THE PICKERING MASTERS

SELECTED LETTERS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON AND EDMUND BLUNDEN, 1919–1967 Contents of the Edition

Volume 1 Letters 1919–1931

Volume 2 Letters 1932–1947

Volume 3 Letters 1951–1967 SELECTED LETTERS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON AND EDMUND BLUNDEN, 1919–1967

Edited by Carol Z. Rothkopf

Volume 3 1951–1967 First published 2012 by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© Taylor & Francis 2012 © Editorial material Carol Z. Rothkopf 2012 Th e letters of Siegfried Sassoon, his poem ‘Blunden’s Beech’, as well as short extracts from of his other works are copyright © by Siegfried Sassoon and published by the kind permission of Th e Estate of George Sassoon. Th e letters of Edmund Blunden and extracts from some of his other works are copyright © and published by the kind permission of Th e Estate of Edmund Blunden.

To the best of the Publisher’s knowledge every eff ort has been made to contact relevant copyright holders and to clear any relevant copyright issues. Any omissions that come to their attention will be remedied in future editions.

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Selected letters of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden, 1919–1967. – (Th e Pickering masters) 1. Sassoon, Siegfried, 1886–1967 – Correspondence. 2. Blunden, Edmund, 1896–1974 – Correspondence. 3. Poets, English – 20th century – Correspond­ ence. I. Series II. Sassoon, Siegfried, 1886-1967. III. Blunden, Edmund, 1896–1974. IV. Rothkopf, Carol Zeman. 821.9’1208-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-1-84893-354-5 (set)

Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited CONTENTS

Letters 1951–1967 1

A Postscript from the Editor 317 Register of Letters 321 Index 327

1951

WALLIS1 TO BLUNDEN c/o Australia House, London 9 December 1951

Dear Mr Blunden, You will not have heard of me and that’s of no importance, but what is all- important is that you should relent and make some move towards sweeping away the misunderstanding between you and Siegfried Sassoon. Th e most eloquent plea I can make to this end is to remind you of your old friendship with him. If you had seen the anguished look on his face when I witlessly asked if you ever came to Heytesbury, you would have no doubts about how greatly he misses you. “One can’t aff ord to lose any friends – least of all Edmund” he said. Most likely it would be wise for me to leave this severely alone, but I never had any claims on wisdom, and having heard how this unfortunate aff air came about, it seems to me to be senseless for you both to persist in such a deprivation of friend­ ship. Possibly you believed that, on a former occasion, he had refused to come and see you, but did you know he was too ill to do so? Evidently he made some hurtful and tactless remarks about your being the victim of circumstances. He can be tact­ less, as I’m sure you know well enough, but he was bewildered by what seemed to be your censure of him without waiting to hear what he would have told you. He misses you grievously – which is my excuse for this audacity. If you can fi nd it in your heart to forget what has happened – and I’m plac­ ing my faith in your kindness and tolerance – let it seem to be a spontaneous gesture, and don’t mention my intervening in so high-handed a fashion. I’m not expecting you to reply to my supplication, but I’m hoping fervently you will write to Siegfried. Yours, Dorothy Wallis

1. Dorothy Wallis (b. 1920) came to England with her mother from Australia at the end of World War II and became a good friend of Sassoon and, subsequently, of the Blundens. Her letter is included because it shows her important role in reuniting the two men. Claire Blunden felt that Wallis’s goal was to fi nd a poet to be her life’s companion, and she had therefore paved her own way by fi rst sending cakes to a select few poets in Eng­ land to help them during the post-war austerity. See also Egremont, Sassoon, pp. 471–3.

– 1 –

1952

Heytesbury House 3 February 1952

My dear Edmund, Owing to the providential work done by D.W. I am at last able to write to you. But I feel that you will not want any explanations of my behaviour; and it would only be an infl iction on you – and me – were I to ‘go over the ground’ of the past years. And I know that, if we were to meet in my library, all would be as it was, and the bad weather of my misunderstandings beyond the horizon. I can only ask you to believe that, since 1944 – and before that – I have been sorely tried, and oft times reduced to a desperation which was only mitigated by George, who has been my only bond with life and any future which remains for me. In the past year, however, I have had comparative peace, and have felt a sense of recovery. So I am not the drift ing and battered hulk which I was. Let us begin again, dear Edmund, forgive my cussedness, and remember how fl awless was the harmony of your friendship for more than twenty-fi ve years. Except for Glen and Geoffrey, all my old friends have vanished – and those two are so busy with their own concerns that I seldom see them. Otherwise I have been nowhere, except to visit George at Oundle1 once a term, since he went there in Sept. 1950. And my library activity has slowed down to a very sluggish current, not much stimulated by my being so out of fashion with the modernist minds, and defi nitely discouraged by the autocracy of Eliot under which we exist and are ignored. In conclusion of this dreariness, if you can contrive to get here for a day or two later on – when this house is less of a refrigerator – nothing would do me more good. I was sorry to hear from D.W. that you looked weary and over­ worked. What about a glass or two of that old port of mine – still extant, and seldom opened? Yours ever, SS

1. Public school in Northamptonshire.

– 3 – 4 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

Th e Times Literary Supplement 4 February 1952

My dear Siegfried, I saw as I came in a rather alarming pile of letters on my table; but my inward Groan ended when I found among them one from you. I am deeply delighted that Dorothy Wallis’s visit has led to this and thank both her and you for a very good Monday morning; and the photographs of you and George are part of this. (Th e Cocktail Party1 which Claire and I saw at Windsor was the oddest thing, it reminded me of all the obvious tricks of the playwright who might aim at success in theatres on piers; but the grand Psychiatrist in it was a simple transformation of Sherlock Holmes, and a Mystery Man such as my school fellows yearned to act. Th e audience all the same were all applause. I was fi nally extinguished when we were told that a young female character had been crucifi ed out East, not as Jesus was, which one might think suffi cient, but over an Ant Hill.) It is a shame if I can’t get you for my World Cricket XI (I expect they’ll want me to offi ciate), but I well understand, alas, that even you must yield to the argument of lumbago. Claire tells me that I am only an invalid in winter, or I might now fi nally keep off the field of play. Last year I managed two “Heytesbury” inningses, but was all the time annoyed at not being quite powerful enough to let loose. Although we have been, as you say, put aside by the literary autocracy, I gather from a lecturing visit just done that general readers do not altogether ignore us. But they go mostly to the free libraries and there the selection is made by the new school of librarians, who must be in the fashion; and anthologies also both help and hinder their discoveries. You see what you are in for when I am in your library again, but though I was voluble (polite word) when D. W. came here I can also listen! Or beat me with a cricket stump. Incidentally I shall ask for your memories of K. L. Hutchings once more. It is shocking that in Tonbridge his name generally meets blank faces. My father took many memories away when he died the other day.2 He had planned a day or two at Th e Mote3 with me. But he didn’t “expect much.” Now I shall look forward to coming to Heytesbury, just when it is conveni­ ent to you and when the days are longer. George looks splendid. Some boys in Tonbridge, the le Flemings, claim to know him. Yours ever, Edmund

1. T. S. Eliot play, which made its debut in 1950. 2. Charles Edmund Blunden had died in November 1951, aged eighty, and was buried at Yalding. 3. Kent cricket ground at Maidstone. 1952 5

