D. H. Lawrence in His Novels

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Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School

1933

D. H. Lawrence in his novels

Ruth Crosby Dix The University of Montana

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Recommended Citation Dix, Ruth Crosby, "D. H. Lawrence in his novels" (1933). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 1971. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/1971

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I . P reface II# Introduction III. Kdther-Gblld Relationship IV. Xan-Vosan Relationship V. &m-Kan Relationship VI. Xan*Group Relationship VII. leader-Volloeer Relationship V III. Ran-3Wurk Gods Relationship IX. Minor Experiences Treated in the Kovels X. Attitudes XI. Conclusion X II. Bibliography - 1.

P re fa c e

Be biography of D# K. I«ivrence hae æ yet been w rit^ fen. It «as neoeeeaüqr* before undertaking #&ie study, to know as thoroughly ae possible the life of Xewrenoe in order to recog n iz e th e mm in hie novels. Although I have leaned most heavily for thils knowledge upon the Letters of D. R. Lawrence, published in 1932 by Mdous Bmcley, I am greatly indebted to John Kiddie ton lfcurry*a Son of Woman aW Catherine Garswell'e Savage Pilgrimage. I have also gained infoM»ation and impressions about lawrence's life from Ibbel Bodge !iuhan*s book# loremzo in Taos, published in 1932, and Boro thy B rett's lUwrrence and B rett, w hi^ hem just come off the press, fo other authors from whom I have gained material, 1 have given credit in the footnotes. I have dealt fully w iti the six best novels of B. R. law ren ee. C I have not included Badv Ghatterlev's lover, which a number of critics consider one of his best, because the theme of it seemed to me merely an embroidery upon better works )• fhose considered w e: Sons and Lovers. The Rainbow. Women in Love. Aaron's Rod. Kanmwroo. and The Plmed Serpent. I have chosen th e se also because they show the developomnt of the different esperienc- es in Lawrence's life as Ihey occurred, I have dealt with #^e novels in the order in which theywere written as ^ e experiences have been treated in the novels in the saw chronological order as they occurred in his own life. Ali letter#, with their page referemoes, unless otherwise indieateâ, have heea taken from the collected volume edited hy H uxley, -S*

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S t«3^ n o T « li« t p u ts morne#Llng o f h lm eelf In to him novelm. Hlm iaeam, emotion#, ana feelings are often expremeea through his works. Critics have taken it for granted that from SÊS& and lovers to Ladv ghatterley*s lover there is a record of lawrence*8 personal life# William Ibfoy, in a review of the Letters asserts that • It would he possible in a longer study to make an interesting cor relation between the various sections of the letters and the cor- resi^nding periods in Lawrence*s writing carter.* He further M serts ^lat Lawrence has accepted and rejected, in turn, the idew» of love #md friendship, and abandoned himself finally to the 2 *non-human sources of energy in the blood j**'tha Hark Gods.** It is the purpose of this paper to discover to what extent the correlation can be mwde between ^ e life of Lawrence em part icularly shown through his letter# and the sections of his novels which correspond to his own life. When one reads titie novels, there comes to him a feeling that # e eagperiences, ideas and «motions foimd therein were truly hawrenoe*s own. It was, therefore, with great interest that I

1 . A. Grego^, "A rtist Turned Rro^iet*, in Dial (Jan. 1924) pp. «6-72, Lawrence Powell, *D, H. Lawrence*, Sat. Raw, Lit. (June 1930)p. 1130 Vol. 6. IWx Plowman, Editor , *ew Adelphi,(Aug. 1930) pp. 243-253. 2. William T ro y , "Beview of Letters", The Symposium. (Jan. 1933) Vol. IV Bo. 1, pp. 85-94. studied the letters of %mOPemee to find eðer or not the eor- reXatlo n eouXd he maAe, % at eorrelath n would determine, of eourae, how fully Lawrenoe entered his own work as a character end how completely he set forth hie own experiences. Ideas and. « n o tio n s, I chose to divide this study into six ewiln parts In order to find whether or not his novels followed closely and chronologic ally the events that were taking place In his life during his writing career. These divisions are; the zmther-chlld relation s h ip , th e m«Q-wo:%n r e la tio n s h ip , the man to man r e la tio n s h ip , the man to the group relationship, the leader-follower relatlom- A lp, and the man to the *%rk Gods* relationship, A chapter of attitudes la Inserted for the purpose of forming a m»re complete picture of lawrenee, the man, I made such a division for the rea son that lawrenee was especially interested in human relationship# and felt that he could not exist wlthci t ti^em. In an article entitled *Ve leed One Another*, he wrote, "People cannot exist as Individualists absolute and Independent from any ties or relatiem- W&lp, A man who has never had a vital relath nshlp to any other human being doesn't really have a soul, A soul Is some^lng ^ a t form and fulfills itself in my oontmts , my living touch with 1 people have loved or hated or truly known. *

1. B.H. lawrenoe, *We Seed One Another*. Scribner's Sagasine Vol. 87,(May 1950) pp. 479-48*. " —S*»

I I I . MMPmabCKiiB mmATïommip

Bârid Rerhert Imerence m ti» on September XX» X885, la Baetvood» Ko ttim^wwmhXre» & mining Tillage e f "eome tisxee then- sand soûle*. It mas a hilly oentry, looking «est toward Crioh and 1 K atlo ek . Vmm lawrenoe spent the greater portion of his early years. It is not untmual for a novelist to lay the setting for his novels in his native village or environs. lawremee* however* has desoribed» at length, the «met situation of the oottageslin the novel l^ns m& lovers as being that of his own home. His home ems- in toe Breato, whito waa the seetion eontaining the eeoond from toe lowest Glass of honses. Itoe same seotion in toe novel a is given toe naim of the %ttom#. toe two novels which follow are set in toe h ill omntry about Crito, while toe fourto is again set in the mining village. IsnrrenMse himself asserts that this s^vel. Sons and lovezw is w#tobiogra#iioal. Panl Morel, in toe story, is toe toaraoter who is made to carry &swrenee*s experiences and feelings. In jd^sioal appearance he was like Wfrance, We have tois description of tW a u th o r from Oatoerine Gars#ell. * I was sensible of a fine, rare beauty in lawrenee, with his deep-set Jewel-like eyes, (I always thought iawrence*8 eyes were grey not blue, but I am assured on good authority toat I was wrong, also that toward the end of his life toey beea^ intensely blue)* thick dust-coloured hair, pointed

1. lemrrenee, *Kottin^Oamshire and the Mining Countryside*, Mew Adel toi (June-dug. 1930) pp. 255-263. 2. lawrence , Sons and levers fp. 3 ff. cuadarlip me table #«#@W»88* fine hands* and rapid but never restless movements," Xaurice lesanann in his sketch, R. Wirence in Xexioc*, says that lawrence w&a very slight , almost frail of body, ^e . ^ 2 . had a red beard and small, bright blue eyes. This frailness of body and delicacy of health often attwhed itself to the man who, in each of his novels, was most like lawrenoe^ Paul Morel, in Sons and lovers, is described thus; •Paul wnld be built like his mother, slightly and rather ^tall. His fair h a ir went reddish, and then dark brown; h is eyes were grey, he was a pale, quiet child, with eyes that seemed to listen, and with a full dropping underlip.* One c r i t i c h as said that •Hatred of the father and t o much love for the mother are liet-m >tifs of everything thi# author has 4 w ritte n .* The novel. Sons and Lovers brings out this feeling mere decidedly than any of the other novels. We find that even Paul's mother hW a hatred for her own father. She *hated his overbearing § manner towards her gentle,: j hiœorous, kindly-sauled mother.* %en we can see that this feeling of hatredbwas engendered in at least one generation previous to the young Paul's.

|- Mgg. ^ Igvep, p. 72. lA«3rence*8 falser was a miner# and# from the hrle^MOOunte that we have of him# it is saife to assume that the Hr. Morel of the novel is he. Imwrenoe gives us this experienee from his own l i f e w ith the fa th e rs "when he would come home from p i t i n h is pit-dirt# hang-hang his hag down in the scullery# drop heavily into a chair to take off his pit-hoots# aak if anyone had hrou#it his trousers down# and chamge from his amleskins before the kitchen fire ^ Bow I hated him as he stood there in his singlet and waist- ooatZ* In the novel, the fatherfs home-comis% is given realisticatlly and we have the additional information of the cruelty of the father to the m>ther..*Often Paul would wake up# after he had been a sle e p a long time# aware of thuds downstairs. Instantly he was wide-awake, then he heard the booming shouts of his father# come home nearly drunk# then the sharp replies of his&aother# then the bang# bsuog of his father's fist on the table » and the nasty snarling shei t as S the amn's voice got higher.* There are a number of instances where the difference of atti- Wde toward the parents is shown. *A11 the children, but partic ularly Paul, was peculiarly against their father# along with their 4 moWier#* #md "Conversation was impossible between the father and any other emmber of the family. He was an outsider. He had denied 5 the God in him.* I# J.M.Hurry, "Reminiscences of D.H.Iawreooe*. Hew AdelchiJune-dug. 1930) pp. 264-275. 2. Sorag and Levers pp. 33# 35. 3. ïbià. p. 76. 4. Ibid. p. 74. 5. Ibid. p. 80. - 8 -

iriust striet with his children# if he were told that they had stebehawed in @my way* he wovOLà invaiably go home to beat th«m nm^roifally* without giving them any op^rtunity to explain their 1 sid e o f th e story. I#erenoe implied the same attitude in his own falher in this statmment to Edward Garnett about one of h is e a rly levels. * I am always ready to b e lie v e the worst that is said about my work, and reluctant of the best. ?a#er was like that 2 with us children.* %e feeling for the mine ^ a t lawremce's father hW was att* ributed to Morel. Both men loved the pit; it was their element* immratma s a id , * My father lovea the pit. Me ww hurt badly more than once, but he would never stay away, he lover the contact# the intimacy, as w n in the war loved the intense male comnrg^eshlp 3 o f the dark days.* Morel was always getting hurt. These lines tell of the gen eral procedure each time the event occurred. * Morel was r a th e r a heedless mm, careless of danger. So he had endless accidents. Sow* when Mrs. morel heard the rattle of an empty coal-cart cease at her entry-end, she ran into the parleur to look* expecting al most to see her husband seated in the waggén/sicj, his face grey imder his dirt* his body limp and sick with sosm hurt or othe*. I f i t were he* she would run out to help.*^

1. Sons and Lovers p. 65, 2. MMgyi Ian.19* 1912 p. 22. 3. Sawrence* *Sottingham"etc. Op. Cit. 4 k Sons and Xiovers p. 105. - 9-

HaTiag found the setting, the environment of the horn# and the eountryslde of this swivel to he almost ^aotly i#sren@e*s own «we are prepared to oonslder the relationship of the son to me mother. We have very little In the letters of P.H.Iawrenee ooneem* ing his mother or their relationship to each other. We have only w ritte n one letter pahlished before 1910, the yearo f h er death. And there are not many references to her. From the things which hawrenoe does s a y , we know th a t m e attiu ^h sen t between the two was very strong. Critics of lawrence take mis for granted. Mrs. Carswell merely mentions me fact that Lawrence had a mother- ' fixation which showed itself in alw>st every piece of work he did. Ifoxxy insists that lawrence felt for his mother what he should have felt for me girl of his choice. He details at great length instances eiwwing an abnormal attachment between mother and son. Louis Cntezmeyer writes that Lawrence •begins life in a rural mining district with a deeply-cored love of his iwther, an attorn ment which conditions and almost cripples his adult love-life. This bond and me mother's early deam, which instead of freeing him causes the 'long haunting death-in-life* « continues to me ehdf Lawrence, througWut his work, expresses me idea of the

1. J.M.mirry. Son of Womsm ,pp. 29ff. 2. "Hot Blood^s Blindfold Art*, &et. Kev; of Literature Vol. 6 Aug. 3, 1929 p. 17 f. 3. Sons and Lovers pp. 78 ff. me lainbow p. 200. p. 176. * 18»

«Other being fulfilled in the child. Be thought that when a woaan bears a child, she is fulfilled within herself and no longer re quires her husband. Or else she demands more lore and takes her son ais her loT ^. Be wrote to Edward Uamett in «January 1913 and submitted to him a Foreword to Sons and Lovere in which he voiced this tW #it^ *ftoe old sonmlover was Aedipue* The name of the new one is legion. And if a son-lover take a wife, she is only his bed i Amd his life will be torn in twain, and his wife in her despair 1 shall hope for sons, that she may have her lover in her hour.*' In th e s to r y , M rs. M orel, who was a re f in e d , s e n s itiv e woman, began to despise her collier husband who cared nothing at akll for intellectual things. She then turned to her sons. She was closely attached to her eldest son, William. However, "her intimacy with her second son pauD was more subtle and fine, perh^s not so p@m»- 2 ienate as with her eldest.* Throughout the novel we are shown the strong love of the mother for her sons and their intense love for her. This love, how ever, reached an abnormal stage when Paul had grown to manhood. We see him struggling between the love for his mother and that for his first girl love, Miriam, But he found that "somewhere in his semi*, he s till loved his mother mmrSf *He had come back to his mother. Hers was the strongest tie in his life. ... There was one place in the world that stood solid amd did not melt into un reality: the place where his mother was. ... It wasaB i f the

1. Letts rs, p. 104. -& 1-

fiTot and pole of hie life, from which he eonld not escape, was his mother. jWl Itt the same way she waitedfor him. In him was e s ta b li s - 1 ed her lifij^ow .* Paul loved to paint and draw, when he could, for pastime. He did several good things and received prizes fo r them, "From his mmther, he drew the life-warmth, thestrength to produce; 2 Xiriam urged th is warmth into in te n s ity like a white-light•• lawrence sim ilarly liked to sketch for relaxation amd pastim e, he wrote to Srnest Ceilings, "i sk etch in water-colour myself, sus a h opeless amateur. But it is such h ealin g work, I fin d , to paint a bit, even i f i t Is only to copy, after one has frayed o u t one's soul w ith damned emotional drawing." W wrence needed encourageant for his writing as Paul did f o r his painting. The g ir l Miriam, we are told, was one who played an important role in the life of lawrenoe^ Mrs. Carswell s ta te s that "It warn not lawrence*s mother, but the girl he was in love with_the hiriwm ofSons and lovers __ that had encouraged h is w rit» in g ." Hurry says ^ a t "...when lawrenoe was s ix te e n , he met the g i r l *iria®, whose destiny was td be linked witr h is own for tne n ex t ten years, until his mother's death," We have Lawrence mention^ ing in the letters only one love affair previous to his meeting w ith rrieda Weelley. He makes no definite statements and r e f e r s L. io n s and lovers p. 274. 2. Ibid. p. 196. 3. Letters, DeC. 24, 1912 p. 88 f . 4 . C a rsw e ll, Shvage^ P ile rim u œ p. 5 f . 5. HxEPry, Son of "oman o. 30. -IB-

to her #imply as tone of the letter, however, shows th e ir relationship to have been a very Ir rima te one. It seemm as though he had tired of her or had realised that the„ om Id not 1 be mated, as he refused her invitation to the country and we hear no more o f h e r. In th e n o v e l , the mother does finally win out over the g i r l . 2 ?aul told his mother th a t he would never marry w hile ht had her. Aad Lawrence did not marry while hie mother lived, ffe find the sons trying hard to pull away from the mother's Influence. Some-> times fa^l hated h is mother and pulled at her bondage. *Kis l i f e wanted to free i t s e l f of h e r. I t was lik e a circle where life turned ba&ek on itself, and got no farther. She bore him, loved him, kept him, and h is love turned back into her, so that he cm Id n o t be f ee to go forwanrd with h is own life, really love another woman, ^ t th is p e rio d , unknowingly, he resisted h is mother*? influence. He did not t e l l her th in g s. There was a distance 3 between thma." We find the same thought expressed in a letter from Lawrence to Garnett, 3%rch 11, 1913. L had a d e v il o f a time g e ttin g a b i t weaned from my mother, at the age of 22. She suffered, and I suffered, and it seemed a ll for nothing, ju s t ws^te cruelty. It's funny. I suppose i t is the final breaking away of independ ence . •

1. L e t# rs To Uamett Feb. 12; Feb, 24. 1912, p .27 f f . 2 . Son# and Lovers p. 302. 5. ibid. p. 42^ 4, Letters p. 113 f . After Paul Morel become# dissatisfied with the girl Miriam, he turns to a momaxi much older thgm himself, a woman who is marr ied, but who im s never really loved. Ee thinks that he will find complete fulflllm nt in her. this affair turns out even worse than the one with Miriam, it is Implied in Murry’s that Imwrence had affairs with a number of women before he finally met the one whom he later married, there was the Miriam of Sena #nd Lovera.^the Helen of the poesm. and a suggestion of at least two o th e rs . However th a t may b e, we know th a t none of them could hold him while he had his mother. the Clara of Sons and 1,0vers is the one with whom we judge Paul to have had an affair after the one with Miriam. We can compare this with hawrence’s own affairs by the following quot ation from Mrs. Carswell. She is speaking of his first meeti% with Professor Ernest Weekley and his wife, "...there haid been a love affair with a married wo^m older himself in his home dist rict. . But it was an affair in which the woman had set the course and marked the end. When lawrence met Frieda Weekley he was free, 2 and this time would lead." She also states that Lawrence "spent the early summer going from place to place alone, suffering in tensely .,. working on Sons and Lovers (which already belonged , 3 wholly to the past)." ]^wrence*s intensity of feeling for the woman in his novel| is expressed, I think, by comparing the two following quotations. The first is from the novel; Paul is speaking to his mother in

