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Well I have just been struggling with
my Christmas mail, calendars, Christmas cards etc & got
it all polished it off except you, & a devil of a job it has
been. However I shall have a peaceful time in December
& think of the postman struggling up
probably have to bring out their biggest lorry. I have arranged
with my good friends Messrs
larger parcels for me, which ought to arrive about the same time
as this letter if they go by the Frisco mail; or anyhow
shortly after. But I should think they would arrive before
Christmas. Of course the strictly honourable thing to do will
be to retain all parcels unopened till anyhow 12.5am. on
in the matter. I got
would be able to pack it better than I; I gave strict
tions
unbent & with corners intact. I spent a good deal of time
in feverish cogitation over the right thing; so if anybody is
not pleased I hope he or she will have the decency to keep
his or her mouth shut. Anyhow I have the consolation that
most of the stuff will be quite new on the New Zealand market.
So that's that. I enclose slips of greeting that I thought
might slip out of the books in process of packing. The
embarrassment of riches. I was very nearly sending
a reproduction of
colour; but decided to get that for myself. I think he will
like the one I have sent as well as anything — it is a not
altogether uncharming volume (
way of commendation from Harold
some foreign plays to a bloke. When the bloke was finished
looking through them HM says in a politely indifferent way
"
quick-fire salesmanship with a vengeance. I forget what the
bloke said). So far as you are concerned
jected
Morley
it in a couple of hours. I think what I have sent will be some
thing you can get your teeth into — also I think it will turn
out to be one of those books you will be able to quote at
meal-times & put markers in for me to read selected
passages if I can just spare a minute or two now and again.
You had better save the passages up for me, or get a secretary
& have them typed out and sent home. Of course you might not
like it at all, but I hope it will turn out to be not
altogether entirely absolutely uninteresting. As for
the contents of her envelope because anything I send she will
some really wicked underwear in a shop in
Circus
Winwold
on this, & why ruin both of us? The shop windows are
really very fascinating though, if you know where to look.
A Great Pity
her amp;
morning. There are all sorts of weird religions too, that
would suit Auntie. And thy have just opened a Mohammedan
mosque, if she is getting a bit fed up with spiritualism. And
I bet I could get
a week. Oh, before I get off this paragraph & while I
ber
the Victorian letters book to
might like it; the
it only cost a bob. The other,
myself & read; on which I thought, "This my boy is quite too
rich to be withheld from your
tion to your opening this little lot as soon as you get it. Fair
dinkum, that
Well, I was very sorry, & a bit startled,
that you have been getting it in the neck again. You really
must take better care of yourself. I hope by the time you get
this you will be sparking well again for Christmas. I can
understand any one going to bed after dinner on Christmas day
all through the festive Yuletide season. However I suppose it's
no use blasting you at this distance & by this time you are
probably all right again, if you haven't got up too soon to
go & stand up in the hall at the telephone in the draught with
½ dozen chairs around you, to avoid hurting the feelings of
permanent hope for you unless you stop looking after people &
get looked after yourself for a year or so. And then when you
are reasonably restored I suppose you will want to go off &
climb
a bit of mother-in-lawish advice on the feeding & care of
husbands. Well, I hope if you do, she puts you in your
place once & for all. Anyhow I am glad to hear from
is all I shall say to you in the way of personal abuse or
advice this time, unless I think of something else later on.
You might thank
letter, which I shall answer in due course — I should
have liked to have done so by the Christmas mail, to lift
so far as possible the veil of sorrow at my absence from
before her eyes, but I am afraid that the time at my
peculiarly touched with the way she finished up her letter —
"With love from
nice; & a proud man have I been since I read her
letter to feel that I had gained the affection of one
myself go
barrassment
So the Church is let at last. I can't say I feel very
cheerful about it, even 13000 miles away, & though my thoughts
have wandered away somewhat even from the Unitarian fold.
