T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 518

To Isham 22/11/27 It is probably like his Arabian figures. If true it is 3999 times too many. The telegram is utterly untrue; the house in Epping was burned down during the war, and has never been rebuilt. Please do not let anything I say have carelessly written to you about the R.A.F. give you the wrong impression that I am miserable or uncomfortable in it. It has been a real refuge to me, and I am grateful to the Air people for taking me in. The airmen are not in the least like soldiers, except in their standard of living. I like many of them, and Service life makes up for its roughness in many instance one is never worried for long it is and it is soothing to know that one's bread and margarine is safe for the term of one's engagement, and that the standard of work expected of one is so reasonably low that one can be positively sure of meeting it. If I were working for any ordinary employer I would be always worrying if I were "doing" as well as he expected, and "desired. Cheap labour is let off easily. I am glad you are fond of printing. I think it is one of the richest things any man can do. Have you met DR.JOHN HORNEY, one of the Divers of his time, at the big English booksellers?. He is very rich, and lives in Chelsea, in a huge and terrible house; but in the bottom of his garden is an ex-stable, where he and two printers turn out the Ashendene books. I do not like his type (Caslon is my ideal) but his press-work is the finest ever, and his vellum copies the most sumptuous books in the modern world. Nor does his hobby cost him very much;-less than the upkeep of a car, I believe. He sells his work in small editions. You, I expect, will print your own edition, for the few who really care for good books, and I will show let someone have started from your type for the million, who will want your new Boswells. You are a most fortunate person: but I shall not envy you if 1930 sees me back in England, fit enough, and rich enough to have a motor-bike and ride it hard. That is my post-war pleasure. I do not know if you are content with your bargain, as regards those proofs of the Seven Pillars, you bought. The first chapter is the only surviving copy, so far as I know, it was cut out because G.B.S. called it very inferior to the rest. Since then young Garnett has called it a vital chapter.... In the rest of the text are quite a number of faulty or variant readings. I gave it, as a bundle of loose sheets, to one of the Tank Corps fellows, who happened to be my half- section in the Q.M. stores, where we both worked. He is now in low water, and is desperately realising his household gods.He