Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931

But, out of school, life gets more and more dreary; all the prefects detest me and lose no opportunity of venting their spite. Today, for not being able to find a cap which one gentleman wanted, I have been sentenced to clean his boots every day after breakfast for a week. It is after breakfast that the form goes through their translation together. From this I am cut off. When I asked if I might clean them in the evening (an arrangement which you observe would have made no difference to him), I received a refusal, strengthened by being kicked downstairs.

So we go on. These brutes of illiterate, ill-managed English prefects are always watching for an opportunity to drop upon you. There is no escape from them, night or day. There is some consolation in knowing that every one else is in the same box: all my friends too, are utterly miserable and tired of life. Perhaps you ask why we don’t complain to the Old Boy. Sometimes a poor creature, driven wild by injustice and oppression, does try it. The Old Boy of course does his best: but what is the result? The prefects return to the persecution of the boy with renewed vigour. The place is systematically made uninhabitable for him, and he usually leaves. So that way is barred.

Please take me out of this as soon as possible but don’t, whatever you do, write to the James or the Old Boy, as that would only make matters worse. Thank goodness there are only 2 weeks more; that must be our wee bit of ‘silver lining’. You can’t think how I’m longing to get back to you and Leeborough again. See and keep quite well yourself.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 155):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 22 March 1914

My dear Papy,

What a good thing the police did not turn up to arrest Craig.4 If they had, I suppose you would be in the thick of it now.

No: I think I had better wait till the Tuesday and attend the House Supper. Not that I want to of course, but Maxwell and all the other Irish boys are waiting as it is Jimmy’s last term, and you can’t very well go early this time. So please book the berth for that night.

In common justice I feel that I ought to correct the notion which, very naturally, I have given you of Hichens. It is only fair to say that he is always ready to do anything he can for me or for anyone else. But the truth of the matter is that, though nominally head of the house, he has to mind his P’s and Q’s very carefully. The real head of the house is a splendid physical animal called Browning, who is one of the worst cads I have ever met. But he certainly has got ‘guts’ and bends the other prefects to his will with a rod of iron. They are all afraid of him. But Hichens, although neither clever or strong minded, is a kindly and gentlemanly sort of person. I have no complaints against him. But we are now so near the end of the term that I am beginning to take a philosophical view of things: all will soon be over.

Although the papers are full of it, the people here don’t seem to grasp the Ulster situation very much: one person asked me this morning if it was for Home Rule or against it that the volunteers were being formed.

Last night we had a lecture about Russia which was quite interesting.

your loving

son Jack.

Jack arrived at Little Lea on 25 March. His father, knowing how desperately unhappy he was at Malvern, was already in correspondence with Warnie about the matter. ‘Your news about Jack is unpleasant,’ Warnie said on 23 March,

but to me at least, not unexpected: from the moment he first came home and told me his opinion of the Coll., I was afraid it could only be a matter of time until he made the place too hot to hold him. I remember asking if it was not a splendid feeling at the end of a house match when you realised that your own house had won: “I saw a lot of boys throwing their caps in the air and making unpleasant noises: yes, I suppose it is an interesting study”…I had an idea that Malvern would weave its influence round Jacks as it did around me, and give him four very happy years and memories and friendships which he would carry with him to the grave…I am all in favour of sending him to Kirk. There would be no one there except Mr and Mrs K for him to talk to, and he could amuse himself by detonating his little stock of cheap intellectual fireworks under old K’s nose. (LP IV: 156-7)

Albert replied on 29 March:

I honestly confess that knowing Jack’s mind and character, I am not greatly surprised to find him and a Public School unsuited to one another. In saying that I blame neither the one nor the other. He is simply out of his proper environment, and would possibly wither and decay rather than grow if kept in such surroundings…What is to be done? For a boy like Jacks to spend the next three or four years alone with an old man like Kirk is almost certain to strengthen the very faults that are strongest in his disposition. He will make no acquaintances. He will see few people and he will grow more into a hermit than ever. The position is a difficult one and gives me many anxious hours. (LP IV: 160)

Albert asked Mr Kirkpatrick what he advised, and in his letter of 17 April he suggested that he send Jack back to Campbell College in Belfast. ‘The Campbell College is at your door,’ he said. ‘If he went there, he would be in contact with you, which ought surely to count for much at this period of growth…It is very kind of you to think of sending him to me, but do you not think it a little premature?’ (LP IV: 165). Mr Lewis persisted, almost begging Mr Kirkpatrick to accept him. ‘If he can hold on through this summer,’ Mr Kirkpatrick replied on 30 April, ‘I hope I shall be ready (if I am spared) to receive him in the autumn, if you are still in the same mind then. And here let me say that I feel almost overwhelmed by the compliment to myself personally which your letter expresses. To have been the teacher of the father and his two sons is surely a unique experience’ (LP IV: 167). Although Jack didn’t want to go back to Malvern for even one more term, Mr Lewis got him to agree to it as an ‘experiment’. If it became too bad, he would leave.