1 « p. 5d f . 2. Carswell, Op. Cit. p. 7. 3. Ibid. p. 9. defense of Clara. . she*s awfully nie#, mother; she la really! You ddn*t know. ... Don* t be mean abcu t herf ...If you think a horrid thing about her, I shan't forgive you.* the second comes from & letter describing Frieda to Bdward Garnett. *Sie is ripping she's the finest woman I've ever met_ you must above all things meet her ... she's splendid, she is ré#* 8 ly.* In a later letter, he continues: »She is a million timms better than you imagine. You don't know her. ... I f you say a 3 word about her, I hate you." Despite this attitude toward the woman, Paul is troubled by his feelings, which are shown in this conversation with his mmther* •I feel sometimes as if I wronged my women, am ther. I iouldn't belong to them, They seem to want me, and I can't ever give it them." •You haven't metrthe right woman,* 4 "And I never shall meet the right woman while you live." Then we see the final collapse of Paul after the death of his mother. Rrs, Morel had been spending the holiday of Whitsun tide with her daughter, Annie, Paul went there to see her, not knowing that she had become seriously ill. When he questioned her, he found that she had been troubled with a large lua^ at her side for a long ti®s. She said that it was "only a b i t o f a 5 tumour". After her deatii, he felt that "his soul could not leave

1. Sons and lovers p. 388 f . 2. betters p. 34 f, 3. Ibid. p. 44. 4. Sons and lovers p. 432, 5. Ibid. p. 456. - 15 -

h«r, wherever she was.* ". *How she wa# gone abroad into the night, and he was with h er still. ... Re could not bear it. On every side the immense dark silence seemed pressing him, so tiz^ a spark, into extinction, and yet, almost nothing, he could not be extinct. ... ’Itotherî * he whimpered *Kotherî* She was the only thing""that held him up, himself, amid all this. And she was gone, intermingled herself. He wanted her to touch him, have him alongside with her. But no, he would not give in. ... He would not take tiiat direction,to the dauMoie88,to follow hefc.« He walked toward the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly,"^ Here, to be sure, we have lawrence*s inner struggle and there is not the slightest doubt but that all of this experience was lawrence's. One of the first letters of the collection con tains this informatio n; •Mother is laid-up here, and I must certainly stay with her u n t i l S atu rd ay . She came f o r a holiday, with ray Aunt, and whilst here a tumour or something has developed in her abdomen." the doctor looks grave auid says it is seridh. I hope not. But you w illl understand, w ill you not, why I cannot keep my promise (to come to tsD f o r tomorrow.** His mother is mentioned only Twice after this. Ihe one letter has been quoted from, in which he tells of the hard time he had in breaking away from her. ‘Sie other simply states that his w>ther died a few days before the publication of his first novel. The White P#acock.^ Anyone fam iliar with the tone of his work can note the feeling of grief at this circusmtance. Mrs. Luhan te&l* us that his mother's death almost killed him. She said, *He had such a frightful mother-complex, and still has, I fancy, that the bookfsons and Lover^had to be written. His wife told me that when he wicte the déath of his mother, she had a perfectly terrible

1. Sons and Lovers p. 516. 2. letter to W.S.Mopkin 1910 p,6, 3. Letter to Mrs. Tilliers-Stuart Oct.12,1911 p.14. -IS*

with him for many weeks.* LavreQce treats this son-lover relationship in much o f h is work. We find it to some extent even in his letters. There is one comment, w ritten to lady Cynthia Asquith, which would souW extraordinary if great s tr e s s were placed upon it. Re wrote; •Frieda went to Icndon and saw her childrens @md began to realize, I believe, that tW m>ther-chlld relation is not so all-important ; indeed, not profoundly important at all, touching the quick of being» It is, in real truth, one of the temporal, almost accidental connections, ^ e connection between parent and children. But I suppose you will not agree to this at all.*® Lawrence hi self mm Id n o t agree to this either, I am sure, -*^t was in clu d ed in his letter just as a passing remark; and since he warn ir^pulsive and sin c e the r e s t of the letter makes nothing of the statement which is found only this once in all h is w orks, it would be unsafe to assume that Lawrence was the leàst b it con vinced himmelf of the truth of it. One aquires the fe&ling that he would like to think of the mother-child relation in that ll#it concerning Frieda, who was now h is wife, but whose children were n o t h is . Re evidently wished to think o f her former maurriage m û her children as temporary accidental connections. The relation ship between him and her he wished to be the only spiritual conn e c tio n . And there is evidence, as the following illustrations will prove, to show that the •mother-child relation* played an import- p a r t in h is thm ght. Two years later, he w rote to LadyA sq u ith in th is vein .

1 Mabel Dodge Luhan, Lorenzo in Taos p. 41. 2, Letter Rov. 11, 1916, p. 381, - 19-

am Burpriôed how children are like barometers to their parent's feelings. There i s some sort of queer, magnetic* psychic connection something a hit fatal, I helleve. I f e e l 1 am a i l the time rescuing my nephew and my niece from their respective mothers, my two sisters ... the phenoa^non of motherhood, in th ese days, is a strange suid rather frightening phenomenon#*^ In speatklng of th is relatiotoship in his Fantasia of the Un- ^ o n sc ld h . haw renoe makes a strong point of the fa c t that am unhappy or unfulfilled wife w ill turn from her husbsmd to her son, *the unhappy woman beats abw t for her insatiable satis faction, seeking whom she may devour, ibad usually she tursb to her child. Here she provokes what she wan#B, Here, in her own son who belongs to her, she seems to iind the la s t perfect response for which she is craving. He is a medium to h e r , she provokes from him her own answer. So she throws herself into a last great love fo r her son, a fin a l and fatal devotion, that which would have been the richnessgand stren gth o f her husband and Is poison to her boy, ...* lawrence was constantly aware of the effect that this a tta c h ment caused. &e could almost tell at a/glan ce w hether aman had experienced this relationship w ith h ie mother. In describing Hosalino, an Indian boy as being different from the other boys, he said, "The difference lies in a certain sensitiveness and alo n e- 3 n e s s , as i f he were a nrntoer's boy.* I f as this statement indicates, he attributed the two q u a lit ies of sensitiveness and aloneness to th is r e la tio n to the mother, th en we ionow that he considered the connection an*all-important" one. These two factors together caused the tragedy of h is own life. And more than that, he realised the tragedy of it himself.

1# Letter June 3, 1918, p. 447. 2 . p. 177 f . 3. lawrence,•Mornings in ^xico*, ^delphi Vol. IV Feb. 1927 pp. 474-487. —1 8 —

A fte r giv in g a short synopsis of his book Sons and lovers to Edward ^am ett, he wrote, •It is a great tragedy, and I tell you I have written a great hook. It*s toe tragedy of thousands of young men In England^*.. I think it was Buskin*s and men like h im .* l We are constantly reminded o f the hypersensitiveness of

Paul Morel as a c h ild . •He was so conscious of what other people felt, particularly his motoer. #ien she fretted, he understood, and could have no peace. His s

~~1. Letters Hoy. 14, 1912, p. 78-79. 2. Sons and Lovers p. 72, 3. Carswell,"ReminiscencesÎ Adelchi Vol. II pp. 78-85, • I f u~~

was l e f t home wltft Bffle. His sMther*s death was another blow out of the dark. He could not understand it, he knew it was no ^od his trying. One had to submit to these unforeseen blows th a t come unawares and leav e a bruise that remains and hurts when ever it is touched. He to be afra id of all that which was up against him. had loved his mother#* Here again, one can hear lawrence saying these things and one can realize the most intense feeling which impregnates the whole speech. A fte r Tom marries 4ydla Dsnsky, a Polish woman with a sm all child, ^na, there Is a feeling of hatred and je a lo u sy between Tom and toe child, Anna did not want to stay with him; she would have notoin^hatever to do with him. She put first claim o#her mother and was with her always. She was an extremely sensitive phi child and often, while playing out in the yard or in the fields, she would feel that a l l was n o t just right w ith her mother, and 2 ru n indoors to enquire of h er. So we fin d in the relationship that strong tenderness and strange attachment which l^wrence knew f o r h is own mother. To th a t mother Ibve, abnormal and disa^trrnvg as it proved to be to his later relationships, I&wrenoe pays tribute in this tender and passionate utterance; The Virgin Itoher Hy little love, my darling, you were a doorway to me; You l e t me out of the confines Into tois strange cm ntrie Where people are crowded like thistles ______Yet are shapely and comely to see. ______1. Thê Bainbow p. 14. 2. Ibid. p. lëOff. ••20-

little love, my dearest. Twice have you issued me. Once from your womb, sw eet e r . Once from yomr soul, to be free of all hearts, my darling. Of each heart’s entrance free. And so,Bpy:^ove, my m other, I shall always be true to you. Twice I am born, my dearest: To life, and to death, in you; And this is the l i f e h erea fter Wherein I am true, I kiss you good-bye, sy darling. Our wsiys are different now; You a re a seed in the night-time, I am a man, to plough The d i f f i c u l t glebe of the future for seed to endow. I kiss you good-bye, my d e a re s t. I t i s finished between us here. Oh, if I were as. calm as you a r e . Sweet and still on y mr b ier ! Oh God, if I had not to leave you A lone, my d ear! I s the last word now uttered? Is the farewell said? Spare me the strength to leave you Bow you are dead. I must go, but w soul l i e s h e lp le s s Beside y& r bed.*

It, Lawrence, Amores p. 51, - 2 i *

~~IV. um - womm mLkfTmmw~~

After his meeting with Mrs, Weekley, lawrenee had a different sort of struggle. His mother was not there to come between him and the object of his love. However, in that particular instance, society took her place. Mrs. Carswell says that when Lawrence met Frieda Weekley he was free, and this tiaé w« Id lead, Kever again would he be mothered by any woman* He would even put behiiul him that first mothering that had meant more than anything else to 1 h is y o u th , Frieda left her husband and three children to go with Lawrence> and society condemned her for that action, lawrence wrote to Carnett in July of 1912; "There are storms of letters from England imploring her IQ^iedS to renoi nee forever all ideas of love, to go back and give Tier life to her husband and her children. woa Id have her back, on those conditions. The children are mifer- able, missing her so much. She lies on the floor in misery _ emd then is fearfully angry with me because I won’t say ’stay for my sake’. ,,, I love her. If she left me, I do not think I should be alive s i x months hence. And she won’t leave me, I think, God, how I love her __ and the agony of it.*% Earlier,he had written in the same way of this same love for Frieda, He says, *I love Frieda so much, I don’t like to talk aboWt it, I never knew what love was before, ,,, The world is beautiful and wonderful and good beyond one’s wildest imagination. Never, never, never could one conceive what love is, beforehand, never. Life can be great __ quite God- 3 like. It can be so, God be thanked I have proved it.*

~~1, Cawswell, Op. Cit. p, 7. 2, Letters, p, 47, ^ Ibid, p, 41-43. - 2 2 -~~

It wold seem that , for the first time in h is life, lamrenoe really experienced the lore of man for woman. Hie letters dar ing the y ea r 1912 deal w ith the sahjeot to a great extent. For instance, he wrote to Mrs. S.A.Hopkln in August of that year* •Things have been hard, and worth it. There has been some sickening misery. ... F. is to see tiie children, and stay with th®a, next Saeter. It has been rather ghastly, that p a r t o f the affair. I f o nly one d id n ’t h u r t so many peo p le. For ourselves, Frieda and I have struggled through some bad times into a w onderful naked intimacy, al.ll kindled with warmth, th a t I know a t l a s t i s lo v e . I think 1 ought not to blame women, as I have done, but myself, for taking my love to the wrong woman, before now. I^t every'man find, keep on trying till he f in d s , the woman who can take him and whose love he can take, then who w ill grumble about men o r about women. But th e thing must be two-sided. At any rate, and whatever happens, do love, and I am loved. I have given and I have taken __ and that la eternal. Oh, if only people cAd m rry properly; I believe in marriage,•! It is reasonable, then, to expect the novels written during these early years of his life w ith Frieda, to be primarily con cerned with love. Andr we have, in that period, two novels dealing w ith love and sex relationships The Rainbow, published in 1 9 1 5 and Women in hove in 1920, Kirry asserts that The Rainbow is the history of Xawrenee’s 2 final sexual failure. He sees this failure in the story of 5 Will Brangwen in the novel. The Rainbow recounts the love conflicts of three generations. The first is between Tom J^rangwen and lydia -^nsky, a P o lish woman.

~~1. letters p. 57 2. Son of Woman p. 88, 3. Ibid, p. 62, - 85 -~~

“er daughter, Anna, undergoes a struggle with the nephew of Tom ^rangwen. Will Brangwen. These two marry and It is in the story of their lives that we get most of Lawrence and Frieda. *heir honeymoon is described at great length. Their growing accustom ed to each other's habits is similar to the Lawrence's. %rry says that this is a reproduction of their first attempt at liv- 1 ing together. For Instance, Will felt guilty about lounging around during the morning hours with Anna. He thought that one 2 should be up and doing early. Lawrence wrote to *^arnett, *I generally get up about 8.0 and make breakfast, but Frieda stops in bed, and I have to sit and talk to her till dinner time. & am a working man by instinct, and I f e e l as if the Almighty would punish me for slacking. Will is h e lp le s s without Anna. Unless he knows thai she is 4 right with him, he can do nothing. Lawrence admits to Ernest Goll- ings that it is h o p eless for him to try to do anything without 6 having a woman at the back of him. Later, Anna and w ill are dropped and the attention is placed on the third generation with U rsu la , the offspring of the marriage o f Aona and W ill.

~~1. Murry, Son of Woman, p. 75 ff. 2. The Rainbow p. 139, 3. Letters, Oct. 30, 1912, p. 69, 4. The Ratnbov,. p,79. 5,. Letters, p. 95» - 24-~~

ürsula endures a terrible struggle of Ibve and passion with Anton Strehensky. She suffers as we know Imwrence has suffered. He has come to the realization that üiere must he a balance of love and that passion ia not perfect love. Ursula believed that love was "a way, a means, not an end in itself, ... And always the way of love would be found.* She says that "Passion is only part o f love. And it seem# so much because it can’t last. *hat 1 is why passion is never happy." Iiawrence saw a ^eater love than passion alone, wrote to Mrs. Hopkin, "Once you’ve known what love cao be, there’s no dis appointment any more, and no despair, if the skies tumble down like a smashed saucer, it couldn’t break what’s between Frieda and me. I think folk have got sceptic about love __ that’s because nearly everybody fails,. But if they do fail, they needn’t doubt love. It’s their own fault. I’ll do my life work, sticking up ? for the love between man and woman." He wrote to Mrs. S.A.Hopkin about the same time. "We’ve had a hard time, Frieda and I. It is not so easy for a woman to leave a man and children like that. And i t ’s not so easyfoi| a man and woman to live alone together in a foreign country for six months, and dig out a love deeper and deeper. Eut we’ve done it so f«r, arid I&m glad. ... I shall do a novel about Love Triumphant one 5 day. I shall do ray work for women better than the Suffrage."

~~1. The Rainbow p. 398-389. 2. Letters,Shristmas Uay 1912, p. 90. 3. Letters Deo. 23, 1912, p. 87, - 25 -~~

We can see that his two novels are efforts towards the deveXoj^ sent of this idea of complete love. And from the tone of his letter to J.B.Pinker when the Rainbow hais been sent In for pub lication, we know that the experiences therein are Iawrenoe*s . He says, beloved book, I am sorry to give it to you to be printed, I could weep tears in heart, when I read these pages. If I had my way, I would put off the publishing yet awhile.* * Lawrence, whatever may be sa id of him, sees^ to be sincere in his hope for a complete relationship in marriage. He wrote to CollingB, July 22, 1S13; •There seems to be a big change In England even in a year; such a dissolving down of old barriers and prejudices. But £ I look at the young women, and they all seem such sensation alists, with h a lf a desire to expose themselves. Good God, where is there a woman for a r e a llydecent earnest may to marry? They don’t want husbands and marriage anymore _ omly se n sa tio n ,*2 He gave to Lady Kore1]his idea of marriage. He wrote: •I don’t see why there should be monogamy for people who can’t have full satisfaction in one person; because they themselves are too split, because they act in themselves separately. Monogamy is for those who are whole and clear, all in one stroke. But fo those whose stroke is broken into two different directions, then there should be two ful fillments. For myself, thank God, I feel myaelf becoming more and more unified,more and more va oneness.*^ In the sequel to The Rainbow.Women in Tjove. he also sets forth his ideas of love and fulfillment in marriage.

