T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 294

To H. Williamson 2/4/28. Dear Williamson, Excuse the typewriting. I hate it, for ... a respect for print, born of a long career of effort to print well; and this sprawned, unspaced botch of lettering flies up unspeciably. But the job I have in the "...A". now is a semi-clerical one; and part of it ... to be done on a typwriter. So I try to combine private and public demands, by making my hateful typing a minor lesson in one aspect of my equally-grudged letter-writing is a horror; which is a rude thing to tell a man to whom one is writing; but you'll guess how it is. If we were only in the same earth, I'd rush across 230 miles on my bike, to save myself a postcard. However we aren't, so I must make the best of a bad job. It is very good of you to take my rushing in about Turks so peaceably. Had I known you were so established a writer I'd never have had the cheek to write down my replies; ideas about the book. By the calm and passion of the text I'd assumed you were a beginner, half in love with his first effort,and probably now heart-broken at its failure to come trumpeting near the perfection dreamed of.;/- I'll never forget the despair with which I read my Seven Pillars in 1928, after forgetting it for two years. It was so incredibly unlike what I'd thought my talents (of which i'd had too good an opinion) would bring forth, that I then and there swore I'd never try again. If there'd been any "edgeable tasting-/ the whole thing was unwholesome". Back to Turka; the worst thing about the war-generation of intropects is that they can't keep off their blooming selves. As you saw, I'm glad to say, the longuish and elaboration of my remarks: the book did move me, and gratify me, profoundly. It was the real stuff,. ... and I shouldn't, if I were you, attempt to re-do it: the (non-successes. the rainy stints of rest periods, tieue-leted) are altogether toping as examples of how things come and grow; it's like sculptures the brokenness of the Venus de Milo is ...in virtue of that sentiment-al but very lovely work. I like best of all the books in which fallible men have burst themselves trying to be better than they can be. Turks, to anyone who's