Sometime in mid-April, while this debate was going on, Jack came to know his ‘First Friend’. ‘His name was Arthur [Greeves]’ he wrote in SBJ VIII,

and he was my brother’s exact contemporary; he and I had been at Campbell together though we never met…I received a message saying that Arthur was in bed, convalescent, and would welcome a visit. I can’t remember what led me to accept this invitation, but for some reason I did.

I found Arthur sitting up in bed. On the table beside him lay a copy of Myths of the Norsemen.5

‘Do you like that?’ said I.

‘Do you like that?’ said he.

Next moment the book was in our hands, our heads were bent close together, we were pointing, quoting, talking–soon almost shouting–discovering in a torrent of questions that we liked not only the same thing, but the same parts of it and in the same way…Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none the less a wonder; as great a wonder…as first love, or even a greater. I had been so far from thinking such a friend possible that I had never even longed for one; no more than I longed to be King of England.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 169-70):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 3 May 1914

My dear Papy,

I suppose, when I come to think of the matter, it was rather foolish of me to write and ask for ‘a coat’, without specifying what kind. One is apt to imagine at times that the person to whom you speak can keep up with your thoughts, whether they are expressed or not. What I want is a common or garden jacket coat, same measurements as the last, and with not more than three buttons on the front.

There are now only some five weeks more. Thank goodness!! For to tell the truth, Malvern is hardly the place for a long stay. I think it would be as well to stick to our original plan of leaving at the end of the term. It is rather heavy going; the ceaseless round of fagging, hunting for clothes and books that have been ‘borrowed’, and other jobs that have to be done in what is euphemistically known as your ‘spare time’, gets very trying. It is literally true that from the time you get up in the morning till the time you go to bed at night, you have not a moment to spare.

And the worst of it all seems to be that I am not getting on too well in form. It’s discouraging. Whether it is that I haven’t time to do it, or that I’m losing my mental faculties, or the fact that it is getting harder, I don’t know: but the fact remains that things aren’t as they should be. Goodness knows, I work as hard as I can. But it’s all uphill. For instance, if you are hoping to do some of your surplus work in the interval between breakfast and morning school, it is very hard to have to give up that time to cleaning boots for some great big brute of a prefect at the bottom of the school. Then of course, as all your arrangements have been thrown out of joint, you don’t know the lesson. And you can’t give Smugy the real explanation. My chief dread is that he may get a bad impression, and I prize his opinion as much as that of any one. Then again, the whole atmosphere of the place is so brutal and unsavoury. In one word, it won’t do.

Of course this is no new discovery. We both agreed last holidays that it was only an experiment, and I am now giving the result of that experiment. There is no need for you to worry or to do anything other than we have already thought of. But I consider it better to let you know straight away that this place is a failure, than to leave the botch over until it is irreparable. I suppose Kirk’s is the best place for me. At any rate one of these ‘English Public Schools’, so famed in song and story, is not. To get on well at one of these, one needs to have a constitution of iron, a hide so thick that no insult will penetrate it, a brain that will never tire, and an intelligence able and ready to cope with the sharp gentlemen who surround you.

But these places are doomed. Books like the ‘Harrovians’ are the thin end of the wedge: and I don’t mind saying that if you came back in a couple of hundred years, there would be no Public Schools left. That is a sort of consolation: for, among other things, one learns here a power of hating with an almost incredible intensity. However, I suppose this sort of education is found to be suitable for some people. But on others it comes rather hard.

To turn to a brighter topic, I am very pleased to hear that W. is getting on well at Sandhurst. His letters to me are very cheerful, and at the same time more serious than some of his communications have been. All these facts point in the right direction.

In the mean time, how are things in the ancient and honourable city of Belfast? Perhaps all this unpleasantness in a foreign land has its use, in that it teaches one to love home and things connected with home all the more, by contrast. I suppose the aggravation of the social nuisance, which always accompanies Xmas has now died down. And what are the attractions at the popular houses of entertainment? Among other things that I want to know, has the great fire mystery been solved yet? It destroys my mental picture of Leeborough if I am not sure whether there still be a wall between the hall and the study or not. However, I am glad to say that I shall be able to see the whole thing for myself at no very distant date.

It is now half term, and there are only four or five weeks more. They will not be long in the going. I wonder is there any truth in the idea that a wise man can be equally happy in any circumstances. It suddenly struck me the other day that if you could imagine you were at home during the term, it would be just as good as the reality.

