The Wimsey Papers, pt. II

***

10 and 11. Miss Letitia Martin, Dean of Shrewsbury College, Oxford, to Lady Peter Wimsey at Talboys.

ACADEMIC WOMEN'S CLUB,
FITZROY SQUARE, W.1.
18.12.39.

My dear Harriet,

Thank you so much for that lovely book and the delightful photograph of the infants - a most gratifying addition to the portrait-gallery of Shrewsbury grandchildren! I hope my little offering to the nursery will arrive in time. I'm not sending much in the way of presents this year, because what with the income-tax, and cigarettes for soldiers, and scarves for mine-sweepers, and Funds for Distressed Victims (assorted), and subscriptions to entertainments, and Bonds, and Savings, and one thing and another, one's cheque-book just melts away, leaving one bankrupt of all but good wishes. If Sir John Simon would only explain how exactly one is to spend hard to win the Economic War, and at the same time save hard to win the Economic Peace, he would confer a benefit on mere narrow-minded logicians like me - but I suppose the answer is that in war-time one has to do the impossible, and will end by doing it. Anyway, my dear, all my best wishes to you all, and may your lord and master soon return home, with new detective exploits to his credit!

How tremendously the flight off Montevideo has taken hold of one's thoughts! Like the loss of the 'Rawalpindi', it has the unmistakable heroic quality that links it up with all our naval history back to the Armada - one feels that Nelson must have been aboard the 'Exeter,' and that Drake and Grenville helped to command the 'Ajax' and 'Achilles' when they ran in under the 'Graf Spee's' guns. It's good for us to have these reminders, especially just now. "This is a funny war," people say - and I know what they mean. When everything happens at sea, it's rather like two people playing chess. There's a deathly silence, and you don't know quite what they're up to; you only see one piece after another swept off the board and accounted for - a destroyter here, a merchantman there, a black knight exchanged for a white bishop - all queerly impersonal and worked out in terms of things - pieces - so many taken and so many left. And then, suddenly, the combination gets into action, and you see what it was all about, right away from the original gambit - a knight comes dancing across, two little pawns you'd scarcely notice trip forward hand in hand, the black queen is forced into a corner, the knight hops away and unmasks the waiting rook, and plonk! the black queen's gone and the king in check.

It's sobering to read of so many casualties - all one can say is that, if men have to be killed, it's a cause for pride and gratitude to know they the job they were doing is done,and done well. The most heartbreaking thing must be to feel that one's husband or son died for something that turned out badly, or ought never to have happened. And I am most dreadfully sorry for poor Langsdorf. He seemed to have had a very good chit from our people - "a very great gentleman," they said, and he must have simply hated having to scuttle his ship. Of course, it was a bit spiteful to do it right in the middle of the fairway, but no doubt Hitler told him to. I hope there's no truth in the extraordinary rumour that H. offered him a million marks to get the ship home. That would be the last insult. Not that I would put it past the little wretch - he never was out of the top drawer.

Look here, I do think somebody ought to do something to throttle that Haw-Haw creature. I don't mind his having said that half Oxford was in flames, and that the soldiers had to be protected by pickets from the unwelcome attentions of the Women Students. That gave us much harmless pleasure. And I don't mind his pointing out that even the War hasn't stopped unemployment. It's true, and you can't expect him to mention that the same thing is happening in Germany, in spite of the fact that guns are their staple manufacture. It's all part of the world-problem - production having got ahead of distribution - and if everybody stopped fighting tomorrow we should all still have to cope with it. And I don't blame him for saying that our Evacuation hasn't turned out as well as it might, because all our own papers have said it ad nauseam. After all, it's not our fault that Hitler let us down - if only he'd started throwing things when he said he would, everything would have worked out as planned. Our big mistake was to suppose that that man could ever speak the truth, even by accident. And the interesting thing is that quite a lot of people are finding out now how much better their children are doing in those evacuated areas where they're only getting about 1½ hours' teaching a day, in small classes of about a dozen, than they did working a full day in classes of 40 or so. One working woman told me it had given her quite a new outlook on education. And so it should - because those children are getting what only wealthy people can afford as a rule - individual attention from a private tutor. And it just shows that when the war's over we shall just have to overhaul the whole thing, and have more teachers and smaller classes, no matter what it costs; and now that some of these parents have discovered what proper education means, it's up to them to badger the government until they get it. And we shall all of us have to learn to treat the teaching profession decently, and not as a bunch of comic pariahs, or we shan't be able to get enough teachers for the new era in educaiton.

What was I saying about Haw-Haw? Oh, yes! I really cannot stand the creature saying that we called Langsdorf a coward for running into Montevideo. We never dreamed of saying anything of the sort. We went out of our way to throw bouquets. I'm damned if anybody shall call us bad winners - that's worse than being bad losers.

19.12.39

I couldn't finish last night, because I had to go out. Today's papers don't show the 'Graf Spee' business in an awfully good light. Yesterday's first editions took it for granted the captain had gone down with his ship, and I must say the picture today of him and his men grinning all over their faces isn't quite what one expects. Somehow, it's a shock that Nazi cynicism could get as far as their Navy. One isn't surprised when S.S. men are brutal, or when the New Army behave like fiends in Poland, or German airmen bomb open towns, or even when submarines torpedo without warning - they're a new-fangled sort of ship, and one more less excuses them - but one had a feeling that battleships were somehow or other all right. It's funny how the papers feel it. They don't so much point out that Nelson would have turned a deaf ear and blind eye to inglorious instructions from home; they point to the tradition of the 'Scharnhorst' and the 'Gneisenau,' and the say that old Admiral von Spee would have turned in his grave. It's the thought that this vulgar little madman can stretch his hand over half the world and force a decent sea-captain to do a dishonourable action that makes one sick. That's really what we're fighting about - the utter submission of the individual conscience to an ugly system in the hands of one unscrupulous gangster.

Well, bless the Finns! They are a bright spot, and no mistake. I'm not surprised. The only Finnish child I ever taught in my school-teaching days was a miracle of competent independence. At eight years old she organished her form; at tehn, she would lead the school crocodile from Swiss Cottage to the Old Vic, while I meekly followed in her wake; at eleven, she got up and ran an athletic competition for the Junior School, and now she is manager of a big and successful store. You can't keep a nation like that down. But what it must be like, fighting in that dreadful cold place in the pitch dark, one simply can't imagine. You'd think the Russians would be used to snow, but apparently they sent the wrong sort of Russians - the southern kind. Isn't that a War-Office all over? They're all alike. I suppose, if ever we had to conduct a campaign at the North Pole, we should send troops from Bombay! Anyway, I never thought communism had much to do with common sense, judging bby the bright undergraduates who go in for it. Never did they succeed in arriving in time for a coaching, or arranging a meeting without at least three mistakes in the hour and place. An entertaining consequence of the war, by the way, is that the membership of the Communist Society at Shrewsbury has gone down by precisely the same number that the membership of the Student Christian Movement has gone up. There is a pleasing neatness about it.

Well, my dear, I must stop twaddling and go and finish my shopping. Christmas must go on, Hitler or no Hitler. I go back home tomorrow.

With the best of good wishes,

Yours affectionately,

LETITIA MARTIN


Telegram from the above to the above, 20.12.39, handed in at Selfridge's, 4.48p.m.

Take back anything harsh I said about poor Langsdorf sorry I spoke - Martin


12. Colonel Marchbanks to Lord Peter Wimsey (transmitted by a devious route to a destination unknown).

BELLONA CLUB,
W.
23.12.39.

My dear boy,

I must try to send you a line for the New Year, though God knows when you'll get it. Still, better late than never. I ought to have put it in hand for Christmas, but the confounded season creeps up on one in such a dashed stealthy manner that it's here before one realises it. Not but what I ought to realise it, as my wife and I have been working hard to get up entertainments for the Camp never our little place in the country - about all that's left in the way of military service for an old war-horse like me. However, with three grandsons doing their bit, we can't complain. It's a fairly high proportion as things go nowadays. Some of the young fellows - and the older ones too - are grumbling pretty heavily because the W.O. doesn't seem to have any use for their services. See here, I said to them the other day, I'm older than you, and I've served in two major wars, not counting the Burmese business when I was only a lad, and you can take it from me, the best thing you can do is to stand by and wait till you're wanted. They're not going to want you in a hurry, except for replacement of casualties. How many of our fellows do you want slaughtered, I said, so that you can put up a couple of pips? Robert Fentiman said this wasn't what he called a war - more like a ruddy sit-down strike. I said, I suppose what you want is another Passchendaele, but we're not having any this time, thank-you, we know what it's like. Nor is the German High Command, not unless that fellow Hitler starts sending out his personal order to scuttel the army. If you've forgotten, I said, and I haven't, what a frontal attack in impossible weather on a strong position looks like, go and see what's happenening to those poor dashed Russian blighters driven up like sheep against the Mannerheim line. Fentiman said, anyhow, the Finns were showing up how a war should be fought. Good luck to them, I said, so they are, and Stalin's showing us how it ought not to be fought, and why should we follow his example? What we've got in hand, I said, is siege warfare, and it's got to be fought in the proper manner. There's no sense in trying to fight the last war but one.

