Letters to a Sister (18 page)

I only heard a bit of Dr Matthews on Psychical research.
⁴⁶
I don't see the football poolers listening to him….

‘Any Questions' panel must of course know as much about conscience as we do; what is the matter is that they dislike giving serious answers to any but political questions. I think this is a great pity. I wonder if ‘Any Answers' will put them right.
⁴⁷
There might be letters from women who choose the dull job of living at home with invalid parents, and married people who decide to stay with their boring spouses instead of going after a more amusing one whom they love, and people who choose dull jobs because they feel they must support someone, besides from every one whose conscience tells them to write dull letters and clean the house instead of doing something more interesting and agreeable.

I enclose some cuttings to amuse you. The letters are about whether reporters ought to pester surgeons while they operate on Siamese twins; it seems they climbed up the walls to get a view and take photographs.
⁴⁸
I am glad medical
opinion is so much against them. The other cutting is about how Stephen Spender walked out.
⁴⁹
Do you think it was rude? A reporter asked me after lunch why he had gone, and I said I supposed he had an appointment, as I am always purposely dull to reporters. But it seems he got on to Stephen afterwards and was rewarded. He was angry at Dylan Thomas, a friend of his, and lately dead, being read aloud for ridicule. Of course Lord Samuel should have talked about Betjeman's poetry, not the poetry he disliked. But he is over 80, and should be listened to patiently, at least at someone else's lunch party at which one is an honoured guest, as S.S. was….

Very much love.

E.R.M.

p.s. The great news is that my Car returns to me on Thursday! I can scarcely believe it—and feel it will have a collision en route from Peterboro' or something.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 22 March, [1955]

Dearest Jeanie,

… My young Jew was surprised at the way I ‘trimmed and shaped' theological doctrine, as written down in the creeds and the Prayer Book, to my own taste and needs. He
thought a religion should be either accepted wholesale, as defined by its formulas, or discarded, as he has discarded Judaism. Though he admitted that most of his educated Jewish friends who hadn't discarded it only accepted it with reservations. I told him that it seemed to me nonsense about wholesale acceptance, which wasn't either necessary or usual, anyhow among Anglicans. There is no idea of his becoming a Christian, though I suppose any one might. But he seems quite happy as an agnostic.

Perhaps one day I will write that book, if I live long enough.
¹
I have an intuition that I shall die in three years, i.e. in 1958, so must bustle about and do a lot of things in the time. When do
you
expect to push off? My own death is very credible to me now, tho' it usedn't to be. I must go before you, as it will be my turn first; also, I couldn't go on without Saturdays at Romford….

I thought the ‘Critics' rather dull, as most of the subjects were dullish. If I had been there, I would have said that a good programme about modern Sheffield would be impossible, it is such a dreadful place, and the only possible programme would have been about it as it was once, when it was a market town set among the hills; that might have been interesting; I like towns (as they were once) recalled. No interest to be got out of steel etc., or cutlery. But it is beautiful country, only now ruined by these awful towns. I suppose a country can't be both commercially prosperous and remain beautiful, it has to choose. Just as it has to choose between cheap living, I mean low prices, such as we once had, and high wages for those who work. We have quite rightly chosen the last, so nothing will ever be cheap again. A flower shop once told me that flowers will never be cheap again because the growers now have to pay such high wages to their people. The same with books, rents, fares, everything. Luxborough House, now replaced by a new block of flats, is now asking £400 a
year for flats of two rooms, kitch. & bathroom; I paid £200 for four rooms, and much better ones.

I don't approve of the new
Highway Code,
which seems to me to be aimed at letting cars drive faster. It advises users of Zebra crossings to wait for gaps in the traffic before crossing. One might wait 10 minutes for that; besides, if there is a gap in the traffic a zebra is needless, one can cross without it. I am sorry about this, as the traffic is already very bad about zebras, and this will encourage them. Also drivers are advised to switch their headlights on in badly lit streets. This makes a most dangerous dazzle and causes accidents, but of course lets the driver go faster. I think the code has a strong pro-motorist bias, whereas I regard vehicles as dangerous creatures which badly need curbing. Not a word I think (however) about pedestrians and traffic lights, which
did
need saying…

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 27 June, [1955]

Dearest Jeanie,

… Why is anyone shocked that God should know we aren't all equally good? I don't understand it. If he thought we were, I suppose he must see no difference between one kind of behaviour and another, in the same person at different times, which would be very discouraging. But there seem no limits to folly in thoughts about God.

I liked Fr Huddleston's article in the
News Chronicle.
⁵⁰
I'm glad he goes on hammering away at it; it may in the end have an effect, specially if the Commissioner reports to his government how shocked we all are by them here.
⁵¹
There
wasn't nearly enough of that kind of outspokenness here in the thirties when Hitler was ill-treating the Jews, and the anti-Nazi Germans say that if there had been more of it we could probably have stopped it without a war. I wish the U.N. would condemn our behaviour re Cyprus; it might in the end persuade us to hand it over and let the Cypriotes determine their own fate.
⁵²
I am not sure there shouldn't be some outspokenness about the Turks' treatment of women. I have just read a book by a young Turk about life in the country districts there, giving a very bad account of it. If they have to go out with their husbands on some business, such as seeing a doctor, they have to walk several yards behind him with their shawls over their mouths, and not pass any men, or overtake any, and if they are heard to speak the husbands can beat them, and they can't even speak to the doctor, who has to be told what is the matter by the husband or son, and they may only nod or shake their heads. Tho' the law doesn't allow him to kill them, public and religious opinion does, and it is continually done with impunity. The little girls are still often married when quite small, & often ruined in health and nerves by it, as the husbands don't wait till they are older to live with them. This too is against the law, but the law doesn't seem to run much outside the large cities. We seem to need another crusade! They behave better in New Guinea, about which old Canon Benson here [at St Paul's, Knightsbridge] has just written a book
⁵³
& has handed the MS to me to read…

