it I have only a very few fall-backs, and those not of the first water. Tell me what you think? At any rate it is one comfort that Kirk’s talk about matriculation was all moonshine: the scholarship exams take place in December. What between Oxford and the Army I am beginning to think that we would be better advised to sell all we have, take a cottage in Donegal, and cultivate potatoes for the good of the nation. Still, I suppose we really have very little to grumble at.
If it is not strange to say so, I am glad to hear that Dick is safely wounded:101 it is by far the best thing that can happen to a man in the trenches, and the really unlucky ones are those who ‘bear the labour and heat of the day’102 unhurt for over a year–always it would seem in the long run to be killed after returning from a leave.
Things look pretty black at present, don’t they? The North Sea battle, though perhaps not so bad as we thought at first, is certainly a very serious business, and our attitude towards the ‘rats’ was rather that of friend Tim than of the sportsman ‘digging them out’. What exactly will the loss of Kitchener mean?103 ‘De mortuis…’104 now of course, and for my own part I never approved of arm chair criticism.
How noble of poor Bob to give up his sister to the war!
your loving
son Jack
As we have seen, for some time now letters had been passing between father and son, and father and Mr Kirkpatrick, regarding Jack’s future. All were agreed that he should try for a place at Oxford, and Jack was due to sit for a scholarship examination there on 5 December. However, with one son already in the army, and the war growing worse every day, Albert Lewis was very anxious to keep Jack out of the service. According to the Military Service Act ‘every male British subject who had attained the age of eighteen and ordinarily resident in Great Britain was liable for enlistment in the army. On the other hand, the exemption mentioned at the beginning of this chapter–that of a man resident in Great Britain ‘for the purposes of his education only’ was now in effect. Jack was Irish, and the exemption applied to him. But contrary to his fathers wishes, Jack insisted that he would not apply for the exemption, and he was determined not to be talked out of it by either father or tutor.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 103-5):
[Gastons
4 July 1916]
My dear Arthur,
So you feel hurt that I should think you worth talking to only about books, music, etc.: in other words that I keep my friendship with you only for the highest plane of life: that I leave to others all the sordid and uninteresting worries about so-called practical life, and share with you those joys and experiences which make that life desirable: that–but now I am getting rhetorical. It must be the influence of dear Sidney and his euphuism I suppose. But seriously, what can you have been thinking about when you said ‘only’ books, music, etc., just as if these weren’t the real things!
However, if I had thought for a moment that it would interest you, of course you are perfectly welcome to a full knowledge of my plans–such as they are. Indeed I imagined that you had a pretty clear idea about them: well, ‘let us go forward’, to quote from a certain romance: being Irish, I hear from my father that the fact of my being educated in England will not bring me under the new act. I am therefore going to remain as I am until December when my Oxford exam comes off. After that, I shall of course join the army: but in what exact way, I don’t at present know any more than you do. So there you have the whole yarn.
I may just remark in passing that you should by this time know better than to waste pity on your friend Chubs for ‘worrying’ about it: did you ever see him worrying about anything? I have learnt by now that whatever plans you make in this world, everything always turns out quite differently, so what is the use of bothering? To be honest, the question has hardly crossed my mind once this term. Now I don’t mind in the least telling you all this, and if you wanted to know I don’t see why you never asked before. But then I am a coarse-grained creature who never could follow the feelings of refined–might I say super-refined?–natures like my Galahad’s.
The annoying part is that you have taken up your letter (and here am I taking up mine!!) with this, to the exclusion of all sorts of interesting things that I wanted to hear: for instance, you must tell me more about Hardy. We have all heard of him till we are sick of it, and so I should like to hear the opinion of someone I know. What sort of a novel is it? Would I like it?
But of course the first thing I looked for in this evening’s letter was to see if there was an instalment there. I have now read it over again with last week’s to get the continuous narrative, and with the same pleasure. Did you quite realise what a splendid touch it was for Dennis to hope ‘nobody would steal his clothes’? Somehow the practical, commonsense realism of that, increases the fairy-like effect of what follows enormously. I don’t know if I can explain it, but it sort of brings the thing just enough in touch with reality to make it convincing, without spoiling its dreaminess. Also the idea of his seeing her face not directly, but in the water, is somehow very romantic. By the way, I hope you don’t really think that I hinted for a moment that your willow was borrowed from my roses: how could you know what my roses were going to do about five chapters ahead? Above all, don’t change anything in the plan of your tale on that account. Perhaps, as you say, we both took it unconsciously from ‘Phantastes’, who in his turn borrowed it from the dryads, etc. of classical mythology, who are a development of the primitive savage idea that everything has a spirit (just as your precious Jehovah is an old Hebrew thunder spirit): so we needn’t be ashamed of borrowing our trees, since they are really common property.
Your reply to my criticism is typically Galahadian: but though in your case I am sure it is more sincere than it looks, still this excessive modesty is rather absurd. You may be dissatisfied with it (though I don’t see why), you may be uncertain of yourself, but still in your heart of hearts you don’t think of ‘The Water Sprite’ as ‘that rubbish of mine’, now do you?
Do you know what your tale has done? It has made me sorry that I began Bleheris in the old style: I see now that though it is harder to work some effects in modern English, yet on the whole my way of writing is a sort of jargon: however, we must do the best we can. I was very glad to hear that you liked the Sunken Wood, especially as the next two chapters are stodgy conversation. I am afraid Bleheris never gets into the wood: but you ought to know that the ‘little, hobbling shadow’ doesn’t live more in that wood than anywhere else. It follows nervous children upstairs to bed, when they daren’t look over their shoulders, and comes and sits on your grandfather’s summer seat beside two friends when they have talked too much nonsense in the dark. I hope you have an illustration ready for this chapter?
I am still at the ‘Arcadia’, which you will gather from this is a long book, though not a bit too long. I won’t make you sick of it before you see it by starting to sing its praises again: I only promise you that I am still as keen on it as when I began. By the way, now that we are both writing, and know how much work there is in a short instalment that can be read in a few minutes, you begin to realize the labour of writing a thing say like the ‘Morte D’Arthur’.
I gather from your silence that you are doing nothing in the gramophone way? Ask the Girlinosbornes whether my new record of ‘Is not His word like a fire’105 (ordered last holidays) has come yet or not. I hope it will be waiting for me when I get home: which event–do you realize–will happen in about a month. This term has gone terribly quickly and been very pleasant, but all the same I shall not be sorry to take up my other life again.
What new books are there of yours to see? I am longing to have a look at your De Quincey and ‘Rossetti’. By the way, I suppose you never looked up the passage about the ‘bore’ nor