Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931

And now, the kind reader, if there still is one, is going to be left in peace. Do write soon, and forgive your suppliant

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 313-14):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 25 May 1915

Dear Papy,

I don’t seem to have heard from you for some time now, but I suppose I am a little behindhand myself. There has been great excitement here this week end: when I came home from Church on Sunday morning I found a note waiting for me to say that Kirk and Mrs. Kirk had gone to Bristol where they had heard by a telegraph that Louis was in hospital. It appears he got a mild species of sun stroke while working with big guns down there at a place called Lydd. It was not very serious–in fact I gather somewhat of a mares nest–and K. is back this evening while Mrs. K. is staying at Bristol for a few days.

We have started our real summer here, and it is pretty warm. How does the weather suit the home farm, where I hope the tragic gardeners are in good form? What between pigeons and gardeners and white Homburg hats, Leeborough must present quite a seasonable spring idyll (with a double ‘l’.)

Mrs. K. and I were over at a place called Compton beyond Guildford on Saturday, where the attraction is a little pottery for fancy tiles and sich, founded by my friend William [Morris], who, as you know, besides being a poet was a wall paper designer, a potter, a hand loom weaver and everything else you can think of. Nearby is a gallery of Watts’s pictures. He, it appears, was one of that same set, and there are a lot of quite swell things there, such as his ‘Paolo and Francesco’, ‘Orpheus and Euridyce’, and ‘Found Drowned’ etc., which I always imagined to be in some big place like the Louvre or Tate. It was quite interesting.

Any news from the Colonel lately? I have not heard from any one except Arthur for a long time now, so do try and raise a letter soon. Or is this silence a result of a literal obedience to my last advice a propos of lectures to the members of the Select Vestry? I hope the doctors don’t think it serious.

There are plenty of nightingales about now, and in fact they are rather a nuisance. I am afraid this is rather a scrappy letter, but I am writing rather late at night, just before going to bed, and am a bit sleepy. I should like to know what is going on at Leeborough just now. I suppose these are the days of no fires, and sunset on the seat behind the laurels, with the crows coming home overhead, and Tim on the look out for wasps.

I hope you are keeping well and cheerful. Write again soon.

your loving,

son,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 322-3):

[Gastons

28? May 1915]

My dear Papy,

I am sorry to hear that the mental digestion of my parent is so weak, and blame myself for giving it such strong meat. Perhaps a course of ‘Decalettes, pure and simple things’, or nursery rhymes would meet the case. (Now we can proceed to the letter.)

Of course it is a very good thing that Bernagh is contributing to the forces, but one cannot help thinking that a better choice than the ‘Friend’s Ambulance Corps’–which really does sound rather sleepy–might have been made.

(#ulink_e499b99a-8b85-5bd1-bcd4-1615fd8f114c) However, I suppose ‘those also serve’

(#ulink_02994ddf-0fce-5137-be8b-2bb71e47ceb2) though the trenches impress the outside spectator more than an ambulance corps. A propos of conscription, I sincerely hope that one of two things may happen. Either that the war may be over before I am eighteen, or that conscription may not come into force before I have volunteered. I shouldn’t fancy going out to meet the others–as a conscript. I see the Daily Mail is being burnt everywhere for advocating the plan.

(#ulink_905dc514-231b-541c-9599-6c36ca3411f3) How excellent a proof of the necessity of a petty little plan like sending an envelope full of ashes–or most likely it was a woman. There is absolutely no news here, and the weather is very hot. Mrs. K. has now returned again from Bristol where she left Louis getting on all right.

I like your garden picture. I can imagine the whole scene, and especially the conversation with the Greeve’s on the road, we have heard so many like it before. The country at home must be looking delightful now, and I wish I could see it, but most of all the sea. If Bookham were not so far inland it would be delightful too–and indeed to do it justice it is very pretty. The remark about the fates is excellent from a literary point of view, only I don’t like to think of you thinking those sort of things in such a place–and with a white Homburg hat too. And yet I remember that Swinburne has some remark about the impossibility of changing ‘wings for feet, or feet for wings’. I suppose if we Lewis’s are made in that mould of reflective gravity which troubles deepen into melancholy, it is the price which we pay for a thoughtful and feeling mind. About the question of retrospect and anticipation (dangerous word for you, sir), there is a sentence in one of W. Morris’s prose tales that I am reading at present, which tho’ perhaps not strictly in point, is yet well worth remembering in its archaic charm and quaint nobility:–‘Thus then lived this folk in much plenty and ease of life, though not delicately nor desiring things out of measure. They wrought with their hands and wearied themselves: they rested from their toil and feasted and were merry: tomorrow was not a burden unto them, nor yesterday a thing that they would fain forget: life shamed them not, nor did death make them afraid.’