Thank God, I say, we're not saddled with Russia as an ally, which we should have been if some of our bright intellectuals had had their way. Remember those dashed Socialists last August? Bursting into tears all over the place, and prophesying the end of the country if we didn't throw both arms round Comrade Stalin's neck? I protested to the committee, and got their beastly rags shot out of the place. I'd a fairly good idea those Bolshies wanted to make a pretty dirty bargain for their priceless assistance, but even if we could have swallowed that - Heaven be praised we didn't - the Russians have never yet won a war against a first-class Power, and why should they begin now? They won't win this one, what's more, if somebody has the decency to keep Finland going with munitions and supplies. You can't turn incompetent soldiers into competent ones by abolishing Church and King - dashed ungentlemanly thing to do, anyhow - nor yet by shooting all your officers, poor devils. It's to be hoped some of these neutrals will pluck up heart and tell the Stalin lot to go to blazes. I only wish I was twenty years young and free to go and join in the scrap. But creaking old dug-outs like me can only sit tight and applaud, and hope that somebody will come along to push the supplies through.

Wish I had half the energy of old Admiral Barnacle. Somebody brought him in here yesterday, and he pooped off a broadside of I-told-you-so's that carried away all our defences and even put Wetheridge's guns out of action. (Wetheridge is getting very cranky - temper worse and worse - sits growling in the corner with a neutral zone all round him, and nobody but the new members ever ventures within range. Worst of it is, he completely monopolises one fireplace and I'm afraid he'll end by driving all the members out of the Club.) The Admiral had always said the next war would be fought at sea (and by gad! Sir, wasn't he right?) and the only way to keep the pace in Europe was to have the British Navy so big that nobody would dare challenge it, and so keep the whole adjectival lot quiet. He got so excited that Culyer and a couple of other fellows had to sacrifice themselves, and give him a game of bridge, and we heard him roaring away in the little card-room, and holding a court-martial - court-naval, rather - on every hand, till his friends convoyed him away to bed. Time too; he must be well over eighty.

But I'm beginning to think seriously, Peter, that there's something in what he says. So far, all the advantage in this war has been with the defence, and I think we might argue that if every country would provide itself with a Maginot Line so strong that an attack isn't worth the candle, we might reduce land warfare to a sort of perpetual check and fight everything out by air and sea. That would mean much less expenditure in lives, because there's a limit to the number of mean you can put in a ship or an aeroplane. Of course, it would mean a really efficient scheme of air-defence for every town, but that's not impossible either. They say the Helsinki shelters were solidly out in hand twelve years ago, and that's why the Russian raids haven't produced anything like the casualties you might expect. You may think this is a queer line for an old army man to take, but, speaking as a professional soldier, I don't like this business of whole nations in arms, and the wiping out of millions of decent youngsters. I say, strengthen your defences and don't waste men, and for us that does mean a strong Navy and Air arm, and personally I'm all for it. I never want to see anything like the 1914-1918 casualty lists again, and if you ask me the people who keep bawling to the Army to get a move on are a bunch of bloody-minded murderers. Of course, if the Boche gets to work on Holland, or Belgium, or Luxemburg, we may look for trouble.

Talking of the Navy, I thought that was a dashed handsome touch in Daladier's speech the other day. Saying that "the English, who were connoisseurs," had praised the work of the French Navy, and that he looked upon it as a good compliment. Upon my word, I called that a confoundedly graceful way of putting it. None of our newspapers seemed to appreciate it half enough. Very pretty turn, those Frenchmen have, in public speeches. Wish our lot would follow their example. We mean well, but we're so damned clumsy. Anyhow, there's my little tribute, for what it's worth, and I wish somebody could tell Daladier that one old fellow, at any rate, had the grace to feel gratified.