Heytesbury House 5 February 1952

My dear Edmund, My bedroom is beslanted (the literary touch) by post-white frost sunshine, and your letter is also a light bringer, restoring the circulation. How much there is to tell him, I think, and how much to revive – of the old associative memories, so long locked away in the dark cupboard of self-deprivation. Meanwhile I must send you the fruits of solitude which Geoff rey Keynes has so handsomely printed, having overcome my unwillingness by sheer persistence.1 Not a very cheerful collection. A bit of slow batting, unenlivened by scoring strokes “all round the wicket.” I seem to be playing into the hands of those who deplore my decline into Bernard Barto­ nism.2 But there it is – an elderly solitary doing his traditional stuff and taking no chances with experimental felicities – the patient craft sman, putting the coat of varnish on his bits of cabinet making. Anyhow I have avoided writing anything ill- tempered, which is something to the good, for I have experienced many unamiable hours since you last saw me. Such merit as is in these pieces will be recognised by you – but not by the admirers of W. Carlos Williams3 and E. Pound. So your good old Dad has departed – philosophically, with a 1905 Wisden in his pocket. He impressed me by his reticence. I can imagine him now, returning to fi rst-slip aft er a thoughtful over against the East Peckham hitter, deciding to drop that tempting one just a shade shorter, like Ronny Mitchell used to do, for his c and b’s. One accepts these losses; but the gap is there. (I fi nd it diffi cult to believe that my mother isn’t on her sofa at Weirleigh, though it is four and a half years since she went, at the age of ninety-three.) By the way, I read in yesterday’s Times that the widow of my old headmaster, J. S. Norman,4 died, in her one hundredth year. I am really quite active, though rather stiff in the knees just lately. Th e last time I played in a match I went in with 5 wickets down for 5 on a wet pitch, and remained not out 15 when the innings finished at 51. But short runs don’t suit me. And I dropped a couple of catches last time I fi elded for Heytesbury. Sam Dredge and H. Perrett still open the innings, as useful as ever. But the young ones get themselves out. W. Gearing umpires – portentously – but on one occa­ sion reappeared last year, and bowled with eff ect. I sit on the fence, feeling like Sir Bedivere. And the new generation know nothing of what I was. Ditto the younger poets – though I received a lively letter of praises from one Charles Causley5 last week – he sent a goodish volume of his own. But even he knew nothing of my poems written since 1920, and admitted it, so I sent him my Faber selection6 which evoked loud applause. I peruse the poems in the Listener and Lit. Suppt. but am seldom stimulated. How ingeniously they write, I muse; and then ask why it is that they somehow bore me. Absence of affi rmation of any confi dence in life, perhaps? And over- particularity? Yet Hardy didn’t off er much – and I return to him again and again 6 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3 and he never fails me. But he is part of me. It will be a comfort to discuss it all again. Th e only person I’ve had a decent talk with in the last year or two was Lau­ rence Whistler, from whom one gets the real thing, though seldom seen. Poor old Ackerley,7 who stayed here in July, 1950, merely devitalised me – and could only simulate an interest in what I do. I haven’t been to London since last May, when I tried to see de la Mare and Helen Waddell,8 but both were too unwell for visitors. So that sustenance was denied me. Must now get up for lunch, get out for a ride. With love from SS

P. Gosse has sent me his P. Th icknesse book, which is the best entertainment possible and beautifully conducted.9

1. Emblems of Experience (1951). 2. Barton, it will be recalled, was a friend of Lamb et al. and the author of Metrical Effusions (1812), etc. 3. William Carlos Williams (1883–1963), American, a practising physician and modernist poet and writer. 4. John Stewart Norman (b. 1854), the founder and headmaster of the New Beacon School, near Sevenoaks, Kent, where, assisted by his wife, Alice, and others, he prepared boys for public school. See Th e Old Century, p. 167 ff . 5. Charles Causley (1917–2003), poet. 6. Collected Poems (1947). 7. Ackerley continued to be literary editor of the Listener. He was more perceptive about Sassoon and this visit than Sassoon might have imagined. See P. Parker, Ackerley: A Life of J. R. Ackerley (1989). 8. Waddell, medievalist; an editor at Constable, the publisher, when Sassoon fi rst met her. 9. Dr. Viper, the Querulous Life of Philip Th icknesse (1952).

Th e Times Literary Supplement 11 February 1952

My dear Siegfried, I have taken a few days to enjoy Emblems of Experience in quieter moments which such poetry of the inner life or of observation made by the way must have. Th e two Rampant Lions are hardly the emblem for such spiritual studies,1 in which you continue your own course alone (as far as I know) among the writers of today. Or shall we say that you and W. de la Mare are on roads not far apart? But there is no confusing a whole poem by you with one of his. I always like your Alexandrine occasions, which oft en get you out into the landscape, with a special liking, this may be partly association for I see that you have other char­ acteristic measures through the years. Th e poem on Sir Edward Grey is a noble one in a tradition, again, which few can keep up – that of poetical interpretation of remarkable people.2 Th ank you for the beautiful copy of these latest poems, 1952 7 which reminds me that I have some of your books at Tonbridge and some still at Oxford and urges me to bring them all into one view. I have dwelt on your news in general, including the Cricket fi eld, and the detail that young Causley whom I met hadn’t read your poems of later date than 1920 – but that is a common case, and I sometimes fi nd myself similarly “super­ annuated,” as it were by order. Th ere is talk of a defence of Th e Georgians, by Edward Shanks and by Stephen Spender. I may need to defend Yalding Church Bells c. 1900 yet, they are now reduced to mechanized chiming. All that Philip Gosse writes is alive – and so is a good deal that Edmund Gosse wrote, but, it gets harder to fi nd. Now for some table-clearing. Yours always, Edmund

1. Albeit the emblems of the eponymous Press. 2. ‘A Fallodon Memory’.

Heytesbury House 24 February 1952

Dear Edmund, I am adding another item to your collection!1 Two years ago I rather unwill­ ingly allowed Bob Gathorne-Hardy to print these little pieces. He sent me no proofs, hence the minor misprints. Copies emerged from the binders last July. Geoff rey Keynes of course resented the intervention of a rival producer of rari­ ties, so I let him have Emblems to placate him. But for the importunities of these two worthies, all these poems would still be reposing on my desk. So no one can accuse me of forthcomingness about my little performances. Some of them have appeared in Everybody’s, the Observer, and the Listener,2 but only at the instigation of their editors. My poems look so very elementary and rumina­ tive when exposed in magazines. Anyhow the weather is sort of spring-like today. Th e band of the First Bat­ talion the Gloucesters is, at the moment, drumming and tootling past the front gate on its way back to camp from Heytesbury Church. I have just read a review of Auden and Robert Graves in the Observer – the quotations don’t impress me much. When will poetry be permitted to visit the well-springs of human emotion again? Th ey are all gone, the old familiar graces.3 Why must the sense of delight be denied? It still exists, doesn’t it, in the young – and even the elderly – despite the unholy condition of the world. Where is the quality which went to the making of Ralph Hodgson’s 1917 poems and the essential de la Mare? Not in clever unhappy Auden or disgruntled Puritan Rob­ ert. How they luxuriate in disapproval! Charm is suspect – the literary Gestapo have their eye on her. Hence the “diminishing interest of the public,” mentioned 8 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3 in (your?) Literary Supplement article. But I am to be “looked for in the nurs­ eries of heaven” – being incapable of the required “adult-mindedness.” With a sigh of relief I return to Th omas Hardy in his inspired simplicities such as “Th e Oxen” and “When I set out for Lyonesse.” It seems as if most of these modernists evolved their verses when awake in the small hours, when the mind reduces all human aff airs to the aspect of a skeleton. And what sniff s and sneers will be accorded my poor little Common Chords by the Grigson-minded! Never mind, I can take refuge in impersonating Sir Roger de Coverley4 and his harmless recreations and habits. “Th e good old Knight would oft en enact, with exaggerated absurdities of gesture, some Hit he had once made while contending against the neighbouring hamlet of Chitterne at cricket; or would show me, standing on the very place of his misadventure, a Coney hole into which his cob had inadvertently put a fore­ foot, thereby pitching him over its ears on to a bed of nettles etc. etc. ‘He had been informed’ he remarked over his spectacles, ‘that we are all suff ering from a sense of Guilt.’ But he confessed to have found no indication of this in Trollope and other favourite authors; and would speak with distaste of the new fangle­ doms of such recent writers as had come to his notice, oft en citing his old friend Gosse in support of his antipathy to such elaborately pretentious vapourings and gloomed intellectualities. I have however heard him mention with approval a Mrs Th irkell,5 whom he had found extremely agreeable in her objections to the interferences of offi cial underlings and to all those who oppose the policies of Mr Churchill. Th e last time I was with him he was putting up in a packet some little sets of verses which he had turned out in his idler hours, to be sent, he said, to a gentleman in a distant county, formerly well-known to him. Of this gentleman he gave me some particulars, of which I only remember one, that he was much addicted to frequenting mill pools and the views of rivers, and would explore the meandering of small streams and brooks for a whole summer’s day, observing the quaint behaviour of minnows, eels, and other aqueous denizens. ‘I would like you to Addisonize this Blunden,’ he exclaimed, and then diverged into reminis­ cence of a certain ‘old Bridges’ – a former Poet Laureate, with whom he had been acquainted and of whose oddities he retained the liveliest recollections.” Must now get out and cut the brambles in the wood, SS

1. Common Chords (1950). 2. ‘Th e Message’, ‘Th e Unproven’ and ‘Release’, Everybody’s Weekly (26 November 1949; 25 February 1950; 3 June 1950, respectively). ‘Praise Persistent’, Observer (28 March 1948), and ‘Resurrection’, Observer (Easter Sunday, 17 April 1949). ‘An Asking; At Max Gate’, Listener (23 March 1950), and ‘In Time of Decivilisation’, Listener (11 March 1948). 3. Of course, echoing Lamb’s ‘Th e Old Familiar Faces’. 4. Sir Roger de Coverley, Addison and Steele’s creation (see the Spectator, 1711–1712): ‘A gentleman of Worcestershire … singular in his behaviours’. 1952 9

5. Angela Th irkell (1890–1961), whose novels about country gentry in Barsetshire (a region she had borrowed from Trollope as a tribute to him) remain very readable. Her novels of the late 1940s and 1950s record the distress of the upper-middle-class with the government’s post-war austerity measures and egalitarianism.

Th e Times Literary Supplement 29 February 1952

My dear Siegfried, Small need to say that I again increase the array of your Poems in my posses­ sion with a particular pleasure. I knew two or three of those in Common Chords as already, to me, among your standard writings, and the others are most wel­ come. I do not remember the imaginative one on Mr Hardy and the – Who? – that also went by the good old name.1 It’s a “lucky one,” fi rst time – right past the goalkeeper. I write crudely and aft er some tedious hours, so you will not mind, and then I am given to an “old unintellectual way” and shall defer the lecture on you. Last night at Folkestone you had to come in, bringing the “Tiger and the Rose,” which I think much stirred those peaceful looking seasiders. Th ey did look in themselves rather quickly. I should have relieved them with your Sir Roger de Coverley sketch, especially as Bridges was one of my tally of “poetical memories.” Th ey say the stage version of Peacock’s Headlong Hall2 is delightful and not antiquated, I wish I could get an evening off for it. Th e trouble is that I am easily got at here and inveigled into signing on for far too many harmless but time-fi lching occasions (one at Golder’s Green tonight). I shall whistle like a missel-thrush when I land again on Tonbridge platform. No more this evening then. Our love, Edmund

1. ‘At Max Gate’ and ‘Man and Dog’ (‘Who’s this – alone with stone and sky?’). 2. Peacock’s prose satire, fi rst published in 1816, staged as Nightmare Abbey.

67 Pembury Road, Tonbridge 27 March 1952

My dear Siegfried, I am about to eat some of the eggs you have given us, brought to London most capably by Dorothy Wallis who met me for half an hour yesterday; thank you, and her too, for this appetizing gift . We have in fact four hens but they don’t meet the demand (our children refuse to believe in Austerity). In short, with very cordial expressions Heytesburyward, I am expecting a good supper. Tomor­ row has to be given to a journey to Oxford and the job of getting the books away from the fl at at Woodstock Close, which will at least include a lunch with the bright spirits of the Ashmolean, Ian Robertson and John Woodward. What do they not know about the Fine Arts? 10 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

To gossip on, I hope before long to call on Margery Ross, whose book by and about Robert Ross seems to me a very good piece of unfussy editing. I can’t judge it as you with your direct knowledge can, but I imagine it gives a pretty good impression of him although not obviously taking the centre of the scene.1 How much some of his correspondents exacted of him! A pity he could not read your poem in his honour. At Christ’s Hospital lately I was told of a chance meeting between G. Mer­ edith and some of the Blues who were on a natural history expedition, and how charmingly he talked to them. Alas, I got to C.H. too late to have had the chance of that memory; and I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who were invited to dinner by Scawen Blunt. Th e Authors XI will play the Publishers on the Westminster School ground on June 11th. I hope I shall again have D. R. Jardine in the side – he made 67 last year! Th e worst of this annual match is the speechifying aft er lunch, but most of the spectators come largely for that, or so I suspect. Your woods must be full of wild fl owers already. Th e railway ride to London is in part a primrose way, and I have decided that the primrose has always been my greatest companion among fl owers – do you feel that too? It comes easy to anyone who knew Kent as we formerly did, when there were more little woods and round ponds in them, and nobody bothering them. At least there are a few sheep (and lambs) about the orchards lately. I look for the visit to Heytesbury when you say the period is right and then I will propose a date. Th ere are still some lectures etc. darkening my programme. Yours always, Edmund

31st March: a rather asinine book on Hardy has come from Colby College, America: all about Miss Owen who got to know him in the nineties, and haunted Max Gate by letter, or occasional present or presence in person as long as she could.2 I fear Th omas Hardy got simply weary of this enquiring spirit. Florence Hardy had the job of keeping her off . Did you ever hear of her? called by the American professor “the lady from Madison Square.”

1. Robert Ross: Friend of Friends, ed. M. Ross (1952). 2. C. J. Weber, Hardy and the Lady fr om Madison Square (1952), reviewed by Blunden in the TLS (25 April 1952). 1952 11

Heytesbury House 1 April 1952

My dear Edmund, I felt like writing to you last week aft er reading A. Young’s Into Hades [1952], which impressed me greatly. (Isn’t he a homelier and less magniloquent and metaphysical Abercrombie? – seems so to me – anyhow he is a Georgian, a fact which might well be indicated to his modernist admirers.) I hope you were keep­ ing warm at home during the blackthorn winter week-end. I spent it writing a long letter to de la Mare, from whom I’d heard and who always stimulates me to garrulity on the grand scale. He writes that he “has never been so busy,” which is good news – How astonishing his progress to eighty is! Would that mine were! But I can do no more than go on with my heavy handed engravings of generaliza­ tions about Life. Have sweated out a few lately, with the usual alliterations and vowel modulations. Unlike the moderns I hear my words more than I see their evocations, and metaphoric ingenuities refuse to take part in the proceedings. Hence the lack of transparency, and the impression of pulpit utterance – Hymn Number 763 – “Holy Mother, godly Matron....” George is on his way to Mull1 at this moment, and will be here for a fort­ night aft er Easter. He was confi rmed on March 15, and then started mumps. G. Keynes is coming here for two or three days next Monday, which should enliven me. Since the end of last September I have had no visitors except George in Janu­ ary and L. Whistler for one night in October. And local visitors don’t exist. One other visitor there has been, as you know; but I count her as an answer to prayer. But now she can only get here late on a Friday night, and has to leave on Sun­ day evening and that has only been three times in the last three months aft er her fi rst visit at the beginning of December, which was for a week and enabled us to become intimately known to one another. Before that she was a mystery since 1945, when she began sending me parcels and careful, intelligent letters which gave little clue to what she was like. (It is a reticent story which would have appealed to Hardy.) Her advent here is known only to you and my utterly reliable housekeeper Miss Benn,2 with whom she gets on perfectly. She has brought me nothing but blessings, not the least of them being my reunion with EB. She has the reticence of integrity, never makes a mistake, and is entirely restful to be with. You may have found her a little uncommunicative: but she is still waters, and runs deep. Her devotion to me is self-denying and undemanding. Her one idea is to do things helpful for me. I tell her that I know her only as my need. Which is obvi­ ous. My isolation had become perturbing. I can’t be sustained by the little I see of George. And he is now at the independent stage, though all that I could desire him to be, and the dearest creature imaginable. D. W. has become my safeguard against desolation and decrepitude. 12 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

It doesn’t seem to be any good my worrying about how the situation will work out. It is a case of where should I be without her? The thing is determined, dared, and done. And I am immensely better for it. And further it is a dream come true, aft er years of Australian exile in which it seems, her mind was married to the idea of me. She is a lovely person, Edmund. True metal. (Her extremely tiresome and neurotic mother returns to Australia at the end of August. Until then I can do nothing toward fi lling in the background of her London existence. Anything you can do will be much appreciated by me.) She is inclined to belittle herself, though not hypersensitive. How well I know those primroses in the woods between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks tunnel! Like you, I feel a special aff ection for them. And now I am a primrose millionaire. Up in the wood they have multiplied wonderfully since I have lived here. And are earlyish this year, though always a good deal later than in Kent. Th e best time for you to come here will be aft er G. returns to school (May 2nd). The nets will be up by then! And I really will produce the old J. B. Hobbs willow. While G is here Miss B is overworked and conversation can’t be carried on cronyishly. I am glad you are in touch with Mrs Ross. She has done a fi ne job, for which I am deeply grateful. I suff er miseries through the denigrations of Robbie which crop up occasionally. But how beautifully good old Gosse supported him.3 I have some fi ne pictures for you to look at, acquired since 1947. Two water­ colours by de Windt and one by Cotman.4 And a superb Cotman oil painting. (“Putting money into pictures.”) Also a fi ne Bonington5 of the Grand Canal. And a lovely Ibbetson oil of Roslyn Castle (Drummond of Hawthornden Coun­ try). And another which is pure Wordsworth. I got these things through Frost and Reed of Bristol, reliable people. Result, a chronic overdraft , but better than watching one’s capital whittled away by the social revolution6 and a great source of comfort to my solitudes. I wish you hadn’t to do all this lecturing and could allow yourself some leisure. I haven’t been in a railway train for more than twelve months! Always go to Oundle in the car, wishing the 140 miles were a lot less. George’s science work is reported to be “brilliant.” Th ey say he has “mental fl ashes,” which is exactly what used to be said of Sir J. Th ornycroft .7 But G. also takes aft er Oliver [Gatty]. Th e same pro­ pensity for giving ten minute lectures! B. Richmond8 wrote to me about a cottage restoration scheme he runs. We should try to get over to see him. Last time I met him (in July ‘48) he struck me as getting shaky, but was as lively and agreeable as ever and talked about cricket. (I’d looked him up in Wisden so did well.) With love to you both and the nippers, SS

1. Island off the north-west coast of Scotland, Hester Gatty Sassoon’s home. 2. Sassoon’s cook-housekeeper. 1952 13

3. Ross, as a devoted friend of Wilde, was ostracized aft er Wilde’s conviction, but Gosse – who with his family had befriended Ross when he came to England from Canada – remained loyal to him. 4. John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), leading watercolourist and etcher, one of the Norwich School. 5. Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–28), one of the most infl uential painters of his time. Aft er a tour of northern Italy in 1826, produced mainly Venetian views. 6. Th e ‘social revolution’ by the Labour Party, which was in power from 1945 to 1951 (and partly retained by the Conservatives in their turn), involved stringent economic controls, the nationalization of many industries and the introduction of social reforms including the National Health Service. 7. Siegfried’s great-uncle John Isaac Th ornycroft (1843–1928), shipbuilder, designer of high-speed launches and torpedo boats. 8. Th e former TLS editor; played cricket at Oxford in the 1890s.

Th e Times Literary Supplement 9 April 1952

My dear Siegfried, I greatly enjoyed your long letter, and the prospect of seeing you in the merry month – surrounded with Cotmans and cricket tackle. I have to prove that I can bowl as far as the batsman in 1952, but no doubt you will animate my attempt. Th e Barnacles are getting ready I hear, and the match between the Dons of the Two Universities (of which I was robbed in 1939 or so) is portended. On the cricket front alone, D. W. appears to be indeterminate! But there also she may be knowing more than she easily says. She is indeed a remarkable and exquisite young being, and I rejoice with you that among other things she has renewed our colloquies like a sudden discovery of the spring scene always waiting there. Hardy ought to have been here still to write his poem on D. W.’s story, which by the way tells us something about Australia, most gracious and hopeful. If she will come along for a midday talk when she likes I shall be happy and I am afraid she will only do so rarely because she supposes it is an addition to my programme – but you know I shall think it a Heytesbury occasion in London anyway. Moreover as in 1953 the Blunden tribe go East, it would be a good thing if all of us could vary her exist­ ence, and she had only to choose her day at Tonbridge – well, you must help her to believe we shall really welcome her there. Th ough I say it, the three daughters are of a brightness which resembles hers, and may they keep it as she does. I have increased the Old Books a little, and am bringing in many from Oxford. Among recent things, of no consequences, F. W. Bourdillon’s1 fi rst vol., with autograph letters and poems. “Th e night has a thousand eyes” – and back to the gentle world of say 1902. My report on Kent primroses is to be aug­ mented, they have just fl ocked into the sunshine, with other wildfl owers. I am not surprised you hail Andrew Young’s long poem, and I see a good short one by 14 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

W. de la Mare in the Spectator. You are not to complain, you have a large number extant, and in advance. Mrs M. Ross gave me a lot of Rum on Monday even­ ing, and with Angela Th irkell, a profusion of anecdotes. Both sang your praises. Old Bob Nichols was discussed irreverently. Mrs R. is a highly strung woman, has neglected her food I suspect, and though humorous has taken things with consuming seriousness. S. Sitwell’s treatment of her book in the Spectator,2 was surely supercilious, though agreeable in reference to his visits to R. R.; but a reviewer ought to review as well as vaticinate. Do you know anything unusual concerning Jean Ingelow?3 E. G. knew her, but I lack what perhaps he published on her. Some of the poetry awakened me from the old habit of leaving her as a standard Author, but I dare say it is mainly diff use just when it looked essential. No more this time. George will be among the Men of the Time, that was always sure. I will write about dates in May. Our loves, Edmund

1. Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921), remembered for his poem ‘Th e Night Has a Th ousand Eyes’. 2. ‘Th e World of Robert Ross’, Spectator (4 April 1952). 3. Ingelow (1820–97), poet and author of children’s stories. She is mentioned in a Gosse letter to his father, October 1871. See Th e Life and Letters of Edmund Gosse, ed. E. Char­ teris (London: Harper & Brothers, 1931), p. 36.

Heytesbury House 18 April 1952

My dear Edmund, I must send a letter, as I am meeting George at Salisbury tomorrow morn­ ing on his return from Mull, and the next fortnight will be fully occupied and my solitudinous meandering in evening epistles in abeyance. Your arrival (which doesn’t feel in the least divided by fi ve and a half years from your previous appear­ ance here) might well be on May 16th, as Heytesbury have a match on the 17th v. Widecombe Wanderers – whoever they may be – and S. Dredge and one or two others would be gladdened by a chat with you. Today was as lovely an April day as ever was seen, and I had my tea out on the lawn, aft er perspiring profusely cutting brambles up away from the primroses. I was delighted to be able to read your words about D. W. to her last Sunday. She needs to be reminded of her light-bringing qualities. Too much of her life has been used up in going to the offi ce; and it seems that her merits might have been almost wasted if her stay hadn’t led her hither to give me a fresh start – nearly knocking twenty years off my age and putting her own clock back about ten. Th ere is, I believe, a great deal behind her outward reticence. But the generosity and integrity are always apparent. It is a life in my hands, I have urged her to spend a Sunday with you and Claire at Tonbridge. 1952 15

Did you see a paragraph in the Sunday Times recently about two Sandys1 drawings, supposedly of Meredith and Mary Peacock? I wrote at once for details, and was sent photographs. They were sold to Stevens and Brown a few years ago by a Mr Wood, who said they were acquired from a member of the Sandys fam­ ily. (A certain Esther Wood wrote a monograph on Sandys in 1896.) I was much puzzled as there is no evidence that Sandys knew Meredith before 1859 and the G. M. drawing is strikingly unlike him. I got old Mr Kyllmann of Constables, who knew G. M. well in his last twelve years, and also knew Sandys, to go and look. He is sure it isn’t G. M. I now hear that Sir Walter Peacock, aged eighty- one, had been to the gallery with a photo of a drawing of Mary by Harry Wallis, dated 1858 (same date as the Th omas Love Peacock portrait). He says it is Mary. But Kyllmann says Sandys never mentioned his having known the Merediths during their time together. Sir Walter, I assume, must be a grandson of T. L. P.’s son Edward. Very mysterious, isn’t it? Anyhow, I’ve written to him that he can have the drawings, and asked him for a photo of the H. W. drawing – the exist­ ence of which I’d always suspected. So I shall get all I wanted and save twenty guineas, and shall enjoy showing you the photos of Mary, about whom I have felt an intense interest and sympathy.2 By the way, get hold of a little book called Brave Spirits, by Georgina Sime (privately reprinted and distributed by Simpkin Marshall, but J. G. Wilson3 is stocking it at my instigation, via G. Keynes). Th ere are some very revealing pages about Meredith, also very good about Wm. Morris. A beautifully conducted and written volume. Keynes was here for four days and bought a fi rst edition of A Child’s Garden of Verses4 in Salisbury for fi ve guineas. We spent an aft ernoon at Longleat,5 and were shown a gallery of Treasures by the lady librarian – Caxtons galore and other wonders. GK was almost overawed! I should like to take you there. Th e librarian is an admirable woman; and Bishop Ken’s library at the top of the palace, is quite lovely. Don’t tax yourself replying to this. Just send a p.c. about when you can come. 2.50 pm from Waterloo to Salisbury is the best train. Yours with love, SS