~~1. Letters, May 31, 1915, p. 234. 2 . Ibid. p. 67, 3. Ibid. Feb. 15,1916, pp. 327 f. -2 6 -~~

Some of the characters in Women in Love are said to be rep resentations of real aquaintances of Lawrence. The two women. Hermione and Gudrun, represent Lady Ottoline MdrelLand Katherine Mansfield. The first must have been a true depiction as Mfcs, Carswell states that Lady Koreli. Lawrence’s most powerful and en thusiastic patronees, taking the character of Hermione as herself, 1 felt herself outraged and turned into a fury against him, Of Gudrun. Murry says, *I have been told by one who should know, that the character of Gudrun in Women in Love was Intended for a portrait of Katherine, ^f this is true, it confirms me in ,2 my belief that Lawrence had curiously little understanding of her.* He goes on to say, however, that the incident described in the chapter *In the Pompadour* is true of Katherine Kemsfield. In the novel, a growp of men who have been drinking are gathered about a table reading aloud and commenting upon a letter written by Rupert Birkln in which he has revealed his inmost thoughts* Gudrun promptly waàcs over to the table. asks to see the letter, 3 and leaves the cafe with it in her possession. The same thing happens . to Katherine Ksuisfield, the object being a volume of Lawrence’s poems. "Amores*. The character of Kalliday, the chief offender in the incident

~~1. Carswell. Op. Cit. p. 81. 2. Murry. •Reminiscences'* Op. Git. p. 322-329 3. Women in Love p. 440. -2 7 -~~

just mentioned, is said byMrs. Carswell to be Philip Heseltine. Heseltlne recognized it as h is own portrait as he threatened a libel action against the publisher of the novel, Martin Seeker, Mrs, Carswell states that hawrence modified the character for the E n glish edition and altered the color of h is hair, "In law, I believe, Heseltlne had not a leg to stand on: but there was already trouble enm gh about the book, and for peace* sake Seeker paid him fifty pounds as solatium for injury to feelings and 1 reputation,* Lawrence mentions Heseltlne in his letters only once. Rt is w ritin g to Lady More11: •Heseltine is here also. I like him, but he seems empty, uncreated. That i s how these young men are, ,., poor Phil ip Heseltine, ... really seems as if he were not yet born, as if he consisted only of echoes from the p a st, and react ions against the pact. But he will perhaps come to being soon: when the new world comes to pass,*^ We have th is description of Ralliday in the novel: •Gerald looked at Ralliday for some moments, watching the soft, rather degenerate face o f the young man. I ts very so ftn e ss was an attraction; it was a soft, warm, corrupt nature, into which one might plunge with gratification.*2 We are led to suppose, from the comments o f Murry as well as from the descriptions of feelings and thoughts, that Rupert Birkln is the representation of Lawrence, In physical appear ance,he was much the same. He wasth in , pale, and ill-looking,.

~~1. Carswell, Op. Cèt. p. 156. 2, Letters, Jan. 9, 1916, pp. 309ff, 2, Women in Love p. 75, I - 2 8 -~~

•Hia figure vas Barrow but n ic e ly made. He went with a slight trail of one foot, which came only from self-oonsoious- n«8B. Although he was dressed correctly for his part, ^ a t of best man at a wedding ceremony"? yet there was an Innate kjftcongruity which caused a slight ridiculousness in his appearance. His nature was clever and separate, he did not fit at all in the conventional occasion. Yet be subordin ated himself to the common id ea , travestied himself.*1 Itewrence’s chief concern, during this period of hie life, was a fulfillment of a perfect love. Perhaps we have the most complete expression of his doctrine in 1914. •One must leam to love, and go through a good deal of suffering to get to it, like any knight of the grail, atnd the journey is always towards the other soul, not awayfrom it. îto you think love is an accomplished thing the day it is recognized? It isn't. To love, you have to learn to understand the other, more than she understands herself, and to submit to her understanding of you. ... You mustn't think that your desire or your fundamental need is to make a good career, or to fill your life with activity, or even to provide for your family materially. It isn't. Your most vital n e c e ssity in this life i s that you sh a ll love your wife completely and implicitly and in entire nakedness of body and spirit. #ien you will have peace and inner sec urity, no matter how many things go wrong. And this peace and security will leave you free to act and to produce your own work, a real independent workman. You asked me once what my message was. I haven't got any general message, because I believe a general message is a general means of side-tracking one's own personal difficulties: ... But this that I tell you is mymessage as far as I've got a n y*2 . One can see the working of I%wrence'B own love l i f e through his first three novels. In Sons and Tiovers we see the woman absorbing all of the man. Imwrence wanted a mutual love, a give and take experience. We hear P a u l's accusation o f Miriam in the novel:

~~1. Women in Love p. 22. 2. Letter to T.D.D. July 7, p. 207. - 29-~~

*...You wheedle the soul out of things.,.You’re always hogging things to love yai , ... You don’t want to love your eternal and abnormal craving Is to be loved. ... Y©u absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself Up with love, because you’ve got a shortage somewhere.*1 hater, in The Rainbow. there is voiced a feeling which we can assume to be Lawrence's own feeling in regard to Frieda, aid Frieda were having a difficult time of it as we have seen earlier. Me was often a little uncertain as to whether or not : J she would stay with him. We have Tom Prangwen, thehusband of the Polish woman, expressing th a t same feeling, *He rea lized with a sharp pang that she belonged to him, and he to her. He realized that he lived b; her* Did he own her? Was shehere for ever? Or might she go away?... She belonged elsewhere. Any moment she mirht be gone. ... he could never q uite be s a t is f ie d , 2 never be a t peace, becausevshe might go away." We see in the two books, % e Rainbow and Women in Love, a complete cycle which must have taken place in Lawrence’s own experience. In the second book, the idea is expressed that love is merely one of many emotions, and is not necessarily an end in itself. •Love is one of the emotions lik e all the others and so it is all right whilst you f e e l it. But I can’t see how it becomes an absolute. It is ju s t part of human relationship no more. And it is only part of any human relationship. Aid why one should be required always to f e e l it, anymore than one always feels sorrow or distant joy, I cannot conceive.*3

~~______1. Sons and Lovers p. 269, 2. The Bainbow p. 52. 3. Women in Love p. 145 f . —30»~~

Again Ursula Sa^s, "I believe in something, inhuman, of which lore is only a little past. I hellers what ws must fulfill comes out of the unknown to us, and it is something Infinitely more 1 than lore. It isn't so merely human.* This, of course, brings out the phallic conception that there is an unknown source __ an "otherness*. Lawrence writes to Hurry and Katherine Mansfield in 1915î "I am very glad you are happy. That i s the righ t way to be happy ^ a nucleus of lore between a man and a woman, and l e t the world look after itself. It i s the last folly to bother abput the world. One should be in lore and be happy no more."'^ ~ This idea is held until almost the end of the novel. Women in Lore. Then, we find, on the last page, Birkln wanting some thing more than just his lore for Ursula. She asks him if he needs his friend Gerald and he answers in the affirmative, asserting that she isenough as far as a woman i s concerned, but that he desires a man friend in as eternal a relationship as theirs is eter n a l. says, "Haring you, I can lire all my life without anybody else,any other sheer intimacy. But to make it com plete, r e a llyhappy, I wanted eternal union w ith a man too: another 3 kind o f lore." And this brings us to the third stage of the attempt to lire completely in the man to man friendship.

~~1. The RalnlOf. 49S f . 2. Letters Jem. 17, 1915 p. 313. 3. Women in Lore p. 548. - S i-~~

~~7. MAK - MM RELATIOKSfil?~~

The germ of the f rle n d J ïp of one man for another may he seen in aa early a work as Sons and Ijovers. It grows gradually until it reaches its height in the twé novels, Aaron*» Rod and Kangaroo. published in the years 1922 and 1925, respectively. lawrence, in speaking of the feelings of the Leivers family in Sons and Lorerm, seems to give us his own feeling, •They could not ert«hii»n we tween tse»ii«lv«e.fe and an out sider just the ordinary humim feeling and unexaggerated friendship; they were always restless for the something deep er. Ordinary folk seemed shallow to them, trivial and in considerable. ... They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take jthe first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms common human interccu rse.*l In 1918 we find Lawrence writing to Katherine Mansfield and expressing practically the same feeling. He said: • I do believe in friendship, I believe tremendously in friendship between man and man, a pledging of men to each other inviolably. But I have not ever met or formed such friendship. Also I believe the same way in friendship be tween men and women, and between women and women, sworn, pledged, eternal, as eternal as the marriage bond, and as deep. But I have not met or formed such friendship.*2 It is necessary to keep in mind these words of Lawrence's because many of the varied experiences in the novels as well as those in his life, hinge upon the fe e lin g expressed here. Further on, in this same novel, we find a strange relationship between Paul Morel and Baxter IMwes, Clara's husband. There i s enmity between the two men because of their connections with Claxm,

1. p. 184. 2. Letters p. 462, But the same thing wh teh oau^s them to come to blows draws them together. When Dawes is ill in the hospital, it is Paul who comes with fruit and candy to him, Hiere is no outward manifest ation of friendship, ; there i s a secret, somewhat mystical bond between them. We find this experience of one man caring for another during Aaron’s ill n e s s in Aaron’s Rod. The Rainbow co n tain s only a suggestion of friendship between men. It takes place when Tom Brangwen is a boy. It is enlighten ing because again i t is Lawrence whom we see pleading for friend ship. Tom "had loved one warm, c le v e r boy who was frail in body, a cd^unptive type. The two had an almost classic friendship, 3 David and Jonathan, wherein Brangwen was the Jo n ath an , the server.* However, the same depth of feeling comes out in the connection between Ursula Brangwen aM her school-mistress, Winifred Inger. These two women became very intimate. They wanted always to be together. An almost passionate love sprang up and they were fused 3 into one. Inseparable. The novel. Women in lo v e , as has been pointed out, contains the real beginnings of the struggle of man with man. %'e see her# the workings of the Lawrence-Murry friendship. Gerald and Birkln, although they both have women with whom they are in love, are not satisfied. They have a strong attraction for each other. We can

~~1. Sons and Lovers p. 496. 2. The Rainbow p. 11. 3. Ibid. p. 321. - 5 3 -~~

feel the whole experience of years between Lawrence and Murry in this passage: * There was a pause of strange enmity between the two men, that was very near to love. It was always the same between them; suLways their talk brought them into a deadly nearness of contact, a strange, perilous intimacy which was either hate or love, or both. They parted with apparent unconcern, as if their going apart were a trivial occurrence. ... Yet the heart of each burned from the other. They burned with each other, inwardly. This they would never admit. They intended to keep their relationship a casual free and easy friendship. They were not going to be so unmanly and unnat ural as to all^w any heart-burning between them. They had not the faintest belief in deep relationship between men and men, and their disbelief prevented any development of the&r powerful ... friendliness. We have seen from previous quotations taken from Lawrence’s letters, that he did believe in a classic friendship, __ a Blut- brudersehaft. The explanation of the last sentence of the passage just quoted would be the desire of the two men to keep from each other the real depth of their feelings. We find it here when Birkin suddenly saw another problem confronting him __ ** the prob lem of love and eternal conjunction between two men. Of course this was necessary _ it had been a necessity inside himself all his life _ to love a man purely and fully. Of course he had been loving Gerald all along, and all along denying it.* He continues speaking to Gerald; * You know how the old German knights used to swear a Blutbruderechaft, ... That is what we ought to do. ... w we ought to swear to love each other, you and I, implicitly, and 2 perfectly, finally, without any possibility of going back on it.*

~~1. Women in Love p. 37. 2. Ibid. pp. 234-235, * 3 4 —~~

later we find an expression of still more Intense feeling __ that of Gerald for Birkin. He is talking about love and says that he has been fond enough of women, but has never r e a lly felt love. He says, * I don’t believe I ’ve ever felt as much love for a 1 woman, as I have for you__ not loWe.* Lawrence wrote to Murry after the first part of their friend ship, *You shouldn’ sayyou love me. You disliked me intensely when you were h e re , OornwaliQ and also at %rlor. But why should we hate or love? le are two separate beings representing what we represent separately. Yet even if we a re opposites, even if at

the root we are hosti>£e __ ^ don't say we are __ there is no reason *** p why we shouldn’t meet somewhere.* Lawrence seemed to be drifting away from Murry here. He had been waiting a long tome for Murry to come to him and Murry evid ently could not. He had written e a r lie r : • I ’ve waited for you for two years now, and am far more constant to you than ever you are to me __ or ever will he. ... 1 b e lie v e in y«, and there’s an end of it. But I think you keep far less faith w ith me than a? I w ith you , at the centre of things.* » For several y e a r, s Murry and Lawrence had been trying to get togefcer. They seemed to have a personal a f fin it y for each other# but their beliefs were different. Murry said himself that they tiiey could accept Lawrence, the person and writer, but Lawrence the prophet they were all against. They couldn't go all the way w ith

~~lomezLin Love '.patter t, *krry, 23 ,~~

~~° llan,«®w h-bB^4*t916, p. j j g —35»~~

1 hlm in his experiences, Lawrence wrote the same thing to Lady Asquith, Murry says that * heb e lie v e s in what I say because he believes in me, he might help in thework I set out to do because he would be believ ing in me. But he Id not believe in the work. He would deplore it. He says the whole thing is p erson al: that between him and me 2 it is a cas e of Lawrence and Murry, not of any union in an idea.* Lawrence’s great desire for friendship comes out in Aaron’s Rod. We see Lawrence characterized in the person of Lilly. He projects his love for Murry in to the man Sisson. Aaron S isson is a flautist who, becoming uidiappy as a miner in a colliery town, leaves his wife and family for no apparent rea on. He simply says, * I Just left Uhea. • When asked if It were mere caprice, he answered. * If it’s a caprice to be begotten _ and a caprice to be born and a caprice to die _ then that was a caprice^ 3 . for it was the same." Aaron became ill witi* influenza and Lilly was âàking care o f zhim in h is apartment. L illy stayed right byhim until he regained strength, although Aaron was indifferent about his own l i f e and did nothing to get w e ll. At th at time, Lilly wished that there could be something to bind them together. However, Aaron was too inde pendent to be dominated by him. *hen Aaron was leaving the apart-

~~1. Hurry, "Reminiscences*, Hew Adelphi 1950 pp. 264-275. 5 . Letter, Aug. 16, 1915, pp. 252 f, 3. Aaron’s Rod p. 154. -3 6-~~

~~ment# he said suddenly, • It's all one to yoi then ... whether we ever see one another again?* * S ot a h i t ,* answered Lilly, ^~~

* I very much wish there migiit he something that held ub to g e th e r , * All this is an exact reproduction of the experience as it occurred in Lawrence’s life. Hurry was ill at the Lawrence home. Re related his experiences in *Re miniscencee*! * Lawrence was in his elem ent looking after someone, esp* , ecially someone rather stupid aho$t his hody, There i s no more perfect likeness of th e man I knew than the p ic tu re of Lilly lo o k in g after Aaron Sigson in the little flat near Govent Garden, in Aaron's Rod.* Murry says elsewhere that there is more of Lawrence in this than in any other of h is novels, Lawrence was a man who wanted love. * Lawrence during all h is life wm Id have b itte n his tongue out rather than confess that whathe wanted was more love* he preferred to say aloud and to persuade h im self that of all things the one he hated most was love, If he had said ’of a l l words' , it m ight have b c e n tru e , was a man who did not fin d enough love in the world, he was a disappointed léver of humanity; and he

always found it better indeed to face the sim ple truth abm t h im s e lf«*4 This same feeling is expressed in Kangaroo when Somers is talking to,the "political boss*. He says, * In a way I love you. Kangaroo, ,,. Our sw Is are alike somewhere. But it is true, I 5 don't want to love you,*

~~1, Aaron's Rod, p. 114, 2, New Adeluhl Vol. 1. pp, 42-52, 3, Son oi Woa^. p. 220, 4, Ibid, p, 226, 5 , Kangaroo. p. 383. -3 7 -~~

It is quite true that a sincere longing for friendship and love is shown in Aaron's Rod. It was at the particular t*me in Lawrence's life when he desired a true friendship, an Utopian community in which he would he the leader, and the others his disciples. This was a real desire with him. We have in Aaron*g Rod this expression: "What is life tut a search for a friend? 1 A search for a friend that sums i t up." With Kangaroo we havtf. the man with man relationship stressed, and we have also a development of another phase in Lawrence's personal doctrine __ that of one man teing the leader in a commun- it y or project. This book, again, is distinctly autobiographical as can be shown from the le t t e r s . Many of the experiences correlate, exactly* However, we^will cocem ourselves here with only the friendship between Richard Lovatt Somers and Jack Calcott, Somers is Lawrence in every respect. Of his appearance upon his entrance to Australia, we have this description. A man in overalls, who turned out to be Jack Calcott, looked up to see two strangers approaching across the lawn. " On# wa# a mature, handsome, fresh-faced woman, who mi^t have been Russian. Rer companion was a smallish man, pale- faced, with a dark beard, ... Seeing the strange, forei©n- looking little man with the beard and the absent air o f self-possession walking unheeding over the grass, the workman instinctively grinned, A comical looking bloke Î Perhaps a B o lsh y ."2 His reason for coming to Australia is the same as Lawremnce's. • He was a man with an income o f four hundred a year, a writer of poems and essays. In Europe, he had made up his mind that eveiy-

1. Aaron's Rod, ft. 252. 2. Kangaroo p. |t42. thing wàs done for, played o u t, finished, and he must go to a new country. The newest co u n try : young Australia! Sow he h@^ tried Western Australia! ... And the vas t ,uninhahlted land fri^t- 1 ene him. I t seemed so hoary and lost, so unapproachable. The The Somers* located near Sydney in a çottage * Torestln". The Calcott*8 cottage was c a lle d * Wyewurk ** We can see the parrallellsm of a l l th is going as f a r ae the fe e lin g foir Australia. A l e t t e r written to Mrs. A. l>, Jenkins on Kay 88, 1988, from ** Wyewurk «, the Lawrence’s cottage in Australia, reads like th is : * Well, here we are in a l i t t l e house to ourselves on the edge o f the c l i f f some 40 m iles from 2, Sydney. It’s a weird place __ with coal-mines near.* In June of the same year, m wrote to M rs,. Carswell, " It is. a weird place. In the established se n se , i t is socially nil, .., there seems to he no inside life of any sort; just a long lapse and drift,* A rather fascinating indifference, a physical indlfferenee to what we call soul or spirit. It’s really a wefrd show. The Cr country has an extraordinaryhoary, weird attraction.* When theSomers and the Calcotts live side by side and the two men enter into a so-called friendship, we can safely assume that these experiences were real to Lawrence, We immediately re call the fact that the Lawrence’sand the Murry’s tried living together in much tJie same manner in Cornwall, Lawrence begged the Murry’s to come and take the little cottage next to theirs. Ju st

