George Orwell: A Life in Letters
Page 50
To David Astor*
Monday [9 February 1948]
Dear David,
Just a hurried note to say thanks awfully your seeing about the streptomycin. Meanwhile you’ll have had a telegram 1 which crossed your letter & which I hope you didn’t bother to answer. Just having heard I got time to ring up last night, & as you were down in the country I then wired, as I did think it conceivable my original letter hadn’t gone off. We get them posted in a rather sketchy way here.
Of course I must pay you for the stuff. But I’ll try & think of something else you’d like, or your little girl.
I’ve just heard the Darrochs 2 are ‘definitely leaving’ Kinuachdrach[d], but I still can’t find out what the row was about. It’s a sad business after D.D. has broken his back reclaiming the farm, & awkward for the Fletchers3 too. However, they’ll have to get another tenant if only to look after their cattle.
All well here. They pump me so full of air once a week that I feel like a balloon for two days afterwards.
Yours,
George
[XIX, 3342, pp. 265–6; handwritten]
1.Not traced.
2.Donald Darroch and his sister, Katie, had a croft a mile or so from Barnhill at Kinuachdrachd. Orwell went there every day for milk until he bought a cow. He and Donald, who worked on a profit-sharing basis with Orwell’s laird, Robin Fletcher, were very friendly. Donald and Katie are very frequently mentioned in Orwell’s diaries. In Remembering Orwell (pp. 174–5) Katie contributes a brief but telling memoir. She describes Orwell as ‘cheery and happy in his own way’ – and a great fan of her scones!
3.Robin Fletcher inherited the Ardlussa Estate some eight miles south of Barnhill. He had formerly been a housemaster at Eton. He and his wife, Margaret, set about restoring the estate and developing crofting. Margaret in Orwell Remembered (pp. 225–9) vividly describes Orwell: ‘how ill, how terribly ill, he looked – and drawn: a sad face he had . . . I think he very much missed his wife . . . He was devoted to Richard.’
To David Astor*
Saturday [14 February 1948]1
Dear David,
Did you really not want the pens? They’re very useful, as my Biro was out of action & also lost, & my Rollball not functioning very well. This is yours I’m writing with.
The Van Gogh exhibition apparently begins on the 21st.
I’d certainly love to come down to your Abingdon place in the summer for a weekend, if I’m about by then. It would be lovely having the river at your door. Probably in June or July there’d be good fishing, dace & chub. The Thames fishing can be quite good. I caught some good fish at Eton, but hardly anybody outside College knew the place, as it was in the backwater joining on College field.
I still haven’t got to the bottom of the row at Kinuachdrach[d], but I gather it was between Bill & Donald. I assume Donald won’t leave immediately. The Fletchers are advertising for another tenant. They’ll have to have someone to look after their herd of Highlands.
By the way, I think you said poor old Niel° Darroch might want to sell his boat—do you remember whether it was petrol or paraffin?
Yours
George
[XIX, 3344, p. 267; handwritten]
1.Dated only ‘Sat.’ The Van Gogh Exhibition opened at the Tate Gallery, London, on 10 December 1947 and ran to 14 January 1948; it visited Birmingham, 24 January to 14 February 1948, and Glasgow—near where Orwell was in hospital—20 February to 14 March 1948. This letter is so fresh with hope that it must surely have been written before the course of streptomycin began: that, he would write to Middleton Murry on 20 February 1948, had ‘just started’. Saturday, 14 February, is, therefore, the most likely date for this letter. That must place the next letter, here dated 16.2.48, to that particular Monday.
To David Astor*
Monday [16 February 1948]
Dear David,
I’ve had 2 letters from you today. I’ll take the business one first. I’m perfectly willing to do the reviews for the U.S., in fact I’d like it, as they will probably want them rather longer than yours, & I prefer that. I presume that they will be for papers more or less on a level with the Observer & similar in tone. The only caveat is, that I might have a relapse or something, & any way I can only do about 2 hours work each day. They will be starting with the streptomycin soon, & though I don’t suppose so, it may have unpleasant effects, like M. & B.1 But anyway, up to capacity I’ll certainly do the reviews.
As to the streptomycin. Thanks awfully for getting it on the wing so quickly.2 I suppose it will get here in only a few days. If you really don’t want to be paid for it O. K., I won’t press it. But I really could easily have paid, not only in £s but even in dollars, because I remember now, I have at least 500 lying by in New York. I don’t need [to] tell you I am grateful. Let’s hope it does its stuff. I gather they aren’t very satisfied with my case at present. I haven’t gained weight for 2 weeks, & I have a feeling I am getting weaker, though mentally I am more alert. Dr Dick* seems anxious to start in with the strepto as early as possible.
I’m sorry A[rthur] K[oestler]* has blown up. He’s a bit temperamental. I thought his fi[rst] despatch from France was very good. The ‘London Letters’ he has been doing in P[artisan] R[eview] are shocking & I have been meaning to have a row with him about them—just one long squeal about basic petrol3 etc.
I’ll let you know how the strepto goes.
Yours
George
[XIX, 3349, p. 272; handwritten]
1.May and Baker, manufacturers of pharmaceuticals; their initials were a shorthand means of referring to sulphonamides.
2.David Astor wrote to Dr Dick* on 19 February 1948 thanking him for encouraging Orwell to get the streptomycin and offering to help in getting anything else that would aid Orwell’s recovery. He made it clear that he wished to pay for any drugs that would help and said he was ‘in communication with Blair on this’ and trying to convince him to accept help. He asked Dick not to discuss payment with Orwell, ‘as I think the only possibility of persuading him to be reasonable is that it should be a very private matter between him and me.’ He could make another visit to Hairmyres Hospital, he said, ‘this coming Sunday [22 February] or on Sunday, 7th March’, the latter being slightly more convenient. Was Orwell doing too much work, he asked; he could either increase or decrease it as would prove desirable.
3.‘Basic’ petrol was the amount allowed before supplements for special purposes were added. Writing to Anthony Powell on 8 March (XIX, 3360, p. 283) Orwell said he was allowed six gallons of petrol a month and that his car did only ten miles to the gallon ‘on a highland road’.
To Ivor Brown*
20 February 1948
Hairmyres Hosp.
Dear Ivor Brown,
I’m sorry, but it was an awful book.1 It had all the marks of an amateur’s writing, everything jammed in indiscriminately, a sort of matey facetious manner that failed to come off, & a most irritating trick of giving everything its Faeroese name, which meant one had to look up the glossary every few lines. Its only merit was that it was informative about a little-known subject, which I think I indicated. Linklater’s introduction didn’t impress me as sincere. I thought of saying that the book was stodgy, or heavy going, or words to that effect, but didn’t want to be unkind to an amateur.
I am not prepared to give praise on literary grounds to books of this type. One sinks one’s standards below zero by pretending that they exist in a literary sense at all. This kind of book (eg.° another you have sent me, about caves in France 2) are simply bits of topography, or travel diary set down by people who have no idea how to select or to write, & they get boosted because of local patriotism. If one is to review them, I do not see what we can do except to give an exposition.3
Yours sincerely
George Orwell
[XX, 3351A, p. 564; handwritten]
1.On 18 February 1948, an unsigned letter from Ivor Brown of the Observer questioned Orwell about the
review he had submitted of Kenneth Williamson’s The Atlantic Islands. He had noted that high claims had been made for the book and that Eric Linklater ‘puts it very high’. Orwell, he said, had taken no line at all about the book but merely reported what Williamson said. Readers, publishers and authors ‘like to see signs of enthusiasm and encouragement for good work, if it is good’. He himself had not read Williamson’s book. He asked Orwell if he could ‘give a bit more colour to your notice of it should you feel this is justified’. Eric Linklater (Robert Russell; 1899–1974), Scottish novelist (Juan in America, 1931), who wrote several war pamphlets (e.g., The Highland Division, 1942). Orwell’s review appeared on 29 February 1948 (XIX, 3356, pp. 277–8).
