T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 296

To H. Williamson (ctd.) 2/4/28 tried to write, is a technical delight, all the more perfect for being imperfect, here and there. If you write it out again, and make a rounded and gracious thing of it, you'll rob us of the object lesson, and deprive us of what might have been a new and very lovely book, on another subject. Now a confession. In the R.A.F. we live in a com- ... ... ... "with is voluntary and great. So as soon as the old stag arrived he disappeared." I haven't a idea who has him, out of the seven hundred fellows of us in camp. He will, I ...... ... ..., after a few days, or after many days; nothing ever goes wholly astray, nor is anything wasted. They are like townsees on a desert island, longing to taste all the book fruit they see on ... 'he shelves of all the shops, but afraid to taste, without some guide to tell them what's what. Being almost book-blind, themselves, any guide is wel- come. So they assume that all my books are edible. I suffer, once in a way, as now; but generally I'm delighted that they should find me of use. I like these fellows enormously. We are really the same kind of creature - or would have been if I'd had a natural life, and not a sort of extravagant experience - and the nearer I can creep back towards them the safer I feel. They give one a root in the ground. Your philosophy interests me. I haven't got so far myself; being so english as 'em, gives one a disgust for systems of any kind, and I don't believe I could think out anything worth while. When I try to think, it lasts about five minutes, and then digresses along some pathway of dream. And if I try to understand any reputable philosopher, I find myself either lost or yawning in half an hour. You seem to have dramatized yourself with some success. I judge only by what you tell me of your novels. I would like to see them- but will not ask you for them. If you'll take the risk of sending them - well and good. They will be borrowed, and read to death by all the oily-handed and discussed crudely in half a dozen rooms; and I'll do them just that injustice, for all my reading has to be done where I live and sleep, on my bed in barracks. This common life is not fit for literary gents; but seven gents who aren't by nature literary frown the folly of thinking themselves so. I'll promise to tell you what I think of anything of yours I read; the Old Stag for certain, and others 674