1. Kangaroo p. 9. 2. letters, "p. 553. 3. Ibid. pt 555. i r <“ 3 8 * * a t this time, the Murry*a were ependimg the happiestmoments of their lives, • stolen in the teeth of circumstance ** in Villa Paulina, Southern France, however, the.y allowed themselves to be persuaded into going to Zennor where theLawrence's weie . * From the Wginring, the experiment was a failure* Lawrence was going through that period which he deecrihedso well in Kang aroo. He would Call out during the night, • Jack is killing me * and similar exclamations until the Kurryr could stan d it no longer, Murry says that Lawrence wanted a tlood-relationship ^ some sort of sacrament with him . And he could not meet him there. So, the 1 Murrys moved ayay, g iv in g as their reason a dlslke for the country. The whole experiment lasted, judging from the dates of Lawrence's l e t t e r s , about two months, from April to June , 1916, Lawrence wrote to J^ady Koreil on May 24, 1916, « Unfortunate ly the Murry's do not like the country _ it is too rocky and b leak for them. ... I am very sorry they don't lik e it, because I lik e 2 tills country and my little cottage so much." It is interesting to note the sim ilarity of the two characters in the book to Lawrence and Murry. This is describing the two men as they walk aléng together on a Sunday m orning. " Somers, in a lig h t suit of thin cloth, made by an I t a l i a n tailor, and an Italian hat, just looked a foreign sort of little bloke but a gentleman. The c h ie f difference was th a t he looked sensitive all over, his body, even its clothing, and his feet, even his brown shoes, all equally sensitive w ith

~~1. M urry , "Reminiscences* Vol. 1. no, 2, Adelphi pp, 142 - 152, 2, Let&s, R. 355 f. - 40-~~

h is face. #here^aeJack seemed strong aoid insensitive in the body, only his face v u ln e ra b le . ... Jack stro d e along; @mmer seemed to hover along. There was decision in both o f them, but. oh, of such different quality. And each had a c e rta in admiration of the othdr. and a very definite tolerance. Jack just bsureiy tolerated the quiet finesse of Somers, and Somers tolerated with difficulty Jack’s facetious familiarity and heartiness.* And so the life between th ese two went on as it did between the men in real life. It seemed as though Iiawrence and Murry were always w ishing for a close, intimate friendship. At the same time, they could never go quite all the way. When eae was ready, #ie other was not. And something always frustrated a com plete union. To Somers is attributed Lawrence’s own thoughts, after Jack's p r o ff e r of friendship . ... • All his life he had cheriehec abeloved ideal of friend ship __ David and Jonathan. And now, when true and good frieWS offered, he found he simply could not commit himself, even to sim ple friendship. ... He had all h is life had this craving for an absolute friend, a David to h is Jonathan, Pylades to his O re ste s: a blood-brother. All his life he had secretly grieved over his friendlessness. And now, a t l a s t when i t really o ffe re d __ and it had offered tw ice before, since he l e f t Europe __ he didn’t want it, and he realised that in h is innermost soul he had never wanted it.*2 We fin d that later, in 1926, the friendship idea still being pre dominant in h is mind, Lawrence wrote the play, •David* in which the classic idea of friendship ecu Id take f i r s t place. This brings us to the point wht re Ia,wrence begins to feel that a group is necessary. He cou Id n o t find, as we have seey^ one man with whom he could join wholly in spirit and in doctrine,

~~1. Kangaroo. p. 63. 2. Ibid^ p . 120 f. - 41-~~

~~VI. KAN - GROII? RRlAtfoimPIP~~

From the y ear 1915 until the publication of Kang^^aroo in 1923, Iiawrence was anxious to g e t together a group who wofld go and liv e apart from the rest of th e wohld. He wrote to W.l.Hopkin on Ja n . 15, 1915, about this plan. ^ We w ill also talk of my pet scheme, I want to g a th e r about twenty souls and s a i l away from this world of war and sq u a lo r and found a l i t t l e colony where there shallbe no money but a sort of communism as f a r as necessaries of l i f e go, and some real decency. It is to be a real colony built, upon the real decency which is in eachmember of the community A community which is established on the assumption of goodnee# in the members, instead of the assumption of badness, The whole idea and plan is given in detail to lady Morell in the same year. We find in Women in Iffve a suggestion of a coamum- itv consisting of the fo u r main characters when they go away to gether to the mountains. However, the s p i r i t of the undertakis^ seems to come out more In Kangaroo than in any other novel. I t is rather a surprise to find th a t more attention is not given to grpup life in th e noveii, since Iiawrence desired it so mich himself It is reasonable to believe, bowevef, that since practically every thing in the novels comes o u t o f his own experience, ther would be little done about this plan, because he had no chance to work I t out. The only time that it was tried before 1920 was with the Murry's. And we have that experdience in Kangaroo. It Is in Kangaroo that the desire is expressed. It comes out here with th e continuation of the quotation just taken from the novel, Somers

~~1. letters p , 219, 4».~~

knew that he did not want a h&ood-brotherhoodi He did want eome other living relationship* Bit what? *• Perhaps the thing that the dark races know; that one can ' s t i l l feel in India; the mystery of lo rd sh ip ; ... The o th e r mystic relationship between men» whichdemocracy and e q u a lity try to deny and obliterate* Hot any arbitrary caste or birth aristocracy. But the m y stic recognition of difference and innate priority* the joy of obedience and the sacred re» sponsibility of authority**^ Finally it appears Lawrence*s desire for leadreship. He was oppressed by his fe e lin g o^*alonenes8*i He wanted a group to act and feel in conjunction w ith him* Throughout his l i f e »althoû^ he tried many times to secure a group which would folio/, hi#, he remained an isolated being* He could not have a close relationship with humanity* This comes out stromgly in Kangaroo* He knows th a t th(re must be relationships* Yet he cannot establish them* He says in Kangaroos * Yet one cannot live a life of entire loneliness, ... There's got to be meetings even communion* '‘ell then* let up hâve th# communion* _ ’This is thy body «men i take fro# iAee and sat __ as the priest, also the 0od* says in the ritual of biood* sacrifice. The r i t u a l of supreme responsibility* and o ffe rin g Sacrifice to the dark God* and to the men in whom the dark God is manifest* Sacrifice to the strong* not to the weak* In aww* not in dribbling love* The communion in p wer* the assumption into glory* La gloire**2

As Hin has sa id in his s tu d y o f Lawrence, there is always Lawrence the Individualist struggling for isolation on the one hand, and on the o th e r, Lawrence the man tormented with pity* with his feeling of kinship, with a desire for understanding of his fellow-mwn. However, as the novels and the letters show, there cm?y never be a perfect relationship between people." We are doomed to a solitariness*

^tngaroo p. 121# 3, Kin, Unprofessional Study, p.24. i. Ibid# p. 3^. 4, Ibid. p . 29, % Thia fueling of alonenesa ^ wish to point out* As early as 1913» just about a year after his mother’s death» Lawrence w rote to Game t t ; * I hope you w ill stand by me a bit; ^ haven't a man in the w orld, not a woman eithef besides Frieda* who w ill. Hot that anyone else has, •*■ suppose, who goes h&s own way. But I haven’t vet got used to being cut off from folks insidat a hit childish,*! —

~~The fo llo w in g year he expressed the same desire for the eosptn any of other people, B* writing of another person, yet we can see his own feelings here,~~

##&###- *e canno t help feeling tlia t this is Ta.v,rence orying ou t for lo v e from the depths of h is lonelines because, as Murry has s a id , Lawrence hlaisulf needed a great deal of loving, From this time on, we see the workings of the growing sense of isolation in his novels, Lawrence seems to be torn, as has been stated before, between the two feelings _ one of wishing to be alone; the other of fearing to be alone. Of Will -^hrangwen in The Rainbow.he w ro te. He could be alone now. He had just learned what it was to be able to be alone, it was r ig h t and peaceful. ... He had come into h is own existence, was bom for a second time, born a t last unto himself, out of the vast body of humanity. How at last he had a separate identity, he existed alone, even If he were not quite alone, -before he had only e x iste d in so far as he had relations w ith another being,

~~1. Letters, p. 127. 2. letter to T.D,D. July 7, 1914, p. 208. 3. The Bainbow p . 178, «*44—~~

lawrenc# desired to te iiapi-y when alone, but Me sens- of re la tlo m - shlps with people would not p erm it It, He w rote to Rolf G ardiner in July, 1926: • I should love to be connected with something, with some few people, in something. As far as any thing, mat ters I have alway* been very much alone, and regretted It. But I can't belong to clubs or societies, or Freemasons, or any other damn thing. So if there is , with you, an activity I can belong to, I shall thank my stars. But, of course, I shall be wary beyond words, of committing myself, Everything needs a beginning, though ^ and I shall be very g lad to abandon my rather meaningless isolation, and jo in in with some few other men, if I can,*'^ We hear Ursula, in %e Rainbow, speaking of her isolation; yet one can see lawrence’s own situation outlined In these words; " I have no father nor mother nor lo v e r, I have’ no allocated place in the world of things, do not belong to Beldover nor England, nor to this world, thty none of them exist, I am trammeled and entangled in them, b u t they are all u n re a l. 1 must break faith out of it like a nu t from its shell which is an unreality.*2 This sense of aloneness grows in Women in I,qve, There we see Birkin alm ost afraid to mingle in society, Lawrence, as a u th o r, is talking of B irk in : ** What a dread he had o f mankind, of other people. It amounted almost to horror, to a sort o f dream-terror __ his ^orror of being observed bp some o th e r people. If heij s e r on an island ... with only the creatures and the trees, he would be free and glad, th e re would be none of this heaviness, this misgiving. He codld love the vegetation and be quite happy and unquestioned, by himself, Just a b i t father on, Birkin says that * At the very last, one is a lo n e , beyond the influence of love. There ia a real impersonal me, th a t is beyond love, beyond any emotional relationship. So it is with you. But we want to delude w re e lv e s that love is th e root. I t is n ’t .

~~1. Letters, p, 6?@, 2. The Rainbow p. 464. 3. Women in Xove p. 122. -4 0 —~~

It is only the branches. The root is beyond love, a naked kind of isoààtion, an isolated me, that does Bot meet and mingle, and never can. ... Tiiere is ... a final me which is siark and impersonal and beyond responsibility.*- Lilly, in Aaron's Rod, asserts, however, th a t * a man may come in to possession of h ie own soul at last __ as the Puddiilats teach __ but without ceasing to love, or even to hate. One lo v e s, one hates ____ but somewhere beyond it all, one understands, and poss esses one's soul in patience and in peace _ ... And i t isn’t a 2 negative Sirvana either.” Lilly s a id that th e s e l f , one's own s e lf must take the respon sibility fo r every action. He said, * T h e re 's no goal outside you.__ and there's no God outside you . ... There is only one thing, your very own s e l f . So y o u 'd beti.er stick to it. ... -^ut rewm&er; all the tim e, the responsibility is upon your own head, i t a l l restgt with your own lonely s o u l, the reàpdnsàteâlity fo r your own 3 aattlon,* This sense of isolation created in Lawrence a spontaneous and erratic Impulse to embrace anyone who leaned the least bit towards hèm. In Kangaroo. Somers f e l t that therewas something deeper than love o f mate for mate. Kangaroo, the social leader, wanted his love, he could not give in to it. ” las it j u s t fear that made him hold back from admitting hie love for the o th e r man?*

~~1. Women in Love, p. 165. 2. Aaron's Rod, p. 110, 3. Ibid. p .308 f. •»4S“~~

" Yea. it f#ar. tho;, did h# not Lei lav# in the Rod of leaf? ... %#re was not only the Rod o l lo v e , . . hg believed in the Rod of fear, of darknee*^, of i-aBPion, and of B ilenoe, ti.e^God that made a man realise his own sao&ed aloneness. If ^afi&aroo oouid have realised th a t to o , then "Richard fe lt he would have loved him, in a dark, separat#, other Way of love. But never thip all-in-all tnin&. ... If love was all-in-all, then the great range o f love was o o sp le t# as he pul I t : a man b love fo r wile and children, his sh e e r, confeseed love for hie fri«$nd, his mate, and hie love for beauty and truth, «hether love was all in all or net, thie was the great,wonderful rangt of love, and love was not . . .. com plete s h o rt of the whole Put _ but some tiding elsA was tru; at the sa&p time. Mem'# If olatTon was :JLways a supreme truti. and fact, not to be forsworn. And the m^stuQr of apartness. And the greater r^stery of the dttrk God beyond a r:an, the Goë trutt give# a mai; passion, and thwjkark, wu^xj/lalnod blood-ti^ndernese that is devper than love, ... Ihie dark,passionate religiousnee# and Inward sense o f an inwelllng i agnifioence, ... this filled ■Richard’s heart first, and human love eewmed such a fig h tin g , for c&ndlk-llght, wh^rc thp dark is î*o much bttier.*! This battling of lovNS forr* th<; wl.ole contact Ittwurn Rioh- ard Somttrs and haf:g^;Lroo. And it is the r trongest outporing of the feeling that humai, love ia not in itf^clf enougi*. %e person is s t i l l an I s o la te b ein g , "e can comiiunp ,^lth only thp dark Gods. This Is expressed by hilly, in l:o^. eeye, * ... oan*t ^ne live with one’s wife, and be fot\nd of her: :tnd with one's friends, and enjoy th*flr oomiiahy; and with the world and everything, pleasantly; and yet know that one is # ||l alone? ... In eo f a r as he Ib a sin g le individual sou 1, he W aloncj ipso facto. In ao far as I am I , and only esTT, and am only I, in *.o far, I am inevitably and eternally alone, and it in my litBt bles^ednkBs to know it, and to accept it, and to live with this as the core of my self-knowledge.

This h-eara d ir e c tly upon the discussion of ^an*e r e l a t »nmhip to the dark Rods. The novel dealing with that phrase is The Plwe#^ Serpent. From it we get Iawre&ce*8 whole concept of the myetie % œiverse#th# m en-like Gods and the p h a llic s e i^ e .

~~1. Kangaroo o. 384 f . - 47-~~

~~VII. TRADER - FOIJjO'^ R3IJITI0KSHIP~~

There was indead a lasting e f f e c t produced w ith in Lawrence bv th e war. We shall notice his experiences in detail later*

U n til tiie wax his letters show faith and liope. Ke has been sure tiiat a new life would be possible* During the war, this hope of a new life burns f i t f u l l y in letters th a t are among thi. most i n t e re s tin g of the collection, hut are also of a profound sadness and a growing sense of Isolation. Lawrence had, at that time, a definite urge to become a le a d e r . He had i t throughout h is l i f e ; I t shows itself in all of h ie novels, often in the forr of a desire fo r m astery over tiife woman,

Paul Ilorel is typical of Lawrence's men in h is unwillingness to give himself f u ll# to the woman; whereas Miriam is ty p ic a l of h is 1 women in h e r p a ssio n to absorb the man completely* We see M iriam ’s resistance to Paul's domination. ** She knew she f e l t in a s o r t of bondage to him, which she hated because she could not control it. She had hated her love fo r him from the moment i t grew too strong fo r h e r. And, deep down, she had hated him because she loved him and he dominated h e r ." L The two men in The Rainbow who have succumbed to the woman are one man ^ I*awrence himself. In Woraer.' in love. the idea recurs strongly in the struggle between Gerald and Tudrun. " Rut he k ep t the id e a constant v i thin him, whata p e rfe c t voluptuous consummation i t would ie to s tr - n ^ le h e r, to Gtrangle every spark of l i f e ou t of h e r, till she lay com-

~~1. Joseph Farren Beach, "‘he Tw e n tieth C entury B evel, c79. 2. Sons auid Lovers. p. ' —48—~~

~~pl#tely inert, soft, rela x ed for ever, a soft heap lying dead between his hands, utterly dead. Then he wwid have had her finally and forever;,"~~

We fin d th a t Aaron » too wou Id never yield. The illusion o f love was eon e forever, hove was a battle in which each pady strove for the maetery of the other's soul. So far, man had yielded the maetery to woman. Bow he was fighting for it back again," expressed this feeling with regard to h is w ife, Bat t l e . • , , , on th is Sunday n rsn in g in the strange co u n try , he r e alised that he had never intended to yield himself fully to her or anything: ,,, h is i n t r i n s i c and central aloneness was the very 3 c e n tre o f ii/s b e in g ," The Plumej S erp en t i s greatly concerned with the man and woman y ie ld in g to each o th e r and to the third thing _ the spark. We shall soon consider that novel ,

Lawrence himself fully believed that th is d e s ire for mastery over another individual war a great problem. He wrote to K atherine Mansfield, in Dec. 1918, about Jung's Psychology o f the Unconscious • t h i s mother-incast idea can become an obsession. But i t seems to me there is this much truth in it: that at certain periods the man has a desire and c*. tendency to return unto the woman, make h e r h is goal and end, fin d s his justification in her, .,, But Frieda says I am antediluvian in my p o s itiv # a t t i t u d e , I do think a woman must y ie ld some s o r t of preced ence to a man, and he must take this precedence, I do th in k men must go ahead absolutely in front of their women, w ithout tu rn in g round to ask for permission or approval from th e ir women. Consequently the women must follow as i t were un - queationingly, I can't help it, I believe this, Frieda doecifi^ Hence our fight,

~~1, p , 525. 2, Aaron's Rod, p, 135, 3, Ibid, p. 173. 4, Letters, p, 462. -4 9 -~~

As Lawrence felt about Laving m astery over woman, so he f e l t about being a leader o f Men. One w r ite r says th a t through his de- sirs to escape from absorption by tiie woman U^ere came abou t the consummation of a supplementary friendship with a man:

" and i t grows more and more clear th a t this friendship _ which Lawrence vainly sou^t, h im s e lf, in h is own l i f e t to be the impersonal friendship of teacher and disciple. Here, if yoa like, is where the crazy streak comes wft. For th is very great artist was determines to be a le a d e r and saviour of men. h o t c o n te n t w ith the 'sublimation* of art, he must a lso f u r th e r s a tis f y his unfulfilled emotional life by taking on him the mantle of a prophet,* -

There is much evidence that Lawrence wanted to be a le a d e r among men. Murry felt that he was the man fo r Lawrence and r e a lly 2. wanted to accept him as a le a d e r , b u t th e ir ways just did not lie togetkr. Lawrence’s o p inion comes o ut in Aaron’s Rod. * We must either love or rule. ... and men must subm it to the greater soul in a man, for their guidance: and women must sub";it to the positive power _ soul in man, for their being.” You’ll get this state when "All men say thej want a le a d e r , they mean they want an instrument, lik e Lloyd George. ... Tut i t ’s more than that. It’s the re v e rs e . I t’s the deep, fathomless submission to the heroic soul in a g re a te r man. . . . It is life-submission. And you Aaron know it. But you kick against the pricks. And perhaps you’d rathe r die than yield. And so , die you m ust. I t i s you"** a f f a i r . "3 There is a finality about Lawrence’s own feelings in the »atte>- and we can gee that it was a vital issue with him. I t was h is w ish to c re a te a new world o r something marvellous. He says æ much in Fa n ta s ia when writing about Freud. He asserts th a t what

~~1 . B each, 3Y9, 2. Muri'y, *5eBini8cences**Adelphi T oi. 1 p. 411-20. 3. Aaron’s Hod p. 312. -5 0 —~~

Freud writes Is p a r t l y tru e : y e t th e re is another side. Sex le not a l l . There is s t i l l another greater dynamic power _ the im pulse to create a world or something wonderful. "That is» the essentially religious or creative motive is the f i r s t m otive fo r a l l human a c t i v i t y . The sexual m otive comes second. And there is X a great conflict between the interests of the two, at all tim es*.

