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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      30? June 1916]

      My dear Papy,

      I can’t understand why Kirk has not answered your letter. He never mentioned it to me, and until I heard from you I did not know that you had written: perhaps it has gone astray–like your subscription to the chocolate fund!

At any rate, after reading what you said, I asked him whether a modern language could be substituted as you suggest: he replied that he thought this was so, but pointed out that of course this did not include mathematics, and that the latter would consist of a good deal of graphical work and other things which he–though goodness only knows why–does not feel fit to teach. If the worst comes to the worst, I suppose I could grind mathematics in the holidays: but all things considered I think we should look on the Sandhurst scheme as a “pis aller”⁹⁹ if it be found impossible to get a commission by influence or any other way.

      You see the difficulties of entrance, though not insurmountable, are still serious, and it is well to remember that, as Harding told us, if I get a permanent commission, it may not be easy to leave the army immediately after the war. Do you think we could manage to work the business through our political friends? Kirk assures me that even now this is not difficult, and if it could be done, it would certainly be far the best plan. Failing this, I should suggest some volunteer institution from Ulster if any of these are still in existence.

Since we last wrote, I have been in communication with Oxford: missives have been elicited from Balliol, and I was glad to hear that if you go in for a scholarship, you are not expected to matriculate as well. It is rather a question however whether Balliol should be our mark: in order to prevent it getting the pick of the candidates, there is an arrangement by which Balliol and one or two insignificant colleges stand in a group by themselves outside the ‘big group’ which, like ‘Pooh-Bah’¹⁰⁰ comprises ‘everything else’ worth talking about. Now in each of these two groups you put down the Colleges in the order you wish, and are put into one of them according to your place in the exam. You are of course ‘stuck’ in the group for which you enter. Under these circumstances, unless you are absolutely sure of success, it might be better to leave Balliol alone, seeing that if I miss 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 СКАЧАТЬ