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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to S. F. Newcombe
All Souls College,
Oxford.
Nov. 16 [1920].
Dear S.F.N.,
I came down last night and found masses of overdue letters: amongst them several of yours. The last should have been fire and brimstone: instead they showed forth an over-angelic sweetness of reason, which has prostrated me. It's no good writing to me at all: neither fair treatment nor foul move me to answer soon enough.
Your article I took up to London very quickly: as soon as I could after I got it. Morning Post I don't touch: it seems to me not sane. So there remained the Daily Telegraph. I tried to get Lord Burnham, but failed (He was away in country). So then I left it for him, with an explanation.
I don't read the paper, so I don't know on what date it appeared: judging from the two enclosed, it must have been last month. I don't like writing to ask when, because it would show that I don't every day lap up the food he offers. I take it the cheque was sent me for their convenience: and because I forgot to give them your address. I wish I had got it sooner, and that I had noted the day on which the article appeared.
I've signed the effort (the cheque) to facilitate your cashing it. I believe that is how things are done.
A sentence in your 3rd-letter-from-the-last troubles me: it concerns those beastly carpets. Has Mrs. Newcombe understood that carpet No. i. is her commission for retrieving them from Arab Bureau?
Carpet No. ii. is my instalment of wedding present, pending the receipt of a new fortune from some unspecified but overdue quarter.
E.L.
Pour les Irish: only
one horrid word
You can't make war upon rebellion.
L.
Note. The Daily Telegraph article published Newcombe's article on 30 October 1920, but attributed to Lawrence.
| Source: | DG 321-2 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 22 January 2006 |
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset