Letters to a Sister (27 page)

Thank you so much for your letter. I don't believe Dorothea is right about R.C.s and communion, but I will find out & let you know, and if it is true will certainly go.
²⁵²
It might be
the turning point of our lives, like being converted and accepting Christ. Perhaps however it would be rash, as our C. of E. communions might after that seem empty….

I hear there is no Scottish Episcopal church in London so can't join it. Yes, Belloc was boring and revolting about the Church. Enough to keep anyone out of it.

V. much love….

E.R.M.

24 January, [1958]

Dearest Jeanie,

… When next I come we will have a mutual ‘Frankly Speaking'. I should be hopeless at it in public, I am much too shy. Violet B. C. was splendid.
²⁵³

I thought Unity Week as silly as ever. Simply shadow boxing; drawing red herrings such as ‘getting together'. When it comes to intercommunion, they all say there must be sacrifices on both sides. I see no need for any sacrifices at all; just an announcement from the heads of each church that in future intercommunion with every one else was o.k., and no nonsense about the Pope, bishops, orders, elders, and whatever else they've got. I like the article about Dr Fisher
²⁵⁴
; it is true that he seems sometimes to blow both ways, on many subjects. But I think he wants the right things. I doubt if he'll get round to stopping nuclear weapons; he is one of the many who think them a good deterrent that will never be used. He doesn't seem to see that even in the background they are savage. Like announcing that, if people do this or that crime, they will be burnt alive. It would no doubt deter,
and would probably be never used, but it would be like having some awful savage standing at the ready in a corner;
quite
out of keeping with civilisation….

I am now quite sought after by royalty. I have been commanded to dine with H.M. and the Duke of Edinburgh on Feb. 18th. I hope I shall behave rightly. Today I have an invitation to dine somewhere else and meet the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, also on 18th. I won't reply that unfortunately I can't because I am dining with the Queen that night, tho' it is tempting.

I thought Janet Adam Smith very understanding on the ‘Critics' about
The World my Wilderness.
²⁵⁵
She is one of the two literary editors of the
New Statesman.
… The others
²⁵⁶
were, I thought, quite polite and honest, and I more or less agreed with their views. Of course even if it hadn't been by me, Arnot Robertson wouldn't care for a book about ruins, or about ideas; she is all for people and nothing but people. The only thing she liked, she said, was a remark I made about the cook. However I don't think it matters what the ‘Critics' say about a Penguin, [when the novel itself was] published so long ago. What I don't like is the picture of Barbary on the cover, they've made her so hideous, and I feel the Penguin audience wouldn't care for that.

I am reading a lot about Newman, besides this new French Life which is v.g.
²⁵⁷
A strange man.
Nothing
is quoted that he ever said or wrote in letters which isn't about religion. It must have been very monotonous, and tedious to those of his friends whose interests were different. But an extraordinary number of them just then had the obsession too.

I go on getting furious illiterate letters about Anglicans thinking they have Mass. It is an interesting psychology. They
sound like snarling dogs with a bone when they think someone else has a bone like it; or perhaps a woman with an exclusive model dress, learning that others have it too. It seems very shocking & unchristian. I'm glad we don't write to Nonconformists in that strain, furious because they think they have communion services. I am told there is a great element of bitterness imported by ignorant Irish priests who hate the English. Gerard Irvine was told the other day, apparently in good faith, that of course Protestant priests always repeated what they heard in confession, as they weren't vowed not to. Nothing he could say convinced the man who told him; he had been told so by his priests, and was sure. Such hate is uncomfortable. I wonder if one day the R. Church will suddenly see the light and realise that it is very wrong. I enclose an article
²⁵⁸
by Dr Micklem (‘Ilico') that I like. May I have it back, sometime, please.

Very much love. Do stay in & keep warm, like me.

E.R.M.

