayers, but not alone in church, and in the Reserved Sacrament chapel. I think it is a good training in attention, isn’t it. My attention is apt to be very wandering and fitful. So I dare say being thrown on one’s own resources is all for the best, though I shouldn’t want it for too long. What a good word fluctuationem is for what God will deliver us from; much better than “fall.” I need such deliverance badly. When you quote bits of psalms I look at them again, and they grow in meaning and vividness. I shall stop this letter and catch the post with it. Or, as I do want you to know about Fr. Pedersen soon, shall I air mail it? Yes, I think I will, for once.
With my love,
R.M.
[Postmark: London, W.I]
12th August, 1951 †
Dear Father,
&nbs
p; Thank you immensely for all kinds of things—your air letter posted 6th Aug., which came 3 days ago, and the lovely packet of books (so beautifully done up, as usual—your packages always fill me with shame and inferiority!). The very interesting and charming little Horace calendar and anthology pleases me much; it is interesting to see which things of his appealed to various writers of various periods and nations; and the calendar opens a fresh set of associations for each day—I like to be reminded of the anniversaries of the Roman conquest of Britain, the death of Augustus, the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, the death of Mark Antony, etc. (all this month), as well as of the Transfiguration, the Assumption, and St. Radegunde; it enlarges one’s view. I would much rather commemorate at Mass the Roman conquest and the births of Cicero and Erasmus and the Feast of Lupercalia (15th Feb.) than some of these rather obscure, not to say potty, minor saints who are well thought of at St. Thomas’s and the Annunciation and keep intruding themselves into the services there. Then, the Latin hymns—what a very nice book to have. I know few of them, and here are riches to study. Some, of course, are in English in our hymn-books; some I think of making, at my leisure (if any ever) translations of. Many are very fine and beautiful. Thank you too for the little Catullus; the translations are quite racy, and do catch the humour of the Latin very well. And the little wallet, so neat, so useful, containing the photographs of the Monastery chapel, very attractive, and the Holbein Erasmus. I’m glad you are an Erasmus devotee. I am too. If only he and Colet and More had had their way with the church in England, and it had developed in freedom and scholarly breadth and light, without the rude intrusion of the Reformation! Where would it be to-day? If no Reformation, then, I suppose no Counter-Ref., and none of those exaggerated excesses of fanatical piety; just a development into greater sanity, reason and light and spirituality and learning. Would the Vatican have supported such a rational development, which would certainly have included and accepted all the new learning as it came along—Copernicus and all—or would it still have stuck its head in the sand and hunted down heretics and burnt them as it had through the Middle Ages? And would it be as reactionary and bigoted as it is to-day? We can’t know. But whether or not, the Anglican branch of it would have developed more mellowly than it did, and with less conflict. Though I suppose there must always have been the Puritan element fighting against the Catholic. These questions of “If …” are intensely interesting, aren’t they?
Letters to a Friend Page 16