T. E. Lawrence to Geoffrey Keynes

13 Birmingham Street
Southampton

10.2.34

Dear G.K.

I return the S.S. proof-pulls. Thank you for the sight of them (and for the return of the Too True off-print). These script engravings are very beautiful, very delicate. Slow to read and impossible to glance over in one blink of the eye, the way one usually swallows short poems the first time, to see if they taste good. These have to be read word for word, and one of them 'Degrees of groping thought', didn't stand up, in my mind, to such syllabic treatment. I like the others, and shall like the book, if I ever get it! Sometimes I feel inclined to curse all rarities: though S.S. has been generosity itself in giving me book after book.

So don't worry about Meynell's opinion. If I were perfectly candid I should describe them as too good an idea for the general!

I think they seem to go a little ahead of The Heart's Journey... at least 'Vigils' does. A very lovely poem, technically done. I am looking forward very much to reading them all.

If he does, as we hope, 'go on' now, after his marriage, we shall be fortunate. But if the poor man turns happy instead and writes no more - why, he has deserved it, surely. [9 lines omitted]