Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931

28/9/13.

My dear Papy,

I hope you don’t object to the use of red ink, which is unavoidable, as our study has no black. Thanks very much for the money, note paper and socks. As you advise, I am being careful not to be rooked, and have already refused countless offers of utterly worthless merchandise. I have made the acquaintance of W’s friend Captain Tassell, who is quite an interesting study.18

Talking about W., I have heard from him since I came back. He seems to be settling down to the routine a la maison Gastons.

The work here is very heavy going, and it is rather hard to find time for it in the breathless life we lead here. So far that ‘breathlessness’ is the worst feature of the place. You never get a ‘wink of peace’. It is a perpetual rush, at high pressure, with short intervals spent in waiting for another bell. Roll is called several times each day, which of course helps to crowd up the time. However, I suppose this sense of being eternally hustled will wear off as things settle down. On the whole, it is very pleasant so far, and, which is a help, I like Smugie.

There is another thing that is worrying me rather. That is the fact that I miss Lea Shakespeare hours for drawing. Both of these subjects I should like to continue, but one must be dropped. What do you advise me to do? If we decide to give up the drawing, I suppose you can arrange that with the authorities.

I get on very well with the people in my own study, which is a great comfort. How is every thing at Leeborough?

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 78-9):

[Malvern 15?

October 1913]

My dear W.,

I was very glad to hear from you and acknowledge my remisness in writing, but honestly I am being worked to death by Smugy–with whom however I get on very well–not a moment of peace.

True, no 24 is rather near the pres. room, but both Hardman and I have extraordinary luck about fagging. One thing is that we are in the same study as that fat beast Lodge, whom everyone hates, so that if a pre. comes in he is sure to fag Lodge before us. I have only had to clean boots twice so far.

I have, among other things, written an article to appear in the ‘Malvernian’ under the name Hichens–whom I like best of the pres.19 I don’t see all the horrors which you heaped on Browning.20 He’s always very decent to me. Bourne gets very much mobbed as a pre.21 I am in Walter Lowe’s math set.22 Were you ever there?

Two very exciting things have happened. A drawing of mine, which we had to do for Smugy as one of the questions in W.E., was pinned up on the Upper V door for a week, and the James came down and said it was spirited. Also an English poem of mine in imitation of Horace was ‘sent up for good’ to Jimmy.23 Consequently I have to go down to South Lodge and copy the poem into his great book tomorrow.

Isn’t the Fish a glorious man?24 Smugy keeps on asking about you. As he is so interested in O.M’s., you ought to write to him if you have time. He is a decent old Kod,25 isn’t he? Recruit drill is at present the chief joy of my life. I got a Coll. pres. for skipping clubs the other day. Jervis I rather like,26 but Bull II hasn’t come back yet.27 It is a good business that I have got into a study with a decent lad. I like Hardman II very much.28

By the way, you don’t enclose the Col. Rena May [list] whatever you may think you do. How goes the History? You must manage to come down to the House Supper. Everyone would be awfully bucked to see you. I shall write and tell P. that I am nervous about going home alone if you like. This is being written in the breathless interval between Supper and Prayers, so I must chuck it now.

your loving

brother Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 87-8):

[Malvern]

Postmark: 19 October 1913

My dear P.,

I hope you did not think that I was incurring reckless expense when I wrote to you for the money. The way you are rooked at Malvern by subscriptions, loans, and the fines which are shabbily arranged, is perfectly appalling. Thanks very much indeed for the five shillings.

The poem after Horace was, I am glad to tell you, somewhat in the nature of a success. It was top of the form and was sent up to the James. ‘Being sent up for good’ is a privilege enjoyed only by our form and the Upper Sixth and is rather a ceremony. I had to go down to Smugy’s house and copy the poem into a vast old volume of his, containing the works and signatures of all those who have been ‘sent up for good’ since 1895. I was of course greatly interested to read the other poems and things in the book: some of them are really very good. I enclose the poem which it may interest you to see. Smugy’s house is a queer little nook of the world, exactly typical of its owner.

