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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

Monday — August 1922

To Sydney Schiff

Your letter made me feel angry with myself and very ungracious at having refused your so kind invitation. Please forgive me! I look forward more than I can say to seeing you and Violet in London. By the time you come I hope to be settled in my new rooms (they are at this address) I am already dreaming of no end of a talk before my fire.

I shall never be able to say a word to the intelligentsia, Sydney. They are too lofty, too far removed. No, that is unfair. It's simply that they are not in the least interested. Nor do they appear to know what one is driving at when one groans at the present state of English writing. As I see it the whole stream of English literature is trickling out in little innumerable marsh trickles.

There is no gathering together, no force, no impetus, absolutely no passion! Why this is I don't know. But one feels a deathly cautiousness in everyone—a determination not to be caught out. Who wants to catch them out or give them away? I can't for the life of me see the need of this acute suspicion and narrowness. Perhaps the only thing to do is to ignore it all and go on with one's own job. But I confess that seems to me a poor conclusion to come to. If I, as a member of the orchestra think I am playing right, try my utmost to play right, I don't want to go on in the teeth of so many others—not playing at all or playing as I believe falsely. It is a problem. Let us talk it all over.

About Lawrence. Yes, I agree there is much triviality, much that is neither here not there. And a great waste of energy that ought to be well spent. But I did feel there was growth in Aaron's Rod—there was no desire to please or placate the public, I did feel that Lorenzo was profoundly moved. Because of this, perhaps, I forgive him too much his faults.

It's vile weather here—a real fog. I am alone in the page 243 house—10.30 p.m. Footsteps pass and repass—that is a marvellous sound—and the low voices—talking on— dying away. It takes me back years—to the agony of waiting for one's love—