Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ certainly makes a considerable difference from our point of view as well as from that of K. It is no business of mine to sit in judgement on Warnie’s actions, and from that it seems to me to be hard luck that he should not get a few days at home with us both before settling down to–an indefinite period. Of course, as you say, he may be exaggerating, but I can only go upon the information that we get.

      You will understand I am sure that it is almost entirely for his sake that I should suggest such an arrangement. A few rather breathless days at home are not such a prize that I should make much exertion to secure them on my own account. In the absence of any authority from you I have judged it better not to make any mention of the matter to K. I hope this was right as I was not at all sure what I ought to do.

      Believe me Papy I am very sorry indeed that we are all worrying you in this way. I have told you what I feel about it, but it remains really a question between you and him. I wish only to act, if possible, in a manner agreeable to you both, or failing that, to help you as far as I can and fall in with your wishes. I am not at all sure that I have said exactly what I wanted in this letter, or made my position perfectly clear. The post with your letter came in very late, just as I was going to bed, and I am writing this rather hastily. It cannot be posted till tomorrow morning (Wednesday). I hope your side is getting better, as also the teeth.

      your loving

      son Jack.

      

P.S. I need not of course point out to you that I should hardly like to have any of this letter quoted to Warnie–but of course you understand that. J.¹²⁶

       TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 36-7):

      [Gastons]

      Postmark: 4 December 1915

      My dear Papy,

      This has been a week of surprises. As Chaucer says,

‘One might a book make of it in a story’ ¹²⁷

On Thursday, having a faint suspicion that things wouldn’t pan out as we expected, like Dido ‘Omnia tuta timens’¹²⁸ I made no preparation beyond walking down to the station to meet what I judged a likely train (excuse the ‘ation’ jingle in that sentence). Today however, being convinced that Warnie would really turn up, I clothed myself in glad rags, packed my handbag and was just putting on my shoes preparatory to a second walk to the station when your telegram arrived. So we must expect him on Sunday week!

      Kirk advised me to make an arrangement about meeting him in town, since it will be a Sunday and the trains therefore different, he might not find time to come down here between his arrival in London and the departure of the boat train. Entre nous I don’t think such a plan desirable–I hate meeting people in strange places, and especially W., as we always manage to bungle things in between us. Nor indeed should it be necessary: on the last occasion, as you will remember, he crossed on a Sunday and found no difficulty. Moreover, even if you wrote to arrange it with him as soon as you get this, your letter would scarcely reach him in time, and he would certainly have no time in which to reply. If you think otherwise, of course you will arrange accordingly and let me know.

It has rained steadily for several days now, and in spite of the unsettled conditions I have been reading a lot. I have now finished the first volume of the Faerie Queene and am going through an English Literature of Kirk’s by Andrew Lang.¹²⁹ Lang is always charming whatever he does–or ‘did’ as we must unfortunately say, and this book is very good. More a rambling record of personal tastes than a set handbook, but all the better for that reason. There has also been from the London Library a book called ‘Springs of Helicon’ by Mackail¹³⁰–you know, Professor of Poetry at Oxford and the man on Wm. Morris. This is a study on Chaucer, Spenser and Milton and I enjoyed it immensely. He has quite infected me with his enthusiasm for the former, whom I must begin to read. He talks of other works, ‘the legend of good women’, ‘Troilus and Cresseide’ as being better than the tales.¹³¹ It is from Troilus and Cresseide that he quotes that priceless line to which I treated you on the first page: I think it is rather great, don’t you?

There is also a ‘Greek Literature’ by Gilbert Murray,¹³² the bad verse-translator, which I have read with dire anger, as he degrades Homer from a poet into a ‘question’ and prefers that snivelling metaphysician Euripides to Aeschylus.

I suppose the great wedding is over by now? Or shall W. and I be let in for it? I hope you have not let the news of the coming visit trickle through to the ears of the sociable άγοραοι?¹³³ Thanks for the ‘crowns for convoy’, which I am sure will be quite sufficient.

      your loving son,

      Jack

       Jack was home from 21 December 1915 until he returned to Great Bookham on 21 January 1916. Warnie was on leave from France, and Mr Lewis had both his sons home together.

1 Albert Lewis, like so many others, had for some months previously feared that England would be invaded by the Germans, and this explains why his son was not allowed to return to Great Bookham until 16 January 1915.

2 Mark 3:26: ‘If Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.’

3 Homer, Iliad, Books I-XII, with an introduction, a brief Homeric grammar, and notes by D.B. Monro (1884).

4 Homer, Odyssey, Books I-XII, with an introduction, notes, etc. by W.W. Merry (1870).

5 Cornelius Tacitus (c. AD 55-117), the greatest historian of ancient Rome, in AD 98 published Agricola, a biography of his father-in-law, Julius Agricola.

6 Charlotte Brontë, Villette (1853).

7 Henry Seton Merriman, The Grey Lady (1895); With Edged Tools (1894).

8 Paul Emanuel and Mme Beck are characters in Villette.

9 There were, in fact, a good many German submarines operating in the Irish Sea at this time. Lewis’s father was particularly upset over the raid near Fleetwood on 30 January 1915 when the Germans sank the Kilcoan, a collier designed by his brother Joseph.

10 William Makepeace Thackeray, Henry Esmond (1852).

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