I am inclined to agree with you that it will be a pity to lose Mr. Peacocke. He was neither a great preacher nor reader, but he was an educated gentleman, which is something to say in these times.29

I hope this business of Aunt Minnie30 will turn out all right. Coming on top of the trouble about Norman it is very hard lines, and I should imagine that the Moorgate household is one of the worst fitted to receive trouble, as there is always, even when things are at their brightest, a certain gloom there.

It certainly is a grievous pity that Shakespeare filled Romeo and Juliet31 with those appalling rhymes. But the worst thing in the play is old Capulet’s preposterous speech to the guests. Still, it is a very fine tragedy. So is the Greek play that we are doing. It is quite unlike all that stiff bombast which we are accustomed to associate with Greek tragedy. There is life and character in it.

your loving

son Jacks

‘“Carpe Diem” after Horace’ ‘In the metre of “Locksley Hall”’ (Tennyson)

When, in haughty exultation, thou durst laugh in Fortune’s face, Or when thou hast sunk down weary, trampled in The ceaseless race, Dellius, think on this I pray thee–but the Twinkling of an eye, May endure thy pain or pleasure; for thou knowest Thou shalt die, Whether on some breeze-kissed upland, with a Flask of mellow wine, Thou hast all the world forgotten, stretched be- Neath the friendly pine, Or, in foolish toil consuming all the springtime Of thy life, Thou hast worked for useless silver and endured The bitter strife: Still unchanged thy doom remaineth. Thou art Set towards thy goal, Out into the empty breezes soon shall flicker Forth thy soul, Here then by the plashing streamlet fill the Tinkling glass I pray Bring the short lived rosy garlands, and be Happy–FOR TODAY.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 90-1):

[Malvern]

Postmark: 26 October 1913

My dear P.,

I hope it did not seem that my act of sending you the poem was meant for a ‘draw’, which it was not. All the same, thanks very much for the P.O. which has restored ‘the firm’ to its pristine health and prosperity. Anderson, one of the people in our study, has just received a huge crate of pictures from home which will enable us to sell some of our older pictures and raise capital. I had not been able to see about the extra copies of the Cherbourg magazine, as I have not yet been up to see Tubbs. I think however that I am going up today, when I shall be able to transact all my business.

On Thursday we had our field day and it was really a great affair. We started for the place, which is quite near Malvern about an hours march, at ten o’clock. W’s friend Captain Tassell was in great form, mounted on a steed of which he was obviously terrified. Of course no one knew in the least what was meant to be happening, but we all dashed about, lying down and firing at intervals: on the whole it was very enjoyable.

You ask me what type of person one meets at Malvern: I will tell you. The average Malvernian may be, in fact usually is, a very good fellow in reality, but he always does his best to make himself out as bad as possible. Never believe his own account of his thoughts, deeds, or ideals. It is always far worse than the truth. Beyond this very childish and thoroughly British foible, there are very few faults in him. When you break through the shell of foolish affectation, you find him an honest kind hearted manly enough sort of fellow. At least that is how six weeks acquaintance of him strikes me. To use for once the phrase you have condemned, ‘I may be wrong’. But I think not.

Yesterday there was a lecture in the Gym by that man Kearton who came to the Hippodrome last holidays. I must confess that I thought him very poor indeed. So we did not miss much by leaving that ‘popular house of entertainment’ alone.

The mother of Stone,32 one of our House Pres., has died this week and he has consequently gone home. It is a very nasty business.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 96):

[Malvern 2?

November 1913]

My dear W.,

Although always quite ready to fall in with your wishes whenever they are within the bounds of possibility, I always like to point out some of the more glaring absurdities in the same. It has not occurred to you that this simultaneous attack on the paternal purse will savour somewhat too much of preparation. But to proceed. The following is what I intend to write home, coming at the end of a long and cheerful letter, when he will be bucked.

