T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 456

To Hogarth 13.VI.23 It's a difficult question you ask me. The Tanks are interesti- ing: the company hardly tolerable, even to my stomach. There is an animal reek here which keeps me awake at night with horror that mankind should be like it: because I feel that we are the "animals", & that But It is the truth about human-existence. Contrast this with the R.A.F. (not Uxbridge: the exercise there was too severe for me) in which I was as contented as ever I had been: even my jittery stomach working there: where I lie awake nights on end, thinking about everything germane. And why I enlisted? The security of it first: even years ex- istence guaranteed. I haven't any longer the mind to fight for sustenance. As you realise I've finished with the "Lawrence" epi- sode. I don't like what rumour makes of him - not the sort of man I'd like to be: and the life of politics wearied me out: by worrying as over much. I've not got a coarse-fibred enough nature for them: and have too many scruples and an uneasy conscience. It's not good to get two sides of a questions, when you have (officially) to follow one. Exit politics (Irak candidates had no share in my disgust. II In deed I don't think I did badly in sum.). There went most of my money value. Exit literature: and there is most of the residue of my earning power gone. I haven't a trade to follow: and won't do the two or three things for which I'm qualified: hence I'm reduced to soldiering. You see: I'm 35 years: and that's too old to make a fresh start in a skilled business. When I joined the R.A.F. it was in the hope that some day I'd write a book about the very excellent subject that it was. At that time I thought my Arab Revolt book very bad. Since then Shaw has turned my mind slowly to consider it good: and there's another ambition gone, for if I'm always in my hope to write another book: and if I've done it there seems little reason to do another. A pity, for my Uxbridge notes were good, & there was the making of a very good thing out of the life of a squarf... It will be a puzzle for my biographer (if I have one of those un- profitable things) to reconcile my joy in the R.A.F. with my dis- gust with the Army. The R.A.F. is utterly unlike this place: the men are so different & their hopes & minds & talk. They weren't happy: it used to be said at Farnborough that I was the only happy man there. ...but they were essentially decent: and the going has been rather a jerk to me. I feel queerly homesick whenever I see a blue uniform in the street. But for going back to the R.A.F. - there my hands are tied. Trenchard (in sacking me) offered me a commission. I said I couldn't take it: and begged to be left in: but he couldn't do it: