So what’s it like in Ceylon? I’d much rather go to Mars or the Moon.
Near the end of Out of Sheer Rage, Geoff Dyer mentions a D.H. Lawrence letter that he describes as Lawrence’s “grouchiest letter ever - the grouchiest letter ever?” and a “masterpiece” of irritability. Dyer quotes choice bits from the letter; but if you were ever curious about how the whole thing read, here it is. I hunted it up at the library a while back. It was written to Lawrence’s friend Earl Brewster in 1921, the same year this photo of him and Frieda was taken. (Photo via.)
To E.H. Brewster, from Fontana Vecchia, Taormina, 2 November 1921
Dear Brewster: Yours and Achsah’s from beyond Crete received today: and by coincidence, one from Alpha. So the family voice was uplifted in one strain on this feast-day of All-Souls. Anyhow you’ve got as far as Port Said.
No, I don’t understand a bit what you mean about rightness and about relationships and about the world. Damn the world, anyhow. And I have ‘understanding’ people, and I hate more still to be understood. Damn understanding more than anything. I refuse to understand you. Therefore you can say what you like, without a qualm, and never bother to alter it. I shan’t understand.
I do wonder what Ceylon is like. The ship sounds rather fun, if rather awful. Of course I should have to make those Australian two-legged organs tune up a bit if I was there. I believe they think they’re most awfully IT.
I’ve been in a hell of a temper for three weeks, blank refused to see anybody after the Fisher’s last visit: and only the Baron Stempel came and gave me a headache. I begrudged him his tea; and detested him. I’ve been so disagreeable to old Grace, rooking me, that now she creeps about as if a dagger was at her neck. I’ve written such very spiteful letters to everybody that now the postman never comes. And I believe even the old Capra daren’t have her belated kid for fear I pounce on her. -But it is a world of canaille: absolutely. Canaille, canaglia, Schweinhunderei,* stink-pots. Fui! – pish, pshaw, prr! They all stink in my nostrils.
That’s how I feel in Taormina, let the Ionian sea have fits of blueness if it likes, and Calabria twinkle like seven jewels, and the white trumpet-tree under the balcony perfume six heavens with sweetness. That’s how I feel. A curse, a murrain, a pox on this crawling, sniffling, spunkless brood of humanity.
So what’s it like in Ceylon? I’d much rather go to Mars or the Moon. But Ceylon if there’s nothing better. Is everybody there as beshitten as here? I’ll bet they are.
There isn’t any news, so don’t ask for any. I believe Seltzer is bringing out my Sea and Sardinia book just now: and poems called Tortoises. I finished the Unconscious book and sent it to America with a foreword answering some of my darling critics. Called it provisionally Fantasia of the Unconscious. – Call it Fantasia to prevent anybody tying themselves into knots trying to ‘understand’ it. Since when [sic] I did up a short story, and suddenly wrote a very funny long story called ‘The Captain’s Doll,’ which I haven’t finished yet. But I have just got it high up in the mountains of the Tyrol, and don’t kquite know how to it get it down without breaking its neck. –If I hadn’t my own stories to amuse myself with I should die, chiefly of spleen.
This afternoon I have got to go into paese for the first time for ten days, to buy some things. If I die before I get back, you’ll hear by the next post, maybe.
Today is Tutti i Morti. Last night the cemetery was lit up with bunches of light like yellow crocuses. Carmelo of course, vestal that he is, was trimming the two lamps before his father’s pigeon-hole, and waiting on guard lest anyone stole the said lamps, which, according to Grazia, are finissime, ma belle, di cristallo intagliato – sa – non ci sono alri cosè in tutto il cinmitero, no ginore, ne in Taormina tutta. She leans on the parapet of our balcony – spaventata – terrified of the ghost of her poor dead Beppe. She has never been to the cemetery since she died; and only twice has prevailed on herself even to pass the cemetery wall. What had she done to him, that she fears his avenging spirit so deeply? The bitch. She comes sheltering under my wing because, I suppose, she thinks I’m such another tyrant and nuisance, such as he was.
I have been reading Giovanni Verga’s Sicilian novels and stories. Do you know them? When once one gets into his really rather difficult style (to me), he is very interesting. The only Italian who does interest me. I’ll send you some if you like. But probably you’ll be reading Sanscrit and speaking Cinghalese by now.
I don’t know anything about the future. My stock of English money is almost gone. England will provide me with no more. I await Mountsier’s arrival in America, and then he will tell me how many dollars are to my name. I hope about 2500 or 3000. I feel at the moment I don’t care where I live, that people are bloody swine – or bloodless swine everywhere – and here at least I have a fair space of land and sea to myself. But if you tempt me one little bit I’ll splash my way to Ceylon. Be sure thought and tell me how much a house costs, and a pound of bacon and a dozen eggs. Don’t be on a damned high Buddhistic plane. I’m in no mood to stand it. – And if you do come back to Europe, come to Sicily, not to Capri.
Tell Achsah B. that I am grateful for the news of the Vail veil – or loin-cloth. Does she then think that my own fig-leaf is too diminutive? and does her modesty alone prevent her telling me so. Oh fie!
We saw Earl photographs, and Achsah photographs, and Schaler photographs, and a whole wall-paper-pattern of Harwood photographs at the Fisher’s. – Tempi passati vostri! Ma son’ tristi, questi tempi passati: a tròppo passati, o non abbastanza.
I will write again when a gentle spirit moves me
— What though the spicy breezes blow soft o’er
Ceylon’s isle –
Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.
Rivederci.
* Looking it up tonight, I see Lawrence used the “Canaille, canaglia, Schweinhunderei” construction in another letter written a few days earlier. He must have really taken with it: Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Schweinhunderei Incorporated!