(#ulink_8e544106-2265-5f74-bd94-48cc46a34914) There is another way of looking at life: impossible it may be in a sophisticated age, and yet I think he would be a happy man who could do so.

What time do my letters reach you in the day? In letter writing one ought to know when and where the other person reads, as it makes more of a semblance to real conversation. I must dry up now.

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

1 June 1915]

Dear Galahad,

Your interesting epistle which I have read with wonder and delight, contains the following gems of Arthurian style

1 ‘I don’t suppose you will object to my coming with me’

2 ‘Read this with discust’

3 ‘I am talking now of sensulity.’

Dear old Galahad! That’s an unusually good budget even for you: I am afraid this ‘sensulity’ of yours–I never saw the word before but I suppose you know what it means–must be beginning to tell on you.

As to your first question, the only holyday I propose to take is a week or so with my relations at Larne, and my father’s offer, which I take to be purely formal, I would not much care to accept. I hope you will be sensible enough to spend your holydays at home with me, seeing each other and talking & going for long walks over the hills, instead of going off to some godless place by the sea. My point is that I should be going to my Aunt’s in any case, and 1 week or so from home is quite enough for me: as well, I don’t think it very decent to leave my father any longer. But don’t let this prevent your going somewhere. All I want to point out is, that my refusal of a joint holyday, is not from a design to avoid you, but because I don’t want to be away from home too long. Of course, if you would condescend to honour Larne with your presence while I am at my Aunt’s, I should be very bucked to see you: but you might be bored. However, we can talk all this over when we meet at the end of July.

Odeon records are the most fascinating and delusive bait on the Gramaphone market. Cheap, classical, performed by good artistes, they present a jolly attractive list: but they wear out in a month. Of course there are exceptions, and I can play you some selections from Lohengrin which I have on that make, and which have worn well. On the whole however, I wouldn’t advise anyone to get Odeon records, as a short-lived record is one of the most dissapointing of things. I foresee, by the way, that your way of getting records is like Jane McNeil’s way of getting books–that is you use a shop like a free library: whenever a record is worn out, back it goes to the shop, and you have a new one in its place. Which reminds me, my monthly catalogues for this month haven’t turned up yet, so you must shout at Miss Thompson.

With reference to your remarks about sensuality–je vous demande pardon–‘sensulity’, I don’t know I am sure, why you have been suffering especially in this way just now. Of course when I was particularly so last term, there was a reason, about whom you heard perhaps more than you wanted. You ought to be past the age of violent attacks of ’EPΩTÍKA (Greek); as well you are Galahad the spotless whose ‘strength is as the strength of ten, because your heart is pure’. Perhaps you would understand now, what you didn’t understand when I started the subject last hols, <what I mean by the ‘sensuality of cruelty’: again perhaps you would not.>

Last week I got a copy of that little book of yours on Icelandic Sagas, which I found very interesting, and as a result I have now bought a translation of the ‘Laxdaela Saga’

(#ulink_346510d3-f322-57d8-a051-24a2f40a2e7b) in the Temple Classics edition. I never saw a Temple Classic before; did you? In binding, paper, & ‘forma’ (by which I include the aspect of a typical page, its shape, spacing, lettering etc) they are tip top, and justify the boast of ‘elegance’ made in their advertisements. They are, I think, far better value than Everyman’s at the same price.

As to the Saga itself I am very pleased with it indeed: if the brief, simple, nervous style of the translation is a good copy of the original it must be very fine. The story, tho’, like most sagas, it loses unity, by being spread over two or three generations, is thoroughly interesting. Just as it was interesting after the ‘Well at the World’s End’ to read the ‘Morte’, so after the ‘Roots’, a real saga is interesting. I must admit that here again the primitive type is far better than Morris’s reproduction. But that of course is inevitable, just as Homer is better than Vergil.

Sorry to hear my father is so low, but I write to him regularly, and the last was really rather a long and good effort. Hope you’re all well at Bernagh.

Yours

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

8 June 1915]