Letters to a Sister (17 page)

I long to see you again & tell & hear everything. It is difficult to imagine it cold and wet, with this enervatingly hot weather here. A young Turk, practising his English on me, told me it rained on 200 days a year in London. I dare say it does, should you say?

Why does the Crockford preface rock the Church, and in which direction?
³³
Perhaps only to sleep. To which I must now go myself. This
is
a lovely place, with lit battleships in
the harbour, and crowds of palms all round the shore. I wish 1 dared bathe. I expect the German girl does. Very much love, & don't die of over-work, it's not worth it.

Your loving
E.R.M.

Istanbul 1 July, [1954}

Dearest Jeanie,

... I am now here for the week-end, and to-morrow hope to go to Troy, if I can reach it. I don't feel very energetic, but it would be a shame to be so near and not see it, when I shall never be here again. Istanbul is hot, but not so intensely hot as the south. At Smyrna I had a room you wouldn't put a goat in—very small, looking on a well, with a window of another bedroom in each of the four walls, and practically no air. I didn't feel very well, actually. But I got to Ephesus yesterday by train—only 50 miles but three hours each way. A little village, and the ruins of Ephesus 2 kilometres away—marble courts & forum & theatre & gymnasium & columns—it must have been a grand city when the locals shouted ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians' for hours in the theatre when St Paul was there. The great temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the world) which was destroyed and lost for centuries and only found again in 1869
(after
our grandfather
³⁴
was there) was excavated and neatly arranged by British archaeologists last century; but the wretched Turks of course have let it go under a marsh again, and there are now only a few columns showing above a pool of water, and canes growing round them. They have no idea what Ephesus was, or how great the temple. There is the ruined acropolis, with Byzantine and Turkish Castle, and the columns of Justinian's great Basilica of S. John on the hill by it. It was
all very desolate and moving, and just what I had read of.

I'm sorry, it was my fault not enclosing the letters on Pacifism.
³⁵
You have got the wrong idea; I never said Pacifism was
simple,
but couldn't understand all this about ‘Christian perfectionism' etc, because it does seem to me a question of human decency, not of perfectionism at all and scarcely even of Christianity—except in so far as Christianity confirms and demands human decency. I think Einstein was wrong in persuading Roosevelt to use atom bombs.
³⁶

I hope you took notes of the Billy Graham discussion; I should like to know what lines they took.
³⁷
They are very different men: MacLeod is better; also, being a Presbyterian would, I imagine, have more sympathy with B.G. than Muggeridge, who is either R.C., Anglican, or (more likely) nothing.

What extraordinary letters people write to people they don't know! I have got a
most
impertinent one from a man who is furious because I said on the [B.B.C.] ‘Critics' that I saw no reason why children shouldn't see the X film we were discussing. Apparently I said that I had been allowed to read what books I liked as a child, and they had done me no harm. He said on the contrary, I flattered myself, they had obviously done me
great
harm, if I was willing that innocent children should see X films. I wonder in what mood people write these impertinent letters—I suppose indignation. But
it is difficult to imagine such rude impulses being yielded to. I suppose Aunt Mary might. But she wouldn't write so vulgarly, being educated. I don't like getting rude letters; it is like having mud thrown at you. I never answer them, of course.

It is rather restful to be in Istanbul for a few days, though I am again in a room unfit for a goat. I sit in a lounge outside it, where it is much cooler. I hope to get on with my writing here—novel, poetry, articles etc., and, except Troy & seeing a few people, shan't try to do anything much. I do look forward to the cold wet sponge. I had an interesting talk with a German this morning who has lived in Turkey … for 17 years. He thinks Turks on the whole (as I do) the stupidest people in the world, and not really belonging to Europe, which they drifted into over the centuries from the eastern plains. He thinks Ataturk has done something to improve them, but even now the taxi-drivers can't find their way about, and the trains can't do more than about 20 miles an hour, and the economy of the country is getting worse and worse. He thinks the women (outside the large westernized towns) will take at least 50 years more to recover from the Koran and cast off their hot muffling clothes. The Prophet was very firm about their not letting men see their faces or hair. Perhaps in the Middle Ages it
would
have been rather rash of women to let Turkish men see much of them. But the men aren't told to behave decently, it is the women who mustn't tempt them. He says the women usually die early of such unhealthy clothes. He asked the Turkish maid why she didn't dress like his wife in hot weather; she said she couldn't, her religion forbade it. An awful life it must be. Besides being hot, they are scorned and unfit to pray.

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 4 February, [1955]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I should certainly encourage your catechumen to hope. But if she can also do a little believing, she will pray with more confidence and on a firmer basis. But very likely she can't. Mere hope is rather frail under the stresses of life. But of course everyone must do what they can, and not worry....

I am getting very confident on the bicycle.
³⁸
As my porter says, it will keep my weight down. No mishaps so far. At least, not to me, though a bus banged into the back of a car which stopped for me while I crossed at the pedestrian crossing. Bus drivers are taken by surprise when cars stop for crossings, it seems to them so odd and wrong.
My
car got banged in that way once. Buses are the rogue elephants of the road, and probably unteachable. I think it is being so powerful, and power corrupts. Now great new roads are being planned, which will speed up traffic dangerously….

The car sounds not
too
badly damaged, and I hope in a few weeks to get it back.

A lot of talk about abolishing war going about. I wish they'd think of a way!