‘I have heard from W. again in the course of this week, and he seems to be comfortable with Kirk, although still working at high pressure. He mentions in this last letter, as he has done frequently before, that he entertains an idea of coming down here at the end of the term and travelling home with me as we did in the old times. This of course would be exceedingly pleasant for me, especially as most of the other new boys here have got friends coming down at the end of term; and it is undoubtedly pleasanter as well as more economical to travel in pairs than singly. The Old Boy, who by the way is one of the real good points about Malvern, has asked once or twice after W., and expressed a hope that W. will come down some time soon. Of course I am aware all this has nothing to do with me, but still he seems to have set his heart on it, and as I gather from the tone of his letter he has not mentioned it to you…’

As I said, it looks rather artificial, and can’t be made much better. How are you getting on, old man? I hope this thing will work, as I am looking forward to another journey in the good old style. As you will notice in my epistle, I have made it the Oldish and not the James who wants you to come down.33 I think that his name will carry more weight.

So far I am having a very good time here. You ask me what I think about Jacks.34 I’ll tell you. He’s always most awfully nice to me, spends half hall talking to me about you and Smugy and things, and never fags me or drops me; but all the same I can’t blind myself to the fact that he is an absolute ______ to most other people. But of course that doesn’t worry me.

We had field day on Thursday at Malvern. I have managed to get into my house section, ‘mirable dictu’,35 although I mob all the recruit drill. I can’t go on now.

your affect.

brother Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 101-2):

[Malvern 9?

November 1913]

My dear W.,

You don’t seem to be having a bad time at Gt. Bookham with your visits to ‘The Laughing Husband’ and the Hippodrome etc. I wouldn’t boom these diversions over loudly in the paternal ear, as, innocent though they may be in themselves, yet they would not convey an impression of ‘good hard work’. You may bet your boots I’ve heard enough about ‘warm singlets and drawers etc.’ to last me for a life time. P. tells me that ‘when I come home he’s going to take me in hand and see that that chest of mine gets as sound as a bell’. I wonder what that means?

I don’t really know that a house tie would be worn with a black suit, but we’ll see. Anyhow you must provide the tie as I am too ‘stoney’ for anything. I am amused to see that you have fallen into the excellent Marathon trap of spending 20/-where 5/-would do. As well, I wonder if ‘Miss Thompson’ would have heard about it. No one in T. Eden’s shop ever seems to have heard of anything, do they?

It’ll be a great weight off your chest when this filthy exam is over, so I am glad that it is comparatively soon.36 I should think you ought to pass fairly easily if you’ve been oiling with Kirk. I am longing to find out from you in the hols what Kirk is really like. A kod of the first water I should imagine by all reports.

At the end of this term we really must get Jarnfeldt’s Preludium.37 I heard it again at the Classical Orchestral Concert, and was more than ever charmed with it. Perhaps too you are right about this Marathon scheme. We can talk that over anon.

P. of course refuses to accept your scheme of taking the trip to Malvern as a birthday and Xmas gift. At least he writes to me, ‘W of course with his usual ingenuity says that this trip is going to be his Christmas and birthday present. But that is not quite the way I do things’. By the way, are we travelling home a day early or do you want to stay for the House Supper? I don’t mind staying a bit if you like, only it is so close to Xmas with that fearful problem of P’s present.

yours Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 104-5):

[The Sanatorium,

Malvern]

Postmark: 24 November 1913

My dear Papy,

I am sorry to hear that you are ‘thinking long’, but, as you know, there is a good reason for the absence of letters as this is the first day I have been able to write. As you say, I have a lot of things to talk about and the first is Smugy’s half term report.

