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T. E. Lawrence to H. W. Bailey
Ozone Hotel
Bridlington
Yorkshire 23.XI.34 Dear Bailey Good Lord, No! One doesn't answer this sort of thing. Bray is
quite an honest muddle-headed sort of chap, who believed everything he
wrote. His publishers are just splashing what little he wrote about
me in the hopes that people will take it up and talk about it and so
buy the book. It is pure advertisement and unfortunately it
advertises me as well as the book, bother them. Next best thing for a
public man, after being praised, is to be loudly abused. It pays.
Only, I don't want notice, and the only way to gain quiet is to
be quiet. This will not last six months and doesn't matter.
But you see of course, that there are two sides to the question.
I've been absurdly over-praised by Lowell Thomas, Graves, and Liddell
Hart: praised for all sorts of accidents as if I had
intended them and praised for leaving undone things that I simply
hadn't the power to do. I think we all worked like beavers, and did the
best we could - but if we had known everything there was to know
and what was to happen in the next 20 years and a few other little
things like that, well, we'd have done marvels; nearly as much as
Thomas & Co. say we did. Don't worry about it. Shoot only when
necessary. [3
lines omitted]
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