You ought to have heard the row there was this week when Winston hopped in ahead of the newspapers and told the country about the Canadians being landed here. I wonder the whole Censor's office didn't go up in smoke. Naughty of Winston, of course, but mind you, the public loved it. It pleased them no end to hear a tit-bit of piping-hot news direct from the First Lord of the Admiralty. If you ask me, the powers that be out to arrange to give us that kind of thing more often. I don't mean they ought to take the papers by surprise - that's not fair, and besides, it takes the gilt off the gingerbread when you've been given your little treate one day, and the next have to read a lot of cursing and blinding about muddles in Ministries. It shakes public confidence. But I do say that, every now and again, when something damned good has happened, our Government ought to say deliberately: that's something the Prime Minister, or the First Lord, or somebody, ought to say himself, with his own lips, to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the country personally. The people wold appreciate that, and it would be damn well worth it. The don't care two hoots about newspapers and Ministries, but they do love to be told the news, and the more personal touch about it the better, and curse the red tape.

Not much good, I'm afraid, writing all this to you, because you aren't in a position to do anything about it, but an old fellow like me gets hsi head full of ideas, sitting about with nothing much to do except think. Last war we were too busy to think much, and since then I'm afraid we've left the thinking to the youngsters, and they think like mad, but they haven't got the experience. What's that French thing - if youth but knew, if age were only able? Age ought to be able to think a bit, anyhow. My wife says I've done my bit, and ought to sit quiet and stop fretting, but I find that rather hard work.

There's not much news, I'm afraid. All quiet on the Home Front so far. Rationing looms ahead - that's a new one on me. My wife and daughters laugh at me when I grumble about this butter business, and ask, how about my breakfast bacon? They say I ought to have been through the last war, and this one's a picnic to it. That's damn funny, when you come to think of it. D'you know, honestly, I hadn't realised that in 1918 they couldn't get matches, and sat about like the fox in the fable, hoping luck would send them a bit of cheese. When you think of all the cheese there was knocking about the lines! Still, I suppose it's never too late to learn, and now it's my turn to learn the civilian end of the business. I tell my wife she's getting a regular old soldier, always bragging about what she did in her last campaign.

Well, good luck to you, my boy, and a successfull New Year. If you meet any of Little Adolf's friends, give them a kick in the pants from

Yours ever,

GEO. MARCHBANKS


Letters to the Ministry of Instruction and Morale (various dates).
Dept. Public Opinion (Home); Sub-Dept. Propaganda (Enemy); Section Radio; Sub-Section Hamburg.
File Ref. MIM/QXJ945/ak/722683; Cross-Ref.BBC/OL3/xp/999334 (Copies to BBC).
Room 569 (2) Duchess of Denver.
Passed to you for information and comment please. (Sgd.) BEETLE OF OAKWOD.

Dear Sirs, - I welcome the suggestion to reply to the German propaganda from Hamburg. Anything for a change from the everlasting drone of cinema organs.

Incidentally, why is the news-bulletin broadcast to the Empire on the short wave at 11.30 a.m. always so much fuller of interesting and detailed information than those on the Home Service? Are we considered mentally inferior to our cousins overseas? Or is this a class distinction in favour of plutocrats who can afford expensive wireless sets? - Yours faithfully, J. WETHERIDGE (Maj. Retd.), Bellona Club, W.

Dear Lord Beetle, - Do try and stop this suggestion that the B.B.C. should broadcast an answer to Haw-Haw. It would merely encourage my husband to turn the man on, and the creature's voice gets on my nerves, so monotonous and genteel, like a shop-walker. We need not, surely, add to the horrors of war! - Yours ver sincerely, AMELIA TRUMPE-HARTE, Bridge House, Mayfair.

Dear Sirs, - I see that Mr. Harold Nicolson is rousing up the House of Commons to make a good debating reply to the German propagandist they call Haw-Haw. I am a member of the Primrose League and do not agree with Mr. Nicolson's political views, but I think this is an excellent idea and hope you will see that it is carried out. I have written to my M.P. and told him he is to support it or lose my vote. Is there anything further I can do in the matter? I am a church-warden, and run the Boy Scouts in this neighbourhood. - Yes. &c., J. SMITH, Gt. Pagford.

Dear Sirs, - I read in my paper that the B.B.C have decided not to broadcast any reply to "Lord Hee-Haw" for fear of making the man too important. I say, if he's important enough to have headlines in the papers he's important enough to be answered, and either the B.B.C. or the papers ought to have more sense. Why can't you make up your minds one way or the other and get the whole thing straightened out? I enclose my card and remain, - Yours faithfully, PLAIN CITIZEN, East Croydon.