Long Crichel House, Wimborne, Dorset [14 February, 1958] St Valentine's Day

Dearest Jeanie,

I looked for you on Tuesday after the ceremony,
²⁵⁹
and also in the audience room when I came into it after my own bit was done, but I couldn't see you. I expect you came out before the end. I had to wait till it was over, as all the others did. We all met beforehand in another room, as you did before your investiture, and received instructions. I knew several knights—Julian Huxley, Jim Butler, Steven Runciman, the Master of Pembroke,
²⁶⁰
and also met the Bp of Gloucester,
²⁶¹
whom I liked. His knighthood isn't much use to him, and none to his wife, as they won't be called sir and lady, which is rather dull… The Queen was very charming, and said nice words to us all. When I got home the
Evening Standard
rang up asking what she had said to me. I said ‘nothing'. I was half afraid of seeing a heading in the
Standard
‘The Queen snubs Dame Rose', but luckily there wasn't.

I meant to write earlier, but have been living such a lethargic life in this comfortable house, lying in bed till lunch time nearly, then lunch, then a short stroll of about ¼ mile, then back to more lethargy. Raymond Mortimer is alone here this week, and after the morning, when he works, we talk and read, and it is all very nice.... I am reading a lot of interesting books here. Very much love….

Your loving
E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 24 February, [195S]

Dearest Jeanie,

Thank you so much for yours, and for returning the Abbot.
²⁶²
The young man
²⁶³
at the Faith Press, who are publishing the book, thought I hadn't enough conveyed his charm, which seems to have been almost hypnotic, so I read it again and thought I hadn't, and put in a few remarks to improve it. I also altered ‘manic depressive' to ‘paranoiac', which I am sure is the right word, and what he was. I hope the author of the book, Peter Anson, will think it all right.
²⁶⁴
He was really very fond of the Abbot, though brings out his faults
clearly. I should like to meet someone who was under him at Caldey,
²⁶⁵
but I fancy they are all dead now, except Anson. I can see he might have been fascinating, but I should have been repelled by all that fondling & kissing that went on, as well as by all the extravagance.

I enclose a letter from Dorothea.... I like Fanny Macaulay's remark to John Cropper about how the paper he made might be used for R.C. tracts.
²⁶⁶
I sympathise with her distaste for these.

I am coming in for a lot of Lent addresses just now. We had the Bish. of Kensington
²⁶⁷
on Sunday, and he was excellent. On Sunday evening at St Paul's Fr Harris has started questions and answers instead of regular sermons, and asked us to put questions into a box for answering. A very dull question about church organization was dealt with. The curate told me he was answering next Sunday one about prayer, that he had asked himself, which doesn't seem to me fair. I put in one. I think it will be a popular service, tho' the TV religious competition on Sunday evenings is heavy, of course, and will always keep a lot of people at home, till they alter the time of the religious discussion to later in the evening. On Wednesdays [at] lunch-time I see St Cyprian's [Clarence Gate] is having an ‘Any Questions' service, which I may go to sometimes when free. I think TV has put the church on its mettle, which is all to the good. I'm afraid I can't come this week, by the way, as on Friday I dine somewhere to meet the Duchess of Kent, whom I missed by going away before. I hope she is as beautiful as she looks in her photographs….

The rocket site news gets more & more disgusting.
²⁶⁸
People
write letters about nuclear [disarmament] and ask me to join in signing them, but I seldom do, as they don't usually say what I think about it. It's no good saying nuclear weapons aren't deterrent, they probably are, but are just wrong and cruel and uncivilised, which is the point. Burning people alive for stealing would be a deterrent, but no one now would dream of it as a possibility, we have got past it. But not yet past the dream of mass bombing. I suppose we shall one day. Constance thinks Christ didn't disapprove of war, but I can't remember that he ever mentioned it, and he certainly would have disapproved, it seems to me.
²⁶⁹
I am reading the Bp of Cape Town's
Uncomfortable Words,
²⁷⁰
which I bought, and will give them to you later.