~~Possibly the chief cause for the break between Lawrence syod Murry was the desire of Lawrence to be the leader. Lawrence~~

always felt himself a superior being. He wrote to Cecil Cray i s 1918; "The chief feeling is, that men were always alike, and always w ill be, and one must view the species with contempt f i r s t and foremost, and find a few individuals ... to rule the speciss. It is proper ruling they need, and always have needed." Lawrence f a i t th a t he could never dominate Murry, althcu gh he wished to very much. In A aron's Rod the statem en t is made th a t " People who make calls on other people’s soils are bound to fin d 3 the door_dhut." Lawrence was always making such calls and when

~~he received no response, he felt that other people were letting~~

him down. L ater in the same novel he says," You’ve get to have a sort of slavery again. People a re n o t men: they arc insects and instruments, and their d e stin y is slavery . ... I mean a r e a l committal of the life-isoue of inferior beings to the responsibil i t y of a superior b ein g . . . . I t is written between a man’s brows, 4 which he is."

~~1. Letters, p. 241, 2. Letters, July 3, p. 453, 3. p . 128. —SI,—~~

IR I'aiitauBla, Lawrenoe asserts that mankind orares leaders. There is a need fo r some one to be increasingly responsible for the whole, ^nco a le a d e r is chosen, the o th e rs must obey him body and so u l. This leader should not be chosen from personal 1 affection but for life ’s sake only,

I'hat seemed to be the whole trouble between .hawrenoe and h i&urry, Murry could have followed out of pereenal attachment, no|; out ..of belief, Murry s ta te s that what Lawrence really wanted was to lead one man _ and of course we can presume who th a t man Leadership and power were only names given to the relation with a. man fo r whom he i%ngered, Murry beli eved, however, that Lawrenee was a leader, or r a th e r th a t in g e n eratio n s to come he w ill be found to be a leader and will be considered as such. ” But he was not at all a le a d e r In th e mode which he dreamed, ... He was a le a d e r a f te r the fashion of th e man who leads because he suffers, who leads because he i s crucified, ’ I, if I be lifted up, will draw a l l men unto A fter the publication of Aaron’s I od and fantasia. Hurry becarae enthusiastic over Lawrence, felt that a pinnacle had been attained and that Lawrence had r e a lly gotten hold of some th in g w orthw hile. was h is p la n , then, to found The A delphi. Lawrence was to have so le charge of the magasine and^rry began by publishing the essential chapters of fantasia, Murry w rite » ,

~~1, fantasia, p. 11®*, 2. Son of Woman. p, 224, -5 2 -~~

~~• I neither desire nor intended to remain editor of it. I was~~

~~In my own eyes locum te n e n s , literally lieutenant, fo r i«a%rence;~~

~~and I waited eagerly for his coming. I was a little dashed when 1 h is l e t t e r s began to arrive.* %e w ill look at these letters~~

~~when discussing Lawrence's attitude toward England. fhey state th a t he could n o t go back until something hap, ened in sid e him.~~

~~He felt that his country had insulted him and he mistrusted it too much to again become Identified w ith i t . Such letters made~~

Murry more and more perplexed. felt himself made a dupe Lawrence. When Lawrence finally went hack to iingland, h is id eas seemed, t> ^urry at least,,to have changed considerably and he could not understand. Lawrence felt th a t he could not remain in

England and wanted Murry to return with him to Hew Mexico, There was no p o in t in Murry * s leav in g England except as,a personal fav o r to Lawrence. H@ had no belief in the foundation of a new s o c ie ty . Lawrence would not accept him in th a t spirit. Conse

~~q u e n tly , the outcome of the whole m a tte r was t h a t Lawrence re turn ed to New Mexico alone. From ti ls time on, the bond between~~

~~th - two gradually became weaker until the final break three y ea rs later in 1926 when Jjawrenoe had le ft Lmer&ca and settled in I t a l y .~~

~~The essence of ths last l e t t e r from Lawrence fcod Murry was. to the effect th a t they could never again come toget. er. He w rote~~

* Even when we are immortal spirits, we shall dwell in different Hadan."

~~1. Son of Woman.pu. 328 ff. 2. ttu rry , •Beatniscences*, Adelnhi Vol. 1 pp. 455-461, - 53 -~~

Lawrence proved to his own satisfaction the f u t i l i t y o f tr y ls ^ to le a d , he wrote just two y e a rs b efo re h is d e a th , * I ’m afraid the whole business of leaders and fo llo w ers is somehow wrong, now. ... Even leadership must (Ue, and be born different l a t e r on, . . . When Leadership hgstdied _ it is very nearly dead, save for Mussolini and y*^^lf ârdinÊ7 and White Fox and Annie êsant and Gandhi __ then it will be born again, perhaps, new and changed, and based on reciproc i ty o f tenderness. The reciprocity of power is o b so le te , When you get down to the basis of life, to the depth o f the aarra creative stir, th ere Is no pow er, *1 I t is for the fulfillment of th is religious, creative motive th a t he w rite s The Plumed S e rp e n t, Ke cannot in reality be the le a d e r he desires to be; so he gains some s a t is f a c ti o n through a fictitious creation. Re cm Id appreciate that too, as he says himself that a l i f e in his characters is b e tte r than rea lity. Re sa y s, "When one is shaken to the very depths, one finds reality in the unreal world. At present my real world is the world of my inner softl, which r e f le c ts on to the novel I write, the outer world la there to be endured, it is not r e a l __ neither the outer l i f e . "

~~1. Letter t i "olf Gardiner March 4, 192h pp. 712 f , 2 . Letter to Lady Morell May 24, 1916 p. 355 f. -5 4 -~~

~~V III. KAB - DARK CODS RSLATIOBSKlP~~

A fte r th e *ar, Lawrenee eeemed., more and more, to tu rn from humanity and towards the darkness. In 1915, he wrote to Lady Morell; " I have had a great s tru g g le w ith the Powers of Darknee# l a t e l y . I th in k I have j u s t g o t the tetter of them again. D o n 't t e l l me th e re is no devil; th e re is a P rince of Darkness. Some times i wish * could l e t go and be r e a lly wicked _ k i l l and murder b u t k i l l c h ie f ly , i do want to k i l l . Lut I want to s e le c t whom I shall kill. Then I shall enjoy it. %e war is no good. 1 I t is the black desire I have become conscious of."

The conception of the phallic sou roe as being the centre of th in g s comes ou t in Sons and Lovers. Paul says th a t one m ust have " the real, real flame of feeling through another person __ once, only once, if it lasts three monb e". Miriam pondered this «md realized what he was seeking^ a sort of baptism of f ir e in pwsiom* it seemed to her," In later novels, we have a g re a t d eal made of the phallic conception. In Fantasia Lawrence; says that " The l i f e of individuals depends directly upon the moon. The moon is the modie r of • 7 darkness." In several instances Lawrence uses the moon. The con- d i t k n of the weather and nature is always symbolic of the m ental states of the characters. In The Rainbow. Tom Prangwen o fte n has

~~the feeling of Lydia’s spiritual absence although she is p h y slo a l-~~

~~1. Letters, p. 241. 2 . Sons and Lover# p . 392. 3. f^tas'i'a p. &&5. -5 5 -~~

~~ly present. We see hiti in that state oi mind.~~

• He went out into the wind. ... And a l l the skv was teem» ing and team ing a lo n g , a rast disorder of fly in g shapes and darkness and ragged fumes of lig h t and a great brown c ir c ling halo, then tfee t e r r o r of a moon running l i q u i d - b r i l l i a n t in to the open fo r a moment,hurting the eyes before she plung ed under cover of chatuL a g a in . *1 U rsu la Brangwen is seen in the same mental state, / ** Wares o f delirious darkness ran through hej^sm1, She wanted to reach and be amongst the flashing s t a r s , sfhu wanted to ra c e with her feet and be beyond the confines of this earth. ... The darkness was passionate and breathing w ith imraense, un- peroeired heaving. It was waiting to receive her in h er flight. She tu rn ed and saw a g re a t w hite moon looking at h e r over the hill. And h er b r e a s t opened to i t , she was cleared like a transparent jew el to i t s l i j ^ t . •^he stood filled with th e f u l l moon, o ffe rin g herself. ... She wanted the moon to f i l l in to her, she wanted more, more communion w ith the moon, consummation. ... She stood for some moments out in the overwhelming lumin o s ity of th e moon. She seemed a beam of gleaming power. She was afraid of what shew a s . "2

Birkln, as well, felt a l l too conscious o f the moon. One evening, upon seein g I t s reflection In the pond, ** He got large s to n e s , and threw them, one a f t e r the o th e r, a t th. white-burning c e n tre o f th e moon, till th e re was n o th in g b u t a rooking of hollow noise, and a pond surged up, no moon any more, only a few broken fla k e s tan g led and glittering broadcast in the darkness, withont ai r>. aim ot meaning. ...* Many tëmee th e powers o f darkness are spoken o f in the n o v els.

~~The characters speak about the g re a t dark knowledge that one c an ' t have in his head __ the dark involuntary b ein g . It is death to oneself - b u t i t is th e coming into being of an o th e r.~~

~~1. The Rainbow p.42. 2. Ibid. p. 302. 3. Wommn in iG-m p . 282. -5 6 -~~

One character asks how you can have knowledge not in your head* The answer Ib; * In the blood, ... when the wind and the known world drowned In darkness __ everything must go __ ther must he the deluge.*

law rence wrote to rirnest Collings January 17, 1913: ” My great religion is a belief in the blood, as being wiser than the intellect, '^e can go wrong in our winds, i-ut what our 2 hlopd f e e ls and b e lie v e s , and says, is always tru e .* Two y e ars l a t e r he w rote to hady horell; * I t is n o t yo%r b ra in you must trust to , nor your w ill but to tht fundamental pathetic f a c u lty for receiving the hidden waves th a t come from the depths of life, and. for transferring them to the unreceptive world. It is som ething which ip unrecognized and frustrated and destroyed."h

•‘■his lin k in g up of man w ith the universe is a doctrine whi<^ plays an important ro le in Larence*s life, thought th a t one should s t r i v e for the fulfillment of all d e s ir e s , down to the deepest and most spiritual desires, says, • ... And I s h a ll fin d my deepest d e s ire to be a wish f o r p u re, unadulterated relam 4 t i c nship with theuniverse, for truth in being.* Mrs. Carswell says of him, " he wanted above everything * world of liv in g relationships _ 'Fifty per cen t me, fifty per cent thee : and the third thing, the spark. ...Either this o r le s s than nothing'. And relationships not m erely with men and women# but with birds, b e a s ts , flowers, reptiles, stones, stars, suns and 5 manufactured articles.” 1. Ton^ in love p. "47% ^ 2. Letters p. 95. 3. letters 1915 p. 835. 4. Letters, To Carswell July 1916 p. 365. 5. Carswell; Mmeiniscences* Adeli^i Vol. Ill pp. 77-85. -s ? -

~~lawrence was truly &*are of every living thing and. a a# a liv in g daeraài in every tr e ^ . He seemed to th in k th a t the dark~~

~~races come much closer to the centre of tiie universe -and its mystery than does the white. He said,~~

** The old dark religions understood. *Ood enters from below* said the SgyjjJtians, and th at’s right. Why cariH you darken your minds and know th-t the g re a t gods pulse in the dark, and enter you as iarkness through the lower gates, not throuf^ the head. Why don’t you seek again the unknown and invisible gods who step sometimes into your arteries, and down the blood vessels to the phalloe, to the vagina, and have straqp# meetings there? There are d if f e r e n t dark gods, which are the dark promptings and passion-motions inside you, and have a reverence for l l f e . * l he wrote to J.Tuferesford that the Cornish people had an a ti a r a c t i o n f o r him. Tl.ey seemed to reveal th e dark gods, ai.thou^ they were too much concerned about th e trivialities of life, ** Nevertheless, the o ld ra c e is s t i l l re v e a le d , a race whioh b e lie v e d In the darkness, in magic, and in the magic tran scendency of one man over ano tire r, which is fascinating. Also th e re to l e f t some of the old sensuousness of the dark n e s s , a sort of softness, a sort of flowing together in p h y sic a l intimacy, something almost negroid, which is fascism ating.*2 He wrote to Kurry much later telling of his intention of re turning to England from Hew Mexico and of the fact that there must be two ends of a rope to t i e to g e th e r. Ingland to him was

~~only one end of the broken rope. He said, * There’s another end to the; outreach. One hand In space Is not enough. It needs the~~

~~other hand from the o p p o site end o f sp a ce , to clasp and form the V w bridge. The dark hand and the white."~~

~~1^ L e tte r to W illard Johnson 1922 from ^ew Mexico p. 554, 2. Let;.ers ïch. 1916 p. 315. 3. -betters, 9ot. 1923 p. 588. -5 8 -~~

~~Feeling thus strongly abolit the dark, racos, he would enjoy living close to andteir.B able to observe the Mexican people,~~

Murry says of this novel ** The rcoet obviously significant thing in The Plumed Serrent le negative; it is that hawrence doe# 1 n t appear in it. The Man disappears, The Woman rem ain s." I t is true that Lawrence doeo not appear as a character; that is, there is no one who, in physical appearance, resembled bin.. Doubtless, that is what Murry meant. Thu characters are Mexican; the spirit of Lawrence, however, permeates the entire book. Fis own thoughts are embodied therein and one has the f^ ling that th# whole struggle is Lawrence's. Fe is constantly present. Mrs. Carswell sa y s, * And surely here is the most ambitioe and th; nost impressive novel of our generation. ... Only the pinions of faith coild have carried home such a theme. And more than f a i bn. For this tale Lawrence needed not only a l l h is genius,, but all hie long discipline and all his savage pilgrimage. So

f a r froj ehou ing * dis in tegra t Ion * it creates. In i t law e n ce’s powers as a novelist are established and his thoughts as a man are embodied ti th a t extent that it would have assu red him Lis place without further production. Indeed it may be said that all l a t e r

works . . . are embroideries on themes contained in the Mexican 2 n o v el." The experiences in Mexico are tru e to L a w e n c e 'e own, S re . 3 Luhan s ta te s that he has just transported Taos down to Old ^^xioo.

~~1. Son of Woman p. 303. 2. Savage Piltrriaatfe. p. 103. 3. Luhan, Lorenzo in Taos p. 114. -§ s -~~

W« can h e sure th a t all of his knowledge of Indiana and the drums he learned while at Taos. And as has he^n indicated, he f e l t th a t the dark races possessed thât divine spark between man and the universe, which to him was the "real th in g " in l i f t .

