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Office of Cabinet Delegation, The Viceroy’s House, New Delhi.—The situation is critical. Discusses the attitudes of the various parties. Is dining with a Dutch collector of Indian folk-songs (Arnold Bake).

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Transcript

Office of Cabinet Delegation, The Viceroy’s House, New Delhi
June 12 (evening). 1946.

Oh my darling.

I will write you just as I would talk to you if you were sitting close by me in the room. The situation is very critical. And this afternoon it looked for a while as if a decision would almost certainly be reached in some 36 hours & could scarcely be other than a rejection. For a moment I had a sensation of relief. As one who has kept for a long while a weary vigil at the bedside of a beloved sick relative & there are signs that the end is approaching. And then came the reaction as I thought of the terrible time ahead if the calamity in fact materialised. And so I stifled back my desire for personal escape & thanked God tht while there was life there was still hope. And it may be - - - but can it - - & will it - -? Can we in very truth claw back victory out of the mouths of the hounds of defeat? It may mean abandoning my hope of getting back before the end of June. It may mean failing in the end after it all. But as in the poem John X Merriman gave us.

“Great is the facile conqueror
But he who unhorsed
And covered oer with blood & sweat
Fights on - - is greater yet” {1}

[I think there are some words missing.] {2}

Everyone takes the situation differently. Alexander is frankly angry but will I think play the game by his colleagues even at great personal inconvenience. Cripps refuses to be discouraged. He has postponed his passage home. The Viceroy is the soldier fighting gallantly a rearguard action. Gandhi in his own peculiar way is at the moment fighting three quarters on our side. Several others desperately want a peaceful settlement, and with them are many of the general public. But there are many reckless men & women who eagerly hope for a break down & a return to revolutionary activities. And there are many who blame every one but themselves & reserve their choicest epithets of abuse for the Mission.

My only really cool hours are when I am in the Viceroys specially air-cooled study & when I am in the swimming pool or my private bath. I get a short walk at 7 AM & another at 7 PM & occasionally I play billiards. Otherwise I just work & negotiate & discuss & read the papers & days a week. But I pray tht I do so to the glory of God.

I have had many dear letters from you but I do not think there has been anything especial tht required an answer. It is an intense satisfaction to me tht you keep well.

Jan 13 {2} Miss Shepherd has gone south to the marriage of her sister. Before she left she told me of a Dutch man & his wife who have spent years collecting Indian folk songs {4}. They are coming to see me after dinner to night. We had quite a heavy shower of rain last night but the real monsoon is not expected for another ten days or so.

My dear love to you, blessed & beloved

Your own Boy

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The abbreviation ‘tht’ for ‘that’ occurs a few times.

{1} The reference is to the last stanza of William Watson’s poem ‘In Laleham Churchyard (August 18, 1890)’, which runs as follows:

‘Great is the facile conqueror;
Yet haply he, who wounded sore,
Breathless, unhorsed, all covered o’er
With blood and sweat,
Sinks foiled, but fighting evermore,—
Is greater yet.’

{2} The square brackets are original.

{3} The date is in the margin.

{4} Arnold and Corrie Bake.

20 Somerset Terrace (Duke’s Road, W.C.).—Responds to his criticisms of Mary Neal’s paper on socialism. Has heard that he is meeting Merriman, and asks to be kept informed about the situation (in South Africa).

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Transcript

20 Somerset Terr.
Feb. 10th, 1901

Dear Mr Lawrence,

Thank you for your letter. Sister Mary and I were very glad to have your criticism on the Paper. There is just one point that I should like to take up in reply. I know that nothing less than the infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life, and that this infinite human appeal cannot be met by any finite forms of social reconstruction by any mere systems of distribution of production. And yet I think that the argument for Socialism may well be based on the ground of human justice. I do not think that human justice is lower ground than Christian love; I would rather call it the first step of the ladder of infinite pity that reaches from earth to heaven; it is the first step and it must be made first. “Christian love” has been in the world as a force for a very long time but I think it has never wrought any great deliverance for humanity until it has been focussed into a conception of human justice. There is of course a mystic or spiritual side to Socialism which does not fall within the scope of this paper, which we do not generally speak of because it belongs to the almost unspeakable life of the soul with God (we can’t speak of it, there are no words). On its mystic side it is Christ, the divine revelation, the infinite pity, the eternal sacrifice, the atonement, Christ the mediator of the new covenant between man and man. But you can never preach this; you couldn’t have it argued about, or bring dispute into the temple where each worships alone. You can only feel it.

