T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 317

To H. Williamson Plymouth 1. IX. 31 Dear H.W. I have had my annual leave, all 28 days of it, shut tight in a London room translating the Odyssey; and on the last day of it I finished the last book, handed it in to the publisher, and trundled home. Thank heaven it is done. It was on my nerves. Only I have wasted all my leave. For quite a while I have wanted to write to you, about the Dream of Fair Women. There are a group of us here in camp who read: mostly my books, for I'm a person upon whom books naturally flow. First one, then another, then lastly, myself. (For I was Odyssey- fridden and swore I would not read line till it was over) read it, and confessed that to our minds you had written nothing so good before. Not Tarka, Tarka is rather more 'Dens food': & is such chiselled prose and strange. But the Dream is a full-blood..ed book of men & women, very hot, rushing and life-like. The characters so good: the places so good. Your Eights-Field, are fit a creation. Folkestone in Armistice year, the reality itself. Your men so good; all of them. The chief woman feels like a living being. It's an awfully good book, and ...hope the sales and n critics have felt it. You have, in it, come wholly out of your ivory tower. Only in the tower could you have written Tarka; but life is better outside the tower than in. Does the Dream finish the Maddison books? I suppose so - New York will have prompted you to interests so far from your dead self. Only take my assurance that the Dream is very rare & fine and strong. I wonder what you are doing? This surrow... weather shuts everyone indoors, and will have made your shallow- ford too deep to cross, all the summer. I'm afraid ... of coming to see the place, with a name so lovely. If only you lived at Winston Ludbank, the next valley to ours ... the Flyn! To tell you the truth, some reluctance holds me constantly in camp. Here I feel in a setting, and amongst likes. Outside - ... well, ...(feel, deleted) am hasty ...