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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Frederic Manning
2. v. 30
[15 lines omitted] The Epicurus1 is being read by me, very gradually. Only I began with Epicurus himself and will read the introduction last. It seems fairer to the old man to see him with my own eyes before you tell me of him. Not so? [7 lines omitted]
Your letter about A.E. was pleasing. Thanks to Mrs Bernard Shaw I had been to nearly two years a reader of his Irish Statesman, a little paper he has been doing in Dublin. Of course A.E. is a wonderful poet, and great man. You'll have noted that even George Moore cannot say anything caddish about him; but his paper was something special. He wrote everything in it which mattered, and his stuff glimmered like a candle-light against a background of intense darkness. I got the fancy, when the Statesman stopped, that Ireland had gone out. He seemed the only civil intelligence there!
It may have been because his Protestantism isolated him in a clerical country: but all I can say is that A.E. seemed to be very different from the rest of the world. He is almost a most sane, moderate, wise and original critic, who criticises as a workman, not as a scientist. That is refreshing. I'm told that he is old now, and tired. Anyway I know he is remarkable. We had better not meet, for my talking, that he wished to hear, isn't any good. I'm not Irish enough for that!
Yours,
T.E.S.
1. A new edition of Morals by Epicurus containing an introduction by Frederic Manning.
| Source: | DG 688-9 |
| Checked: | dn/ |
| Last revised: | 28 October 2008 |
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