It is pretty stiff, as you say,
plugging at the business. At least you go down with your
flag flying. It wouldn't be so bad in a way if the
Masonic crowd had taken it; but I suppose it would have
been hard to deny the Pentecostal push their poetic
tice
you will get a bit more reading done on Sundays, if
you don't go to sleep in the extra time; & it would take a
pretty good parson to give you anything worth going to church
for. I can't see much good in churches now — I should
think if you had any beliefs, a good ritual would be more
satisfying than anything else, if it was well carried out —
but there are a good many ifs about it — look at the silly
darn precentor we heard at
the Lord in the beauty of holiness you want a good deal to
make up for it, & I don't see that the ordinary low-brow,
parson begins to do that. And if he's any sort of a high-brow,
or even a mezzo-brow, he doesn't stand a chance of carrying
on. Fellowship is all very well, but not fellowship in
the feeble-minded tripe
the torch for me — well, the torch I hold may
More likely to be some obscure minute corner of Tudor political
theory. There is a good paragraph at the end of
long to copy out in full: "A world without religion is a
sad & a tiring world because its lacks an object, & for this
reason there have been few generations which have known
less happiness than our own… In a new & positive morality
in which men can believe lies the hope for the world; yet
such a morality cannot come without a revival of religion.
Religion & religion alone gives the driving force which impels
men to change things" etc; But so far as I can see the
only religion that will be any use in the long run will
be a secular religion, if you can have such a thing. Dress
it up if you like & get emotion behind it, but make it a
force for & in this world & keep it in this world. Then
possibly the coal-owners will come within measurable
distance of ordinary common-sense, & the Gluckstein family
the rest of the shareholders in
an approach to a living wage &
you
soldiers playing one string fiddles in the rain & you won't
see so many prostitutes walking up & down
Meanwhile about the only
use I can see for the existence of
parsons is that it's a polite way of giving mental deficients
the dole.
Other points in your letter! Right-oh, I shall try to pick
up those
Book Club the other day that looked as if you or
thing
can let me have the cash back when it gets to be a
sum big enough to be worth sending. Thanks very
much for the
although the number was a bit scrappy. My thing not
much good, but it's hard to write on a boat. If you
will send me
the next year's numbers
hold of them & I will probably get them quicker than
otherwise (from what I know about business managers) &
after that I'll have to make some other arrangement.
Thanks also for the Post & Truth. The seems
fishy enough to draw a cat from this side of the world; but
why call him a friend? The truth probably is that after
7 months of
self-defence. It's pretty solid, all right. I'd like to
know what are the lots of questions
me & if they are going to be of the too maternally -
probing kind I think she had better stay on her back
till I have time to forget the answers. Well, I think
I'll go to bed now & try to squeeze in the rest
of
some time tomorrow —
the three of us at the
when the mail closes, so it has thrown me out of gear
a bit. Don't think we are desperately extravagant —
sereserve seats for 3/-.
16/11/26
happened since I
first
Neither
that this bloke
whole lot of the 16th century, so I am keeping on at the Tudor
stuff & hoping
it comes out. I took along a sketch of the work I wanted
to do to
something to work on & you'll get the real
he proceeded to tear to pieces in a manner rude, if not
insulting. However it is something novel for me to have
a
so although I was a bit dashed at first I haven't been…
unduly depressed on the whole. I have to see him again
this morning with another sketch, which
all right to him. (it ought to, too, as I practically took
it down from his dictation); & if he doesn't like that he
can lump it. Or I will. The trouble about
that he has got an institutional mind — he is working
on the Tudor constitutional history himself, & he wants to
get all his pupils on the same line. 'So that he can
pick their brains' says
more polite way & it would be largely true I expect. Most
research seems to be picking somebody
stract
put it across him yet with God's &
has just gone off to the
prospects of a lecture by
merit.
down there that he is not well enough equipped to start the
line of research he wanted to, & he has to put in a year's
preliminary work, which will rather mess up his money.
I have half a mind to take
lectures myself — I'm certainly going to take some lec-
tures at the
an absolute superabundance of first-class stuff flying
around that it seems a positive sin not to pick it up.
Talking of property rights, as I see I was a few lines back, the
end of the strike is pretty written —
they were in
conditions since then. The way the owners are putting in
the boot is sickening; & the way the
the
this year; by the time the next one comes off all the
able
remember. And then I suppose there'll be some fresh darn
silly scare engineered. The rot that's talked here by such
men as
ently
commonsense; according to
a couple of years ago a hardened Tory & has been in
run a strike up there. You've only got to wave a Union Jack
& sing God Save the King & the men go back to work quite
prepared to do 16 hours a day & their wives go home & breed
like rabbits. And the housing conditions are enough to make
you sick. It may be good nature & consideration for other
people's comfort that makes the British workman so easy to
diddle; but you can carry that amiable characteristic a good
deal too far. However I don't suppose talk cuts much ice.
One of the people at the
the other
d night for a lecture by
good too.
invitation card out for
through all the traditional motions of the hands & wore the
traditional ineffable amiable inept smile; he is very
fat around the neck, & from the look of him I can quite
believe what I have read of his complete selfishness.
There was something in the why was what sort of tree was
like? The ash, because nothing could grow up beneath him.
You can't expect much in the industrial & economic way
from a cove like him; & with all his distinction in politics,
you haven't got it either, so long as he's had anything to
do with it. However the lecture was darned good.
I heard
pened( one concert only, on the same
please me too much, but as he was playing the
concerto I thought I would go. Had to pay 5/9 for a seat,
& 1/- lost on my
was a rotten wash out; but worth it. I'm hoping
will be available on some other occasion, as he is a man
I must hear.
am's
gets the band going all right.
the
concerts in the
ought to be able to get the gist of this, anyhow. It is a
great thing. I heard a Strauss concert at
the A one of
the
most of it was mainly pretensious noise — cowbells &
windmachines that broke down & so forth. But he certainly can
play round with an orchestra. I haven't heard much music
besides these things lately, bar another
good; I want to go to the
series finishes & also to
I haven't been to a single theatre. I'm hoping the Ballet
tonight will be worth my 3 bob.
insignificant cove, you wouldn't have thought he was the man
to change the thought of a generation. Spoke in a
jokes, unfortunately not loud enough to hear.
on the platform; the way he turns up regularly reminds
me of a Unitarian diehard.
rather disappointing — an immense introductory dull
speech with laboured humour that fell very flat. However
as she is
They dr run the Armistice day celebrations here pretty
well, & apparently they are improving them every year.
I had to go to a lecture at W.C. & so couldn't go down to
the
in the quadrangle. There was the profoundest silence I've
ever heard by day all over the city — the only sound was
the twittering of a some
doves on the
English are certainly pretty good at some things.
a very good song they sang on
for them by
land
this before? They sang it again last night, when
had some of the Imp Conference looking around — they
invited a crowd of colonial students up to meet these birds,
& what did "meeting" them consist of? They invited us to
tea at 5, dragged us away before we'd had time to get more
than a cake & a half & then made us stand in two rows &
wait for a solid ¾
upstairs. (During this interval I met a bloke of the name of
had knew
the
after them, so you had better tell
the Imp.
photos taken — no one from
to turn up — our names were called out & we went up
& shook hands with one of them, me with the vice-chairman
of the College committee, some long lord or other with drooping
white whiskers. Most unsatisfying, considering the tea they
gave us. And then two or three of these coves made the usual
speeches.
has to give 5 minutes formal welcome he reads it off a big
piece of paper. He hasn't asked me to afternoon tea yet, the
blighter — nor have I heard from
Minister of
only place in the world not heard of. "
An And where
do you come from?" says a lady to him at a social
gathering the day before. "Newfdland" "How interesting.
And where is Newfdla?" He told her it was an island
off the coast of
always thought it was off the coast of
Will you send me my "
Pack it up well, but leave ends open or you will have
to pay extra postage. I wish I had brought a whole
lot more books; I may get you to send some more
Home some-time, but I am a bit afraid of them in the
mail now — it looks as if it's going to cost me about 10/-
in stamps. What about each recipients' refunding
age
in between tea-time and the Ballet I send everybody
my love & best Christmas wishes; & you might
gise
to
o. Dear, dear, I do believe I have forgotten the
land
they deserve something.