I have a poem about Trebizond in
The Times Lit. Sup.
⁵⁴
;
do you see it?…

Fr Derry
⁵⁵
was very pleased with the success of his appeal last Sunday week in his sermon that the congregation at Sunday early Mass should make the responses, which before that no one but me did, so far as I could hear. This Sunday there was quite a noise, and in his sermon at noon he thanked us. I told him he had better tell us to do something else now and we might do it. He might even beg us to be good, which he doesn't do enough, though his sermons are quite interesting. I wonder if I have the courage to suggest this sometime. I like him very much, and he has a sense of humour.

How brave Mary Stocks is! One week she says she doesn't like cooking, another that she doesn't like watching games. I thought the clapping after this remark was very slight, and showed shock.
⁵⁶

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 18 October, [1955]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I didn't hear the ‘Critics', but shall this afternoon, and will notice what they said about the book
⁵⁷
. I don't expect it is like my style; very few people judge rightly about styles; as someone once said in reviewing me, foolish people sometimes compare me in style to Jane Austen, to whom I am completely unlike in way of writing. I shall be interested to hear what this book is.

The inn which wants a plaque with my name (I don't know
if it yet has it) is a tiny inn
⁵⁸
on the shore at a tiny place called Puerto de Llansá, the first place I stopped at on my Spanish tour, which I describe in
Fabled Shore.
They are very proud of me, and keep a copy of my book and point out the bit about themselves to visitors, saying I sent them the book, but this is a pleasant fancy. They were charming people. I dare say Llansá is now a bustling resort, instead of a very small fishing village on the shore.

I enclose a piece from
The Times
about the C. of E. in South Africa. It seems that the schism and separatism come from that side, not from the Church of the Province.
⁵⁹
They obviously regard the latter as not protestant enough for them; it was going very far to refuse the Bishop leave to confirm.
⁶⁰
As they seem not to recognise the Bishops I suppose they do their own ordinations, as the Non-Jurors used to in the 18th cent. It would be interesting to read a history of their career, written from inside. They must be very narrowly protestant and probably are in communion with the Dutch Calvinist church, as well as in sympathy with the South African | government policy.

I think you got Lady Pakenham wrong. Surely she said
⁶¹
you must leave by trains at the odd hours because this would show you
had
planned beforehand when to leave, whereas if you give a round number it looks as if you had just got bored and decided to go. It would
never
do to be natural, surely. If natural, one might easily say on Saturday evening, ‘I am off first thing after breakfast tomorrow', before the week-end had really got going; or, if it was a cocktail party, ‘I am bored,
I must go now, I don't see any one I know here.' Naturalness in life must be heavily curbed….

V. much love.

E.R.M.

I have now heard the ‘Critics'.
⁶²
The book was
By the Angel, Islington,
by March Cost. John Connell said its style was like no contemporary novelist ‘except possibly Miss Rose Macaulay'. Freda Bruce Lockhart said it was less like me than Stella Benson. As I've not read the book (being, like Ivor Brown, ‘allergic to angels') I can't tell which was right.

8 January, 1956

Dearest Jeanie,

... I went to church this morning tho' not early. I have a slight inhibition from communicating at mid-day Mass, which is odd, as I don't at all mind a 10.30 one, though this is equally after breakfast; also, I know our vicar
⁶³
has no objection, not being at all spikey. I suppose it must be early habit; but it is much the same to me whether I do or don't, so I don't mind. I think we are very lucky in this vicar, whom I like more and more, he is so genial & unshy & friendly; he took me yesterday after Evensong to the basement room he has to live in till the vicarage is rebuilt and gave me a drink, before I drove him to a hospital near me to see a sick churchwarden. He is amusing company.... I keep meaning to ask him why he doesn't use women as servers, since men are so scarce. I did suggest this in a letter to Fr Johnson. He writes, ‘As to your suggestion concerning servers of both sexes—
no;
it would not do at all; arrangements as to who should
serve whom would be dangerously assimilated
[sic]
to the filling up of a dance programme, and for the priest it would, more often than not, be utterly distracting, worse than anything that can happen now, whether the she-server were nice or nasty. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.” Think of all these modern business offices. Do you think that sex appeal has become a negligible distraction,
or ever could,
in this world?' This seems to me to be an exaggerated view, but casts an interesting light on one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, why women aren't allowed in the sanctuary during Mass. Perhaps the natural unfitness of women to take part in anything holy, combined with the natural egotism of men in wanting to keep it to themselves, were only secondary reasons, rationalising the main reason, which was this sexual disturbance set up in men by the proximity of a female. Apparently the primitive Church did try it, but it was soon stopped. Of course the difficulty might be got round by a rule that women servers must be elderly, like college bed-makers in Oxford & Cambridge; perhaps no one under 60, or perhaps 55. This would lessen the number of women applicants for the job. I think one difference between men's and women's sex feelings is that attraction towards the priest may easily make a woman feel more religious, while attraction towards a woman almost certainly makes the priest feel less so. Probably because male sex attraction has a far more physical basis, and more physical reactions, than with women, with whom it may be almost purely emotional and unbodily. I shall ask Fr Harris sometime what his view of employing women would be. His answer might be that it is against church tradition.

I send two cards I had overlooked, in case they are any use for children. I like the one with wolf and sheep in dangerous contiguity…

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 20 January, [1956]