I'e wrote In 1930, ** The young men know now tlia t moot o f the , 'benevolence* and 'motherly love' of their adoring mothers wa# simply egoism again, and an extension of self, and a love of having absolute p ower over anotne creature." Fe asks the questies what is the real thing In life and says that that is the great problem. Kis own ans er is : to get into contact with the liv in g 1 C entre of the cosmos. Put how? he f e l t th a t the îîexicans hmà. the s o lu tio n to t h a t problem . In an article on Few ^exlco, w ritte n in 1931, he s a id , " I th in k &ew Fexico war the greatest experience from the outside world that I ever have had. It certainly changed m# fo r e v e r .’* The "whole life-effort of man was to get hie life Into direct contact with the elemental life oi the cosmos, ' mountain-life, cloud-life, thunder-life, a i r - l i f e , earth-life, s u n - l i f e . To come into immediate fel t c o n ta c t, and so d e riv e energy, power, and a dark s o r t of jo y ." He went on to say that the Mexican's religion is^,groater th an the god-religioa. I t has a f u l l meaning of life .^ ' As we have observed, Lawrence was desirous of being a le a d e r. In The Plumed Serpent, he had h is chance to c re a te and lead am entire new movement. lie accomplished the overthrow of the oh urch and made the religion of his men-gods the national one. The P res ident'declared the old Church i l l e g a l in KsxAco, and caused a law to be passed, making the religion of ^FirzALCOATL the n a tio n a l

1. Lawrence, "Beal Thing", Scribners Magazine June 1930 pp.587-92, 2. SurveyMay 1931, pp 153-155 —#0*

~~religion of tho Republic. All churches were c l osed. All priests were com pelled to take an oath of allegiance to the R epublic, o r condemned to e x ile . . . .~~

The whole c o u n tr y ,as thrilling with a new thing, w ith a release of new energy.*

hawrence regretted his isolation, as we have seen, and hare h # found fulfillm ent in allowing his characters to become gods w hile men and let their soulc load a multitude of people. In t)i-s phallic oenm#, one can he detached from all mechanical

~~and even mental contacts, if ho be in direct accord with the elem» ental flow of the univeroo _ & truly dark knowledge.~~

~~The woman in The Plumed ^ ern en t dreaded this casting off of h manity. She * cried to her own soul het me s till believe in soxss~~

~~human contact. Let it not be all cut off from met~~

" u t she made up h e r mind, to he alone, and to cut herself o f f 2 from all the mechanical widderehin contacts.*

~~Lawrence knew t h t t tid e c a s tin g o f f of material things and~~

accepting only the elemental flow was f a r th e r than humanity in general could go. Ro knew th a t mankind w^s r o t great enough to countenance it. Lawrence was on the sid e o f the instincts and against all forms of society. He identified h im sell w ith n a tu re . Kis difficulties were great. Rdwin Kuir mays, in a short article on Lawrence, that * He had to translate into a conscious thing,

language, states which are f lu id and unconscious, and cannot be directly denoted.*

~~1. The Plumed B ern en t, p . 420 f , 2. Ibid. p. 101* , Vnl, 120 3. Muir, *D.H.I«#renoe* The fetion pp. 148-150 *• 61—~~

Lawrence wrote from New Kaxico to Tripant 2ur&ow: * 1',^ not going to bother any more about that eide of thingn. People are tee dead and too conceited. Man ia the meanure of the nnlver& e. L et him be it: idiotic foot-rule which even then 1b nothing. In my opinion, one can never know : and never_ never understand. One can but swim, like a trout In a quick stream."

Kevartheleoe, he s till believed th a t the dark relationship was the only th in g . In 9he Plumed Serpent he Bays of X ate, '* Alone, she was notlihg. Only as the pure female correspond#» ing to his pure male, did she signify. As an isolated Individual, she had l i t t l e o r no significance. As a woman on h er own, she was re p u lsiv e and ever evil, ta him. She was not real till she was recijirocal. To a g re a t extent this was true, and she knew it. To a greart e te n t the same was tru e o f him, and without her to give him the pfieer, ht ton wm Id n o t achieve h is own manhood and meaning. With h er or without h e r , he would he beyond ord inary men, because the power war in 1 im* T ut failing her, he would never hakelJKle.ultimate achievement. **e would never bo whole, . . . P ut th a t l i t t l e s t a r oi her own single s e l f , would ha ever reco g n ise th a t? Kay, did he even recognine any single s t a r o f h is own being? Did he not oonceivt of himself as a power and a potency on the faodof the e a r th , an embodied w ill, lik e a ru sh in g dark wind? And hence, inevitably, she was but the stone of rest to his potency, his b èÊ stf sleep, the cave and l a i r o f h is male w il! Ke w rote a g a ir to h r. rurrow in 1927, still believing in the non-mental flow as in th^ passage just quoted, he said, " I'm not sure if \ m ental r e la tio n w ith a woman d o e s n 't make it impoesillt to love her. To know the mind of a woman is to end in h a tin g h e r. J.ove meabs the pre-cognitive flow _ n e ith e r strictly has a mind _ i t is the h o n est s t a te before ' the apple. Bite the apple, and the love is k i ll e d . Between man and woman i t ' s a question of understanding qœ lo v e, I am almost convinced.

1. Letter June 6, 1925, p. 643. 2. The Plumed Serpent, p. 386 f. 3. ^T ter, Aug. 1927, p. 696. About I*awrencrt*s lyBt threat novd, j,ady nhatterlev'o lover, there need, be little d.incuse ion. It is, am Mrs, Carswell has s a id , and &s t believe as well, embroideries on former themes. The social ideas are those expressed in Vomn In Love and Kafwareo.

~~And It is a phallic novel; b ut one without the horro rs of the Mexican novel. ^t is a novel of dee^ sincerity and tenderness. f'S'wrence h im self mays of i t :~~

" I t is a nice and ten d er phallic novel n o t a sex novel in the ordinary sense of the word. I d o n 't know ho* much you 6ym|;at.hi?.e w ith my work perhaps not much, l u t anyhow, you know it is quite sincere, and th a t I sincerely believe in restoring the other, the phallic consciousness, into our live#; because it is the source of a l l real beauty, and all real gentleness. And those are the two things, tenderness and beauty, which will save us from honrors. ... in my novel 3L work for them directly, and d i r e c t from the phallic conscio#- nesB, which, you understand, is not the cerebral Bex.-consciouS" n e ss, t u t soiae thing really deeper, and the root oi poetry, liv e d or eun& ."l He wrote to ^urtis brown the same day.

” I b e lie v e in the phallic consciousness, as against the i r r i t a b l e cerebral consciousness we're afflicted w ith: and anybody who calls my novel a d ir ty sexual novel is a l i a r . I t’s not even a sexual n ovel: i t ’s a p h a llic . Sax is a th in g that exists in the h ead , i t s reactions are cerebral, and i t s procoBses mental, Zhereas the phallic reality is weirm and upon taneoue . ..* ^

I t is only natural to wonder why Hawrence felt such an aware ness of nature and such a close ness to tXiS earth, he alm ost takes us underground in some oh h is em otional discussions. In The Plumed Serpent. for instance, he reveals to us h it e a r th .

~~1. Letter to Harriet "onroe, ■**arch 1926 p . 716. 2. Letters, p. 718. -S 3 -~~

At the heart of the earth slfet:pe a great eerpeni, in the r- ' midfst of fire. Thome that go down in minee feel the h eat and the sw eat of him, they feel him move. It is the liv in g fire o f the earth, fo r the earth is alive, i’he snake o f th e world is huge, and the rocks are his s c a le s , trees grow be tween them. X te ll yon the earth you d ir ip alive as a agmk# that sleeps. *^o vast a se rp e n t you walk on, this lake l i é s between him folds ae a drop of rain in the folds of a sle e p ing rattlesnake. Yet he none the lee: lives. The earth is alive,"!

Rebecca &est in an -legy saysthat " It appeared to some th a t lawrence maw life as a flaming mysteqf becapse he suffered from tuberculosis ... It appeared to them that he wanted to crack th# crust which society has allowed to form on the surface of its existence and look underneath, because he was a miner's son and 2 had an inferiority complex about the respectable." I should not care to go th a t far?- however, I do think that

~~LKwrence’s childhood environment must have had a great deal to do with the later development of his ideas. In fact, he gave one~~

~~description of the lif e of .the miner which h&P practically enough evidence tliereinhto show th a t he was deeply influenced by the l i f e~~

underground. He said, " Under the butty system, the miners worked underground in a sort of intimate com unity, they knew eacn oti.or practical ly naked, and with curious si ose intimacy, and the d a rknees and the underground remoteness of the pit 'stall', and the c o n tin u al presence of d an g er, made tht physical, instinctive and intuitional c o n ta c t between mcr. wry hlglily developed, a contact almost as close astoucl,, very r e a l and r'. ry powerful* This physical awareness and intimate togetherness was. at its strongest down pit. Mien the men came up into the light they blinked. They had, in a measure, to change their flow. Sever tholes:, they brought with them eijve-ground the ouriou# dark intimacy of the m ine, the naked s o r t of contact, and if I think of my childhood, it is aJ-ways as if there was a luat-

~~1. p. 195. 8. Hew Adelbhl June-Aug. 1930 pp. 298-309, roua aort of inner darkneas.ilike the glnme of o a a l. in #M eh we moved and had our b ein g ,"~~

Although there can be no doubt In Aha minds that hawrenoe formed these impressions later in his life, th a t l a s t se n te n c e , I think, shows clearly why he had sucn an unusual oonsciouenesm of the earth and darkness, it makes his feelings and his words tram#» latable to him self as well as to us.

~~1. "ho t ' InghaT: and the 'lining Countryside" Op, Cit# —65 "~~

1%. HIHOR BXfERIBBCBS IS TM SOYELS tn four of the novele there are experiences, L&rence's own, which do not fall under any of the relationship headings, nor do they strictly belong to Uie attitudes which make up the n ^ t chap ter. Consequently, I have given them place here. Sons and Lovers Under the Hothe:^hild relationship, we have seen toat the family of Morels of the novel were surety lawrence's own. The atté tude in th e home was the same. Both men were colliers, not inters ested in intellectual things. The women were finer, although m>re m aterially and practically minded abdut the matters of home-making. • Morel was s^uous. She^^rs M or^ was intellectual. She would try to nag him into stopping his drunkenness.* In the article about the Nottingham countryside, from which we have qu> ted, Law rence says that • The colliers fled fiom the nagging materialism Z of their wives. They had no intellectual life whatsoever.* Paul, who represnts Lawrence, from early childhood had a tendency toward the esoteric. It seems significant that Mrs. Morel thought that*perhaps her son would be a JosSph" and she called him 3 Paul, not knowing why. His brother, William, called him 'Postle. Lawrence has been generally given the name of projhet. Murry att- 4 r ib u te s th a t name to him. The suffering which Paul undergoes from attacks of bronchitis and pneumonia are Lawrence's. All his life he was troubled with broœshitis and had two severe attacks of pneumonia. His ill health

~~1.pp. 29-34. 2. Op. Cit. -6 6 -~~

was the cause of his leaving a position in a manufacturer's office as well SÆ his position as schoolmaster later oh. It is reasonable to believe that the account of Paul at the 1 Surgical factory with the full description of details was that of I«wrence himself. Mrs, Carswell states that, at the age of sixteen Iiawrence worked for a short time in a manufacturer's office at thirteen shillings a week. He remained there until he became se r - 2 iously ill with pneumonia. Frequently in the novels we have reference to swiro ing and bathing. In Sons and lovers Paul and Clara go together to the sea- 4 side. “ He loved the Lincolnshire coast, and she loved the s e a . . . . Be was a poor swimmer, and couéd not stay long in the wa#er. She played round him in triumph, s p o rtin g with her superiority, which 5 he begrudged her." Lawrencfc was e v id e n tly n o t a good swimmer, and the instance could very well apply to him. %e Murry's and the Lawrence's often bathed together, Murry gives us th is comment about it. " Ratherin M ansfield was a superb swimmer, I a good fn e . I t is the only th in g 6 I could ever do better than Lawrence did it." Thus, in this one novel. Sons and Lovers, we have an auto biography of Lawrence's life from hie to the death of his mother in 1910. ^ met Freida Weekley in 1912 and was entering into his relationship with her in 1913 when this book was published

1. Sons and Lovers . pp. 115 ff. 2. Savage Pllgrlm^e p.5. 3. e.g. Kangaroo p. '^6. 4. p. 438. 5. p. 441. 6. Murry "Heminiscences" Op. Cit. Women in love One mlnore^lxperience in this novel Is strikingly siimilax to La«renae*8» It is a quarrel between Birkln and Hermione*^ She 80 thoroughly exasperated that she ** brought down the ball of^jewel atone/which was nel^ with all her force, crash on hie h ead," i^wrencé, according to Mrs, Carswell, after a quarrel to the finish with Freida over some slight matter, began to sing. " His unconcerned roundelay after what had j u s t passed " so enraged Freida th a t she brought down upon the singer’s head a heavy stone dinner 2 plate which she was carrying, Lawrence evidently had this in mind when he wrote the incident of the n o v el. The wéund that B irk in received was rea l to the author,

~~Aaron’s Rod~~

There are two minor parallelisms in Aaron’s Rod. In th e irst chapter we are shown Aaron’s attitude toward Christmas through h is manner o f treatin g h is w ife and ch ild ren . They askfor Christmas tre e candles and for candy. He reluctantly buys them, p uts them in his pocket and goes away to return home no mote. He is thoroughly 3 o u t o f sympathy withth e ir idea o f Christmas,!, Lawrence wrote a l e t t e r in 1918 a t Christmas saying that Christmas is an insti* 4 tution that really should be abolished,"

Then when the war is discussed, M lly sa y s, " There was a wakeful, self-pos essed b it o f me which knew that the war and all that horrible movement was false for me. And so I wasn’t going to be dragged in. The Carmans could have sh o t my mother or e» or what they liked: I wouldn’t have joined the #ar, I would like to k i l l my enemy^ But Ac cAme i bi t- of- tf^àt hu%e oitsce-ne cajieé Hà-f- JT^ayet t y - à n l d / ' 1. Women in Love p, 119? 3. p^. ,1b ff. —67—

~~Kangaroo~~

Kangaroo carries on this idea of war and t e l l s hawrenc e*s own experiences throi ghout the whole s ie g e . law rence wrote f i r s t to G arn ett in Kay 1912. He had gone to Metz with rrieda. He said, " I had ti> q u it Metz because the damn fools wanted to a r i e s t me as a spy, . . . ^here was such a to-do. It wanted all the fiery little Baron von Richthofen*s influence ... 1 to rescue me.* Of Somers we have this ; * Re had been in Germany èÉmmgheAou ôèo tk ad w how much he de tested the German military creatures; mechanical bullies they were. They had once threatened to a rrest him as a spy, and had insulted him more than once. ... But thenfêre wà# the industrialism and commercialism of England, ... Row much humiliation had Richard suffered, trying to earn his living! How they had tr ie d with the&r b ea stly industrial self-right eo u sn ess, to h u m iliate him as a sèpg&ate, single man!*S Somers was called to a recruiting office. * Re never forgot th a t journey up to ôdmin, with the other men who were c a lle d up. They were a ll b i t t e r l y , desperatley miserable, but still mmly: 3 mostly very quiet, yet n e itite r sloppy nor frightened.■ Somers was examined and r e je c te d . Lawrence wrote to Edward % rs h in June 1917, " I got myself r e je c te d again atiPodm in on Saturday: cursed the loathsome perform- auQce. As for flourishing, I should like to flourish a pistol under 4 th e nose of the fools that govern u s.*

1. Letters, p. 37 f. 2. Kangaroo p. 250. 3. fhid. p. 252. 4. Letters, p. 415. %e couple, In both instances, was treated as suspects. Rie women had the habit of singing German songs in a high voice which action did not help matters any, %e bitterness Somers and Harriet" showed in the novel was perfectly true of the lawrence's. Their house was ransacked; theywere constantly being called upon to deliver up papers and packages and were under su sp icion a t every tu rn . Both men were called up for re-examination. They were put in Grade 3 _ u n f it fo r military service. Tawrence wrote to Lady jketquUk in Sept. 1918: " These accursed people have put me in Grade 3, i t kills me with speechless fury to be pawed by them. They shall not 2 touch me again __ such f ilt h ." Somers was re-examined and • put in class 0„ unfit for »il- o - g itaury service, but conscripted for light non-military duties." After the Somers* moved down to Cornwall, he started to work as a farm-lab# rer, binding corn." ... he loved working all day among the corn beyond the high-road, with the savage moors a l l round, and the hill with its pre-Christian granite rocks rising 4 lik e a great dayrk pyramid on the l e f t , the sea in f r o n t." lawrence, of course, worked as a farm-lab# rer during a part o f the war. Re wrote to Lady Asquith, "la® busy in the h a rv e s t, 5 binding corn."

