T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 670

In England I found life in the R.A.F. not at all bad, after I got used to the rather bare conditions, and the exception ended, and I got home again. I shall be quite happy. Revolt in the Desert has sold enormously, and made a small fortune. I executed a deed by which its first receipts paid off my debts, and the balance is to go to a charity in which I am interested. Did I tell you (I did not go about explaining myself) that I consider what I did in Arabia morally indefensible it lasted, and will not So I refused pay & decorations out of it: neither from a book about it; nor will I take any position which depends on my war-reputation. "Arabia barred" Publishers would pay money for any article I wrote as "Lawrence", but I have finished with that name, and printed all I mean to print about my war activity. I write occasionally under other names, but my stuff has no commercial value. I review books, and get mostly free copies of books that way. There is no money in anonymous work. I can't write a novel, & if I did it would not be a good novel, probably. I do not like the idea of struggling for 20 years, with a pen, pot-boiling, with the risk always of feel ambitious as a writer. running dry. I cannot, of course, write about Arabia. That is covered by the self-denying ordinance. So you see the case is pretty hopeless. I have an excellent private intelligence, and have looked at myself and my prospects from every angle: and can see no way of bettering myself. I propose to stay in:the R.A.F. as long as I can, it being the line of least resistance: and when it rejects, to get a job as night-watchman at some Bank or block of offices in the City. You realise that I have no trade I can work at. Lowell Thomas was ... days in Arabia. He saw me for two of those, and again one day in Jerusalem: and afterwards twice more, or twice in London. His book is breakfasted with inaccuracies: sometimes deliberately inaccurate. He sillyand meant well. No, I have written nothing else of any interest: a little archaeology, some translations from the French: some reviews of books.