T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 132

28. lr. 28. A.C. II Seam, Rgt 108, R.A.F. Cadets College, Cranwell, LINCS. A wet day; so wet our masters cannot go flying. So the slaves of their machines are having an earned rest. Here is a judgement from you which would be helpful, if you can spare the time to think it out. The conclusion of the book:- the balance of it. There is some loud pedal stuff in the middle: the failure at the bridges, Book VI the winter war, Book VII: then a rust; Book VIII the last ad- vance on Damascus. Should this last Book (whose revise I am just taking up) be keyed higher; should it be the final bang in the book? I asked C.B.S. and he said the bang shouldn't come at the end. But he hasn't read the whole book. Is there a climax? If not, should there be? Is the last Book written after I was very tired, inferior to the rest, or notably infer- ior to the demands of its position? I put it off at the end like a knife; since that was how I cut myself off the Arab adventure. In revising for the new edition I have shortened Books VIII & IX to half the size they have in your copy: but I dont see much redundant in the Damascus Book (X) and unless your reply is vigorous enough to stir me to rewrite it all (a fatigue I hate the notion of) I'll let it slide. Yet, this last fifty pages is better shaped as raw material, than all the rest of the book: and I have a hanker- ing to write it really well. You'd think I'd have been cured of ambition to write well by now! I should have learned my length and breadth with a pen. T.E.S.