T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 506

LH 7/13 A-2 W.M.N. Burley, 1.4.29 --- 507 It is quaint your being at Amman. Difficult flying: the hardest, I think, there is. That Jordan valley is a terror in Summer and the Palestine '... ...' are not too good. Peake is a very good fellow. He has stuck splendidly to three or four thankless jobs, and made a deal out of them. A hot, impatient, soul, too. I enclose you some sample pages of Joyce's latest (not yet ready for publication in book form) and remarks by A.E. on same and his essay. This is the colony of dispossessed English and American and Irish writers living rather intensely in one another's cheap lodgings in Paris, making desperately hard, I fear, for myself, that they are rather out of touch with reality; by reality I mean shops like Selfridges, and motor buses, and the Traffic Experts! At least there is a hot-house flavour about their work, which makes me wonder if it's a wholesome day-to-day good. Remarkable, certainly, but a bit funny. However people who do not meddle writing aren't really qualified to judge of it. Yours sincerely, T.E. Shaw.