All the old things I objected to in Thackeray I object to still. Do you remember saying of Thomas Browne in one of your letters ‘Was there anything he didn’t love?’ One can ask just the opposite of Thackeray. He is wrongly accused of making his virtuous women too virtuous: the truth is he does not make them virtuous enough. If he makes a character what he wd. call ‘good’ he always gets his own back by making her (its always a female character) a bigot and a blockhead. Do you think, Sir, pray, that there are many slum parishes which could not produce half a dozen old women quite as chaste and affectionate as Helen Pendennis and ten times more charitable and more sensible? Still—the Major deserves his place in ones memory. So does Foker—surely the most balanced picture of the kindly vulgar young fop that there is. I’m not sure about Costigan. There’s a good deal too much of Thackeray’s habit of laughing at things like poverty and mispronunciation in the Costigan parts. Then, of course there’s ‘the style’—Who the deuce wd. begin talking about the style in a novel till all else was given up.
I have had another visit to Whipsnade
(#ulink_f1efdc3d-0862-51b7-b590-ef3147389131)—Foord Kelsie motored Arthur and me over on a fine Monday when Arthur was staying here. This was not the best company in the world with whom to revisit Whipsnade as F.K. combines extreme speed of tongue with a very slow walk, which is reduced to a stop when he has a good thing to say. However, after lunch he very wisely went and sat down and left Arthur and me on our own. Arthur was like a child: painfully divided between a desire ‘not to tire himself’ and a desire to see everything. When I tried to construct a harmony between these two aims by suggesting a route which would not make a very long walk and yet not really miss much, he was perfectly intractable because everything, to left, or to right, distracted him and he never cd. be made to believe that it was something we either had seen already or were just going to see. In fact it was a sad contrast to [the] sauntering unanimity of our last trip to the same place.
Perhaps however it was just as well that A. drew me out of my course, for the place has been so increased and altered that I should have missed a good deal. The novelties include lions, tigers, polar bears, beavers etc. Bultitude was still in his old place. Wallaby wood, owing to the different season, was improved by masses of bluebells: the graceful faun-like creatures hopping out of one pool of sunshine into another over English wildflowers—and so much tamer now than when you saw them that it is really no difficulty to stroke them—and English wildbirds singing deafeningly all round, came nearer to ones idea of the world before the Fall than anything I ever hoped to see.
One other important experience, as experiences go in a retired life, was my first visit to Covent Garden. It suddenly occurred to me this spring that my desire to hear Siegfried dated from 1912, and that 20 years was quite long enough to have waited. So I stood myself 15/-worth of ‘Amphitheatre Stalls’. I mention it here not in order to describe Siegfried (wh. I enjoyed quâ music and drama enormously) but to record my complete disillusionment as regards the Covent Garden level of performance. It was in fact exactly like any other performance of an opera: i.e. one’s inner criticism ran on the familiar lines ‘Ah this is a lovely bit coming now…what a pity that girl hasn’t a really good voice’—in fact I was on the point of saying to myself ‘By Jove its a splendid thing—what wouldn’t I give to hear it done properly at Covent Garden.’ When I say it was just like any other performance of an opera I mean that out of the eight characters two were magnificent, one ‘had been a very fine singer in his young days,’ two were quite adequate but had no v. great passages to sing, and two were frankly bad. The odd thing was that the acting was a great deal better than I had dared to expect. I had always supposed that these ‘head bummers’ were even insolently negligent of it: as a matter of fact they were distinctly good.
The Lamb’s letters must surely be a new Everyman—and a very good one too.
(#ulink_f063525b-0f63-5609-a728-944255705604) Confound those Tower of Glass people—I will write to them. I have dozens of things to reply to in this letter and your last, but it is now 4.30 and finished papers are beginning to dribble in. Also I am nearly asleep. I shall not be able to write to you again till examining is over—i.e. in August. I don’t think the passage in S. James is really the same as the ‘Touch Wood’ business. I shall try to get down to Ardglass for a day at least when I’m over.
(#ulink_70ab0c8c-799b-5b02-900c-92a06d18c6a8)
Yours
Jack.
P.S. I had nearly forgotten to acknowledge the philosophical instrument wh. you so unexpectedly sent. After one or two experiments I am getting a gadget made for fastening it onto my belt as I can find no pocket which will keep it perpendicular. Thanks very much. It is a thing I have been vaguely wanting to possess for many years.
I am afraid it will be a long time before I can resume proper letter writing—examining will hold me up till mid August.
During Warnie’s first tour of duty in China in 1927–9 he thought of retiring from the army. In a letter to Jack of 5 December 1929 he said: ‘I have had just about enough of the army, which becomes more tedious with every year that passes’ (LP X: 208). He calculated that by December 1932 he would be entitled to a pension of £200, and so he set his retirement for the end of 1932. In July 1932 he applied for retirement from the Royal Army Service Corps, and it was soon decided that he would sail for home on 22 October.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
July 29th 1932
My dear Arthur,
Thank heavens—at last I have finished examining. I am much too tired to write a letter: and also hungry to get to a morning’s reading—my first since the beginning of last term 18 weeks ago. This is merely to ask whether it will suit you if I come from Aug. 15th to 29th? I am looking forward to it immensely. Thanks for your letter of June 12th.
Yrs
Jack
TO ARTHUR GRIEVES (W):
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford.
Aug 11th 1932
My dear Arthur,
I have written to book a berth
(#ulink_c9c1276a-7b97-551a-b331-9fbf1cbf614c) for the night of Monday the 15th (which, by the bye, they have not yet acknowledged) and am at present in a fever of pleasing anticipation. I am so tired that our old rôles will be reversed: you will be the one who wants to walk further and sit up later and talk more. The latter probably sounds too good to be true!
Yours
Jack
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):
2 Princess Villas,
Bayview Park,
Kilkeel.
[Co. Down
30 August 1932]
(#ulink_1c095a6f-3da2-59f3-accf-a873fa60c107)
My dear Arthur,
I am very sorry you did not come down but I quite see your point of view. I don’t think the idea of a meeting half way would be much good. I can’t drive: it would have to be a party of three at least—perhaps a mass meeting—and what should we all do when we had met? There would certainly be no opportunity for walk or talk on our own. Dotty sends profuse thanks for your exertions about her luggage, which has since turned up. I hope your cold will soon be better. I am alright now and have done some good mountain climbs.
I quite understand about the cheque—it was quite absurd suggesting such a roundabout method. We shall be crossing (D.V.) on Thursday Sept. 1st. and I shall tell you my train later.
I don’t think the meeting halfway would be any good: do you?
Yours
Jack
TO OWEN BARFIELD (W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford.
Oct 29th 1932
My dear Barfield
