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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Eric Kennington
Tank-town
30.3.23.
Dear K.,
You're a hero - a . . . . . ero they'd say in this place: which is Hardy's Egdon Heath. The Heath is good... and I saw Hardy yesterday: paid for seeing him too, for it meant cutting a parade! However it was worth it, and I'm going again, if ever he asks me. His weakness in character-drawing is a reflection of himself. A very sensitive little man: faded now: with hope yet that mankind will give up warfare. He felt incredibly old to me.
It's very good that you got Wilson, and got him well. He's the best type of colonial-governing-Englishman, would be broader if he wasn't so clean, too. I wish I could see it, but this place won't let us away till we finish our course (in August or September). Time is going very slow.
Will you look at Roberts' painting of me? it's heroic in size: and is in his hands. I'd like your opinion of it. It flatters me, I think.
John made some new drawings of me the other day, and one of Hogarth, for me. They may be in his new show at the Alpine. Hogarth was v.g.
Y.E.
.L.
| Source: | DG 406 |
| Checked: | mv/ |
| Last revised: | 19 February 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