You are quite wrong old man in saying I can draw ‘when I like’. On the contrary, if I ever can draw, it is exactly when I don’t like. If I sit down solemnly with the purpose of drawing, it is a sight to make me ‘ridiculous to the pedestrian population of the etc.’. The only decent things I do are scribbled in the margins of my dictionary–like Shirley–or the backs of old envelopes, when I ought to be attending to something else.
I am quite as sorry as you that I can’t see my way to working Bleheris back into the Sunken Wood, for I think the idea might be worked a bit more: but don’t see how it is to be done without changing the whole plan of the story.
The immediate prospects of my getting married ‘agreeably or otherwise’ as you kindly suggest, are not very numerous: but if you are getting uneasy about an invitation, rest assured, when the event comes off, if you behave you shall have one.
It was strange that Mrs K. should get Hardy’s ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’112 out of the library last week, though I never got a chance of looking into it: somehow I don’t fancy Hardy is in my line, but then I always have a prejudice against people whom you’re always hearing about.
You say nothing about music now-a-days, and I am afraid I scarcely think of it: it annoys me hugely to think of the whole world of pleasures that I used to have and can’t enjoy now. Did you see a long article in the Times Literary Supplement113 about the ‘Magic Flute’114 which is on at the Shaftesbury? How I wish I could go up and hear it and also ‘Tristan and Isolde’115–though if I did it would be a disappointment in all probability.
I am furious because in answer to my order for the ‘Chanson de Roland’ I am told it is out of print, which is very tiresome. Here I enclose another chapter, really all conversation this time, but can promise you a move next week. Don’t forget your own instalment which I look forward to very eagerly. Good night.
Yours,
Jack
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 105-6):
[Gastons
14? July 1916]
My dear Papy,
This must be nipped in the bud: there can be no question of that. Get your lady friend’s visit over before the end of this month, at all costs, or else bid them avaunt till the winter.116 What should I do, left alone all day to face a situation of that sort? As well, the whole thing is tyranny, extortion, infliction, profligacy and arrogance of the worst sort, and therefore not to be borne. Have they not already taken more than their fair share of reprisals for our own visit so long ago? This ‘breakfast is a charming meal’ business can be overdone: however, a man can but die once, so I suppose destiny must take its course.
This is big news from the front, though whether it will have any permanent effect or not, of course we can’t say. The Ulster Division–what there are of them now–must have silenced the yapping politicians for ever.117 I suppose the losses are felt very heavily in Belfast: here, nobody seems to have noticed anything.
Yes, that wheeze about ‘pulled through’ ought to ‘supply a long felt want’: it can be used on every occasion and ought to live for a very long time. I am sorry if any obscurity on my part gave rise to the ‘savage emphasis,’ but then his ordinary style of conversation is so–I think the word is ‘nervous’ in its 18th Century sense, that best describes it–that we must not pay too much attention to such things. I think, as you say, that things point to New, but of course we will keep an open mind in the meantime.
The literary event of the week is our respected laureate’s ode in the Times Literary Supplement:118 truly a most remarkable production, though I am afraid like the honest Major in ‘Patience,’ I must confess that ‘it seems to me nonsense’.119 To do the man justice, the lines about Homer, the ones about the birds, the beginning of the vision, and a few other passages, are rather fine. But the habit of throwing in an odd rhyme here and there is rather uncomfortable: still, if you can lay your hand upon it (the Pattersonian pun is quite a mistake, owing to haste, as it is getting late and the others are going up) you might keep this number.
I am at present in the middle of a book called ‘Pendennis’ which I should advise you to read unless I knew your prejudice against the author: however, one of these days you will come round and ‘see my point.’
your loving,
son,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 111-13):
[Gastons]
Tuesday evening, the I don’t know whath, 18] July /16.
My dear Arthur,
I can’t understand why you should want to know the dates on which these gems of wit were written: if you should ever happen to look at them in the future, a date is a meaningless thing and it won’t really help you to see a few numbers written on the top. For my part, when I read your old letters, I don’t think about such nonsense. I classify them not by time but by the stage in our thoughts at which they were written: I say ‘Ah, that was when we were talking about Loki, this was when we talked much about music and little about books, we didn’t know each other so well when this was written’ and so on. Which is far more sensible than saying, ‘This was September 1914, that was August 1915.’ As well, the fact that everyone else puts a date on their letters is to me an excellent reason for not doing so. Still, if you are really concerned about it, I suppose I must ‘bow myself in the house of Rimmon’.120 Since I have gone so far as to put a date however, you can’t be so unreasonable as to suggest that it should be the right one.
I am awfully bucked about ‘Twelfth Night’:121 I thought at the time you remember, that Heath Robinson’s illustrations were absolutely perfect–quite as good as Rackham’s, though of course in a different style. If I remember aright there is a splendid one on the line ‘How full of shapes is fancy’122 and also some fine evening cloud effects–not to mention the jester in the rain and the delightfully ‘old English’ garden scenes.
I am longing, as you say, to be at home and to go over all our treasures both old and new:–so of course we shall be disappointed in some way. As you say, you are extravagant, but I too at present buy one book as soon as I have finished another.
The Arcadia’ is finished: or rather I have read all there is of it, for unfortunately it breaks off at a most exciting passage in the middle of a sentence. I will not praise it again, beyond saying that this last 3rd. book, though it has no such fine love passages as the 2nd., yet (despite the brasting), for really tip-top narrative working the interest up and up as it goes along, is quite worthy of Scott.
This week’s new purchase consisted of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’–in the same edition as my Mandeville123–and ‘John Silence’