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 20 February, [1955]

Dearest Jeanie,

I hope you still survive, and aren't having an awful time walking about in the snow and ice. I find this much more tiring than bicycling, & less safe. Today cars and pedestrians
were glissading all about the roads, while my rubber tyres gripped the icy surface firmly, and I only glissaded when I jumped off or walked. The snow lay deep when I first went out, coated with ice; later they had thawed some of the streets with salt, though not the pavements. I went to early Mass at the Chapel and the later one to S. Paul's,
³⁹
where Fr Henderson
⁴⁰
preached a really splendid beginning-of-Lent sermon, the best of its kind I have heard, I think. I am glad he is so near me, so that I can get there even without the car….

I have a Shrove Tuesday party here; after that, says Fr Henderson, parties should be laid aside for Lent. Also smoking, drinking, eating nice things, idling, self-indulgence, spending money except when necessary—he made it sound like a hard campaign; and, he added, if we don't behave better by the end of it, it will all have been wasted effort. I'm sure bicycling instead of driving is very Lenten. And certainly your bicycling about in the snow is. I wish your colleagues would take Lent to heart, & be content to be a little put upon.

I saw a ridiculous film yesterday instead of coming to you, a Japanese film about Samurai,
⁴¹
detestable creatures, gibbering and yelling and fighting.... I thought
Sailor Beware
⁴²
good, which we saw for the ‘Critics' for next week.

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 22 February, [1955]

Dearest Jeanie,

I had better hurry and give my [definition of] minimum Christianity before I finish your letter; I've not read yours yet. I haven't much time for mine, as I am fighting against time this morning. But I think I should call a person a Christian if he believes in God, (I call it ‘believe', but you can translate it into ‘hope', as we probably mean the same—I mean ‘believe enough to pray to') and in something that may be called Christ's ‘divinity', i.e. that he was connected with God in some way we are not, that he survives in spirit, and can be communicated with. I
think
this is what distinguishes a Christian from (say) a Unitarian. A non-Christian may make his communion and get good from it, of course, though it can't well mean quite as much to him as to someone who thinks there was (and is) something special about Christ and his relationship both to God and to human beings. Of course one may say none of it is ‘belief, but only ‘hope', but that is just a question of words and names. It has nothing to do with behaviour, as non-Christians can be as good, and Christians as bad, as anyone else. Now I will look at yours. I have. Of course the two great commandments were pre-Christian, as Christ himself said, so I don't think that can be a definition. I'm not sure what ‘love incarnate' means, it is too vague, and doesn't imply any special relationship of Christ to God, which I think is one of the ingredients. I feel my definition is more exact. Yours would almost cover Jews, who accept the two great commandments in the Old Testament and believe (some of them) that Christ was full of love though not divine.

I have just heard that my car will be
3 weeks
more, as they haven't yet started on the repairs. I am furious, and not full of love at all. But my bicycle is a great comfort, it is very
safe in snow and ice, but so much colder and slower than a car, of course. All right for Lent. I don't call Lent self-denials ‘penances' but training in self-control and hardness, as Fr Henderson said, which is useful at any age….

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 13 March [1955]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I am nearly all right now. No temperature, in fact too little. For some time I thought I was normal and didn't know why I felt queer, but, knocking the therm, down further, found I was between 95 and 96. It sometimes now reaches normal, but is variable, and I go on feeling rather tired. No doubt, as you suggest, I am radio-activized: perhaps we all are. If so, it's not too bad, and perhaps it
wont
be the end of civilization. All the same, I'm glad Richard Acland has made his gesture.
⁴³
I wish he had put it rather differently; if I were him I would have said that it very likely wouldn't bring peace or non-aggression at all, why should it, but in any case we mustn't commit so dreadful a cruelty. I think I would rather we were wiped out or ruled by Communists than do it; but then I am old. I complained of the same thing in the pacifists of the war and before the war; they would go on saying that non-fighting would make Hitler not fight too, as he would be so touched, instead of simply that fighting was a barbarity not to be committed in any case, which is a strong position. Did you hear that Cardinal Griffin said that, in case of a just war, it would be all right to drop atom bombs on the ‘unjust
and violent aggressor'?
⁴⁴
Really he ought to be deprived of his job for imbecility. I don't know if he thinks the bomb can pick out the Kremlin and have no further effects, or that
all
the people of a hostile country are unjust and violent enough to deserve radio-activization or mutilation and death. Yet no one protests against his speech in public. What a world of humbug it is! I had an interesting talk yesterday with a young Jew, whom I met travelling in Palestine etc. in '53. We made friends there, and went to several places in Israel together. His father is a London barrister, and he is down lately from Cambridge, and writing on art. He isn't himself a believing Jew, but knows about it of course. He thinks Christianity most extraordinary; he was taught it at Rugby. He thinks the main difference between it and Judaism is that Christians seem to look back to Christ's life and death, as the mainspring and centre of their faith, while Jews look forward to the gradual coming of God's kingdom on earth. He doesn't see why Christians speak of being ‘redeemed by Christ' and the world being so also, when obviously it isn't redeemed at all. He can't understand what Christians think Christ did for them, beyond teaching. Like most non-Christians, he accepts as Christianity a theological system which is still taught, both in pulpits and in schools, but which most thoughtful and educated people have laid aside as primitive. It was complained of in a book I was reading by an old Etonian.
⁴⁵
Religion must be very badly taught in schools, I imagine. He was at Eton over 50 years ago; it may be better now; but this boy was at Rugby only a few years back. He thought it odd that I, for instance, should put my own interpretation on things, quite different from the orthodox one; he thought that Christianity should be either accepted, or
discarded, not stretched and lopped to fit different minds & periods. Perhaps it is a pity so much got written down about it, to crystallise it, and that it is never revised. Meanwhile we must just take what we can and as we can, and leave the rest.

No, we don't mention Billy Graham in any church I attend. I believe we think he mustn't be discouraged, as he is on the side of the angels, but that it is a pity he doesn't mention the sacraments, and takes this sudden & emotional view of conversion….