2.My Caves by Norbert Casteret reviewed 14 March 1948 (XIX, 3356, pp. 283–4).
3.Ivor Brown replied on 24 February saying he quite understood how Orwell felt.
To John Middleton Murry*
5 March 1948
Hairmyres Hospital
East Kilbride
Dear Murry,
Thanks very much for the book,1 which I read with interest. I agree with your general thesis, but I think that in assessing the world situation it is very rash to assume that the rest of the world would combine against Russia. We have a fearful handicap in the attitude towards us of the coloured races, & the under-privileged peoples generally (eg. in S. America), which we possibly don’t deserve any longer but which we have inherited from our imperial past. I also think it is rash to assume that most orientals, or indeed any except a few westernised ones, would prefer democracy to totalitarianism. It seems to me that the great difficulty of our position is that in the coming show-down we must have the peoples of Africa & the Middle East—if possible of Asia too, of course—on our side, & they will all look towards Russia unless there is a radical change of attitude, especially in the USA. I doubt whether we can put things right in Africa, at least in some parts of it, without quite definitely siding with the blacks against the whites. The latter will then look [to] the USA for support, & they will get it. It can easily turn out that we & America are alone, with all the coloured peoples siding with Russia. Perhaps even then we could win a war against Russia, but only by laying the world in ruins, especially this country.
I’m sorry to hear about your illness. My own seems to be getting better rapidly. They can’t say yet whether the streptomycin is doing its stuff, but I certainly have been a lot better the last week or so. I imagine however that I shall be in bed for another month or two, & under treatment at any rate until the summer. The lung has been collapsed, which is supposed to give it a better chance to heal, but of course it takes a long time, & meanwhile they have to keep on pumping air into one’s diaphragm. Fortunately this is a very nice hospital & very well run. Everyone is extraordinarily kind to me. It is sad I cannot see my little boy until I am non-infectious, however he will be able to come & visit me when I am allowed out of doors. He is getting on for 4 & growing enormously, though he is a bit backward about talking, because we live in such a solitary spot that he doesn’t see enough of other children. I have got our place in Jura running pretty well now. I myself couldn’t farm the land that went with the house, but a young chap who was wounded in the war lives with us & farms it. We are pretty well found there, & better off for fuel & food than one is in London. The winters also are not quite so cold, funnily enough. The chief difficulties are that in bad weather one is sometimes cut off from the mainland, & that one is chronically short of petrol. However one can use a horse if one is obliged to. Of course I have to go up to London occasionally, but the journey only takes 24 hours, less if one flies. I was half way through a novel when I took to my bed. It ought to have been finished by May—possibly I might finish it by the end of 1948 if I get out of here by the summer.
Please remember me to your wife.
Yours sincerely
Geo. Orwell
[XIX, 3358, pp. 279–80; handwritten]
1.The Free Society. In this Murry comes close to approving war against the Soviet Union, contrary to his long-held pacifist views and hence E.L. Allen’s Pacifism and the Free Society: A Reply to John Middleton Murry (1948).
To Dwight Macdonald*
7 March 1948
Hairmyres Hospital
East Kilbride
Dear Dwight,
Thanks so much for sending me your book on Wallace, which I have read with the greatest interest. Have you done anything about finding an English publisher? In case you haven’t, I am writing to Victor Gollancz bringing the book to his attention.1 If you’re not already in touch with some other publisher, I would write to Gollancz & send him a copy. In spite of the awful paper shortage etc., the book should find a publisher here, as people are naturally interested in Wallace, as the man who is likely to cause ‘our’ candidate to lose the election.2 (It’s difficult to keep up with American politics here, but it does look as though Wallace is making great strides lately. I’m afraid he may get the whole anti-war vote, as Chamberlain did before the war.) And I think Gollancz is your man, as he is politically sympathetic & is able to bring a book out quickly, as Warburg, for instance, can’t. I suppose you know his address—17 Henrietta St. Covent Garden, London WC.2. The book might do with some minor modifications for the English public, but you could fix all that with G.