~~1. Xangewpoo pp. 260 f f . 2. Letters, p. 459. 3. Kangaroo p. 271. 4. Ibid. p. 277. 5i Letters, p #20. -6 9 -~~

Finally, ofiicers came to tn# Somers home in Cornwall, searW»- ed throwgn everything, took a few papers and. served them an "insol ent notice to q u it tne area oi Cornwall.* 1 % ls wasthe exact experience of the Lawrence's. This is from a letter to Lady Asquitii, * Sow coBWs another nasty blow. The police have suddenly de- seended on the house, searched it, and delivered us a notice to leav e the area of Cornwall, by Mondaynext. ... I cannot even conceive how i have incurred suspicion _ have not the f a i n te s t notion. ... And we must leave Cornwall, and live in an unprohib- ited area, and report to the police. It is very vile. ... They 2 have taken away some of my papers __ I don't know what.* He dis covered what had been taken a little later as he wrote to Kont%ue ^herman: * A fortnight s^o the police suddenly descended on us in Cornwall.. .We don't know in the least why this has taken place. Of course myw ife was corresponding with her people in Germany, through a friend in Switzerland __ but through the ordinary p ost. When the house was searched, the detective dogs took away, as far a as I can tell, only a fea/old letters in German from my mother-in- 3 law, and such trifles __ nothing at all.* The Somers* immediately proceeded tp London where they were compelled to report to a police-station. * %e police at the s t a t i c knew nothing about them and s a id they needn't have come.*

~~1. Kangaroo p. 287. 2. Letters, Oct. 12, 1917 p. 421. 3. Ib id . Bov. L917 p. 423, 4. Kangaroo p. 291. - 7 0 -~~

Th# i«wreiice*8 also s^ved from Comwall to Iiondèn. wrote to Oecil ^rayî • lk»ndon is n o t to be thought o f . *e re p o rte d to p o lic e here.» they had heard nothing about ue, and were not in the least Interested _ couldn’t

~~1, letters, p. 422. 2, Kangaroo p ; 300* 3. Letters: July 9, 191# p 359. 4 . e .g . To Lady pp* 230 , 233).295, To Mrs, 458, To Lady A squith p* 288, - 7 1 -~~

~~X. IgYiyOTS~~

There are a few additional subjects that I wish to treat under this heading __ fe e lin g s that hawrence possessed all throu^ his life, never, as with tiie feelings foimerly considered, strik in g ly dominant a t a given period. Of Restlessness As we have seen^Lawrence was an Iso la te being who could not make the proper contacts in any human relatiBship. He could neither be happy within himself not in the company of others. So he went from one place to another throughout his entire life, try ing to fin d peace and satisfaction. He w rote to LadyM orell in 1915,

• todayyou w ill be going to Buxton, through this magnificent sunshine, I almost wish it were sy turn to r ise up and depart. ^ so u l is r e s t l e s s and not to be appeased* One walks away to 1 another place, and life begins anew. But i t is a midge’s life.* A few days later he wrote stgain to her, * 1 know I shall be restless all my life. If I had a house and home ^ should become wicked, I hate any thought of possessions sticking on to me like barnacles, at once I feel destructive. And wherever I am, after 2 a while I begin to ail me to go away#*

~~1. Letters, April 19. p. 227. 2. Ibid. p. 236. .7 2 -~~

Of Possessions This hatrsd of possessing things lamrenoe often couple# with the feeling of restlessness in his letters. To Xady Asquith he wrote, • One must destroy the spirH of HKiney, the blind spirit ■ ' 1 of possession,* Again to Wiy Iforell, • I saa quite afraid, I feel as if I would run away i don*t know from what. But one can’t run away from fate. "%e thou#^ of fate makes me g rin in my soul with pleasure : I am so glad it is inevitable, even if it b ite s o f f w n o s e , * 2 He w rote to hady Asquith t e llin g h e r that he should like go to Florida without first going to hew Fork, He said, * I would lik e to go to a land where there are only birds and b easts and n© 3 humanity, w r inhumanity masks,* To T.D.D. he wrote, * We are leaving here directly __ my pro verbial restlessness. *e took and furnished this little flat in June __ now I have transferred the lease and sold the furniture, I can’t bear having a house on ray head, . . . ^ find it impossible 4 to sit sttll in one place." By 1918, this feeling had grown and he wrote to Bavid Bertler, • I don’t want to act in concert w ith any body o f p eo p le, I want to go by m yself o r w ith Frieda __ something in the manner o f a gipsy, and be houseless and placeless and home less and landless, just move apart, I hate and abhor being stuck on to aqy form of society,*S He wrote to Cecil Gray in tW same tone. He was wishing for a caravan and a horse so that he could keep morint on forever,

~~1. Letters, p. 250, 2. Letter July 1915 p. 244. 3. Letter, hov. 28, 1915 p. 282, 4. Better, Dec, 18, 1915 p. 298, 5. Letters p. 438, • • 7 3 —'~~

He envied the gypsies their camps and mode o f life. He wo te, * But I do loathe possessing things, and having another house* if only one could he an animal, with a ti ick watrm hide, and never a stitch or rag besides. Hobody ought to own houses o ^ / furniture ^ any more than they own the sto n es o f the hig h ro ad . In June of the same y ear he wrote to Mark Gertler, * I am very restless and at the end of everything. I don’t work _ don’t try to __ only just endure the days. Therew ill e ith e r have to come a b reak ou tsid e o r In sid e in the w orld or in oneself.* ~ 4r@. Carswell w rites of ttm, • Lawrehne disliked an a i r o f everlastingnesB about a ho^, for him it must have something of the tent about it, though he liked everything to be seemly and c le a 3 and he approved of a few household gods.* Xawrence portrays in h is characters the same restlessness ah he possessed himself.* Houses and furniture ani clothes, they are a l l terms o f an old base world, a detestable society of mam. ... It is all possessions, possessions, bullying you and turning 4 I you into a generalisation." | Aaron says , when Lilly is anxious to g et away and 1# plann ing to go to Malta; * But what’s the good of going to Malta? Shal -YOU be aJW different in yourself, in another place? You’ll be the same there as you we here. ... You*re all the time grinding yourself against something inside you. You’re never free.* Lawrence realized this spirit within himself. Sincerely, he did not wish to be free. He wrote in a letter to Harriet Monroe;

~~1. Letter, %rch 12, 1918 p. 439 f, 2. Letter to Cartier p. 452. 3. Savage filgrimapte p. 26. 4. Birkin in Women in Love p. 408. 5. Aaron’s Rod p. 109 - 7 4 -~~

• Thank God I am not free, any more tiian a rooted tree Is 1 fre e .* Aaron’s hatred of possesslon^i* expresse when he was being driven in the expensive and heavily upholstered ear of a friend. • Re was glad to get o u t into the fresh air of the eoraaon 2 crowd. • In KMagaroo we have the id e a o f impermanence stressed# Kangaroo said, • But our divine flowers _ they don’t want to immortalise themselves into stone% If they turned into stone on my table* my heart would almost stop beating, and lo s e i t s hope and i t s joy. But theywon’ t.. Iheyw ill quietly, gentlyw ith e r. And I love them for it. And so should a l l creeds, all gods, quietly and gently curl up and wither as their evening app roaches. %iat is the énly way of true holiness,in my opin ion.** He hated anything which would la st. He liked adobe houses best because theycould not endure. As late as 1923 we find him writing to Mrs. Carswell from Hew Sexico, where he expressed the feeling he had about never being satisfied anywhere, • It is queer, all the way down the Pacific coast, I kept thinking: Best go back to England. And then, once across Ww barranca from Ixtlan, it was here sigaln, here in ICsxico, in J o lis c o , that I wantecf to be. But let us watch; things wl&n Uiev come, come suddenly. I t maybe my destimy is in Europe.** I think that it was his desire to be evesr^n the move, his wia| for impermanence and his hatred of possessions which madejhawrence see the ugliness of England. He said that he particularly saw

~~1. Hatter Sept. 23, 1922. p. 559. 2 . Aaron’s Rod p . 181. 3. '^ng&roa, p. .5 ^ . letter Oct 17, p. 589, - 7 5 -~~

uglinesa In the idea of * my own little home •. This idea waa present throughout England and most especially did it show itself in the smaller Tillages such as the one in wM oh hawrence liv e d . l e showed a thorough contempt for the sordidness of villages, cottagers and all England because he said that it had no sense of 1 a real city. Of Engliuid and Humanity %us we find him hating England, society and regulated in stitutions. In 1912 when he was wri&ing gone and Lovers he wrote from Germai^, • I loathe the idea of England, and its enervation and misty i^ser able nndezTmess. I don*t want to go hack to town 2 and civilisation." His distrust of a l l mankind is brought out in Aaron*8 Rod. After Aaron has been robbed o f h is pocket-book in the street, he soundly berates himself for not being on h ts guard. He says, * It serves everybody rig h t who rushes enkindled through the s t r e e t s , and tru sts im plicitly in mankind and in the life-spirit, as if meutikind and the life -sp irit were a playground for enkindled ind- iv id u a ls ." And towards the end of the book, hilly says, • • The ideal of love, the ideal that it is better to give them to receive, the ideal of liberty, the ideal of the brotherhood of man, the ideal of sanctity of human life, the ideal of what we call goodness, charity, benevolence, public spi&itedness, the ideal of sacrifice for a cause, the ideal of unanimity _ all the lot _ all the whole beehive of ideals has all got the modern bee-disease, and gone putrid, ... 1. Xawrence,"Nottingham" etc. OP. Git. 2. letter to Garnett, July 25. p. 48. 3. A aron's Rod p. 244. 4. Ibid. p. 293. Instead of ignoring the affairs of England smd mankind eTsry- where» I

In 1915 he wcmb quite consistently concerned with affairs of state. He wrote to Lady Morell January 3, am no democrat, save in politics. I think the state is a~Vulgar institution. Hut life itself is an affair of aris tocrats. In my soul I^d be as proud as hell. In the state, let therfibe the ^berte. Bgialite^ business. ... In so fair as I am mysekf, ^iert^. Inégalité'^. H ostility It doesn't sound very french, btt never mind. I think the time has come to wave the oriflamme and rally against humanity and HO, Hoi St. John and the new Jerusalem.*^ Later he wrote to her, I don’t believe in the democratic electorate, The working man is not fit to elect the ultimate government of the country. And the holding of office shall not rest upon the choice of the mob: it shall be almost immune ffbm them ."- He wrote in the same mamner to Lady Asquith. He felt that the democratic (republican) form of election was wrong. The art isan was fit to elect for his Immediate surroundings, but for no ultimate government. He thought that woman should not vote equal ly with men, but for different things. If things should work up to a Dictator of national affairs, then there should be a Dicta- trix of private affairs, ibid furthermore, he said, "We must not 4 have Labour in power, any more than Capital."

~~1. Letter to McLeod, April 26, p. 121 f , 2. Letters, p. 217. 3. ibid. p. 239. - 7 7 -~~

Lawrence believed completely in individual liberty. He thought that man should move according to his own conscience that any government which compelled à man to do things against his conscience was a cowardly concern. As individuals, mankind, I th in k , was thought of tenderly and perhaps pityingly by Lawrence, but en masse# humanity was hated by him. He wrote late in 1916 to Lady Asquith, hate humanity so much, I can only think with friendliness of the dead. They alone, now at least are uprl^t and honorable. For the rest 2 p fu i!" During the next six years, Lawrence’s principal interest was in trying to g e t together a group o f men and women that would follow him to some other country au%d, leavin g the old world behind, c re a te an e n tir e ly new order. As we have seen , h is e ffo r ts in form ing a new world completely failed. By 1922 he had decided that to return to England and ag ain assume responsibility for her welfare was h is duty. He wrote a letter to Robert P. Barlow: •After a ll, Laormina, Ceylon, Africa, America __ as far as we go, they are only the negation of what we ourselves stand for and are: and we're rather like Jonahs runnung awayfrom the p lace we belong. That is the conclusion that Is foroed on me. So I am making up my mind to return to England during the course o f the summer. I really think that the most l i v ing clue of life is in us Englishmen in England, and the g re a t mistake we make is in not uniting together in the strong of this real living clue__ ... But this I know: the responsibility for England, the liv ing England, rests on men like you and me and Cunard _ prob ably even the Brince of Wales __ and to leave it all to Bottom- leys, etc. is a worse sin than any sir. of commission.*3

~~1. Letter to T.D.D. 1916 p. 362 f. 2. Sept. p. 369 f. 3. Letters p. §48 f . •?8-~~

~~Serertîeldss, he could not make up hie mind to go hack, although he threatened to, and promised Murry that soon he would* Re went to Ceylon, to Australia, and to Kew Mexico after~~

th is le t t e r to Barlow cUcd by Teh. o f 1£25was j u s t as f a r away from his capability of going hack to England as ever. He wrote to M urry, "And a t the loment I can’t come to England. Something in sid e me simply doesn’t let me, I mistrust my country too much to id e n tif y m yself w ith it anymore. And It still gives me a c e r t ain disgust. But th is may pass. I f e e l som ething must happen oefore I can come back,"^ That something inside him at th is time very probably had a definite relation to his s p l i t with Murry. And we must remember th a t Katherine Mansfield, for whom Lawrence had the utmost regard, had died just about th ree weeks before this w ritin g . H atred o f democracy and of all England i s given treatment in the novels, TTrsula says "I shall be glad to leave England. Everything is so meagre and p a ltr y , i t is so unspirituSl. I h a te democracy..., Only the greedy and ugly people come to the top in a democracy ...because they’re the only people who w ill push themselves th e re . Only degenerate ra c e s are dem ocratic....I’d far rather have an aristocracy of birth than of money." Even though the people elect

1. Feb. 25, 1923 to Murry p. 570 the fcoverraaent, each is a money interest. •! hate It, that aiyr- body is my equal who has the same amount of money aS I have, I know I am b etter than all of them. I hate them. They are not \ eq u a ls.* Those feelings are tr u ly Laerence's. Fe f e l t the moneyed in te r e s t more in America though than in England. And he h ated America, after living there fo r a tim e, fo r its industrialism and commercialism. He wrote from Hew Mexico to Catherine Carswell, 2 *America lives by a sort of egoistic w ill, shove and be shoved." The following year he wrote to Knud M e rrild , that the Kexicsyns were Americans in that they would rather p u ll life down than let i t grow u p.3 Aaron’s Rod contains much o f law ren o e's bitterness toward humanity and country, Jim B rie k n e ll hates the B r iti s h , h ates their beastly virtue and believes that there is nobody more v ic io u s underneath.^ B irk in in Women in love sa y s, " I loathe myself as a human being. Humanity is a huge aggregate l i e , and a huge l i e is le s s than a sm all tr u th . Humanity is l e s s , f a r le s s than the individual, because the individual may sometimes be capable oi truth, and humanity i s a tree of lies.... I abhor humanity. I wish it was swept away.

~~1. The Rainbow, p. 434-5 2. Sepi. S 9,1922, p. 5^2 3. June,27, 1923, p. 57F 4. Aaron’s Rod, p; 81 • —80*>~~

,.* I much p r e f e r to think of the lark r isin g up in the ^ morning upon a humanless world, Man is a mistake* he must go** Lawrence was in that spirit when he w rote Women in Love* The same idea is expressed in his le t t e r s o f that time* He wished that an earthquake would come and swallow everybodyexcept a few 2 people ^ he being among the remaining few* of course* B irkin in the novel c a r r ie s on the idea* *I don't believe in the humanity T pretend to be part of* I don't care a straw f o r the s o c ia l ideas .i liv e by. I hate the dying organic form of s o c ia l mankind _ so i t can ’ t be anything cut trumpery * towork a t 3 education,* Although Lawrence was a school-teacher* he did not believe in the e x is te n t system o f education On E ducation

U rsu la, in The Rainbow, is made to carrym*ch of Lawrence’s experiences in schoolm astering and h is disap-ointment with the 4 University, Ursula su ffered in te n s e ly in her teaching; she wanted to be moT& personal , to have the children love her. Her efforts towards this condition did away with all idea of order and diseip- lin e , Lawrence taught at the Davidson Hoad Elementary School at Croydon, He was there when his mofier died. After her d ea th , he remained another year at Croydon, but after a second a tta c k of 6 pneumonia he decided to leave schoolmastering for good.

~~1. Women in Love p. 143. 4. Murry, Op. Cit. p. 89. 2. Letter to Mark Gertler 1918 p, 323. 5. The Rainbow pp. 347 ff, 3 . o f. note 1,, this page, 6. ëggswell.Op. Cit. p. § f *8 1 —~~

We find Lawrence’s own felling about this illness In a letter to Garnett. He said. •! feel my life burn like a free flam# f lo a t ing on oil __ wavering and leaping and snapping. I s h a ll be glad to g e t i t confined and conducted again. The doctor says ^ must got go to school again or I s h a ll be 1 consumptive,* His true hatred o f school comes out the follow in g year, after he has given up te ach in g , he wrote to A.D.McLeod, who had ev id e n t ly been at Davidson with him; "When I awoke this mornli%- .. I wondered what day it was. I took me ages to recollect it was Monday, then bang-slap went my heart __ half past e ig h t on Monday im rnlng __ sch o o l. You’ve no id e a what a nlghtmre It is to me, now I have esc aped* "h Again he wrote: *I s t i l l dream I must teach and that’s the worst dream I ever have. How I loathed and raged with hate a g a in s t i t , and never knew."3 In November of 1512 he w rote to Ernest C e ilin g s , "I was, but am no more, thank God_a schoolteaoher__I dreamed la s t night I was teaching again that’s the only bad dream that ever a f f l i c t s my 4 sturdy conscience.* Ig is p la in to be seen that the recollection of his p ast exp e rie n c e s were anythingbut pleasant and that they must have been th same as those ^rsula suffered.

~~1. L e tte r Deo 17,1911 p. 16. 2. Letter Sept. 2,1912 p. 57 f . 3. Letters, no date given p. 62, 4. Letters, p.74, -8 2 -~~

WoBien In XoTe Birkin asks, •Hadn’t th»y/ ^ e childre^ "better be aniamlB, simple animals, crude, Tk lent, anything, rather than tills self-consciousness, this incapacity to be s^n- tan eo u s.* I^wrence elaborated upon this idea in gantasla. He said that children shot Id be tau# t through gestures, touch, and facial re pression, and not through theory. %e child should be treated as a little soul. He thought that schools should be closed and work shops started for children above ten years of age. Then hey could find out féf themselves their likes and dislikes in occup ation and a life-work. He said that we have no right to Inject our ideas into the children, Riey should be allowed to live dy- namloally__from tide Source, He goes on to Sfgr "But why every Tom, Dick and Harry should have the why and wherefore of the universe 2 rammed in to him . . . I don’ t know,* Of course, the only substitute that he suggests is the work shop. And he does nothing with the child under ten years. His hatred of institution amd lack of choice in life comes out strong ly against education as it does against government.

~~On Religion~~

~~We cannot, for a moment, believe that lawrence accepted Hellgion and the church as instituted. He did believe in a God,~~

~~1. Wom> n in hove p. 44 f . 2. l^^t'asla KpT 102 ff. ••S3—~~

He wrote to lady Asquith, "For yourself* you raàst learn to believe in Sod. ... W e^ie English j^opie/shall unite in our knowledge of God, not per haps in our expression of God ^ but ih our knowledge o f God: and we shall agree that we don't want to live only to write and make rich e s* th a t England does not care only to have toe greatest ùipire or the greatest commerce, but that she does care supremely for the truth of God, which she will try to fulfill. is n o t W r wickedness that kills us. I t i s our unbelief.*- Wwrence could not accept toe Holy Ghost as hove. He said that in toe r e la tio n between Father and Son, there could be no love unless toeÿêweie different beings. And if they were d iv in e ly different, they would then be divine opposiÿes. This would make fo r eternal opposition, whereas the expression, love, shows etern al attraction. "In his purest moments, Christ knew th a t the Holy 2 Spirit was both love and hate _ not one only," hilly says, "If I b elie v e In an Almighty God, I am w illin g to sacrifice for Him. That is. I'm willing to yield my own personal interest to the b ig er creative in te r e s t. But i t ' s obvious Almight: 3 ^ God isn 't mere Icve." lawrence's doctrine came out in Paul Morel as w ell: "Religion was fading into the background. He had shovelled away atll the b e lie f s that would hamper him , had cleared toe ground, and come more or less to the bedrock of belief that one shot Id feel inside oneself for right and wrong, and should have the patience to gradually realise one's God."4 lydial&ensky also had some undefined b e l ie f s . She worshipped God as a mystery.

