PERSONAL COLUMN

The strangeness of E. M. Forster

SIMON RAVEN

First, my qualifications to treat of this sub- ject. For three years, from 1948 to 1951, I

was an undergraduate, and for one further year a graduate, at King's College, Cam- bridge, of which E. M. Forster was an Hon- orary and resident Fellow. I was first introduced to him around the beginning of my second year, by the middle of which I was privileged, like many of my contempor- aries, to knock on his door whenever I wished and to call him 'Morgan'. During this year and the two succeeding years I saw him frequently, but very seldom by himself; after leaving Cambridge in 1952 I don't suppose I spoke with him on more than ten occasions before his death. At no time did I know him well, let alone intimately; at no time was I in his confidence to any degree whatsoever.

Though I called him 'Morgan', I thought of him as E. M. Forster; and I very much doubt whether he thought of me as anybody at all. And yet I was often in the same room with him when serious issues were being discussed or momentous scandals (past or present) rehearsed; I have asked him questions and received answers, of a kind; I have enter- tained him in restaurants and been enter- tained by him (not very lavishly) in my turn. What it comes to, then, is that for some three years we were fairly constant acquaintances, who stopped to exchange the news when we met by chance but very rarely sought each other out.

It will be clear from all of this that I am not entitled to claim a deep insight into his character or to pass judgment on his conduct or his motives. What I am entitled to do, and what I therefore propose, is to describe his day to day behaviour as it appeared to me, and to try to convey what it felt like just to have him around. Here was a novelist of enormous distinction and venerable years whom one met on friendly terms two or three times a week, when one was at a highly im- pressionable age: and so what (comes the obvious question) were one's impressions?

To begin with, Morgan Forster was (or seemed to be) bone idle. I am not now refer- ring to his notorious scantness of output, for by the time I knew him this had long been accepted as a matter of course. I am simply saying that he never, on the face of it, had anything at all to do. He was for ever potter- ing from nowhere in particular to nowhere else, so that very often, if he happened on friends by the way, he would turn round and go wherever they were going instead. I well remember meeting him, one autumn afternoon, while I was walking to the Royal Tennis Court. After a brief greeting, he fell in beside me (without even asking my des- tination) and in due course found himself installed in the dedans, from which he watched for a full hour and more while I had a lesson with the professional. Now why? He was not much interested in myself, he was bored by all ball games, and although Royal Tennis is a rare and historic survival, neither then nor later did he ever refer to or inquire about the rather eccentric man- oeuvres in which I had been engaged. There can only be one reason for his patience: he was merely killing time.

But by this period, I shall be told. Forster was seventy years of age and fully entitled to

b

e idle if he wished. His work was done, he had, of course, no duties in the college, and if he enjoyed just hanging about, then that was his affair. I don't for one moment dispute it. But what made such behaviour definitely odd was that he still had a very per- ceptive and curious mind, and professed a

keen interest in all that was being done and written in the world. This being the case, and

in Cambridge of all places, one would not have expected to see him positively loitering the hours away, without a book or even a

newspaper, on almost any available seat—

without even taking the trouble to choose one which commanded a good view. God knows, there were enough things worth look- ing at in King's; but when one came on Morgan Forster, he would be staring at the college dustbins just as likely as the Chapel.

You foolish fellow, I shall be told again: can't you understand that he was waiting to talk to people, and that like Socrates he was prepared to wait in the least probable places?

Well, perhaps; but if this is so, it is remark-

able how very little he said when the con- versations at last got themselves started.

Granted, he was a diffident man, respectful of other's views, anxious neither to pain nor to puzzle; yet even after every allowance has been made on this account, it is astonishing how unhelpful he was in any kind of dis- cussion, whether grave, gay, or merely ad- ministrative.

'What time would suit you, Morgan?'

'I wonder now. What time would be best?' 'Half past twelve?'

'Quite a nice sort of time, I think. Do you think that half past twelve would be best?'