25th.
… This fashion for violence at meetings is alarming. The Rent Act one seems to have been terribly brutal.
²⁷¹
I
feel
like throwing chairs & tables, but refrain. I suppose many young men enjoy violence for its own sake, on whatever pretext; a very alarming symptom.

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 12 March, [1958]

Dearest Jeanie,

... Re religion, I think it would be interesting to note down, day by day, the religions, when known, of the people we meet. If we both do that, and perhaps get Dorothea too (I think
it might interest her), we could be a kind of research institute. (Omitting those we only meet in church, and the clergy.) This week I met:
Monday,
Lunched with a non-religious man (called in my list m.);
Tuesday,
Lunched with a non. (m); also present 1 R.C. m. (from cradle), 1 non.m…. 1 F. non (lapsed French R.C), 1 m. (lately down from King's, I think non, but don't know), and 2 girls not met before, so don't know. In evening went to church with Anglican priest (no, of course I am not counting these) and his brother, a lawyer, also Anglican (extreme).
Today
I have had communication with couple upstairs, both non. Also in this block of Hinde House are 3 Jews, I
think
practising, but I only know one of them well enough to ask; she is Sara, the hairdresser on ground floor. The single Jew has that little token like a snail that they put outside their doors sometimes,
²⁷²
so I assume he practises.
Tomorrow
I am going to lunch with a non couple, and will note whom I meet, but usually most are nons there, and mostly literary or political. I had a middle aged Durham carpenter the other day mending my window, and I gathered he was non, from something he said. I find there is a good deal of connection between religion and churchgoing. All believing R.C.s go to Mass (unless excommunicated by un-confessed mortal sin) as not going to Mass on Sundays (when possible) is a mortal sin, a R.C. friend told me. There is a list of these. Lying isn't, unless complicated by some mortal-sin motive, or mortal in its effects on someone. I think fornication etc. is and must be confessed before communion.
²⁷³
An R.C. (m) told me the other day that he had had a great relief once, some years back, when he made his confession in a strange church, & confessed a great many bad things at some length, and when he had done the priest said a few words in Latin and then absolved him without remark and when he got outside the box he noticed that it was the box
for Spaniards, so he concluded the priest hadn't understood a word of what he had said. I suppose he would know some English, but not enough to follow an English confession. Another time, said this talkative R.C. man, he confessed to a priest who took him for a priest, and was very severe on his sins, till he said suddenly before the end of his lecture, ‘You
are
a priest, aren't you?' When he said no, the priest's attitude changed, and was quite tolerant and indulgent and he only got the usual nominal penance. I suppose it is right to be sterner with priests.

I will bring on Friday my reports up to then. I expect both you and Dorothea meet more religious people than I do, as literary people seem on the whole apt to be non…. Thank goodness I have at last finished my wretched foreword to Peter Anson's book about the abbot…. [He] was a most shocking character—someone who knew him advised P.A. not to write his life, but ‘let him be forgotten'….

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1
[17
March, 1958] St Patrick's Day

Dearest Jeanie,

Many thanks for C.S. Lewis's letter
²⁷⁴
which I return. It gives quite a reasonable answer, I think. When I read the book I
didn't get it all, e.g. about her [Orual's] jealousy of Ungit for being beautiful and good. But I read it rather quickly and probably not very carefully, being slightly hampered by its unplaceable period & people.

I am sorry you were worried about me; I was a little tired on Friday, but quite well now. I suppose all our memories are getting muddled; mine is. It is a nuisance, losing things and forgetting appointments and to answer letters etc. But what I'm afraid of is getting the part of my brain muddled which I use for writing. So far I think it is all right, but if it begins to fail, and I find myself unable to put my words together properly, and [start] writing awful sentences, and general low-grade nonsense of the kind I don't like in many writers, I shall give it up. I don't actually remember any writers who have gone to pieces in that way thro' age, so perhaps it doesn't happen, tho' one's intellect certainly fails in business & other matters. But I am relieved to notice that most elderly people go on writing much the same as before....