Yes, that bit about music and art is not quite clearly expressed. Genius, like life, is the inscrutable secret, but like life it depends on material conditions for its manifestation and development, and without this manifestation it has not, as far as we are concerned, any being. And it comes home to all of us who know anything about the children of the disinherited, how much we lose as a society from the denial to human faculties of their proper material for development. But anything I could say on this point you would I think readily agree with.

I heard casually that you were seeing Merriman today. You will not forget, will you, how intensely interested I am in this political question, in which I seem to see so much more than mere political issues at stake. It is always my first waking thought and never very far from me. If you have anything to tell, any new light to throw on the situation, you will think of us, won’t you? Mr Cope, too; this thing has almost broken him, he has taken it so deeply to heart. Of course anything that you told him would come straight to me. I thought you were going to help him by keeping in touch with him. I told you, did I not, that you were the sort of man he ought to know; he ought to be properly “run” by a good executive!

I am sending you this book, you see. I thought perhaps it would be a help to the other. I have the Story too told more or less for children, but charmingly written (my kiddies love it), but I will not send that unless you want to see it. Do you hear how the kids are beginning to sing!

Yours sincerely,
Emmeline Pethick

20 Somerset Terrace, Duke’s Road, W.C.—Encloses a draft manifesto. Suggests he write a letter to take advantage of the Daily News’s effort to ‘work up’ Merriman and Sauer. Discusses arrangements for going to the theatre and the opera, and refers to Club activities.

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Transcript

20 Somerset Terr. | Dukes Rd W.C.
16. 5. 01 {1}

Dear Mr Lawrence.

I enclose my draft: The point is to be comprehensive—& yet so far as possible, definite: I just send it for what it is worth—without waiting to show it to Mary even.

I see that there is an effort in Daily News to work up Merriman & Sauer even at the 11th hour—This ought to be made the most of. Can you write a letter by way of doing the very first next thing—& can we turn anybody on to the question. Can we get a little bit of “go” into the S. A Conciliation Talk to Percy—will you? I dont think his name ought to be used at the foot of a letter or publicly unless we really want it: because he has so much that is not his to lose: (you will understand just how far I think that this consideration weighs—)

We had a sweet day yesterday “round the billy fire”, Mary & Mac & “Katimole”, & my “Sweetest of All”, whose 7th birthday it was. I came home to the Club & then was too tired to do more than look at your Manifesto.

I am going this afternoon with dear Brother Jack to “Pelleas & Melisande” {2}. The angel never dreams of going anywhere without taking us along too!

By the way, I want to hear “The Walküre”, & you never know to a day or two when it is coming on at Covent Garden. You have simply to watch the papers & make a rush for the tickets. I am taking Emma Rozier (who lost her little sister last Friday). Shall I take a third ticket for you on spec: they cost 10/6. It is the one you want to hear. I daresay somebody else would take it if you couldn’t come.

One thing more. I want the children to have a very happy time at Canning Town on Sat. week (25th). I want them to come to the Residence to tea about 4.30. They love parties & I am consumed with the desire to give them every mortal thing they want. You know they are no trouble to entertain—they are not ordinary children, are they?—so keen, & so gentle. Of course I am writing to Percy, but I want you to be there, if you can possibly manage it.

Yes, I admire Miss Octavia Hill’s work very much—also above & beyond her accomplishment she was a pioneer, & that means the original mind & the heroic temper. I feel that I have heaps to talk to you about, but I may be wrong, it is only a vague impression!

Sincerely yours
Emmeline Pethick

P.S. Mac has just come in, & Mary. They approve of my draft.

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{1} ‘16’ altered from ‘15’.

{2} Mrs Patrick Campbell revived Maeterlinck’s play, with music by Fauré, for five mat-inees at the Royalty Theatre from 13 to 17 May (Monday to Friday). See The Times, 13 May 1901, p. 7.