He had, it seemed, two fears: one of imposing his own views; and one (even greater) of committing himself to any view in the first place. A direct question to him would always receive an indirect answer; 'yes' and `no' were the least common words in his vocabulary. He equivocated; he withheld; he switched off; he switched on again to take a point out of context; he prevaricated; he giggled and looked know- ing; and quite often he sulked. But of one thing at least you could be certain: if there was an underdog lurking anywhere in the topic that was being considered, that under- dog would receive Morgan Forster's support.

Not that he liked underdogs. He found them. I think, to be ugly, whining creatures, and he preferred both animals and people to be beautiful and brave. Nevertheless, whether as a matter of conscience or of pure perversity, he would not fail to speak up for the underdog in debate and to lend him aid in actual practice.

For example. There was in the college a play-reading society which held an annual dinner at a very moderate cost. One year, two members of the society went to Morgan Forster and complained that this cost was too high for them. A day later the secretary received a note, which stated that Mr E. M. Forster must decline to attend the annual dinner as he understood that the price pro- posed would debar certain members from participating.

Now, this incident raises a number of interesting questions. First, one may well ask, what sort of person would make such a complaint in such a way—even if the com- plaint were justifiable? Secondly, what sort of person would listen? And thirdly, what did Morgan Forster think should actually be done about it? Did he think that such dinners should henceforth be abandoned altogether, in deference to those who might

not be able to afford them? Or did he think

that the price and therefore the quality of the dinner should be reduced, for the con- venience of a small minority and to the aggravation of everybody else? The answer is, of course, that being a sane and pleasure- loving man he thought neither of these things: he simply found it for some reason either necessary or desirable to align himself with those who had a grievance.

Explanation 01 his behaviour is beyond my scope. As I said at the beginning of this essay, I am qualified only to report. Yet in the instance given above the explanation is so obvious that I think I may venture on it: despite his distaste for underdogs, Morgan Forster conceived that the two complainants were in some sense wronged or at least un- fortunate, and he therefore held that it was his moral duty to sympathise with them, and even to involve himself with them, in their predicament. His practice, in short, was con- sonant with his ethical principles rather than with his aesthetic or personal preferences. But there were other and more interesting occasions on which his behaviour was very much at odds with his declared principles. Let us now consider just two cases in which his conduct belied his beliefs; and let us remember, while we do so, that although he was chary of committing himself to a belief, when he did so it was one hundred per cent.

One belief he most certainly and sincerely held was that everyone must be allowed freedom in his sexual affairs; and some friends who took him to the theatre were therefore very surprised when he started grumbling because, as he said, the play was about 'immorality flats'. It was in fact about an officer in the Great War who had set up a mistress in order to brighten his furloughs from the front: what in the world, said the friends, was the matter with that? 'Immor- ality flats,' Morgan Forster repeated queru- lously, and would say no more. Which was all very well, as the friends told me later on; 'but after all, most of Morgan's life has been spent in "immorality flats".'

The second case was the affair of J. R.

Ackerley's dog. Joe Ackerley. due at King's for a weekend, cried off at the last minute on the ground that his Alsatian bitch, Queenie, was in heat and always needed her master's affection to heln her through this distressing season. Myself. I thought such behaviour was both sensitive and loyal on Joe's part, and I exnected Morgan Forster to applaud it. since loyalty and sensitivity were two virtues which he never tired of extolling.

But not so. 'How can Joe be such a futile ass?' he said: 'that bloody Queenie.' This. incidentally, was the only time I ever heard him say 'bloody'. but the significance of the speech lay elsewhere: Morgan Forster. dis- appointed of a pleasure, had abused an old friend for conspicuously displaying the two qualities which he—Morgan—nurported to value hieher than almost any others.

So which was the real Forster? The man who forewent a dinner which he might have enjoyed because others had comnlained that it was beyond their pockets; or the man who cursed Joe Ackerley for being faithful to his dog? And what about the man who was peevish over 'immorality flats'? Or who never gave a straight answer where a crooked one would do? Only connect, he used to say: I leave you to it.