Dear Sirs, - I see Mr. Harold Nicolson wants to run a series of replies to Haw-Haw. This is all very well and a fine idea, but for pity's sake don't make it one of your College Professors but someone as understands what is a good debating speech. There is nothing like a controversy for Entertainment but it must be good Lively stuff. I am a working man myself and wireless is my hobby I have a set gets all the foreign stations. I think Haw-Haw is very dangerous for ignorant people and there's plenty with posh wireless sets more ignorant than the working class by a long chalk. If anybody was to make a good fighting speech in answer I would be pleased to listen into same but see it is a good one. We have speakers in our W.E.A. Debating Circle could give these Professors and Govt. speakers five yards and a beating. - Yours faithfully, A. Carpenter, Walbeak, Norfolk.

Dear Sirs, - I am a social worker, and I find that a great many of the people I come inc ontact with take the line that much of the German propaganda about social conditions here is true, and they point out that he gets it all out of the English papers. I always tell them that that is the great difference between us and Germany - their papers are not allowed to say how bad their social conditions are, and so cannot be quoted against them. I find they are impressed by this, and also by the revelations of the miserable conditions in the Russian Army as compared with the glowing account of the "Workers' Paradise" in the Soviet controlled Press. I think that any reply to German propaganda would be most effective if done along these lines. - Yours faithfully, SYLVIA STANNIFORTH, Sheffield.

My dear Lord Beetle, - With regard to the suggested broadcast in reply to "Lord Haw-Haw," I have noticed in the course of my researches that a great many people, while listening-in to his remarks are instinctively moved to utter derisive ejaculations, such as: "You don't say!" "What about Old Gobbles?" "Have a nice cup of bramble-tea!" "What's become of the 'Deutschland'?" and so on, according to the subject he is discussing. This makes me think that it would be amusing, and afford relief to irritated feelings if a running commentary could be broadcast SIMULTANEOUSLY with his on the same wave-length, so as to give the effect of a speaker being HECKLED at a public meeting! The listeners could JOIN IN with shouts and cheers and a GOOD TIME would be had by all. This would be immediately followed, of course, by a reasoned reply, in which the Germans could heckle too! This would, I am sure, appeal greatly to the SPORTING INSTINCTS of our people! But perhaps there is some technical difficulty! - Yours sincerely, ALEXANDRA KATHERINE CLIMPSON, Oxford Street, W.

Dear Beetle, - What's the good of complaining about the publicity given to Haw-Haw? Do you imagine anything is going to stop the British Public from taking cock-shies at an enemy alien? Last war the Stage and Press were full of Little Willie and the Kaiser's moustache, and in the Boer War it was Oom Paul's beard. Now that Hitler seems to have taken a back seat, they've got to make an Aunt Sally of some one. By all means answer the fello and give the nation its money's worth. Undignified be damned! - Yours ever, DENVER, Bredon Hall, Norfolk.

Dear Lord Beetle, - Since our conversation during your visit to Oxford last term, I have given some thought to the question fo Propaganda, and the current controversy about the advisability, or otherwise, of issuing a public reply to the statements broadcast from Reichssender Hamburg affords a convenient occasion for putting my (very tentative) conclusions on paper.

Generally speaking, I am inclined to think that propaganda defeats its own object, by arousing a spirit of opposition in the hearer, and thus suggesting to him counter-arguments to the propositions advanced. (I remember a very entertaining essay on this thesis written a good many years ago by Miss Rose Macaulay.) Thus, I always recommend the President of any Religious Society among my own students to encourage her members to read The Freethinker - an organ whose quaintly old-fashioned Victorian atmosphere I personally find most refreshing.

This leads me to suppose that the most effective form of propaganda might very well be a reasoned reply to propaganda by an enemy speaker - the audience being caught in a receptive frame of mind occasioned by a recoil from the position suggested by his arguments. The reply should not be too lengthy (for fear of provoking a counter-recoil), and the tone should be brisk and humourous. Under these conditions, I can imagine that a broadcast on the lines sketched out by Mr. Nicolson might be very effective. - Believe me, yours sincerely, M. BARING (Warden), Shrewsbury College, Oxford.