1. Frederick Sandys (1829–1904), a member of the Swinburne–Rossetti circle. 2. Th e attraction of the Sandys drawings for Sassoon as a Meredith biographer is self- explanatory. As noted, Mary Peacock was Th omas Love Peacock’s daughter and Meredith’s fi rst wife. 3. Th e reprint was issued in 1952. Wilson was then with the London booksellers J. and E. Bumpus. 4. Perhaps Robert Louis Stevenson’s best-loved book, fi rst published in 1855. 5. Longleat was the home of the Marquis of Bath, in Wiltshire. Th omas Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, was a book collector and hymn writer (for example, ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings fl ow’). 16 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

Th e Times Literary Supplement 29 May 1952

My dear Siegfried, Th e hours at Heytesbury fl ed too fast. I can think of none better since you fi rst gave me the freedom of the House; and Miss Benn made me an epicure. I was sorry to fail you over the lunch with Sir Osbert, and aft er all the candidate for the Tokyo post whom I was required to “enlighten” has now withdrawn. Now, O. S. should be cheered up by the eulogy written at our Editor’s sugges­ tion for the current Supplement, unless the word “minor” at the end spoils all! D. W. duly came to the St Bride’s scriveners’ ordinary and was delighted to hear about the weekend and seemed full of brightness. Your call at this offi ce was a happy thought, the slaves all felt their chains turned into daisy-chains. Alan Pryce-Jones said when I saw him that the right sequel would be for you to let us publish one or two poems, and I think it would revive many of our readers who get tired of the enigmas we print though these may not be all without grace. But we could do with poems. I rejoice that though you spoke of blank days you quite oft en fi nd a new poem insisting on coming to your study. Th is is the diff erence between the poetical character and the temporary interest in the art of verse. I am sending R. Graves’s book as I left it long ago, not having completed my commentary, which I am afraid was sometimes ill-tempered.1 In the book are letters of yours which were to assist further in the annotation; and if you let me have those again presently I shall be grateful, but you may like to see them aft er many years. This is no letter, but with several extra things this week I am fairly weary notwithstanding the great blessing of Heytesbury (and the brook and the hawthorns). At home we are feasting on the apparently numberless eggs you gave us; and tomorrow we receive another deputation of school girls who will see book, prints, and autographs, but if they could see your library and pictures they would not be so reverent towards ours. Yours always, Edmund

1. Good-bye to All Th at. See letters 1929–30 of this collection.

Heytesbury House 30 May 1952

My dear Edmund, Th e main thing to be said about your visit is that it must be repeated. Benefi ­ cial to both, in all ways. My meeting with Osbert was a complete success. He is mellowed by affl iction,1 and was at his best. But his future doesn’t bear thinking about, though at present it only causes him to walk feebly and makes him get tired easily. It was surprisingly the same as Henry Head in 1925. Too well do I know that wretched disease. And have since been thanking God – for George’s 1952 17 sake rather than my own – that I am so hale and hearty in my Fitzgerald-like seclusion. When I mentioned you, O. spoke very kindly of you. I am glad he has got a good write up of his poems. It should satisfy him. What an accomplished elaborator he is! Everything seen and described in terms of Art. But as good as his talent can make it, I think. I am returning my Italian epistles, which I perused with gusto, regretting the loss of mental liveliness which I now labor under. What a clever boy I was! And how remote all that to-do about Graves’s book has become. I remember Max saying to me at the time that in a few years people would be confusing R. G. with old Walter Greaves2 (Whistler’s disciple) in the Charterhouse – But I have a horror of perpetuated inaccuracies. Life misreports itself enough with­ out the aid of authors. Next time you come you will have to screw me up to considering a poetic contribution to the Lit. Suppl. At present I somehow can’t see any Emblems in those surroundings. It feels too exposed, that prospect. My pious ejaculations are so private and plain-worded. I suppose the one on E. Grey would pass muster. But my real name is Anon – more so than ever before. And I’ve reached the inevitable stage of wondering – in my solitudes – how everyone manages to believe in the things they take so much trouble about – Osbert’s poems, for instance – what does it all amount to except literary artifi ce and remembering a pack of characters who have little signifi cance except period odd­ ity? (But his U.S.A. publisher is planning a gramophone record edition enunciated by O!3 Edith, by the way, was reported on Monday, to be busy that aft ernoon making records of her pontifi cations.4 How they do go at it!) But when once one begins to feel like that, most human activities become negligible. Incentive is the explanation. I almost wish I was compelled to write for money – as I thought I was in 1935–45. But I now fi nd it diffi cult to believe in what I might put on paper, and can’t conjure up an audience to be aware of. And there is always the active dread of the physical fatigue exacted. Some day, I suppose, I shall emerge as a readable letter writer, and there will be extracts from my diaries – if I have the opportunity to present them – and people will know all they need about me without having been treated to further install­ ments of fi ctional autobiography! And I usually end the evening by saying to myself that if I happen to produce one decent short poem in twelve months I am lucky and have done something worthwhile. But O, the weariness of the way. O, to be self-satisfi ed, and preen oneself on past performances, when there was the 1914 war to write about and it seemed one’s duty to do so – for a subse­ quent totally militarised world. I have been reading W. P. Ker’s Th e Dark Ages,5 and fi nd an odd comfort in those old chaps keeping the light burning with their Latin verse – so steady they seem in their isolation from the darkness around them, undistracted as we by the Babel of the printed word and the clamour and clack of ideas and introspections. Essentials, my heart and my soul cry out for 18 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3 the living essentials. But where are they to be found in this wilderness of disputa­ tions? Only in oneself, I suppose – “where all but inmost faith is overthrown” (enter Rumour, painted, with tongues) in the shape of Charles Darwin6 – who was in my house at Marlborough – telling us about the next million years. One hopes that these prognostications are helpful; but would prefer to know some­ thing defi nite about the next hundred. He suggests all the oil will be used up by then – not cast on the troubled waters, I fear. Will that make us less civilised? I don’t think so. I would like George’s great-grandson to be reduced to driving a pony cart. Th e world needs slowing down, in my temperament’s opinion. Fewer aeroplanes – better poetry. But will England ever fi nd a really fast bowler? Let Darwin tell us that. Yours, SS

1. Parkinsonism. 2. Walter Greaves (1846–1930). Lasting evidence of Whistler’s infl uence are Greaves’s Noc­ turnes of the River Th ames. 3. Osbert Sitwell reading poetry (New York, 1953). 4. Edith Sitwell reads from A Poet’s Notebook and Th e Canticle of the Rose (1953). 5. William Paton Ker (1855–1923), fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and professor of poetry (1920). Author of Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature (1897) and Th e Dark Ages (1904). 6. Charles Galton Darwin (1887–1962), physicist. He spent his later years exploring the implications of ‘the population explosion’, as in Th e Next Million Years (1952).

Heytesbury House 30 June 1952

My dear Edmund, I passed the signpost to Ashmansworth2 on my way back from Oundle last week and noted that it is under 40m from here. L. Whistler is calling here for lunch tomorrow on his way to London, so I will get over to see you all on Wed. or Th ursday, if you can let me know by telephone whether that suits your plans. I would arrive aft er lunch, and probably return in the cool of the evening. Th ere was an idea of you returning with me for a night, but I assume that this would interfere with such rest as you are obtaining, and I think it would be better if you could get here for a weekend later on. ( July 25–27 would suit me well.) I am in a period of solitude, getting through the days as best I can. Poor Dorothy is unable to get here until after her mother departs to Aus­ tralia on Aug. 28, owing to being subjected to hysterical scenes whenever she goes anywhere, so is trying to get some peace by carting the old girl off on tourist expeditions at weekends. But the Old Girl refuses to look at anything when she gets there! Even Canterbury Cathedral failed to win a glance from her – ditto Salisbury. 1952 19

George was in fi ne form, and his housemaster told me that he is regarded as a certainty for a major scholarship at Cambridge. With love from SS

I see in yesterday’s Observer that some American investigator of Swinburne’s abnormalities has described Gosse as “a dullard,” which seems the last word in fatuity.2 Why can’t “researchers” mind their own business? And isn’t Swinburne’s poetry the thing that matters?

