T. E. Lawrence, The Mint

PART III

4:  A FIRST NOTE

I'm just going over to the hangar to continue valeting aeroplanes. We do it lazily, killing time for the new term to open and our cadets to come. They say we 'sweat like buggery' in term time. This life pleases me all over: the people not so much: but I'm a slow starter, always unfavourably impressed, whenever I'm dropped into a hut-full of strangers. It is only after their crudities have been well learned and forgiven that the more interesting core appears. Their limited expression hides them at first: the monotony of their adjectives revolts me. Not so bad, pretty good, fucking good: - there are positive, comparative, superlative, for everything. Nothing's funny, or vivid, or familiar unless it travesties our sexuality. However, give them time. Some people get on terms directly: but in return give a great deal of themselves away, as fast.