Dear Sirs, - Since the identity of the German broadcaster known as "Haw-Haw" seems to be arousing some public interest, may I offer a suggestion? His accent seems to me to resemble very closely (particularly in the vowel-sounds) that used by (a) an actor of insufficient breeding and experience when impersonating an English aristocrat or (b) (more subtly) an experienced actor of good social standing impersonating a man of inferior breeding apeing the speech of the English aristocracy. It is, in fact, very like the accent I used myself in the character of the self-made "Stanton" in Dangerous Corner, which I have played with marked success in the West-End and in the Provinces (photograph and press-cuttings enclosed, with stamped addressed envelope for return). If it is decided to broadcast a reply to this propaganda, would you consider me for the part? By exaggerating the accent and thus showing up the German speaker in a ridiculous light a very good comedy entertainment might be provided. I should add that I have had several broadcasting engagements and can be trusted to give a good performance from a script at first reading. - Yours truly, ALAN FLOAT, Ground-Row Club, Soho.

Covering Note to the Above File - HD/191-4/1/40
Ref.MIM/QXJ945/ak/722683.

Spirit of the nation as shown by these letters seems quite excellent. Cannot see that there is any general demand for reply to German propaganda. Advise no action. (Sgd.) H. DENVER (Return to Ld. Beetle, Room 6).


Mr. Ingleby, Copy-writer in Pym's Publicity, Ltd., to Mr. Hankin, Head of the Copy Department in that establishment.
13, PEMMICAN ROAD, WIMBLEDON.
13.1.40.

Dear Mr. Hankin,

I greatly appreciate the kindness of your letter, but I'm afraid I can't change my mind. The fact is, I have developed a conscience of a sort. After all these years in advertising, I'm pretty hard-boiled, but to my own surprise I find there's still a vulnerable spot in me.

I'm quite well aware that business has to be carried on, and that it can't be carried on without advertisement. As a matter of fact, I don't much mind - never have minded - the sort of direct lying we put out. It's labelled "advertisement," and if the public believe everythijng we tell them, they have been warned. And they have got some sort of check on it. If we say somebody's soap is made only of the purest ingredients, and neglect to add that one of the ingredients is the purest pumice, the "discerning housewife" has a chance to discover the facts and has only herself to thank if she goes on buying the stuff after the first spoilt pair of sheets.

What I can't stomach is the indirect lying in the daily Press. It's always a pretty bad joke, but in war-time it gets beyond a joke. All this righteous indignation poured out in the name of the Gallant Troops or the Great British People whenever there's a hint of Government interference with the sacred rights of Branded Goods! I daresay the public ought to keep their eyes skinned. Anybody confronted with a leaderful of wrath about the pooling of This and That has only to turn over the pages of his favourite organ and see how many thousand pounds' worth of advertising it carries for Branded This and Proprietary That, and discount the righteous wrath accordingly. But I don't think it's scruple so much as sheer damned irritation.

It's not that I don't believe in a free Press. It would be a bad thing if even that kind of criticism were censored away. I shouldn't mind if I were equally free to say to the umpteen millions of readers all over the country, "That's all right, but do remember that papers have to please their advertisers." But no paper is going to make its columns free to letters of that sort, and I hate being made to feel helpless.

If only one could get a platform, one could say to these poor goops, "Do realise that, in the end, you can be the masters! Policy depends on advertising, but advertising depends in the long run on circulation. If enough of you stop taking a paper, its advertising revenue will fall off and its space-rates drop. A consumers' strike will bring any commercial body to heel." But they wouldn't do it, because they want the football news or the racing news or the fashions, so they swallow the pill of policy with the sugar. The public is fair game, very likely - but, nevertheless -

This is a queer line for me to take, isn't it? "Ingleby's always so cynical." That's why I write what you are good enough to call "convincing copy." But I've suddenly got a distaste for the game. I'm a coward, too. I don't propose - you needn't imagine it for the moment - to give up my time and energies to enlightening the public mind. I've managed to wangle an Army job, and I'm clearing out, washing my hands, behaving exactly like Pontius Pilate and all the other respectable people who let crimes go on because it's too much trouble to try and stop them. So my cynicism holds good, you see.

You've always been very kind to me, and I have a lot to thank you for, so I thought I'd prefer to tell you the truth, for once. I'm not taking a self-righteous line about the people who stick to the job. I admire those who put their shoulders to the wheel, even when the waggon has stuck fast in the midden. I've no right to the luxury of being fastidious. I despise myself for not having the guts either to shove or to take a spade to the midden. I'm the worst sort of Laodiccan, and propose to spew myself out with the least possible delay.

