T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 314

To H.Williamson, Shalloford, S.Molton, Devon 3.V.30 It has been behind my eyes, in my head, for weeks to answer: but it seemed necessary to send some Odyssey too: and now you are ill: or are you just back, and feel- ing convalescent? The Village Book sounds good: and I'll look for- ward to reading it. Your prose is a very conscious and beautiful thing. These Odyssey pages aren't sent for criticism: but to show you that no one can help in them. Translations aren't books, for in them there is no inevitable word: the whole is approximation, a feeling towards what the author would have said: and as Donar hasn't like... - version goes wrong whenever I let myself into it. Con- sequently the thing is a pot-boiler only, a second-best: and I do not have page-proofs. Doug Rogers does all the printing part. I send him a typed copy of my stuff, and that is the end of it. These are actual printed sheets, and the few pencil corrections on them are my reading ...mentations. The work is not meant to interest you: the Homer who wrote the Odyssey was an antiquarian, a tame-cat, a book-worm: not a great poet, but a most charming ...llet/. A Thornton Wilder of his time. My version, and every ver- sion, is inevitably small. Will I ever get to your place again? This Greek eats and drinks all my leisure hours. (Even, deleted`. However )have bought my Dorset cottage out of its profits, as provision for my years when the RAP will not have my more: so probably it is worth while. I hope W.III. is a successful ..d bowlingly successful infant. TES.