I must confess that I was very disappointed in it. But I should have expected it all. For, the fact of the matter is about this Greek Grammar, that I know very little indeed: and the consequence of this is that what the rest of the form are running over in a sort of casual way for the third or fourth time, I am often learning for the first time in my life. This of course makes it rather difficult to keep up with the running. Then again, there are a lot of points of Greek grammar which I learnt up in furious haste at Cherbourg in the last few moments before the exam–and of course forgot again. These have to be faced with a half knowledge which is worse than ignorance, because it only muddles one’s brain. But all these things should come right in time; as I flatter myself I am not cursed with ‘an inability to grasp the elements’ of any reasonable subject. As for the place in form, I was prepared for it to be poor, as the general standard of the form is rather beyond me–seeing that with the exception of the other scholars it consists of people who have filtered through to Smugy’s care just at the end of their Malvern career. However, I get on well with Smugy and really that is half the battle.

You need not have been so worried about my temporary indisposition. It is only one of those trifling, although irritating chills to which I am subject in the winter months. Anyway, the worst of it is over now, as I am up in my room at the San. today. The San. is about the most curious place I have ever been in. I arrived here a week ago on Friday and was placed in a bed in a large and many windowed apartment, in one corner of which a fire was cheerfully engaged in belching forth dense clouds of smoke, which rendered it well nigh impossible to see or breathe. Conquering a natural terror of at once becoming unconscious in such an atmosphere, I resigned my self to sleep that night–but not for long. I soon discovered to my cost that the room in which I had been deposited was directly over the kitchen. I was apprised of this fact by the musical efforts of the domestic staff, whose vigorous and unwholesome concert was prolonged far into the night. But the funniest thing about this place is the noises that one hears in the morning. I really cannot imagine what the staff do. Judging from the loud peals of laughter and the metallic clangs which strike my ears before breakfast daily, they engage in hand to hand combat with the fire irons.

After a short period of the smoky room I was removed to a smaller but much more comfortable chamber where I still remain. Here my only trouble is the determined ‘quacking’ of a body of geese imprisoned somewhere in the neighbourhood.

As for your kind enquiries about the approaching natal gift, I have made up my mind that I should like ‘The Rhinegold and the Valkyries’ to match the ‘Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods’ which I have got.38 I think however that the purchase of the book had better be deferred until Xmas when I can talk to my friend Carson in person.

I am glad to hear that W. is coming down at the end of the term as it is nicer travelling ‘in comp.’ than alone. I must stop now. How are you yourself keeping these days?

your loving

son,

Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 108-9):

The Sanatorium,

Thursday or Friday.

(I am not quite sure what

day it is today)

Postmark: 28 November 1913

My dear Papy,

I have advanced yet another stage and am now enjoying the priveledge of being downstairs in the San. That is, instead of sitting up in my bedroom, I have been moved to a sitting room where I can look out upon the hideously ugly garden of the San. And yet there is a homely touch about this garden. It is full of laurels that will never grow because of the wind: we’ve seen these before haven’t we?

I have been condemned by the school doctor, as soon as I go back, to join the ranks of people who do ‘special exercises for delicate chests’ in the gym. This is a piece of ‘sconce’ after your own heart, and I have no doubt that you will be more pleased to hear about it than I was. Your remarks about the sealskin etc. strike me as being both in questionable taste and the products of a fevered imagination rather than of a sane mind. But still, the human mind is so constituted that the bizarre must ever appeal more potently than the normal. Which is a consolation.

Congratulations on your victory at the Pattersonian musical festival. You’ll be becoming quite a noted Strandtown diner out if you are not careful.

Talking about social functions reminds me of some wild fantastic talk of another dance this year.39 Don’t let us spoil the Xmas holidays by a chore as colossal as it is disagreeable, and as disagreeable as it is unnecessary. No one else gives a dance on two consecutive years. Nip this matter in the bud ‘which has a bitter taste’ and of which ‘sweet will not be the flower’. (Do you remember the quotation?) But seriously, I hope no such folly is really toward. It is quite bad enough having to attend the functions of others without adding to the nuisance ourselves. Please convey to Aunt Annie and the other conspirators that you are determined not to hear of it, as I am sure you are. For one thing it is a considerable and uncalled for expense, and an expense of the most annoying kind–namely where you get absolutely no return for your money: unless you derive any great pleasure from hovering about among the noisy and objectionable throng who have invaded the pristine seclusion of Leeborough. But I don’t fancy that you do. I am certain that I don’t.