~~1. better lady Asquith, Kay 14, 1915. p. 231 f. 2 . l e t t e r to Eleanor F arj eon, Oct. 1915. p. 264 f , 3. Aaron's %)d p. 82. 4. Sons and lovers p. 316. • 8 4 « »~~

•And inside her, the e u b tle #enee of the Great A bsolute w herein she had her being was very strong. ... %rough it all she felt the great Separator who held l i f e in His hands, gleaming, imminent, terrible, the Great % s te r y , immediate beyond all telling."! The g i r l B rsu la was concerned about Christianity. "’Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor*. One could not do it in real life. How dreary acid hopeless it made h e r! «or could one turn the other cheek. There was something unclean and degrading about this humble side of Christianity," And yet; "The passion rose in her fo r C h rist, fo r the gatherin under the wings of security and warmth."2 I think that the cathedral had Quite an attractin for Lawrence He introduced it in a t least four of these six novels. Hither th e characters simply go there to admire the e d if ic e , o r e ls e they are in Church, as in toe case of Will brangwen in th e HaiW- bow. In all of these instances, we feel h a t Lawrence is mar velling at the ritual and th e beautyof toe buildings, prob ab ly obviously as artistry, but subtly as something deeper, m y stica l. At th e beginning of Lawrence’s thirtieth year, he wrote to LadyA squith; "I w«uit to begin all over again. All these '^ethsemane, Calvary and Sepulchre stages must be over now: there must be a resurrection - resurrection: a resurrection with sound hands and f e e t and a whole body and anew so u l; a resurr e c tio n . I t is fin ish e d and ended, and p u t Sway, andfo rg o t ten, and translated to a new birth, this life, hese thirty years. There must be a new heaven and a new earth, gcd a new h eart and s * 1: a ll new: a pure resurrectfo n." 3 During the war Lawrence expressed his attitude towards relig- h n and l i f e to Lady Norell. He wrote:

1. The Rainbow p. 94. 2. Ib id . p. Èë9. 3. Letter Bov. 28, 1915. p. 282. •îhe oiîly thine now to he done is either to go down with ttae ship, sink with the ship, or, as much as one can, leave mi# ship, and like a castaway live a l i f e a p a r t. M for me, I do n o t belong to the ship; I will not, if I can help it, sin k w ith it. ... M far a# I possibly ean, I will stand o u tsid e t la tim e. I will live my life and, if possible, be happy, though the whole world slides in horror down into the bottomless pit. There is a greater tr u th than the tr u th of the present, there is a God beyond these gods o f today, let them fight and fall round th©4r idols, my fellow-men: i t is their affair, As for me, as fiar as I can, I will save myself, for I believe that the highest virtue is to be happy, living in the g r e a te st tr u th , not submitting to the f a ls e hood of these personal tim e s .*1 Lawrence fe lt stron gly th a t one's own In te g ritywas the supreme aim in life , H@ wrfite to Krs. Carswells fChristianity is based on the love of self, the love of property, one degree removed. Why should I care for my neighbour's property, or my neighbour's life, if I do n o t ca re f o r my own? P ro p e rty ,a n d power which is the saae^ is n o t the criterion. %he criterion is the tr u th o f my own i n t r i n s i c d e sir e , c le a r o f u lte r io r contamination.*2 J u s t a week later he again wrote to her, • I want people to be more C hristian r a th e r than le s s : only fo r d iffe r e n t reaséns, Christianity is based on reaction, on negation really. It sa y s, 'Renounce all worldly desires, and liv e for heaveh,' Whereas i think people ought to ful fill sacredly th eir desires. And this means fulfilling the deepest desire, which is a desire to live unhampered by Qiiags which are extraneous,a d esire for pure relationship# a®d liv in g t r u th . . . . But I count Christianityas one o f the great historical fac tors, the has-been, ®hat is why I amnot a conscientious objector; ^ am n o t a Christian, Christianity is insuffic ie n t in me, % e great Christian tenet muet be su rp assed , th e re must be something new# neither the war, nor the turning the other cheek. What we want is the fulfillment of our desires, , down to th_ deepest and most spiritual desire. ... And I shall find my deepest desire to be a wish for pure, unawlulterated relation ship with the universe, for truth in being. ...

~~1. Letter Web, 7, 1916. p. 321. 2. Letter July 9,1916. pp. 359 ff 3. -6 #~~

It Is this establishing of pwre relationships which mak#s heaven, wherein weÿ&re Inmortal, lik e the angels, and mortal, like men, both. And-the way to iomortality is in the f u l fillment of desire.*^ lawrenoewe know, from hie own symbol, the phoenix, believed in Inmortallty. In The Rainbow he says in h ie own r ig h t, *AlaJi, that a risen Christ has no place with usi Als^, that the memory of the passion of Sorrow and ^eath and the Grave h o ld s triumph ever 2 the pale fact of Resurrection.* To Katherine Mansfield, upon ^he event of the death of her brother in 1915, he wrote telling her not to be sad because *for us there is a r is in g from the grave, there is a resurrection, and a clean l i f e to begin from the start, new, and happy. Don't be 3 afraid, don’t doubt i t , i t is s o ." Upon Catherine’s death in 1923, he wrote to Murry saying that perhaps death was the only thing for her after all. And they can a l l keep faith because death only strengtiens faith between those who have it. He sa id , *Sie dead don’t die. They look on 4 and h elp .* On Children We have seen, in a general way, hawrence’s a ttitu d e toward l&e institution of marriage and that toward children. He b elieved in marriage and nowhere does he say anything against children. He does stresst&he fact that mothers are fulfilled when |h e y b ear

~~1. Letter July 16, 1916. p. 364 f. 2. yhe Rainbow p. 264, 3. Letter #ec. 1915 p. 300. 4. Letter ^eb. 2, 1923 p. 568 f . - 8 7 -~~

childekà and that the husband is partially left out, % is was shown In the first two newels stud&ed. Joseph Warren Beach says th a t "A great cause of sexual conflict jin the nove^lles in # is fa o t that the woman is fulfilled through child-bearing, while the 1 man continues to crave an intense fulfillm ent through the woman.* This id e a emerges most Strongly in the case of Anna, and W ill Brangwen in The Rainbow. In Aaron * s Rod h ill* says that *There*s something wrong w ith marriage altogether, ... Two p eop le, one egoism , ^annywants children badly. I don’t. I think of Uiem as a burden. Besides, there y e such m illio n s and billions o f children in the world, Wd we know w ell enough what sort of m illio n s and billion# of people th e y tll grow up into, ... Ihen a woman has g ot children, shf to Inks the world wags only for thei and her. ,., And myself I m sick of the phildrèn stu n t. Children are all right, so long as you ju st tak e them for what they are; ... But 1*11 be hanged if I can see anything high and holy about c h ild re n ,*2 One feels that this ^is prettymuch law ren ee’s honest o p in io n . He had no children. Critics conjecture as to the reason. Beach would like to khow whether t-awrence’s impotence was a p h y sical 3 or a sentimental one. Marry remains hopelessly obscure on th a t point. Murry does state that Bawrence was n t a ^slcally passionate man; far less passionate than the ordinary man almost a sex ual weakli%%, and that the childless lawremoe would like to have convinced himself that it was due to h is perfected manhood that he 4 had no children.

1. Op. Cit. p. 378, 2 . A aron's Rod p . 105. 3. ft'each p. 366. 4. Murry, Op. Cit. p. 52, Louie ünteraeyer asnerts that the pathos of B, H. Lawrenoe 1 was the tragedy of * immanence at war with impotence". Lawrence wrote to Murry in October of 1924 that perhaps Murrywould find fulfillment in a baby. He w rote , "Myself, <1 am s o t fo r postponing the next generation _ and so ad infiniturn. Frieda says every woman hopes her BABY w ill become the Messiah. It takes a man, n ét a baby. I ’m afraid t h e r e 'll be no more Son 2 Saviours, One was almost too much, in my opinion." Thus we seem to have nothing r e a lly definite as to h is tru e idea of chü-dren. Re gives directions for their training in fantasia , but is not concerned with them as children nearly ae much as what their childhood training w ill do for tWm after they have reached m aturity.

~~1. "B.H.Lawrence", Hew Republic Aug. 1920 p. 314 f. 2. Letters, p. 623. ••Ô9*»~~

~~XI. COBCimsiOR~~

î^ie nature of the correlations between the experiences of B. H. Lawrence and the experiences in his novels has been a matter of relationshipsjrelationshipB between Lawrence and the rest of the universe. There is, in the novels, a development of ides^ and experiences in the same order as they occurred in his life most strongly bm ideas and most frequently as experiences. Although he never lost sight of the mofla er-fixatison, which he himself possessed, it lost much of its importance to him person ally within a few years after hie mother's death. He recognised the experience, when hesaw it in other men, as one of importance. The mother-child relationship was considered in Fantasia: but to Lawrence, at that time, it was a past exper ience. With The Rainbow comes the story of Lawrence's love conflicts and his struggle against sexual failure. Women in love is a con tinuation of the Kan-Woman relationship and considers as well the idea which began to play an important part in hW thinking about 1S15, tliat of forming a community in which a congenial group could live according to its own laws and regulations. Although the desire to live in a group remained with him always. It was most predominant in his üiought at that time. Scarcely a letter from his pen during thie years 1915 and 1916 does not contain eomm reference to hie colony scheme. The f i r e t l e t t e r to Murry,In the collected volume, dates the y ear 1913. That was two years before the publication of the first of these novels. The relationship between the two men seems to cause an elaboration o f the friendship id e a l as i t progressed. We have, in Sons and Lovers, the relationship between Paul Morel and

B axter Dawes, and in The Rainbow, we have mention of a David to Jonathan friendship. Women in love . however, published in 19ÏC co n sid ers more seriosly the man-man f^indship and his two fol lowing novels, Aaron*8 Rod and Kangaroo. were concerned with the dependence of one man upon another. The p la y , D avid. which came out in 1926, of course, was ag ain concerned with the classic friend s h ip . The novels that are most autobiographical in p h y sic a l exper ience are Sons and le v e r s . which takes up the story of h is eat$y manhood, and Kanaaroo. the account of h is and F ried a's experiences d urin g the World *ar. The o th e r four novels are concerned rather w ith mental and spiritual experiences. The Plumed Scrpont is the only one of the six novels in which Lawrence does n ot apiear as a character. We see his own ideas and feelings in both Don Oipriano and Don Ramon; we cannot, however, p o in t to eith er of them as a presentation of Lawrence's own exper iences. Lawrence's desire to le a d showed itself in all of theme novels. In the first three novels considered i t $4" is in the attampr - S l -

to gain Bsusteiy over the woman. In Aaron*a Hod and Kangaroo it is the wish to have as his follower a man or group of men. Ih# desire Is fulfilled in Plumed Serpent when men are worshipj^d as gods, For that reason, it seems significant to me that Lawrence d id not e n te r that novel as a charaoter. fe have seen a l e t t e r in whichhe s ta te d that i t was vain to try to le a d . Se see the fulfilment of one o f his greatest d esires in the novel, hut m t In his own projected character any more than in hie own life. In order to keep his own integrity, of which one i s keenly aware while studying his works, he could n o t in honesty place him self in the position of Don &amon o f the no v el, Every important relationship in his life, 4swrence has p o rt rayed in the novels. The th re e most im portant to him were the mother-child relationship whichconcerned him personally meet g r e a tly when he w rite Sons and Lovers; the man-man relationship, and the group relationship, both of which la s te d with periods o f increasing and decreasing importance in their place in his thought, u n t i l h id death. The group idea, with which he was possessed f o r a number o f years, has the l e a s t consideration in the n o v els. That his desire of living in a s e le c t s o c ie ty was never f u l f i l l e d to his satisfaction gives us a possible explanation for his no t writing in detail about it as h is own ex p erien ce. Had he detached himself, as he did in TBfTFlumed Serpent . perhaps he could have w ritte n a novel g iving h is own Idea of an U to p ia. The man-woraan - 9 2 -

relationship concerned him during his early years with Freida ^ ttie period in which he wrote his two love novels. This Idea was almost completely eclipsed in later years by the man-man .and leader-follower relationship. D* H. Lawrence died at Vence. Italy* on March 2, 1930. %he grave is nameless, but his symbol, the phoenix, is reproduce® in nmsalo on the headstone. îhis mosaic was made of local stones by a peasant who loved him. - 9 3 -

~~% II. BIBI>I06RAPKY~~

Aldington, Hlohard D. K. ^wrenoe. an Indiscrétion Itè? ¥slv«r8ity of Washington,Seattle • Beach, Joseph Warren The Twentieth Century Bovel 1932 Century Co. B Y. B rett, Dorothy Lawrence and Brett 1923 jf’.B.Bipplncott Co. Bailadelphia. Carswell, Catherine Savace Bllgrimage 1932 'First Bd. Karoourt.Brace and Co.B.Y. Carter, f. B. H. Lawrence and the Mystical Body 1932 Denis Archer Bondon. G a rn e tt, ldWB?d L ite ra ry C ritic is m s and A p p reciatio n s 1922 AlfrddA. Knopf B.Y. Huxley.Aldous Letters of D. H. lav;ronce 1932 Viklne Prese B.Y. lÆwrence, D. H. Aaron's Rod 1932 Martin Seeker London. Lawrence, D. H, Apropos of Lady Chatterley'a Lover 1931 fnew edition) Martin Seeker London. Lawrence, D. H. David 1926 Knopf K.Y. Lawrenoe, D. H. Fantasia of Uie UnconsaiouB 1#3@ Hfcert and Chas. Komi R.Y. Lawrence, D. H. Kangaroo 1923 T. Seltzer K.Y. Lawrence, D.H, Lady Chatterley'a Lover 1930 Revised Wm, Faro Inc. R.Y. Lawrence, D. H. the Plumed Serpent 1926 feîopf. B.Y. Lawrence, D. H. The Rainbow 1915 Modern Library, manuf. by H.Wolff B.Y, -9 4 -

Bibliography (cont.) iawrence, D. H, Sons and Iipvers 1913 S.*fennerley H.T. lawrenoe B.H, Studfces In ClasBlc Anerican literature 1923 Seltzer lî.Y. law ren o e, D. H. The V irg in and the Gipsy 1930 Khopf K.y, lawrenoe, B, R, The Widowing of Mrs, Rolroyd lawrenoe, D. H. Women in love 5th printing 1923 Seltzer R.Y. luhan, Itahle Dodge Lorenzo in Taos 1932 knopf Murry, John Middleton Son of Woman l$3l (ape &.Ÿ. H ie, â . p . R. lawrenoe

~~Magazine Art ie le s~~

Caeswell, Catherine "Rexnlnieoences of D. H. lawrenoe" AdelPhi Toi III. Hov. 193l-?eb.l932. G regory, A. *A rtist Turned Prophet” D ial Vol. 76. Jan. 1924 Gregory, Horaoe ”P. R. lawrenoe: Ihe Phoenix and the Grave” Hew Republic Vol. 73. Pec. 14,1932. Krutch, Joeepf Wood *P. R. Lawrence, The Man and h ie Work" Ration March 19, 1930. Kuttner, A "Review of Sons and lovers" Hew Republic April 10, 1915, lawrenoe, P. R. "Adolph" Dial Sept. 1920. -se-

Lawrenoe, D. M. "America# Listen to Your Own* Hew Benublio Deo. 15. 1920. Lawrenoe, D. H. " D e re lic t" Forum Sect. 1913. Lawrence, D. H. "Mornings in Mexico" A delohi Feb. and Mar. 1927. I#w rence, D. R. "Hew Mexico* Hurvey May I93i. Lawrence, D. R. "Hipe Lett# re to Katherine Mansfield" Hew M elohl June - Aug. 1930.

Lawrence, D. R. •Hottinghaashire and the Mining Countryside Hew Adelbhi June - Aug.- 1930. L aurence, D. R. •Real Thing* Scribners M June 1930, Lawrenoe, D. H. "Selected Passages" Hew Adelphi Aug. 1930. Lawrence, D. R. "Sons of Montezuma" L iving Age April 1927, Lawrence, D. R, "He Hee One Another" Scribners M May 1930, Lesemann, Maurice "D, H, Lawrence in Mexico" Bookman B ar. 1924* Letters of D. H. La*renee Review Times M terar Supplément Sept. 29, 1932, Xuir, Bdeln "D. H, I^awrence* Eatiom Bet 1926. , J, M, "Reminiscences of D. R» Lawrence" Hew M elphi June-Aug, #et% Kov, Deo. 1930 Ja n . Feb. Mar. 1931, Obituary _ Bibliography Publisher's Weekly Iftsrch 1930. Powell, Dawrence *P, H. &awrenee" Saturday Review of Siterature June 14,1#3G Plowman, Max «The Significance of D. H, Lawrence* Mew Adelphi June-Aug, 1930. T roy, W illiam "Review of Letters* Symposium Jan. 1933. Sntermeyer, Louie *D. E, Lawrence* Mew Republic Aug, 11, 1920, Mntermeyer, Louis "Hot B leed 's Blindfold Art" Saturday fteview of Literature Aug. ^934 West* Rebecca "Slegy" Mew Adelphi June-Aug, 1930, West, Rebecca "3^tter Irom Abroad* Bookman A pril 1930.