1. Th e home of Joy and Gerald Finzi. 2. Gosse’s biography of Swinburne (1917) was criticized, in part, for its omissions. See Th waite, Edmund Gosse, pp. 474–81.

Th e Times Literary Supplement 6 August 1952

My dear Siegfried, You will not have blamed me much for not writing sooner; you saw how greatly I enjoyed the happy and free hours at Heytesbury, and once again no superlatives would be too much in speaking of Miss Benn’s contribution. Th e eggs were an excellent present to the family in Pembury Rd. I was pleased too to see Heytesbury in action once again and some old Celebrities still showing their powers. A chill, which is making me feeble now, cut me off from a game on Monday, aft er I had meditated how to “stay there” as an opening batsman on the assumption that the bowlers would be quickish. Wasted Intellect. Poor Kent! But some say if Fagg1 is away the youngsters can play. Rejoice over Sussex with me (up to this morning). Some one among TLS critics of poetry is at least sizing up the “Rebels” now approaching their fi ft ieth years. But elsewhere unreason goes on. I have just read an American professoress’s book about G. Herbert;2 the only modern poets and critics, other than Empson3 on G. H., are Yeats and Eliot, and these are salaam’d to again and again, just for glory. You should write a Wiltshire version of “Th e Twa Dogs,”4 a remarkable way to parallel to W. B. Y. and T. S. E. Yours ever, Edmund

1. Arthur Edward Fagg (1915–77) played for Kent. 2. Rosemond Tuve, A Reading of George Herbert (1952); reviewed by Blunden in the TLS (22 August 1952). 3. [Sir] William Empson (1906–84), poet, critic and teacher, author of the infl uential Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930). See William Empson, ed. J. Haffe nden, 2 vols (2005–6). 4. Robert Burns’s poem in which two dogs discuss the lifestyles of their respective owners, a gentleman and a ploughman. 20 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

67 Pembury Road 4 November 1952

My dear Siegfried, At a party given by the Japanese Ambassador last night I was addressed by Mr McDonald who asked when I had last seen you; so we had a little talk of you, which brightened me up. I should indeed have been happier, if I had had a recent visit to Heytesbury to tell about; time goes swirling by and I continue to get held up. Claire and I had a week in Italy, my “reward” from the War Graves Commission for writing some things about their cemeteries. An excellent Briga­ dier in charge out there, Collingwood his name, saw to it that we had a splendid tour. Th is weekend I am going to the Finzis, so that Joy can go on with her pencil sketches of my head.1 It would be luck, if you suddenly said, “I will arise and go now to Ashmansworth by car.”2 You may be writing profoundly, though, or per­ haps Dorothy has a chance to be at Heytesbury, which I should rejoice to hear. Th ere is the BBC voice announcing the death of Gilbert Frankau3 – which takes my mind back to the earlier poetry of War I. I wonder what “Th e City of Fear” would read like now. Today’s Times has the most depressing picture of a Korean Hill 60 – they have got back to trench work apparently and area shoots. Th ey should pack up. It must come hard on many boys of under twenty who will be told the usual things about their fi ne performance, those who aren’t blown up.4 You may have been adding to the library since I was with you, but all book- hunters I meet have to admit that the sport is poorish lately. Th e best sixpenny lately was L. Hunt’s Poems, pocket edition 1849 by Moxon – and this selection seems to me to give Hunt a place among the most independent if not “best” poets, with the range of mind and taste that is not obvious round us now. Does Ursula Wood5 send you her poems? She has an imaginative quietness I like, and writes in solitude rather than in public. Th e Oxford rugby XV in Japan brought it off, and I am sorry that a cricket XI going there would not fi nd any team (of Japanese) to play. Had we been in Hong Kong lately I should have tried hard to keep wicket against the Australian players who have been amazing themselves there. But we should surely see some good performers in the years we are to be there. (Th e University seems incapable of sending me a contract, but I still await one.) Th is apology for a letter must stop, may it arrive on a fi ne twinkling morning. (I think the Heytesbury woods have not yet shed every leaf and colour.) Yours always, Edmund

1. In Th eir Place (1987), a collection of forty-nine of Finzi’s portraits, includes three of Blunden. 2. Th e Finzis’s rather than Yeats’s ‘Th e Lake Isle of Innisfree’. 3. Gilbert Frankau (1884–1952), popular novelist. 1952 21

4. At the end of World War II Korea was divided at the 38th parallel, with the North under Communist rule and the South a republic allied to the West. Troops from the North invaded the South in 1950, leading to a war that ended with an armistice and a no-man’s land established along the 38th parallel. 5. A then-recent volume of her poetry was Wandering Pilgrimage (1952); she also wrote libretti for operas by her husband, Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Heytesbury House 10 November 1952

My dear Edmund, I would have written to you in Sept., but wasn’t sure whether you were away, and also I am shy of drawing letters from you when you have so much to deal with in the offi ce and elsewhere.1 On Saturday and Sunday I was wishing I had a chauff eur to drive me to the Finzis; and did almost make the eff ort, but driving in the dark doesn’t suit me – (I had forty miles of it last Tuesday when returning from Oundle, in very wet weather too). One meets so many fi ery-eyed dragons which seem intent on destroying one. But I hope you will be able to get here some time when it suits you. I need another bout of conversation with you to mitigate the oppression of grumbling to myself about Ezra and Co and all the rest of the goings on in the literary world. By the way, do you know anything of this Hughes2 – beyond his fantastic pedantries in the TLS? I would like to kick him hard for his impudent behaviour to Gosse. Lang’s columns cheered me up only to be counteracted by the letter of his supporters. “Greatest living Swinburnian” forsooth! What ser­ vice has he done to A. C. S. by all this stuff about L. Brandon? As if good old E. G. did not know exactly what he was doing in the matter (tied hand and foot, when writing his classic biography by the conditions imposed by Swinburne’s sister). But you must be utterly weary of the subject. (And I must say the cor­ respondence caused one a considerable number of chuckles.) Dorothy has been here for three weekends since G. went back, and continues to sustain me by her excellent qualities – good true girl that she is. I have found a jewel this time, never doubt it. Unable to face the eff ort of prose contriving since the end of Sept. I have occupied the ends of my evenings with verse writing. Some might call the pro­ ductions poetry – twenty-fi ve years ago I should have felt that I was expressing something worth while with honest verse craft . But my confi dence is under­ mined by the modern way of doing it, how can I compete with all this cleverness and technical ingenuity? I ask. Eliot, Auden, and now Dylan T.3 – have relegated me to the Edwardian shelf, where I spoke with Wm. Watson (a master, let them say what they’ll like), Binyon, and shall we say – Gerald Gould. But I shall plod on with my innocent 22 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3 alliterations and opaque abstractions, still believing that a poem in the manner of Henley’s “Invicta” is worth something to those who prefer simplicity and directness. Yet the fact remains that my method does seem elementary and tech­ nically retrospective. I envy Dylan T. the word rhapsodies for which he learnt the trick from Hopkins – is he really such a Merlin as all that? Isn’t de la Mare’s magic a more authentic vintage? He can never be accused of ‘hit or miss’ methods. Th e mean­ ing is there all the time, controlled and illuminated. I expect you will be cheering up Eddie Marsh at the Travellers’ on Nov 18.4 If so give him my love and tell him that I would have come if I could have managed it. (But somehow I couldn’t see myself there, and would have preferred a smaller gathering – of my own choosing!) Wonderfully rich foliage colour this October, but the leaves all off now – ear­ lier than usual, owing to September frosts. Swinnerton tells me that R. Pound’s book on A. B. is a stinker.5 Hope you’ll see that it is treated as such in TLS[….] With love to you all, SS I don’t know Ursula Woods’ poems.