The gist of all this rigmarole is that I can't see my way to withdraw my resignation, and have written to that effect to Mr. Pym - putting it on the ground of "National Service", God forgive me! Please accept my assurance that nothing could be less heroic than my conduct, and believe me, - Very gratefully yours,

C. INGLEBY


Harriet, Lady Peter Wimsey, to Mr. Paul Delagardie, in London.

TALBOYS,
GREAT PAGFORD, HERTS.
15.1.40.

Dear Uncle Paul,

Your amusing letter came just in time to put me in a good temper and prevent me from writing a stinker to Helen, which would only have aroused family prejudice and done the Ministry of Instruction and Morale no good at all. I've sent her a postcard, and make my complaint to your sympathetic ear instead.

It was only a trifle, really. For the last four months I have been badgering H. for speakers for our W.R.I., and get nothing but evasive promises. Now the M.I.M. want to send someone down, and Helen is "astonished" because I can't let her have a date before the summer. She knows perfectly well that we have to get our lists our early - she had plenty of experience of that kind of thing at Duke's Denver. But because she is in an official position, she pretends to be "astonished."

The rulers of this country seem to live in a perpetual state of "astonishment." They are "astonished" that anybody should think the German propaganda needs answering - surely the spirit of the people is too good to allow them to listen to what the Germans say. (It jolly well needs to be good - you can depress the boldest spirit by neglect and indifference, and it's not fair to leave the common man to defend his bit of the moral front without leaders or weapons.) The P.M. is reported to be "astonished" at the "strong reaction" among the people and in the Press over the Belisha business. But obviously the people are going to get a bit of a jolt when the War Office swaps horses in mid-battle, so to speak, without any warning or preparation; and obviously the Press, who have been suffering from headline-starvation for weeks, are going to smack their lips over the feast - so why be "astonished"?

When the Russo-German Pact was signed, the Government proclaimed themselves not only "astonished", but "astounded" and "thunderstruck." If they were, they'd no business to be, since any intelligent person who could read had had the probability of something of that kind dinned into his mind for months and years. Governments ought to be able to read, and they ought to know how people are going to react to things. If they are "astonished," then it simply means that they don't know how the people of this country are thinking and feeling - which is the one thing that a representative government must know, or what is it there for? I'm quite sure Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria didn't spend their time being "astonished" by their subjects' feelings - they knew; and Ministers and Parliaments ought to know, too - they're paid to know it. If novelists weren't better psychologists than politicians appear to be, they might whistle for their royalties. And yet writers are supposed to be a dreamy, unpractical lot! But one can't blame the politicians too much. The people put them where they are, under the impression that "practical men" are the sort to get things done. As a nation we don't trust men of imagination and don't put them in power, so we've really only ourselves to thank when our leaders are "astonished" at every glimpse of the obvious.

And it's true that the "imaginatives" tend to hold aloof from public affairs. They feel it's their job to show and to teach, and leave the rest of the world to do the organising; but it looks as though, without imagination, you can't even organise things properly. And all the time there's this perpetual fight against stupidity, and the commercial mind that battens on stupidity. Trying to get people to see and act with imagination is like trying to hack one's way through a jungle with a penknife. But if you give up trying - well, there's Germany to look at. Even the low-brows ought to realise by now that a country that allows its intellectuals to be rendered completely impotent is not a very edifying spectacle.

So much for that - and now read me your little lecture on "la raison" and the superiority of the French attitude to life. I quite agree it's time we went back to learning from the French. They are our Allies, and we shared their civilisation for a good many centuries! ...

(The remainder of the letter deals with family affairs)


Mr. Paul Delagardie to Lady Peter Wimsey at Talboys

CHATEAU L'OREILLER,
EDREDON-SURE-LE-NEZ,
LA GRIPPE,
ANGLETERRE.
January 22nd, 1940.

My dear Harriet,

As you will see by the address, I have fallen victim to the English climate. Rassure-toi. My malady has passed the feverish and entered the catarrhal stage; I mention it only to excuse the inelegance of my handwriting and certain lack of intellectual clarity which will no doubt betray itself in my epistolary style.

My child, I hasten to answer your letter which finds me full of sympathy. It is indeed a strange misfortune that in the England of today the two most excellent of her national characteristics should have suffered a public divorce. I refer, of course, to the poetic imagination and the talent for practical statesmanship. I believe this has never been the case before, or never to the same extent. Francis Bacon was no isolated phenomenon. That poets should be politicians and diplomats men of letters was a commonplace so long as England shared her culture with the Continent. Account for it how you will, learning and imagination were never despised until the whole population became - I will not say "educated", for it is not that, but at any rate literate. You see the result of this unhappy development in that lack of vision in plain life of which you very properly complain. And you are right in saying that it is the writers and thinkers who must exert themselves, at whatever personal sacrifice, to close the gap, for if they wait till the other side makes the advance they will wait for ever.

