Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ they all (cat included) leaped aboard us before we were well alongside with the frantic haste of porters or customs officials. The ferryman’s only explanation was the cryptic sentence ‘Brought us all together’ which he repeated about four times.

      The rest of the day was spent tramping along the route Warborough—Stadhampton-Denton-Cuddesdon-Wheatley-Kilns. It was a colourless autumn day—about a quarter of the leaves still hanging on the trees: you know—just a yellow freckle on the black timber. We had tea at Wheatley, Barfield denouncing birth control. I could not help thinking, though I hardly cared to say, that a man married to an obviously barren woman was in this matter an arm chair critic. We were both home for supper, both feeling enormously the better for our jaunt. It is curious how the actual length of a holiday and the feeling of length are almost in inverse ratio. We had the sensation of having been away from our routine for an almost endless time.

      Looking back on our own last trip I feel the same. I can believe that we were only a day and two nights at Larne: as for Castlerock, we seem we have been there for weeks, in all kinds of weather and at different seasons of the year. Did we really walk only twice to the tunnel? In retrospect, by the bye, the thing that wears best of all in my mind is the narrow gauge journey: the journey back, of course, is—like a lane by a brickyard on a hot day. Before Barfield went to bed that night (in your room) I gave him your will and he is doubtless now re-writing it in unintelligible language.

Which reminds me—I have had a letter from Condlin⁵⁷ about the Templeton family: but what he is saying about them, or whether he has found them, I can’t for the life of me make out. Did I tell you that his acknowledgment of the £100 tip was not very enthusiastic? I don’t say it was definitely chilly—nor, by the way, do I know how far Condlin’s epistolary style is adapted for registering surprise or pleasure—or, for the matter of that, anything whatever on any subject.

I have also heard from the Tower of Glass⁵⁸ to say that they have at last got the Bishop’s authority (he doesn’t kill himself with work, does he? Prissy prelatical dog!) and also-which pleased me less, that the Rev. Chevasse⁵⁹ had suggested that St Mark’s Tower should be included somewhere in the window.⁶⁰

      Clearly the proper [answer] is ‘Ah such nonsense.’ I actually replied by telling them to consult the artist, and to ask him to consider the proposal on purely aesthetic grounds. Unless the artist is a fool, that ought to safeguard us pretty well, and if he is—why then there is no help for us in any case.

It just occurs to me as I write, that Chevasse in this matter is probably the unwilling mouthpiece of the Select Vestry: I daresay even that the monstrous regiment of women,⁶¹ incarnated in Lily Ewart,⁶² is really at the bottom of it. Zounds!—I’d like a few minutes at the bottom of her! No ‘thought infirm’ would there ‘stain my cheek’:⁶³ a firm hand rather would stain both hers. I also sent them the (revised by Christie) inscription. That, I think, is all the business news.

As regards books—what time have I to read? Tutorial necessities have spurred me into reading another Carlyle ‘Past and Present’⁶⁴ which I recommend: specially the central part about Abbot Samson. Like all Carlyle it gets a little wearisome before the end—as all listening to these shouting authors does. But the pungency and humour and frequent sublimity is tip-top. It is very amusing to read the 19th century editor’s preface (in our Leeborough edition),⁶⁵ obviously by a P’daita:⁶⁶ pointing out that, of course, the matter of the book is out of date, but it ‘lives by its style’. ‘We can afford to smile at the pessimism with which the sage approached problems that have since vanished like a dream before the onward march etc. etc’ Actually the book is an indictment of the industrial revolution pointing out precisely the problems we have not solved and prophesying most of the things that have happened since.

      I get rather annoyed at this endless talk about books ‘living by the style’. Jeremy Taylor ‘lives by the style in spite of his obsolete theology’; Thos. Browne does the same, in spite of ‘the obsolete cast of his mind’: Ruskin and Carlyle do the same in spite of their ‘obsolete social and political philosophy’. To read histories of literature one would suppose that the great authors of the past were a sort of chorus of melodious idiots who said, in beautifully cadenced language that black was white and that two and two made five. When one turns to the books themselves-well I, at any rate, find nothing obsolete. The silly things these great men say, were as silly then as they are now: the wise ones are as wise now as they were then.

At this stage in my letter I begin to be haunted by the idea of having read and experienced many interesting things which I meant to tell you but cannot now bring to mind. One un- interesting thing was being preached to in ‘mine own church’ by little ‘Clarkie’ (the m-yes man).⁶⁷ He is the sort of preacher who calls God ‘gudd’, and soars off into great emotion cadenzas. The matter was good enough, the manner detestable. This morning was the commemoration of the dedication of the church, and why they saw fit to let (or even get) Clark to preach I don’t know: Bathtowel and Thomas being both there.

I had to set a paper for School Certificate the other day on the Clarendon Press selections from Cowper—a ridiculous book for schoolboys.⁶⁸ It includes a large chunk of Bagehot’s Essay on Cowper which makes me think I must read all Bagehot. We have him, haven’t we? Not that I ‘hold with him’, he is too much of a pudaita by half: but he has great fun. ‘Boy—the small pomivorous animal so called.’

      How delicious Cowper himself is—the letters even more than the poetry. Under every disadvantage—presented to me as raw material for a paper and filling with a job an evening wh. I had hoped to have free—even so he charmed me. He is the very essence of what Arthur calls ‘the homely’ which is Arthur’s favourite genre. All these cucumbers, books, parcels, tea-parties, parish affairs. It is wonderful what he makes of them.

      I suppose we may expect a Colombo letter from you soon. I will vary the usual ‘must stop now’ by saying ‘I am going to stop now’. I am writing in the common room (Kilns) at 8.30 of a Sunday evening: a moon shining through a fog outside and a bitter cold night.

      Yours

      Jack

       TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

      [The Kilns]

      Dec 6th 1931

      My dear Arthur,

      Hurrah! I was beginning to feel the want of a word from you. I envy you your stay at Ballycastle, or rather I wish I had been there: I feel I can do so without selfishness because I should have enjoyed the storms better than Reid who doubtless lost through them most of the pleasure he expected to get out of his jaunt.

That is a thing you and I have to be thankful for—the fact that we do not only don’t dislike but positively enjoy almost every kind of weather. We had about three days of dense fog here lately. That was enough СКАЧАТЬ