T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 128

538171 A.C. II Shaw, Hut 106, R.A.F. Cadet College, Cranwell, LINCS. 7 . Ix. 25. Dear Candler, I'm glad, in a way, that you like the thing; it was a great disappointment to myself, since it fell short, in every way, of my ambitions and critical standards. The revise is it just better; very little. As you say, lots of people will write about it after it comes out. Some haven't waited for that. I don't really care what happens now, so long as chunks of it are not textually quoted. So fire away when, where, and as, you please. This does not sound very gracious, I'm afraid. But you can't expect a person, who doesn't care about the original, to care much what reactions or deductions it may be the cause of. Lots of people - thirty or forty, have read the Oxford text (that in your hands); and so you need not be reluctant to admit your having seen it. I can't tell you why I don't want to make it public; because I don't really know. Partly perhaps because in it I've given too complete a picture of myself; and commonsense tells one that is unwise. Partly because I give away things which the standard of a public school would hide. Partly because there has been too much talk already. Partly because I don't think the book is well enough written. Partly because I don't want to wake rover out of the Arab affair, and the beastly book might sell. During the revolt - or as soon as I took definitely a false line in it - I cut off my own pay and refused rewards and things; and I don't want to enter again into temptation. It is really the disgust at my being generally praised, because my swindle succeeded, which has made me throw away the fruits of it. You will find books VIII & IX full of dull patches. Each has been cut 50% for the revise. One note, added to the 1925 edition, may amuse you:- it comes after a passage in which, trying to excuse myself for acting as if the McMahon promises were valid, I said that I hoped to produce a fait-accompli, and extort a fair settlement from the Powers in con-travened presumptions which still hang in the balance." The note says - 1919: but two years later Mr. Churchill was entrusted by our harrassed Cabinet with the settlement of the Middle East; and in a few weeks, at his conference in Cairo he