1. Blunden published nearly 200 articles in 1952, as well as contributing to some seven books. 2. A review in the TLS (10 October 1952), of Randolph Hughes’s edition of fragments of a Swinburne story called Lesbia Brandon (1952) prompted Sassoon’s query. 3. Dylan Th omas (1914–53), the Welsh poet. 4. Marsh’s eightieth birthday party, attended by the Duke of Wellington, T. S. Eliot, Sir Gerald Kelly, Alan Pryce-Jones, Harold Nicolson and others, but not Sassoon. 5. Reginald Pound, Arnold Bennett: A Biography (1952).

67 Pembury Road 13 November 1952

My dear Siegfried, Nothing concerning the party in honor of E. M. at the Travellers Club has come my way. (I don’t complain; it can only be a limited no. of invites.) And I am troubled by the fact that I have been hooked in elsewhere for the evening of 18 November. I must in any case send E. M. a private message for that day. Th e TLS is to mark the occasion with an article (by Spender) on the Georgians, I think quite a pleasant one. Today we have our offi cial papers from Hong Kong, today also brings your welcome letter, and this evening I go to Benenden to give a lecture on Poetry to the young ladies. – It is a funny picture from the H. M. T. stronghold but happi­ ness grins from it. I suspect one of the young ladies of admiring you shamelessly, (at least she has concealed her expression from the camera). Th e queer correspondence about “Lesbia Brandon” goes on in private, with telephone performances to and from Mr Hughes. Th e use of E. G. as a Monster 1952 23 seems a necessity to many undistinguished persons. What odd ideas are enjoyed by “literary” people. I was told the other day, what the young man concerned had been circulating for years, that I had used the dead (i.e. John Clare) to climb into a reputation. He then asked me to give a free lecture to some group he presides over. I have enjoyed some of Dylan Th omas’s rhapsodies, but he remains a local sort of bard. You need only continue to write down those spiritual and moral inspirations which you are still so fortunate as to receive. Th e Whole Book will be one of the chief records of a poetic mind from boyhood to age, in our time, and while many seem to have lost the power to write more poems you, like W. de la Mare, have not. He by the way, out of kindness seldom equalled, appears apt to write things for amiable applicants, but he can aff ord such leviora when he has so much of the real thing already to his name. Th ere seems no end to Ezra. Our editor I think keeps the topical interests much in view, and so we (in TLS) discuss Ezra for ever.1 Th e Finzis fl ourish, and music with them. He is deep in the eighteenth century, especially John Stanley,2 and that, as they say, suits me, and you too I am sure. I have incessant work and worry over the Christ’s Hospital Quatercentenary.3 First there is the production of our voluminous Anthology about C. H., next that of my stories of Scenes to be acted by Old Blues in London. I only under­ took this composition at the request of the Council of Almoners, and when I had written and rewritten it according to an agreed design Flecker, the head mas­ ter, succeeded in “rejecting” it from performances at the School. I believe he is preparing a piece of his own (you see, the Queen is expected to attend....) Now some Old Blues have desired to see my eff ort on the stage, and I have made one more complete draft – and now for all the “but’s” and “why not’s” and so on as the actors and musicians and technicians get at it. We must also remember them! But I probably bored you with this before. I wonder if E. G. was in some way bamboozled by T. J. Wise, so that he had to be a little ambiguous in one or two published expressions? I can see Wise get­ ting him where he wanted, – up to a point. I think W. would have managed that with an archangel.4 Blessings to D. W. Our united love, Edmund

1. A review of two of Pound’s works, the Cantos (1952) and Personae (1952). Pound was confi ned in a mental hospital in Washington, DC, from 1945 to 1958 aft er his arrest for treasonous broadcasts made from Italy during the war, making his a cause célèbre. 2. John Stanley (1712–86), English organist and composer. 3. Th e quatercentenary celebration of the founding of Christ’s Hospital, which for Blunden included work on Th e Christ’s Hospital Book (1953) and a play, Th e Dede of Pittie (1953). He appeared as ‘Bunny’ – his old nickname – in the scenes set in the trenches of World War I. 4. Th is dispute goes on. See Th waite, Edmund Gosse, pp. 389–94. Philip Gosse recalled that his father had observed that Wise would approach the Lord on Judgement Day averring that ‘Genesis is not the true fi rst edition’ (p. 391). 24 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

[Heytesbury House] 28 November 1952

My dear Edmund, Dorothy attempted to pass you some eggs, but you were reported absent from the offi ce unwell. I hope you are recovered and taking care in this raw weather, which has kept me by the fireside most of the time lately, emerging with an eff ort for an hour’s ride in the wood of an aft ernoon. Two burly woodcutters from Blandford busy there, and some over-ripe but still majestic ash trees felled and undistinguished beeches booked for overthrowing. Wish I could send you a wagon load of log wood. Th e clock strikes twelve and I’ve just put in an hour’s titivating with my MS book, which has accumulated about twenty scraps of bemusement since the end of Sept, but how maundersome I can’t diagnose at present. Have you heard from Messrs D. Wright and Heath-Stubbs about their anthology of twentieth century verse? Th ey requested three of mine. “Blighters,” “Good Friday Morning,” and “In Barracks,” (the latter surely a somewhat casual selection). For once I rebelled. And they have now off ered to substitute “Early Chronology” and one other, about which I am still negotiating. (I suggested “Old Exeter.”) Do these young chaps concede any real thought or perusal to us older bards? I doubt it. And fear that this Faber anthology will be a refl ection of contemporary bias and fashion-following.1 Th e Cambridge Union invited me, by last minute telegram, to oppose a motion that growing old is a disadvantage or words to that eff ect. One might say that it depends on what sort of world one grows old in! By the way, L. Whistler, here for lunch recently, told me that the Queen’s Medal for poetry is rightly to be given to Andrew Young. Th e qualifi cation now is – an older poet who hasn’t received adequate recognition. Th e selectors were Osbert, Charles Morgan, and another (L. W. couldn’t remember who). Osbert proposed Edith! the third member chose Young. C. Morgan was induced by him to turn down Edith. Can you beat that for eff rontery? Th ese machinations sicken me. L. W. also said that there is a possibility that de la Mare might get the O.M.2 on his eightieth birthday. But it depends on Pryce-Jones, who has the ear of the Queen. Tut, tut – a 1000 times over! I feel more than ever, that an honest poet can do nothing except sit in his own home and do the best he can, ignoring the whole critical caboodle (EB excepted) and leaving the fashionable poets to attract attention by doing hand-springs.

Wordsworth’s Day ‘Not much to do today’ he said, When up and dressed and feeling fi ne. Before the sun was down his head Produced an everlasting line 1952 25

I fear this Christ’s Hospital undertaking is troublesome and you are evidently being treated off hand, as usual, and made a willing horse of. I felt like sending in a mild protest against the remarks of D. H. L[awrence], quoted by Spender against Hodgson. But why worry? A man of genius can’t be written down. Th e fi re is low, and it’s freezing out there on the cricket ground. So love from SS

Heard today that Norstedts of Stockholm, are translating Sherston’s Progress3 – having already done the other two. Th is cheers me up (£75 advance) – (but Miss Benn has bought a new ‘Hoover’ for £40.)

1. Th e Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse (1963). 2. Th e Order of Merit – an honour in the personal gift of the monarch, limited to twelve members at any time. 3. As Åter i tjänst (1955).

