15A, WHITTINGTON TERRACE
19.10.28
Damn it all, yes, Bungie—I suppose you are right. Our ideas are always
ahead of our actions, or rather, askew to them, and we move lop-sided,
like a knight on a chessboard. We get somewhere, even if it isn’t the
place we thought we were aiming for. By the time the next generation has
come along, the ideas which were new and strange to us have become part
of its habitual commonplace. It goes straight along them, even when it
imagines it is rebelling against them.
And after all, this business of imagining that one is one kind of thing
and _being_ actually another—we all do it, all the time, so why
shouldn’t whole nations and periods do it? Have you read J. D.
Beresford’s _Writing Aloud_, by the way? It is enormously fascinating,
and I delight in the bit where he tells how, in his callow youth, he had
a “passionate impulse” to “save” a young prostitute he had talked to,
and then prayed desperately to be delivered from the sin of hypocrisy
and be made single-hearted and all that—only to be delighted, later on
in life, with the discovery that he was “not one person but fifty.” One
imagines—one dramatises oneself into the belief that one is going one
way, and lo and behold! the path “gives itself a little shake” like the
one in _Alice_ and one finds oneself walking at the front door again.
Our friend Mrs. Harrison is a perfect example of this dramatisation
business—and is quite capable of dramatising herself in two totally
inconsistent directions at once, rather like the Victorian age. Any
attitude that appeals to her sense of the picturesque she appropriates
instantly, and, I really believe, with perfect sincerity. If she reads a
“piece in the paper” about the modern woman who finds spiritual
satisfaction in a career, she _is_ that woman; and her whole life has
been ruined by having had to give up her job at the office. Capable,
intelligent, a comradely woman, meeting male and female on a brisk,
pleasant, man-to-man basis—there she is! If, on the other hand, she
reads about the necessity of a “complete physical life” for the
development of personality, then she is the thwarted maternal woman, who
would be all right if only she had a child. Or if she gets a mental
picture of herself as a Great Courtesan (in capital letters), she is
perfectly persuaded that her face only needed opportunity to burn the
topless towers of Ilium. And so on. What she really is, if reality means
anything, I do not know. But I can see now, what I didn’t see before,
that this power of dramatisation, coupled with a tremendous vitality and
plenty of ill-regulated intelligence, has its fascination. If ever she
found anyone to take one of her impersonations seriously, she would
probably be able to live very brilliantly and successfully in that
character for—well, not all her life, perhaps, but for long enough to
make an impressive drama of it. Unfortunately, the excellent Harrison is
not a good audience. He admires, but he won’t clap, which must be very
discouraging.
You will gather from this that I have been seeing a good deal of the
Harrisons. Quite right, Sherlock, I have. When you once make up your
mind to look on people as social studies, you can get quite reconciled
to their company. Mrs. H. cornered me in the artistic sitting-room last
night, while her husband was telling Lathom about aerial perspective, to
tell me about her own personality. She feels cramped in her
surroundings, it seems. Her mentality has no room to expand. It is so
hard for a woman, isn’t it? Perhaps the only way is to express herself
through her children—but then—if one has no children? She said she
always felt she could have made herself a happy life by living for and
in others. I did not say that she would probably end by devouring her
hypothetical family, though I could very well see her doing it. I felt
mischievous, and said that there were other forms of passionate
altruism, and that I could see her in a cloister, walking serenely among
the lilies and burning her soul away in contemplation. Could I really?
Well, yes, there was something very wonderful about the life of
devotion. I ought to write a book about it. At this point I became a
little alarmed, and turned the conversation to new books. We had a
little difficulty, because her idea of an important writer and my idea
are not exactly identical; however, we agreed that _The Constant Nymph_
was a very good piece of work, and, encouraged by that, she tackled the
awkward question of _Deadlock_. I tried to explain what I had really
meant by it and she proved quite adaptable. She said she did not mind a
book’s being “powerful,” provided it was filled with a “sense of the
beautiful.” She thought _Sweet Pepper_ was powerful, but nevertheless
there was something about it that redeemed it. What a pity it was that
Hutchinson hadn’t written another book like _If Winter Comes_. She
thinks that if only I wouldn’t be so harsh and mocking I might write a
book as strong and really beautiful as that.
These are the people who read the books, Bungie. And what are we to do
about it, you and I, if we want to live by bread?
Next day I met her in the hall, dressed in a demure grey frock, with a
long veil swathed nun-like about her cloche hat. She saluted me with a
grave and far-away smile. I grinned cheerfully, and mentioned that I was
going to watch a football match.