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 173-4):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 17 May 1914

My dear P.,

I must really apologise elaborately and profusely for having left you letterless this week: but the fact is that this has been my first opportunity.

First of all, you will be interested to learn that our friend Browning has not, as he anticipated, been raised from the position of House Pre. to that of School Pre. Instead, a humble and inoffensive person named Parker6 has been placed above him; at which you may well imagine his chagrin and my delight.

The new headmaster7 has created a good impression here already by making the servants clean our boots–thereby abolishing the most obnoxious source of fagging. So far he has spoken very little indeed, but when he speaks it is in a pleasant voice and in good English. He wastes no time. All this shapes very well, although (thank goodness) I shall not see much of his career.

Smugy’s wit on my late return did not exercise itself in my presence. But on the first day, as I am told, he expressed a fear lest I had been ‘killed in the war’. Ah, well! These people will soon learn that war is not a subject for joking; so for that shall we too.

The worst part of the summer term is the fact that we have to keep out of doors nearly all our time; but here one notices the great advantage of being in the Upper School, and therefore allowed to go into the Grundy Library at all hours of the day–it proves a great refuge when the ‘house’ is out of bounds.8

I have received a letter from Arthur Greeves. Intimate to him the fact that a suitable reply is being composed at our leisure. Note the royal plural. Well, it’s a good thing that two weeks at any rate have gone. How are the ‘rheumatics’ keeping? I suppose by this time you are in the depths of the house cleaning ceremony: have the study and hall been knocked into one, or any other funny thing happened?

This term in the Grundy I have discovered a new poet whom I must get, Yeats. I never read any of his works before, and both what he says and the way he says it, please me immensely. Do you know him or care for him at all?

Just one bit of ‘Kodotto’ before we stop. In the study or in your dressing room (not mine), you will find a little black book of Warnie’s, a Greek Testament. I should be very glad if you would send it here as soon as possible.

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 179-80):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 31 May 1914

My dear Papy,

Many apologies again for these same ‘epistolary shortcomings’. But the days this term are so very full, and are spent so much out of doors that it is very hard to polish off the weekly letter with anything like regularity.

What a nuisance that old arm is to be sure. However, I expect that when the fine weather sets in it will improve. I am sorry that in asking you to procure my Attic pentateuch I was compelling you to embark upon a voyage at once perilous and disagreeable and arduous (Johnsonese again). I hope that by the time this letter reaches you, the study wall will have been replaced and the stately hall of Leeborough will smile upon guest and inhabitant with its pristine splendour and hospitality. Of course in restoring the ‘main library’ you are careful to alter the appearance of the room as little as possible. It would be a pity if I came home to a strange house. In the meantime I hope that the small library has been allowed to remain untouched?

This week I am glad to say that the Greek grammar has been going a good deal better; I hope this will continue, as it would be a pleasure to secure a good report of these people before I left. Happily Browning has been ill at the Sanatorium since last Monday, which has kept him out of mischief for one week at least. Last week I got out of the library the works of our present poet laureate, Bridges, who did not impress me a bit;9 but I have now struck better ground in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’,10 which although melodramatic like all her books, shapes very well indeed.

Before I close I must request you to forward a little of the ‘ready’ as owing to exorbitant subscriptions, fines, and the expenses of the summer term, our whole study has run out of cash. As long as one of us was flush the other two could live upon him, but when all three are in this condition it is impossible.

I hope that your arm will not remain ‘hors de combat’ very long.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 180-1):

[Malvern College

5 June 1914]

Dear Arthur,

I really must apologize for having kept such a long and unjustifiable–silence. But the readiest means of mending that fault are those of writing fully and at once–which I now propose to do. To begin at the beginning, you had hardly been outside Little Lea for twenty minutes when a chance of not going back seemed to be held out to me, only, as you may guess, to be snatched away again. When we came to pack up my last few belongings, what should happen but that no key was to be found for my trunk! High and low we searched, but not a sign of it. My father was in despair: how was I to go back? How long would it take to have a new lock fitted? For a few moments I had a wild hope of staying at home. What was my disgust, when, almost at the last moment, Annie11 turned up with the required artical, and off I had to go!

Since then, I have lived or existed as one does at School. How dreary it all is! I could make some shift to put up with the work, the discomfort, and the school feeding: such inconveniences are only to be expected. But what irritates me more than anything else is the absolute lack of appreciation of anything like music or books which prevails among the people whom I am forced to call my companions. Can you imagine what it is like to live for twelve weeks among boys whose thoughts never rise above the dull daily round of cricket and work and eating? But I must not complain like this, I suppose. Malvern has its good points. It teaches one to appreciate home, and to despise that sort of lifelessness. If I had never seen the horrible spectacle which these coarse, brainless English schoolboys present, there might be a danger of my sometimes becoming like that myself. But, as it is, I have had warning enough for a lifetime. Another good point about Malvern is the Library, which is one of the best-stocked I have ever been in–not that anyone but myself and two or three others care twopence about it, of course! I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W.B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology. I must really get my father to buy his books when I come home. His works have all got that strange, eerie feeling about them, of which we are both proffessed admirers. I must get hold of them, certainly.

