T. E. Lawrence to Robert Graves

Sunday, 24th Sept.

Dear R.G.

I went to 14 Barton St. on Friday last and found your Feather Bed [omission]

I wish everyone had calmness after their storms, perhaps because I hate noise more than any other thing in the world - and fear animal spirits most. So some day do write a sunset poem for my benefit. Did I ever show you my private anthology? Minorities, I called it. You are not in it yet, because you haven't done that special note which runs through it.

About myself I came to a milestone, or rather to a crossroad, and turned off the old one. The Arab thing is finished, and is passionately unwholesome in my own eyes, and I wanted a fresh direction. So I enlisted, as once I laughed to you that I would, and am peaceful for the moment, a passenger in a recruits' squad. It's an odd line for me - physical activity and manual labour - but the pilgrimage is made up of such curiosities and I don't suppose that I'm going to be permanently affected by anything I don't want. It makes me no longer master of my body and I can't do or write, or even read, much now-a-days.

As for address: when I'm fixed up anywhere I'll give it you. Meanwhile 14 Barton St. but it may take very long to reach me. People think I've gone abroad, and of course I'm glad they do, for the papers would make a laugh out of this job if they heard of it.

L.

By the way James Thomson's Sunday up the River is most excellent, isn’t it?