T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 616

To Geoffrey Leynes, 11 Arlwright Road, Hampstead, N.W.3. 13 Birmingham Street Southampton 10.5.34 Dear G.L., I return the S.s. proof-pul.s. (and for the return of the "Too true" offsprint). These script engravings are very beautiful. Slow to read and impossible to glance over in one blankt, as the eye. The way she usually swallows short poems the first time, to see if they taste good. Word for word, and one of them, "Degrees of group illusionist", didn't stand up, in my mind, like the bone, is I like the others, and shall I ever get it! Sometimes I feel inclined to curse all reviews! Though S.s. has been generosity itself in giving me book after book. So don't worry about Meynell's opinion. If I were perfectly candid I should describe them as too good an idea for the general! I think they seem to go a little ahead of the Heart's Journey ... at least Vigils does. A very lovely poem, technically done. I am looking forward very much to reading them all. If he does, as we hope, "go on" now, after his marriage, we shall be fortunate. But if the poor man turns happy instead and writes no more - why, he has deserved it, surely. I have now got the last sheets of H's outburst. The lyrical faculty has nearly died, in them; there is argument, wrath, indignation, spluttering statements, and much incoherence. I am telling him so, gently. It is a pity that the assonance should enclose me, for parts of it are good. I wonder if he will ever take hold of himself again and put it into order? As you say, we shall get letters. I am dreading them, rather. Yours T E Shaw The whole typescript is about 13,000 lines.