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

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СКАЧАТЬ for the thousandth time ‘Rapunzel’ and some other favourite bits of Morris, while through the week I have read an excellent novel of Vachell’s ‘The Paladin’¹⁵¹ which you have probably read too and also dipped often into Boswell’s ‘Life of Johnson’.¹⁵² Being entirely made up of conversation I don’t think it is a book to be read continuously, tho’ it is very good fun in bits: you are thinking of getting it I believe. I agree with you that I must read some more books in the particular ‘genre’ of ‘Our Village’ etc, but there are so many things to read that I don’t know where to begin. I forget what edition you are getting of the ‘Scenes of Clerical life’¹⁵³

      As to the fate of sad Papillon, I will look at the exact place of leaving-off when I go upstairs & write it down somewhere in pencil: unless you decide to go on with it don’t waste time & energy copying the rest but send me instead the first drafts of your new work. I should be glad, though, to see you going on with it and have the complete tale, for there is good stuff in it: however, I can’t preach in this respect now! Loki & Dennis & Bleheris, all our operas, plays etc go one way; perhaps they are caught like Wan Jadis in the Grey Marish on the way to the country of the past!¹⁵⁴ For my part I am at present engaged in making huge plans both for prose and verse none of which I shall try. I begin to see that short, slight stories & poems are all I am fit for at present & that it would be better to write & finish one of such than to begin & leave twenty ambitious epic-poems or romances. I wait eagerly either for another instalment of the Watersprite or else some new venture from you: you shall have the first thing I do, if I ever do anything.

      How I wish I had been with you at Mr Thompson’s.¹⁵⁵ Everything seems to have happened well after my departure–I suppose you say no wonder! what a female-minded person I am getting! I would cross out that remark as peevish & ‘cattish’, but it would make a mess and you would only wonder what was underneath. Take it as unsaid.

      Have you got or begun the ‘Kalevala’ yet? Give me your first impressions when you do. Papillon has got to where they are both under the water and ends with the words ‘it shot him much farther than he had intended so that he nearly lost sight of the fairy’. Looking at it revives my enthusiasm. Do go on with it if you can: certainly send me the rest provided this doesn’t interfere with any new work. Now good night Galahad the ‘haut prince’ as Malory [would] say,

      Yours

      Jack

      

      P.S. Poor puppy!! What a life it’ll have! I shall poison it in kindness when I come home!

      

      P.P.S. Why do your letters never come till Wednesday now?

       TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 129-30):

      [Gastons]

      10/6/16 [6 October 1916]

      My dear Papy,

      Many thanks for the catalogues, which were necessary to my peace of mind. I shouldn’t try the ‘conceit’ if I were you, as two can play at that game, and you might get a number of strange parcels.

      Since I last wrote, that awe-inspiring person the Tutor for Entrances of Balliol has deigned to forward us last year’s scholarship papers for that college–although we are I think quite determined now on the big group. He distinguished himself by doing the very thing that we have so often discussed–addressing his envelope to the ‘Rev. T.W. Kirkpatrick’, thinking I suppose that no one except a clergyman could possibly be entrusted with the youth of a nation. The papers themselves were pretty much what we expected, and not discouraging. The subject for an English essay–with no alternative–was ‘Diplomacy’ which is rather a mouthful. It would involve a good deal of history. Kirk has been growing very enthusiastic on the superior composition of these papers to the Trinity ones, which indeed were rather unintelligently drawn up. Some of the pieces in the scholarship exams are desperately hard, while others in the Fellowship ones are ridiculously easy: of course it is the competition and the standard required which really makes the difference. I agree with you that a ‘course’ would be much worse than this scheme: for while it is true that a man can always learn a course, another can always learn it better.

      I am reading at present a book whose scene is laid in Oxford and which tells one a good deal about the University (not Tom Brown),¹⁵⁶ ‘Lady Connie’ by Mrs. Humphrey Ward.¹⁵⁷ She is a favourite of yours, is she not? I have never read her until now, and she seems to have many points. She is rather a pedant tho’, insists too much on her ‘culture’, and tells us a great deal about tanagra Statues, Titainesque effects, discoveries in Crete, Euripides, Goethe, etc., etc. You know what I mean.

      We have yet another pupil here now–a boy who comes every morning to do Spanish. He is reading for the Foreign Office. It seems a lovely language, and so easy that I can imagine ‘even Warnie’ taking to it. I wish I could prevent Arthur’s invasions, but don’t know quite how to do it.

      your loving

      son Jack.

       TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

      [Gastons]

      (The 12th. Oct., I think) [1916]

      My dear Arthur,

      It was unfortunate that I should choose a word like ‘exaltation’ which is so often used in connection with religion and so give you a wrong impression of my meaning. I will try to explain again: have you ever sat over the fire late, late at night when you are very drowzy & muddle headed, and it is no use trying to go on with your book? Everything seems like a dream, you are absolutely contented, and ‘out of the world’. Anything seems possible, and all sorts of queer ideas float through your mind & sort of vaguely thrill you but only mildly & calmly. It is in this sort of mood that the quaint, old mystical parts of Malory are exactly suitable: you can read a chapter or two in a sort of dream & find the forests of ‘Logres & of Lyonesse’ very agreeable at such a time–at least I do.

      As to the other question about religion, I was sad to read your letter. You ask me my religious views: you know, I think, that I beleive in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best. All religions, that is, all mythologies to give them their proper name are merely man’s own invention–Christ as much as Loki. Primitive man found himself surrounded by all sorts of terrible things he didn’t understand–thunder, pestilence, snakes etc: what more natural than to suppose that these were animated by evil spirits trying to torture him. These he kept off by cringing to them, singing songs and making sacrifices etc. Gradually from being mere nature-spirits these supposed being[s] were elevated into more elaborate ideas, such as the old gods: and when man became more refined he pretended that these spirits were good as well as powerful.

      Thus religion, that is to say mythology grew up. Often, too, great men were regarded as gods after their death–such as Heracles or Odin: thus after the death of a Hebrew philosopher Yeshua (whose name we have corrupted into Jesus) he became regarded as a god, a cult sprang up, which was afterwards connected with the ancient Hebrew Jahwehworship, and so Christianity came into being–one mythology among many, but the one that we happen to have been brought up in.

      Now СКАЧАТЬ