D. H. Lawrence Interviews and Recollections
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D. H. Lawrence Interviews and Recollections Volume 1 Also by Norman Page Dickens: Bleak House (editor) Dickens: Hard Times, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend-Casebook (editor) E. M. Forster's Posthumous Fiction Hardy: Jude the Obscure (editor) Speech in the English Novel Tennyson: Interviews and Recollections (editor) The Language of Jane Austen Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy: the Writer and his Background (editor) Wilkie Collins: the Critical Heritage (editor) D. H. LAWRENCE Interviews and Recollections Volume 1 Edited by Norman Page Professor of English University of Alberta Selection and editorial matter © Norman Page 1981 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1981 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world First published in the USA 1981 by BARNES & NOBLE BOOKS 81, Adams Drive Totowa, New Jersey 07512 ISBN 978-1-349-04822-9 ISBN 978-1-349-04820-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04820-5 BARNES & NOBLES ISBN 978-0-389-20031-4 Contents Acknowledgements Vll Introduction IX A Lawrence Chronology xm INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS Lawrence's Boyhood W. E. Hopkin Mother and Son May Holbrook 5 Family Life Ada Lawrence 8 'I am Going to be an Author' W. E. Hopkin 10 At Haggs Farm Ada Lawrence II The Friendship with 'Miriam' Jessie Chambers 14 Adolescence J.D. Chambers 32 Recollections of a 'Pagan' George H. Neville 36 'Jehovah Junior' W. E. Hopkin 43 Lawrence as a Teacher Philip Smith 47 In Lodgings in Croydon Hugh Kingsmill 49 An Editor's Impressions Ford Madox Ford 51 Lawrence Reads his Poems Ernest Rhys 6s The Croydon Years Helen Corke 66 An Interview with Helen Corke Malcolm Muggeridge 79 First Meeting Frieda Lawrence 87 First Meeting Barbara Weekley Barr 8g In Germany and Italy David Garnett go Back in England Cynthia Asquith 94 First Meeting Catherine Carswell g6 Lawrence and the War Cynthia Asquith 97 Garsington and London Lady Ottoline Morrell 99 In Duncan Grant's Studio David Garnett rog A 'Brief and Hectic' Friendship Bertrand Russell 112 Lawrence in Cambridge J. M. Keynes II8 'A Vivid Impression' E. M. Forster 121 'The Florida Scheme' Aldous Huxley 122 'A Judge of Character' John Cournos 124 Sussex and Cornwall John Middleton Murry 125 Lawrence as a Neighbour The Hocking Fami!J 134 VI CONTENTS A Visit to Cornwall Catherine Carswell 'A Subtle and Deadly Poison' Cecil Gray 'Searching Not Flattering' Brigit Patmore In Augustus John's Studio Cynthia Asquith 'That Provincial Genius' John Galsworthy The Lawrences at Home Douglas Goldring Hermitage Cecily Minchin Acknowledgements The editor and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for the use of copyright material: George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd, for the extracts from Bertrand Russell's Autobiography, vol. II: 1914-1944. Associated Book Publishers Ltd, for the extract from D. H Lawrence by Hugh Kingsmill, published by Methuen and Co. Ltd. Cambridge University Press and the Estate of the late Helen Corke, for the extracts from her book In Our Infancy: an Autobiography. Jonathan Cape Ltd, Sophie Partridge Trust and Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., for the extract from Carrington: Letters and Extracts from her Diaries, edited by David Garnett Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, for the extracts from D. H Lawrence: a Personal Record by E. T. Uessie Chambers). Chatto & Windus Ltd and Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Inc., for the extracts from The G<Jlden Echo, © 1953, and The Flowers of the Forest,© 1955, by David Garnett Chatto & Windus Ltd and Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., for the extracts from The Letters of Aldous Huxley, edited by Grover Smith; copyright © 1969 by Laura Huxley and Grover Smith. Chatto & Windus Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc., for the extracts from the introduction to The Letters of D. H Lawrence, edited by Aldous Huxley; © 1932 by the Estate of D. H. Lawrence; © renewed 1960 by Angelo Ravagli and C. Montague Weekley. A. W. Coates, on behalf of Dr J. D. Chambers, Mrs Olive Hopkin, and the University of Wisconsin Press, for the extracts from D. H Lawrence: a Composite Biography, vol. 1, edited by Edward Nehls. Rosica Colin Ltd, on behalf of the Estate of Richard Aldington, for the extract from Life for Life's Sake. Curtis Brown Ltd, New York, for the extract from Memoirs of a Polyglot by William Gerhardi. Faber & Faber Ltd and Alfred A. Knopf Inc., for the extracts from Ottoline: the Early Memoirs , of Lady Ottoline Morrell and Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell, 191 5-1918, both edited by R Gathorne- Hardy. Granada Publishing Ltd, for the extracts from Two Memoirs by J. M. Keynes, published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd in 1949. Vlll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., for the extracts fromjourntry with Genius by Witter Bynner (The John Day Co. Inc.); © 1951 by Witter Bynner. William Heinemann Ltd and Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc., for the extract from The Priest of Love by Harry T. Moore; © 1954, 1962, 197 4 by Harry T. Moore. David Higham Associates Ltd, on behalf of Ford Madox Ford, and Liveright Publishing Corp., for the extracts from Return to Yesterday; © 1932 by Ford Madox Ford; © renewed 1959 by Janice Ford Biala David Higham Associates Ltd, on behalf of Malcolm Muggeridge, for 'An Interview with Helen Corke' from The Listener, 25 July 1968. London Magazine, for 'Lawrence in Bandol' by Brewster Ghiselin, from London Magazine, no. 5, December 1958; and the extracts from 'Conversations with Lawrence' by Brigit Patmore, from London Magazine, no. 4, June 1957. Macdonald and Jane's Publishers Ltd, for the extract from Life Interests by Douglas Goldring. Maxwell Aley Associates, on behalf of the Estate of Ford Madox Ford, for the extracts from Portraits .from Life: Memories and Criticisms. Henry S. Monroe and the Modern Poetry Association, for the extract from Poetry, no. 34, May 1930. A. D. Peters & Co. Ltd, on behalf of Rebecca West, for the extract from Ending in Earnest: a Literary Log. Laurence Pollinger Ltd and the Estate of the late Mrs Frieda Lawrence Ravagli, for the extracts from Not L but the Wind by Frieda Lawrence. Anne Powys-Lybbe, on behalf of John Manchester, for the extracts from Lawrence and Brett· a Friendship. The Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of John Middleton Murry, for the extracts from Reminiscences of D. H Lawrence and Son of Woman. Times Newspapers Ltd, for the extract by John Middleton Murry from The Times Literary Supplemen4 13 May 1930. Viking Penguin Inc., for the extract from Writers at Work: the 'Paris Review' Interviews, second series ( 1963), edited by G. Plimpton. A. P. Watt Ltd, on behalf of the Estate of Cecil Gray for the extracts from Peter Warlock: a Memoir of Philip Heseltine. Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd, for the extracts from D. H Lawrence: Novelis4 Poe4 Prophe4 edited by Stephen Spender. Introduction ' ... this man has something different and superior in kind, not degree' Aldous Huxley, diary entry for 27 December 1927 1 'There are some writers a serious interest in whose work leads inevitably to a discussion of their personalities.' F. R. Leavis2 The circumstances of Lawrence's short but restless life brought him into contact with a large number of men and women, both the famous and the obscure. Their recorded reactions-and a surprising number of them seem to have been impelled, sooner or later, to try to catch in words the experience of meeting or knowing Lawrence---(;over the whole gamut from hostility to hero-worship; but repeatedly, in one way or another, designedly or otherwise, they bear witness to the extraordinary impact of his personality. For Aldous Huxley, writing soon after Lawrence's death, he was 'the most extraordinary and impressive human being I have ever known'; and Helen Corke recalled, some sixty years after the event, that she had 'felt from the earliest association with Lawrence that here was an experience which in some way was out beyond the bounds of ordinary human experience'. What is in question, it is clear, is a reaction to the man rather than to his writings. The intensity of his response to everyday experiences gave to many ofthose who knew him a deeper awareness of the human capacity for seeing and feeling, so that to go for a walk with Lawrence or even to share a household task was to live for the moment more fully: 'No task seemed dull or monotonous to him', wrote Jessie Chambers, for he 'brought such vitality to the doing that he transformed it into something creative'. A less emotionally committed friend of his youth, Jessie's brother David Chambers, has confirmed that 'he imparted some of his own intensity of living to the rest of us', and many years later Harriet Monroe (who met Lawrence for only a few hours on a single occasion) noted that 'one felt an urge for life in his company'. That Jessie Chambers, who had not seen him or heard from him for seventeen years, should have believed she heard his voice on the day he died, and that his ghost should have appeared to his stepdaughter Barbara Barr--such accounts may elicit different reactions from different readers, but there is a certain appropriateness in the claim that so powerful an individual presence was not quick to fade. X INTRODUCTION Lawrence was aware of his own gift for winning devotion, and was pre pared at times to play quite consciously a heroic and even a Messianic role. The bizarre and sad Cafe Royal episode, of which several accounts survive, was the most dramatic instance of a lifelong search for disciples.