T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 630

Lucas 9. N. 27 3 LH 9/13/42 I wanted to give you one, & I had you on a list; but as my money ran out, pound by pound, so I had to cut out the "A" copies so that only three writing people (E.M.F. Sassoon and Gervais) got them after all. They cost £90 each; and in packing the whole job into the £13000 which I raised on my old capital and from the prospect of "Revolt in the Desert". to cover it. I'd planned for £18,000, and prorated it: the Seven Pillars would have been better and cheaper. Enough of that too. I dragged in my own wreck of a book to support the view that a writer with any merit thereby qualified to criticise. So many people seem to think that because they can't write they can review. I have been reviewing lately; and my reviews are as lame and lick-spittle as my writing. All vr'y! So I must take back my commendation of your poems. It was not for me to call them good: but I'd go a tor mile any day to read another of them. So if you write more you are endowing one airman with pleasure; "write" means of course to "write and distribute". My regards please to Ms Lucas. I usually put people's wives into postcripts. Regard it, please, as my (only) oriental trait. T.E.S.