THE MODERN HERO
THERE are two omissions in this book—no article by Augustus John and no full-length criticism of Lawrence's writing. (David Garnett writes an admirable critical sketch. The late Edward Garnett throws some fine sidelights.) Certainly until the publication of The Mint it is difficult to take accurate stock of him—but the book, to achieve wholeness, should include a complete estimate of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Further than saying this I cannot cavil at this wonderful production.
There are eighty-two contributors, among them such varying personalities as Lord Halifax and a girl of seventeen. No aspect of Lawrence's strange life is neglected. Even a catalogue of his gramophone records is printed. The principal danger in such a compilation is that, confronted with eighty first impressions, the appetite of the reader for the story will be worn away by its eighty beginnings ; but this has been marvel- lously circumvented, presumably by deft editorship, and at the end the reader feels, not amazed by echoes, but as though he has met, talked to, and known for a long time the most esoteric man of our day. No biography could succeed as this book succeeds, if for no other reason than that the quicksilver of Lawrence's nature would too swiftly elude one pair of hands. As it is, the number and intelligence of the contributors, the diverse departments of his life considered, the ring extended, aS it were, to its full size, makes complete escape of the subject nowhere possible : he wriggles a foot free here and he is caught by the ear on the other side ; and not till the end do we feel that he eludes everyone, except, perhaps, his youngest brother.
It is difficult to say which is the finest thing in this long book. Eric Kennington and Ralph H. Isham provide perhaps the fullest portraits. E. M. Forster cruelly excites curiosity by the art of" the withheld glimpse." Sir Hubert Young, franldy confining himself to faults, evokes one of the most vivid pictures of all, and Sir Ronald Storrs succeeds in that most difficult literary feat, the description of a human face. Sometimes the different points of view seem to contradict each other directly, and here the valuable bigness of the book is apprehended ; a third opinion reveals a successful piece of cross bearing. And in spite of frequent dismissals of the vulgar" Arabian Mystery" T. E. Lawrence remains for the reader a very great enigma. "He was never free," says Lord Halifax, "of the challenge of his nature's secret." '‘` Nonsense," shouts Bernard Shaw, "he was even less mysterious than I." But after de:uging his figure in cold common sense he drops a hint that there were inscrutable things about this eternal youth. Perhaps it would not be wrong to say that Lawrence had a naked soul, and the mystery surroi tiling him was exactly that prime mystery of all things, which he would gladly have modestly disguised.
An opinion frequently expressed in this book, and the one most commonly accepted towards the end of his life, was that he was martyred by the coarseness of the modern world : by its brutish ambition which used his shining genius for a dis honest end (a view expressed, among others, in a recent play, The Ascent of F6), and later by the vile modern reward, pub- licity. Yet now this opinion is smashed to atoms. Lowell Thomas is often condemned as the instrument, in this case, of our contemporary hell. In one of the best articles in the Lbok he replies for the first time, and with a force and a massive punch which not only makes matchwood of the pillory in which he has stood so long, but sends his virtuous enemies staggering in bewildered agony. Lawrence liked publicity more than most men, especially when it came to photographs. He had also what is described as a pathological terror of it, which went hand in hand with his strange hatred of his body and all physical contacts. (" No I can't go there with you Kennington, I should be spotted." `.`, What matter ? " "You don't under- stand. (Giggle.) You are a very robust person—I am nothing."). Another. respectable opinion, the one which made me withhold from my one opportunity of meeting him, was that oui failure (from the Sykes-Picot agreement) to carry out our promises to the Arabs was an ever open wound in his heart, made only deeper. by the thought that his own part in the Cairo Conference of 1921 had mitigated treachery but not brought ,a full redemption of our pledged word. Publicity became doubly odious to him ; solitude left him with tormenting thoughts. This opinion is also shattered. In his view we had done our full best for the neople he had led.
Of the later period Bernard Shaw says : "You must keep in mind that he was not like Haig . . . or Luden- dorff, giving orders and seeing little. . . of their sanguinary effect. He had to do the most diabolical things with his own hands, and see their atrocious results close up . . . He felt very badly about such horrible exploits . His steadfast refusal to make money out of his experiences even when he was in actual want shows how he felt about them."
E. M. Forster says of his second service in the R.A.F. : " . . . his work was becoming highly specialised, and I did not feel so easy. I could appreciate his wanting to be an under-dog as he had been in the Tanks ; I could not understand him consenting to be bottom monkey, and lending his ingenuity to the perfection of war-gadgets. The popular explanation may be correct : namely, that T. E. was intensely patriotic, lived for the Empire, and believed he could serve her best from beneath."
An interpretation very different from either of these is given by L. B. Namier : "He made the army his monastery . . . It was his penance . . . His penance was like that of the medieval monks, cosmic rather than individual. 'For the sins of mankind ' might have been the definition of a devout Roman Catholic . . . he was neither . . . But ch.: instincts behind the penance were the same."
These three opinions together have a new value. From such fine disagreements the book draws its essential quality. As the years add up the riddle defies solution. His odd boyish wit never leaves him. Just occasionally Aircraftsman Shaw reminds one of Trooper Silas Tomkyn Comberback. An officer asks "Why don't you become an N.C.O. and get a room for yourself "And his answer, "Educational examination much too stiff, Sir," is quite in the vein of Coleridge's military career. But for the most part he was astonishing for his efficient disregard of his greatness. When the alibi was perfect he told Alec Dixon who he really was. He was always worried about his writing, to the last he doubted whether he had any talent in that direction at all. He had an odd habit of fibbing, also. Perhaps it is better, in spite of Bernard Shaw, to leave him to his mystery.
Yet having read this book, being familiar, albeit at second hand, with more facets of his personality than any one writer in it (except A. W. Lawrence), an explanation of his haunted life stands out boldly. Whatever the circumstances of that life he would have been tortured with the burden of genius. Tolstoy, Henry James, Beethoven, men as unlike him as can be imagined, were denied, in return for sublime endowments, even the passing shadow of contentment. A man of intellectual gifts can see things from many sides. It is the terrible privilege of genius to see them thus differently with conviction, with passion. This agony of the to.)-s zeing eye, and of boundless sympathy in the strong sense, was his pre-eminently. Neither hims;:lf nor anything outside him could escape from the painful wholeness of his vision. The most contemptuous critic could add little to what he says himself of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. And of his great exploit he wrote the condemnation
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