you ask ‘why were you told £1-10s?’ I am not aware that I ever told you anything at all about the subject: the sum of money–whatever it was–was handed by Kirk to Warnie at the request of the latter, who took charge of it throughout, together with both tickets and every other arrangement. It never passed through my hands, and I am not prepared to say with any certainty what it amounted to. I do not remember mentioning the matter while at home. You have therefore applied to the wrong quarter.
Secondly, supposing for purposes of argument that I did tell you that it was £1-10s, what then? As I have already pointed out, I had nothing to do with the money, and Warnie not I, was responsible for its being borrowed. It follows that I could have had no conceivable motive for misrepresenting the amount. If there was to be any blame attached, it was not I who incurred it: I need never even have mentioned it. Accordingly, if I said anything untrue, it must have been through a mere error–and even at that an error by which I could gain nothing.
Thirdly, do not be annoyed if I descend to a rather crude, a fortiori line of argument. The tone of your letter, no less than the haste with which it was dispatched, suggests an ugly suspicion. This can of course be very easily answered. Setting aside all question of honour, I ask you to credit Warnie and myself with commonsense. Granted then, that for some inscrutable reason we wanted to conceal the amount he borrowed from Kirk, would we have been such fools as to have told a lie which must inevitably be detected as soon as the latter wrote to you? And of course, we would have known that K. must write to you to get his money back.
And so, it follows that either Kirk is wrong, or else if Warnie gave you the wrong figures it must have been by accident. That I knew nothing of it, and was not concerned in the transaction, has already been shown.
Last of all, if anything in this letter should seem to indicate that I am hurt or offended, I assure you it is not the case. I am perfectly convinced that your note was not meant to be insulting, though, from its nature, it could hardly help it. In any case it is as well to make things clear, even at the risk of some little superfluous violence. I am,
your loving son,
Jack
TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 321-2):
[Gastons
19? July 1915]
My dear Papy,
I sincerely hope this silence of yours doesn’t mean anything wrong with your health. Arthur says you didn’t seem very well the last time he was over at Leeborough, so I am not quite easy in my mind. If however anything is wrong, you might tell Aunt Annie to write to me with particulars, and also to forward W’s address, which since I wrote for it in my last letter has become even more necessary as he has now written to me. I should not like him to think that he is forgotten or that his letter has not reached me, but I cannot reply to him until I hear from you.
Not even in Bookham can one be safe from the hoi polloi; a stubborn refusal to learn tennis is no longer a protection among people who will inflict croquet instead. I was out on Wednesday for tea and croquet and again today (Saturday) for the same entertainment, plus a great deal of conversation. However, this I suppose is part of the curse inherited from our first parents: my private opinion is that after the words ‘In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread’76 another clause has dropped out from the original text, running ‘In the exasperation of thy souls shalt thou attend social functions’. On the whole, though I do not of course know anyone as well as at home, I like a good many of those I meet: the world indeed (as you have reminded me on innumerable occasions), is full of nice people. And if it must be full at all, I suppose it is as well that they should be nice.
Talk, of course, runs mostly on the war. I have always thought it ridiculous for people to talk so much on a subject of which, in the majority of cases, they are really very ignorant. Books, art, etc., passing trivialities and even gossip are topics on which everyone can speak with more or less authority. We prefer however to pass our time in criticism of politics, or at present the war–subjects on which only specialists should speak. This endless criticism by ignorant men and women of public men, whose positions they do not understand, I always hear with annoyance.
The Colonel writes to me cheerfully though briefly, and wants an answer. I suppose he tells me nothing that you don’t know already. Bathing and a sack of books seem to be his chief consolations in ‘this detestable country.’
I have been reading nothing since Othello but a translation from the Icelandic, and stray articles etc. In Greek we have begun Demosthenes. Of course oratory is not a sort of literature that I appreciate or understand in any language, so that I am hardly qualified to express an opinion on our friend with the mouthful of pebbles. However, compared with Cicero, he strikes me as a man with something to say, intent only upon saying it clearly and shortly. One misses the beautiful roll of the Ciceronian period, but on the other hand, he is not such a—blether.77
Do try and write soon, or, if the worst comes to the worst, get Aunt Annie to do so.
your loving,
son,
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 299-300):
[Gastons
24 July 1915]
Dear Galahad,
I have debated more than once as to whether you would prefer a tired and perfunctory letter written in good time during the week, or a fresh and willing [one] a few days late on Saturday evening. Thinking that you would choose the latter, and knowing I would–here we are.
What on earth are you doing reading the Sowers?78 A Russian mystery-story full of wise diplomatists and impossible women–it ought to be clad in a bright red cover, with a crude picture of Steinmitz saying ‘The Moscow Doctor–and your prince!!!’ from the head of the stairs, and set on a railway bookstall. But, perhaps I am wrong. Of course it has points, but you are worthy of better things. Never read any George Eliot79 Myself, being no great hand at novels but admire your energy in that line.
Talking about books, I am determined to teach you to like poetry, and will begin next hols. on Coleridges ‘Christabel’. Don’t be put off by the name. It is exactly the sort of romantic strangeness and dreaminess you & I like, a sort of partner to the Ancient Mariner,80 as Danse Macabre is to the March of the Dwarfs.
Also–I hope all these schemes aren’t boring you–you are going to help me to improve my drawing next hols. Figures I can do tolerably, but from you I must learn the technique of the game–shading, curves, how to do a background without swamping the figures etc. Of course this will all be in pen and ink which is the best medium for my kind of work–I can imagine your smile at my calling such scribbles ‘work’, but no matter. I am longing to get home again now, and expect I shall arrive next Saturday.
Yes Mrs K. has played the Polonaise; we found the right one without difficulty, and tho’ she made some remarks about the hardness of it I at length persuaded her. Now, you know, I never flatter: so you may take it as solemn truth when I tell you that, if I admired your playing before, I understood its true value far better when I compared [it] with Mrs K.–by no means a contemptible craftsman. To hear the lovely galloping passages rendered correctly, even well, but without your own frank enjoyment of the work, your sympathy with the composer and your inimitable fire and abandonment (this sounds like an essay but I mean every word of it), was a revelation. You threw yourself into it, and forgot yourself in the composer: Mrs K sat there, amiable, complacent and correct, as if she were pouring out tea. Now, while they’re not all as bad as she, still you alone of the people I have heard play set to the matter properly. And for that reason, a piece, by you, if it were full of mistakes