You can hardly tell how glad I was to hear that you were learning theory. It is a positive shame that you should go about with all those lofty strains running in your head, and yet never set pen to paper to perpetuate them. Of course, take the ‘Loki Bound’ MS.12 over to Bernagh,13 anytime you feel inclined to compose a little operatic music. Thank you very much indeed for undertaking the job of the gramaphone. I suppose by this time it is restored to its former condition. It makes me furious to think of your being able to walk about your house and ours and all the beautiful places we know in the country, while I am cooped up in this hot, ugly country of England. Where is your favourite walk? I hope that by this time you are quite recovered and are able to go about freely without fear of injury. County Down must be looking glorious just now: I can just picture the view of the Lough and Cave Hill from beside the Shepard’s Hut. Sometime next holydays, you and I must make a journey up their before breakfast. Have you ever done that? The sunrise over the Holywood Hills, and the fresh stillness of the early morning are well worth the trouble of early rising, I can assure you.

Since I have touched on the subject of health, I must ask a few questions of a disagreeable nature, on a matter which I have very near my heart. I have now had no direct letter from my father for over three weeks, and I hear that he is very ill. I would be very thankful indeed if you would go over and see him sometimes, and try and cheer him up: then you could tell me exactly how he is, and whether what I have heard has been exagerated or not–although I really don’t deserve a reply to this after the shameful way I have treated you with regard to letters. But I feel sure you won’t mind writing just a few lines, to tell me about yourself and family, and the state of various other things, besides my father’s health. As I am sure you are tired by this time of a long and melancholy letter, I will stop.

Yours affectionately

Jack Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 190-1):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 22 June 1914

My dear Papy,

Since I last wrote to you, I received, with your knowledge as I gather, a letter from Annie, short and comfortless enough to be sure, but still something to keep me from alarm. The most promising thing about her communication was that she promises me a letter from you at no very distant date. Do not force yourself to write until you feel thoroughly fit–but when you can, let me have a rare budget of news and reflections to compensate for the weeks ‘that the locust hath eaten’.14 Above all, don’t forget to tell me all about yourself. I will spare you the trite expressions of sorrow and hope for your recovery; between those who know each other so well, such remarks are out of place, and I am sure you have had enough of that sort of thing. I should like to encourage you to cheer up if I thought I should have any success in that line; I must at any rate mention one consoling circumstance–namely that it is now half way through this dreary term, and is only five weeks till we shall be together again. This week you will get the report: and I hope and pray, not without confidence, that it will do nothing to add to your discomfort. I think I have now crossed the Rubicon in Greek Grammar, and am now happily arrived at the safe side of it. Mr. Smith [Smugy] has been very kind to me indeed, and I think we shall part friends.

This week I have been reading a most remarkable book which has created a great impression. It is ‘The Upton Letters’,15 a series of letters from a school master at ‘Upton College’ to a friend whose health confines him in Madeira. They purport to have been actually written on such an occasion and not for publication; and indeed the utter absence of plot, or in some cases even of connection, make this seem to be true, although their wonderful beauty argues against it. But to come to my point: the great revelation of the book is the statement made somewhere that we ‘ought not to write about our actions but about our thoughts’. How wonderfully true. We busy ourselves, you and I, telling each other about the weather and the little trivial happenings of each day, while the thoughts of our hearts, the really great experiences of our selves, are seldom spoken of. Of course this is rather rhetorical and letters written entirely on those lines would tend to become monotonous. But the saying struck me so forcibly at the time that I thought I would mention it to you.

This week the natural course of our life has been torn up as it were, by a cyclone in the form of speech day. I suppose you will be able to read Preston’s speech in the Times, and give your own verdict upon it.16 For my part, I did not see much merit in it–a few trite maxims, a few of the usual jokes, and that was all. In fact if the truth must be told, Preston is not a big man. He is, as far as I can see, a learned and courtly gentleman of captivating manners, but not the person who can save the ruin of a tottering school. Malvern would seem to be fated by the gods never to secure the right man as her headmaster. It is gratifying for me to think that I may live to see the end of this place. Perhaps that is an ungenerous thought: and I should hesitate to bestow my loathing so heartily on anything, even an inanimate object, if I did not think that it would be a real benefit for the country if this place were suppressed.