the Letters of T.E. Lawrence
Letter 205: To Lionel Curtis, dated March 19, 1923. .........."There again, perhaps there's a solution to be found in multiple personality. It's my reason which condemns the book (The Seven Pillars of Wisdom) and the revolt, and the new nationalities: because the only rational conclusion to human argument is pessimism such as Hardy's, a pessimism which is very much like the wintry heath, of bog and withered plants and stripped trees, about us. Our camp on its swelling in this desolation feels pustular, and we (all brown-bodied, with yellow spots down our front belly-line), must seem like the swarming germs of its fermentation. That's feeling, exterior-bred feeling, with reason harmonising it into a picture: but there's a deeper sense which remembers other landscapes, and the changes which summer will bring to this one: and to that sense nothing can be changeless: whereas the rational preference or advantage of pessimism is its finality, the eternity in which it ends: and if there isn't an eternity there cannot be a pessimism pure."
the Letters of T.E. Lawrence
Letter 234: December 19, 1923. To Subscribers to 'Seven Pillars' postmarked at Clouds Hill, Moreton ...............[On May 31st, 1923, Bernard Shaw wrote a private memorandum to Mr. Baldwin, then Prime Minister, expressing his great concern at Lawrence's poverty. 'Clearly this is a bad case of Belisarius begging obols in an ungrateful country...the fact remains that he is serving as a private soldier for his daily bread: and however much his extraordinary character may be accountable for this, it strikes all who know about it as a scandal that should be put an end to by some means. They feel that the private soldier business is a shocking tomfoolery and are amazed to find that Lawrence is not in a position of a pensioned commanding officer in dignified private circumstances.' Bernard Shaw sent the letter to Hogarth, who corrected some of his statements, before sending it to the Prime Minister. Shaw did not rest content with a refusal but continued to press Mr. Baldwin, and afterwardes Mr. MacDonald, on the subject of a pension for Lawrence, but without success. From several of Lawrence's letters it would appear that he would have accepted a pension, had one been offered him, but I cannot think he would have been pleased that the sentence 'the private soldier business is a shocking tomfoolery' should be read by Mr. Baldwin]
the Letters of T.E. Lawrence
Letter 376A: Confessionn of Faith, (a note to himself), it is not clear if he sent this to any of his correspondents. Not the conquest of the air, but our entry thither. We come. Our soiled overalls were the the livery of that sunrise. The soilings of our bodies in its sevice were prismatic with its light. Moody or broody. From ground to air. First we are not earthbound. In speed we hurl ourselves behond the body. Our bodies cannot scale the heavens except in a fume of petrol. The concentration of our bodies in entering a loop. Bones, blood, flesh all pressed inward together. Not the conquest of the air. Be plain, guts. In speed we hurl ourselves beyond the body. We enter it. we come. Our bodies cannot scale heaven except in a fume of burnt petrol. As lords that are expected. Yet there is a silent joy in our arrival. Years and years. Long arpeggios of chafing wires. The concentration of one's body in entering a loop. { ......this "letter" is more a poetic memorandum to himself of a personal and spiritual nature (my comment). No footnote indicates otherwise.}
From 'the sea, the sea' by Iris Murdoch
The next morning I woke to a sense of an utterly changed world, like on the first day of war. Joy, hope, came too, but fear first, and a black sense of confusion as if the deep logic of the universe had suddenly gone wrong.
the Letters of T.E. Lawrence
Letter 464: To W.B. Yeats, October 12, 1932, postmarked Mount Batten, Plymouth................."I am Irish, and it has been a chance to admit it publicly- but it touches me very deeply that you should think anything I have done or been to justify this honour. I'm afraid the truth-if people could look inside- would destroy the flattering picture of myself that has been put about. I knew you had seen my "Revolt", because you referred to it in your foreward to Gogarty's last Cuala selection: but I never expected this. It is very good of you, and touches me particularly, for I have been reading your work for years. ..............I set eyes on you once, in Oxford, many years ago, and wanted then to call the street to attention but fortunately did nothing. I hope that you are going further yet, in poetry, for our benefit."
On Ballycastle Beach (book of poems)
"The tendon of the day is strained,/The week is plunged into deep shadow/ Lighter than the skin of my face." .....from the poem, "Head of a Woman" by Medbh McGuckian
