T. E. Lawrence to Edward Marsh

Cattewater,
Plymouth

18.IV.29

Dear E.M.,

That a cursed shame, to write to you the 25th letter of tonight! Tomorrow at dawn I'm due to fly to Calshot, for a day or two or three in the forthcoming Schneider Cup zone: and I saw the vast pile of letters in my locker and said 'those shall be answered before I go': and they are all finished. Yours wasn't a letter but something very magnificent: Lady Chatterley. I'm re-reading it with a slow deliberate carelessness: going to fancy that I've never read a D.H.L. before, and that it's up to me to appraise this new man and manner. D.H.L. has always been so rich and ripe a writer to me, before, that I'm deeply puzzled and hurt by this Lady Chatterley of his. Surely the sex business isn't worth all this damned fuss? I've met only a handful of people who really cared a biscuit for it.

This isn't a letter: it's only a receipt.

By the way, are you all right (speaking terms, I mean) with Maurice Baring? Because I sent him my R.A.F. MS two or three days ago, and it might interest you to borrow it off him when he's finished it. M.B. is an amateur of the R.A.F., like me: but he doesn't know the other ranks in it, and won't like their dirt and brutality. In some ways it's a horrible little book. Like over-brewed tea.

Ever so many thanks for the book.

TES.