T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 193

To: Dr. C. M. Doughty, ⁠⁠⁠ All Souls College, Oxford. Nov. 4. Dear Mr. Doughty, I'm very sorry to have kept this so long: when it arrived I was in London, and the last few days have been very busy. It fills the want I used to feel exactly: for it explains how it happened to be written. There seems to me not a word too much or too little, except perhaps what you say of me. We ought not each to say nice things of the other ⁠⁠⁠ I wish I felt happy about what I wrote myself. The difficulty of writing anything was very great, perhaps I'm not naturally a writer, and "Arabia Deserta" one does really bake for granted. There should be no introduction at all. I hope you will cut out and change everything that you do not like. Probably you dislike it all, but the ⁠⁠⁠dici want 5000 words of it, so the more you can leave the better. No introduction by a second party can con- ceivably be any good ⁠ When I come down to Eastbourne next I'll ask you to let me see the original notes you wrote in the desert. I'd like to show you mine but they are lost ⁠ It has been all written out again from memory, but I have decided not to publish it,---no loss to the world, for it wasn't much good. Yours sincerely, T. E. Lawrence,,