_ Seven letters written in June:--
Cambridge
Dear Rickie,
I would rather write, and you can guess what kind of letter this
is when I say it is a fair copy: I have been making rough drafts
all the morning. When I talk I get angry, and also at times try
to be clever--two reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me.
This is a letter of the prudent sort. If it makes you break off
the engagement, its work is done. You are not a person who ought
to marry at all. You are unfitted in body: that we once
discussed. You are also unfitted in soul: you want and you need
to like many people, and a man of that sort ought not to marry.
"You never were attached to that great sect" who can like one
person only, and if you try to enter it you will find
destruction. I have read in books and I cannot afford to despise
books, they are all that I have to go by--that men and women
desire different things. Man wants to love mankind; woman wants
to love one man. When she has him her work is over. She is the
emissary of Nature, and Nature's bidding has been fulfilled. But
man does not care a damn for Nature--or at least only a very
little damn. He cares for a hundred things besides, and the more
civilized he is the more he will care for these other hundred
things, and demand not only--a wife and children, but also
friends, and work, and spiritual freedom.
I believe you to be extraordinarily civilized.--Yours ever,
S.A.
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road,
Sawston
Dear Ansell,
But I'm in love--a detail you've forgotten. I can't listen to
English Essays. The wretched Agnes may be an "emissary of
Nature," but I only grinned when I read it. I may be
extraordinarily civilized, but I don't feel so; I'm in love, and
I've found a woman to love me, and I mean to have the hundred
other things as well. She wants me to have them--friends and
work, and spiritual freedom, and everything. You and your books
miss this, because your books are too sedate. Read poetry--not
only Shelley. Understand Beatrice, and Clara Middleton, and
Brunhilde in the first scene of Gotterdammerung. Understand
Goethe when he says "the eternal feminine leads us on," and don't
write another English Essay.--Yours ever affectionately,
R.E
Cambridge
Dear Rickie:
What am I to say? "Understand Xanthippe, and Mrs. Bennet, and
Elsa in the question scene of Lohengrin"? "Understand Euripides
when he says the eternal feminine leads us a pretty dance"? I
shall say nothing of the sort. The allusions in this English
Essay shall not be literary. My personal objections to Miss
Pembroke are as follows:--
(1) She is not serious.
(2) She is not truthful.
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road
Sawston
My Dear Stewart,
You couldn't know. I didn't know for a moment. But this letter of
yours is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me
yet--more wonderful (I don't exaggerate) than the moment when
Agnes promised to marry me. I always knew you liked me, but I
never knew how much until this letter. Up to now I think we have
been too much like the strong heroes in books who feel so much
and say so little, and feel all the more for saying so little.
Now that's over and we shall never be that kind of an ass again.
We've hit--by accident--upon something permanent. You've written
to me, "I hate the woman who will be your wife," and I write
back, "Hate her. Can't I love you both?" She will never come
between us, Stewart (She wouldn't wish to, but that's by the
way), because our friendship has now passed beyond intervention.
No third person could break it. We couldn't ourselves, I fancy.
We may quarrel and argue till one of us dies, but the thing is
registered. I only wish, dear man, you could be happier. For me,
it's as if a light was suddenly held behind the world.
R.E.
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road,
Sawston
Dear Mrs. Lewin,--
The time goes flying, but I am getting to learn my wonderful boy.
We speak a great deal about his work. He has just finished a
curious thing called "Nemi"--about a Roman ship that is actually
sunk in some lake. I cannot think how he describes the things,
when he has never seen them. If, as I hope, he goes to Italy next
year, he should turn out something really good. Meanwhile we are
hunting for a publisher. Herbert believes that a collection of
short stories is hard to get published. It is, after all, better
to write one long one.
But you must not think we only talk books. What we say on other
topics cannot so easily be repeated! Oh, Mrs Lewin, he is a dear,
and dearer than ever now that we have him at Sawston. Herbert, in
a quiet way, has been making inquiries about those Cambridge
friends of his. Nothing against them, but they seem to be
terribly eccentric. None of them are good at games, and they
spend all their spare time thinking and discussing. They discuss
what one knows and what one never will know and what one had much
better not know. Herbert says it is because they have not got
enough to do.--Ever your grateful and affectionate friend,
Agnes Pembroke
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road
Sawston
Dear Mr. Silt,--
Thank you for the congratulations, which I have handed over to
the delighted Rickie.
(The congratulations were really addressed to Agnes--a social
blunder which Mr. Pembroke deftly corrects.)
I am sorry that the rumor reached you that I was not pleased.
Anything pleases me that promises my sister's happiness, and I
have known your cousin nearly as long as you have. It will be a
very long engagement, for he must make his way first. The dear
boy is not nearly as wealthy as he supposed; having no tastes,
and hardly any expenses, he used to talk as if he were a
millionaire. He must at least double his income before he can
dream of more intimate ties. This has been a bitter pill, but I
am glad to say that they have accepted it bravely.
Hoping that you and Mrs. Silt will profit by your week at
Margate.-I remain, yours very sincerely,
Herbert Pembroke
Cadover, Wilts.
Dear {Miss Pembroke,
{Agnes-
I hear that you are going to marry my nephew. I have no idea what
he is like, and wonder whether you would bring him that I may
find out. Isn't September rather a nice month? You might have to
go to Stone Henge, but with that exception would be left
unmolested. I do hope you will manage the visit. We met once at
Mrs. Lewin's, and I have a very clear recollection of you.--
Believe me, yours sincerely,
Emily Failing _