Th e Times Literary Supplement 1 December 1952

My dear Siegfried, Th ank you very much for the eggs which D. W. with her unfailing benevo­ lence brought here, and since have had a warm reception at Tonbridge. I cannot even send you a Jack from the Medway, and if there was one now he would be full of chemicals. John Moore has written a novel with a scathing account of the Catchment gangs in it.1 I have no news, except that I may have a chance to visit the aged descendants of P. B. and Harriet Shelley at Cothelstone with one or the other Shelleyans, and Dorothy Wellesley suddenly writes suggesting a meeting in the New Year. My private letter to E. M. took the form of a short leader in the Supplement.2 I heard nothing about the dinner but suspect it was not my sort of occasion, nor yours. Th ere comes from Italy a catalogue of William Godwin’s Library in 1817, a splendid collection especially sixteenth century folios, which should have gone to Heytesbury House. And where did they go?3 I wish the BBC could give us the Test Match (6 Dec)4 in progress[….] Yours always, Edmund

1. Midsummer Meadow (1953), reviewed by Blunden in the Bookman Annual (Christmas 1952). 2. 21 November 1952. 3. See Blunden, ‘Godwin’s Library Catalogue’, Keats-Shelley Memorial Bulletin (December 1958). 4. Australia v. South Africa. 26 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

Th e Times Literary Supplement 2 December 1952

My dear Siegfried, Aft er I had sent you an exanimated letter I found your kind and lively one at home. Th e enthusiasm of Osbert for Edith was already known to me! But the degree was never so clearly registered – Poor neglected Poetess! We shall next hear that TSE is an unjustly overlooked writer....Th e news here is, that Eddie Marsh took a day or two, to recover from the Occasion, but was pleased with our Eloges. I should think Robert Graves ought to have sent him at least a bit of seaweed from Majorca. You are right in drawing the attention of those youth­ ful Anthologists to areas of your poetical work which they ought to know. I hope the Exeter view and vision will appear in their book. Th e damage done by pretentiousness instead of common sense is enormous. I have just read a book about the war in Korea. Every soldier in it (and there aren’t many) is so psycho­ analytically chattered about every time he has to carry a bomb-box or take up his fi re-position that the thing is entirely unconvincing. Soldiers are not like that, as we know. So much observation is wasted, and I wish almost that Ian Hay1 was writing instead – I applaud – the Stockholm Sherstonians who read because they like it. May “Wordsworth’s Day” be applicable to Sassoon’s many days. Edmund

1. Ian Hay (1876–1952), pen name of Major-General John Hay Beith, a prolifi c and, obvi­ ously, then recently deceased writer.

Heytesbury House 28 December 1952

My dear Edmund, Having seen Dorothy on to a horrid crowded train at Salisbury before din­ ner, I am contemplating a log fire, and the sparkling chandelier – which D. W. spent hours in dismantling and washing with her usual patience and thorough­ ness (I did most of it myself, in May ‘47, so I know all about the neck-cricking job!). D. W. will be ringing you up to arrange a meeting – the thought of which gives me satisfaction. So did the Wiltshire 1773 map: you couldn’t have sent anything to suit me better, and it will beget many a topographical rumination.1 What an admirable production. All I can send in return is some humorous lines of recent date. My more serious eff orts will be submitted to you in due course. I have done two or three which may be all right, and several of which I am uncer­ tain. But have anyhow felt able to give myself a chance in the past three months, and there must have been fi ft y or sixty evenings when I was at least a practising versifi er so am that to the good. I seem doomed to end up as a generaliser, and epitomiser of restricted vocabulary and formula. But one “Rose Aylmer”2 would 1952 27 be enough. I could then retire with decency, leaving TSE to add to his impressive bibliography and J. Hayward to catalogue the variant end papers etc.3 George arrives from Mull next Sunday, a cheering prospect, with love to you all. SS

Man and the Universe He gave his mind to galaxies and Space, As all inquiring serious people should When purposeful to comprehend their place In Cosmos: One must study how one stood.

Astronomers informed him, fact on fact More planetary systems that we know – Millions, perhaps He felt their tutelage lacked Th e personal touch, and begged them to go slow.

But billionfold of miles and years they spoke Confounding reasons homely apparatus No habitation there for fi reside folk Devoid of astronomical affl atus Cosmology from him, could only evoke ‘Well, who can tell what wonders yet await us?’

Th e Unphysical Future Regarding the futurity of Man In epochs unrelated to my own When all will prosper to a better plan (An optimism indistinctly shown) Submissively responsible, I felt, For the outcome of this century I share: Concerned about posterity, I knelt In spirit to the brighter beings there.

And then, somehow the future chilled my heart. What were those more enlightened ones to me Whom they’d so much improved on? I’d no port Whatever in their world – perhaps – set free.

I thought, ‘Not even to fi ft y years ahead Can I feel much response. Give me, I say, Until my brains are futurelessy dead, Dear homely old associative To-Day!’ 28 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

1. Andrews’ and Dury’s Map of Wiltshire, 1773 (a facsimile, reviewed by Blunden in the TLS (23 January 1953)). 2. Walter Savage Landor’s lyric extolling the eponymous Rose, whom he met briefl y in 1794 when she was seventeen and who died six years later in Calcutta. 3. John Hayward (1905–65), man of letters, bibliophile and close friend of T. S. Eliot. 1953

Heytesbury House 8 January 1953

My dear Edmund, George is upstairs, fi xing an “air-conditioning plant” in his dark room (for­ merly housemaid’s scullery) with an electric fan. Since his arrival on Sunday he has been singing scraps of Th e Messiah about the house, consistently cheerful and busy. I enclose a few of his photographs1 – the one of him was self-taken with delayed action – a good thoughtful face, I maintain. You might care to send one of those of me to little Saito – in fact I have inscribed it for that purpose, as the gesture will give pleasure – much deserved. Next time you are here we can look out a book or two to send him – or as many as you like. Th is cold weather is a bit trying – the house being so unwarmable – and G. is rather good at leaving doors open! Cold is the one thing that makes me feel sixty-six – otherwise I am remarkably well. Last night G. was giving me a talk on astronomy – his knowledge of the heavens astonishes me – and it evidently stirs his imagination strongly. But his mind is omnivorous about most things, and he has inherited Oliver’s gift for exposition. An amusing contrast – his mind and mine which arrives at knowledge and understanding so tentatively, and only succeeds when dealing in simplifi cations (which don’t count as thought at all in the eyes of superior persons). But I said to myself the other night when reading Vaughan in my Nonesuch copy, that perhaps we simple souls are needed in this age of mechanical and psychological elaborations. Eternal verities are out of fashion. But eternal plain human sense and sensibility – like melody in music and poetry – how they do clear things up for one and banish the irrelevant. I tried to express this recently in a few of my homespun lines2

To fi nd rewards of mind with inward ear Through silent hours of seeking; To put world noise behind and hope to hear Instructed spirit speaking; Sometimes to catch a clue from ego’s essence,

– 29 – 30 Selected Letters of Siegfr ied Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 3

And ever that revealment to be asking; Th is, and through darkness to divine God’s presence, I take to be my tasking.

Is that what Vaughan called “unfeigned verse”? Anyhow, most of what I see in the Listener seems pretty feigned. O for the days when I could send a thing like that to the Mercury and feel that it was wanted and would be liked – and prob­ ably win me an encouraging word from Max Gate. It really is painful – this sense of exile and obsolescence. Never mind; I’ve got George and Heytesbury – and someone else you know of – so I’m well up on them there. I enclose a characteristic communications from R. H[odgson].3 Yours ever, SS

1. Not seen. 2. Published under the title ‘Th e Tasking’ in the book of that name, privately printed for Sassoon and Keynes, 1954. 3. Lost.

Heytesbury House 27 January 1953

My dear Edmund, (27-1-27, I wrote that uncheerful poem “Everyman”1 – not one of my worst, I still think – anyhow I wish I could write a good one tonight.) Instead, with your Wilts map as my desk, I write you the news from “dull Woodbridge,”2 so to speak, somewhat comforted by the weather having turned mild, as well it may do, and have just sipped a tumbler of claret and hot water to meliorate my mind, which has been distracted by a domestic upset – Miss B. handing in her resigna­ tion yesterday, owing to resentment against poor Dorothy for trying to be helpful. However, it may blow over, and Miss B. will never fi nd a place that suits her as this does – nor I fi nd anyone comparable to her as cook and manager. What precipi­ tated the upset was that rascal George had written demanding that I send him an electric cooker, (in my day it was café au lait heated over the gas jet!) and D. W. off ered to get it in London. Th is Miss B. considered unpardonable interference with her province. Meanwhile I have decided that if G. needs an electric cooker, he and his fellow study-ites can jolly well club together and obtain it in Oundle! Th us the aff airs of life go on, and a star looks down on me, and asks “what are you going to do?” as T. H. remarked. Anyhow I have done a good job for myself and Heytesbury during the past week, i.e. the Vicar having resigned, I thought of a man I’ve known for some years, who wrote to me about my poetry and has visited me several times here and when I was in that hospital in 19483 – an admirable fellow, ideal for a country living, though he lived for years in Victoria Docks and was all through the war there. For once in a way I became extremely active in staff work, with the result that the chief churchwarden informed me