T. E. Lawrence to Mrs. Thomas Hardy

15 .VIII.23.

Dear Mrs. Hardy,

Your remark about 'uplift' has been puzzling me. One of my reasons for suppressing the book was that I believed it to be perverse and disturbing: a book likely to harm rather than [do] good to the normal person who would read it. It is meant to be the true history of a political movement whose essence was a fraud - in the sense that its leaders did not believe the arguments with which they moved its rank and file: and also the true history of a campaign, to show how unlovely the back of a commander's mind must be.

So what you said cuts right across my belief, and has puzzled me. Will you tell me what you would do - publish or leave private - if yourself or Mr. Hardy had written such a book? Apologies for bothering you: but the value of the book would give me an income which would keep me out of the army: and I'm wondering since Sunday whether perhaps I may be able to enjoy it.

Yours sincerely

T. E. Shaw.

Another matter. If Mr. Hardy does such things, would he inscribe me copies of his thin-paper Poems and Dynasts. I have them and could bring them across. I know it's a vulgar desire; but I live in vulgar company: and they would be very precious possessions.