One good thing is that there are only three more weeks or so this term. I suppose W. will have both tickets when it comes to travelling. Is it next Tuesday or the Tuesday after that his exam comes off?

As to your remarks about the school san., in spite of smoky chimneys and a villainous domestic staff, there are a good many worse places to spend a few weeks of a long winter term. There are plenty of books and fires, and I always derive a certain savage pleasure in sitting with my feet on the fender, watching through the window a body of my unfortunate fellow beings setting off for a run across that cold, dismal golf links that always reminds me of the moorland in ‘Locksley Hall’.

Talking about ‘Locksley Hall’, I have discovered a tattered copy of Tennyson’s works here, buried among the sixpenny novels and illustrated weeklies, with which I have spent a few enjoyable afternoons reading ‘In memoriam’40 and some other things that one ought to know.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 111):

The Sanatorium,

St. Andrew’s Rd.,

Sunday.

Postmark: 30 November 1913

My dear P.,

I am now I think really quite better and shall be leaving the San. in a few days. It is funny, isn’t it, how soon you get accustomed to a new kind of life? I’ve been down here for a fortnight or so, and I have grown so used to it that I could almost believe that Malvern never existed. But I shall be amply reminded of its life shortly. I am beginning to go out now on those intensely dull convalescent walks–progressing at two miles an hour, muffled up like an arctic explorer, and getting in the bits of sunshine. Thanks very much for the postal order which arrived yesterday. One good thing about being down at the san. is that it prevents your spending money, which is always an advantage.

For three days during this week I have had a companion–one Waley41 of the School House, who had a boil on his arm and talked an amazing amount of agreeable nonsense. I pretended to be interested in and to understand his explanation of how an aeroplane engine works, and said ‘yes’ and ‘I see’ and ‘really’ at suitable intervals. I think I did all that was required very well.

However I am very pleased that he’s gone, as I find my own society infinitely more agreeable than his, and prefer Tennyson to lectures, however learned, on aeronautics. That’s just the perversity of fate. Anyone else who’d been down here alone for a fortnight would have been longing for a companion and of course wouldn’t get one, while I, who have been thoroughly enjoying the solitude, (so rare a blessing at school), must have not only a companion, but a talkative one, dumped down. However it was only for three days.

You were saying the other day that when you sat doing nothing of an evening you passed the time in day dreams. I used to day dream a tremendous lot, but these last few days I find when I sit down in a nice chair in front of the fire that I get up an hour later and realise that I’ve been thinking about absolutely nothing. Is this a sort of mental stagnation I wonder.

Have you seen to the quashing of that dance conspiracy yet? Don’t dare to answer in the negative. At any rate there must be no dance for me; nor for any other rational being I hope. So let that matter receive your immediate attention. You have your orders. Now we may go on.

I suppose the winter has set in at home by now, as it has here. But a very different kind of winter is the good old Belfast ‘rainy season’ from the English equivalent. Have you been winning any more musical laurels? That is a deed of daring do which should be set up in ‘letters all of gold’ (vide ‘brave Horatius’)42 under a statue in the hall representing you with a symbolical lyre and ‘plectrum’. (Look ‘plectrum’ out in a dictionary of classical terms).

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 115):

School House,

Malvern College.

Postmark: 8 December 1913

My dear Papy,

I am now once more safely ensconced in the house, and so my illness is officially dead and buried. Unfortunately I have missed the Lea Shakespeare exam., in which I think I might have done something. However, these things will happen. There are only two more weeks ‘and odd days’ as they say in Romeo and Juliet,43 now. I suppose we shall revise this week and have exams. next, so that the routine is practically over. Write and tell me about W’s exam as soon as possible.