There’s another instance of Wallace’s habit of issuing garbled versions of his speeches, which might be worth putting in. When he was over here, Wallace of course played down the Palestine issue, or at least didn’t make mischief about it. He was no sooner in France than he referred to the Jewish terrorists as a ‘maquis’ fighting against a British occupation. This appeared in French reports of his speech, but not in any English-language paper (except one, I think the Christian Science Monitor, which somehow got hold of it), presumably having been cut out from versions issued to them. The Manchester Guardian documented the facts at the time.
As you see I’m in hospital. [Reference to illness omitted.] I’m starting my uniform edition this year & shall start off by reprinting a novel which was published in 1939 & rather killed by the war. I believe Harcourt Brace are going to reprint my Burma novel. They were BFs not to do so immediately after having that bit of luck with Animal Farm.
What’s happened to Politics? I haven’t seen it for months. I told my agent in New York to take out a subscription for me, but she seemed rather reluctant to do so, evidently thinking I ought to get all the American papers free.
Isn’t it funny how surprised everyone seems over this Czechoslovakia business?3 Many people seem really angry with Russia, as though at some time there had been reason to expect different behaviour on the Russians’ part. Middleton Murry has just renounced his pacifism & written a book (practically) demanding a preventive war against the USSR! This after writing less than 10 years ago that ‘Russia is the only inherently peaceful country.’
Excuse bad handwriting
Yours
Geo. Orwell
[XIX, 3359, pp. 281–2; handwritten]
1.Letter not traced.
2.In the 1948 election Henry Wallace (see 5.12.46, n. 6) was a candidate of the left-wing Progressive Party, which received over one million popular votes. Thomas E. Dewey was expected to win the election (and a famous headline prematurely showed him as doing so), but Truman won with a two-million majority of the popular vote.
3.On 27 February 1948, Klement Gottwald (1896–1953), Communist Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, announced that the resignation of twelve centre and right-wing ministers had been accepted by President Edvard Beneš (although a week earlier Beneš had stated that there would be no Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia). Jan Masaryk (son of Czechoslovakia’s ‘founding father’) remained Foreign Minister, and attention (and hopes) were focused on him as the means whereby a total victory for the Communists might be averted. However, on 10 March 1948 he was found dead in the courtyard beneath his flat in Prague. The Communist line was that Masaryk had committed suicide in ‘a moment of nervo
us breakdown’. Those who opposed the Communist takeover, which had become complete, interpreted his death as murder.
To Leonard Moore*
19 March 1948
Hairmyres Hospital
East Kilbride
Dear Moore,
Thank you for your letter. I didn’t object to the jacket, & it had ‘Uniform Edition’ on it, which I wanted to make sure of. But I did think the light green cover was unsuitable & asked Warburg whether he could manage to change the cloth for something darker. 1 I favour dark blue, or any dark colour except red, which always seems to come off on one’s fingers. I thought the format was all right. Of course the price is fearful for a reprint, but I suppose subsequent volumes need not be so expensive.
I see that Burmese Days is supposed to come out in the same edition only a few months later. I believe the Penguin edition is still in print, as you sent me an account of sales recently. I suppose the Penguin people won’t print many more, otherwise it may damage the Warburg edition.
Warburg suggested that I should bring out another volume of essays in the fairly near future. I think it would be better not to do this for another 2–3 years, as people feel rather cheated if they buy a book & find it contains things which they have read in magazines only a year or so earlier.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XIX, 3362, pp. 285–6; handwritten]
1.Fredric Warburg had visited Orwell, probably on 10 March, bringing a specimen binding case (or cloth) for the Uniform Edition. Warburg took note of Orwell’s wish that a darker colour be selected. Orwell had some of his own books rebound in dark blue; these included a presentation copy of Animal Farm for his son, Richard. Warburg wrote to Orwell on 15 March, expressing ‘real pleasure’ at finding him ‘in better shape and better spirits than I had anticipated’. He realised that Orwell would require all his patience and control ‘to overcome the obstacles to a complete restoration of health’, but he did not doubt that Orwell could do that ‘since you still have many books you still wish to write’.