T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 610

13 Birmingham St. Southampton 6. VIII. 34 Oh yes, I take my time; indeed I take time to answer any letter. Why? Well, I think it is mainly laziness, willy nilly: ... ... which has to be done to ..hedule, the mood. And letter-writing, being difficult, is told to wait on the mood. For it is very difficult to write a good letter. Mine don't pretend to be good ... but they do actually try very hard to be good. I write them in great batches, on the days at length (after months, often) the impulse towards them, it can towards my picture or the person I am writing to: and it does not seem to me (as I write it) that it makes a content ... when I write no more that night. Yet, as you would say if I was there to hear you, the letters as they actually depart from me are not worthy of this strained feeling. At the far end they appear ordinary. Yes, that is because I'm not writer enough to put enough of myself, into my work. Or better, because there is not enough of myself to share out and go round. There has been, upon occasion. Both the Seven Pillars and the Mint (but the Mint especially) sink or personality. Where has it gone? Don't know. I'm always tired now, and I fritter myself away month after month on pursuits that I know to be petty; and yet must pursue, faute des mieux. "What the hell's the matter with the chap" you'll be asking. You send me a sensible working-man of a letter, reporting progress ... at least continuity - and I burble back in this unconscionable way. I think it is in part because I am sorry to be dropping out. One of the sorest things in life is to come to realise that one is just not good enough. Better perhaps than some, than many, almost - but I do not care for relatives, for matching myself against my kind. There is an ideal standard somewhere and only that matters: and I cannot find it. Hence this aimlessness,