If I say that they order this matter better in France, you will laugh - here is Uncle Paul riding his old hobby-horse. But it is true that the man of letters finds it easier là-bas to secure a recognised place in the machinery of public life. Our neighbours have not that English tendency to regard a man's art and poetry, like his religion, as a private and personal indulgence. It is, I suppose, that very tendency which was held in check so long as English letters and civilisation derived their life blood from the common European source. Even in the fourteenth century the Englishman was held to be insular; yet the educated Englishman of all centuries down to the present was far more cosmopolitan in his method of thought than he is today; and it was he who then guided public affairs. In those days, travel was difficult and, for that reason, educative: one could not make a tour of the world in a few weeks, finding a stereotype of England in every foreign land.

And since, my dear, you propose turning your intelligence to the service of your country, may I mention to you something which gives me considerable pain and disquiet? I am distressed by the failure of all our public bodies and national organs to forge any links of sympathy between ourselves and the French people at this important juncture. True, we have an Allied command; true, we have a united Economic Front - but there it seems to me to end. Neither in the newspapers, not in broadcasting, nor in any other way do I detect any attempt to make Britain aware of France nor yet to recommend Britain to the French. We treat our partner, indeed, as the Englishman treats his wife - we love, honour and take her for granted. this seems to me a great folly, as well as a great discourtesy. A true understanding between our two countries would be a noble foundation for an intelligent peace and a united Euope - yet I think we felt more in common with France in the days when she was our "sweet enemey" than we do today, when she is our closest friend and ally. And we ought to take pains to understand France, for there is a great community of culture and interests, despire a great difference of language and temperaments. Understanding under these circumstances is easier, perhaps, than with a nation like America, where a likeness of language tends to obscure from us a profound unlikeness of tradition and outlook

What do I want to see done? A great many things are possible? The B.B.C. could do so much. Concerts of French music, little dramas of French history, talks about French literature or performances of French plays, a running commentary from time to time upon French life under war-time conditions, an exchange of views between - shall we say? - French and English housewives, or what not? And in the papers, articles on these subjects, photographs, stories - que veux tu? I do not ask for a heavy educational propaganda - that would defeat its own purpose - nor for the wagging of flags, such as we suffered from too much in theh last war. I ask only for a little direction to be given to our thoughts and sympathies. I find more pictures, more headlines, more news, more gossip, devoted to other countries - to Finland, to Russia, to America, to Italy, to the various neutrals,a nd above all to Germany - than to our ally in arms. And I cannot think this to be wise or right.

We say we stand for liberty and democracy - is there any nation that has so good a right to speak on these subjects as France? We are so concerned for the good treatment of political minorities and foreign colonies - cannot France offer us a varied and important experience in such matters? We wish to preserve our Mediterranean civilisation - through whom, if not through France, did we inherit that civilisation? We are proud of our mongrel race and our noble mixed language double-rooted in Saxon and Latin - have we forgotten that France is one-half of that language and the more intellectual half of that language?

And besides all this, ought we not to try very hard to make the spirit of our own people known to the people of France? Do we suppose ourselves so natually amiable as to capture their affections without the politeness of a trifling exertion? I fear we are too complacent.

Here, my dear Harriet, is a task for you writers. You have the imagination which the politicians so singularly lack. You must write, you must speak, you must besiege the Press and the wireless; you must even endeavour to impress your opinion upon the Ministry of Instruction and Morale, and if they are "astonished" and inform you that the spirit of Allied understanding is excellent and needs no fostering, you must nevertheless persevere. Keep in your mind that it is this very complacency which makes the incidence of divorce so high in the British home, and that an ally, like a wife, must be won daily with kind and modest attentions. You yourself, mon enfant, are satisfied with your husband - I am happy to know it; but let me assure you that Peter would have been as complacent as the average Briton had I not taken his education in hand from the beginning and impressed upon him that a partnership cannot flourish without a continutal effort of intelligent planting and pruning and the assiduous rooting-up of the chickweed of indolence.

With this fine horticultural metaphor, I will leave the subject to your consideration. Believe me, my dear child, your very affectionate uncle,

PAUL AUSTIN DELAGARDIE


From Lord Peter Wimsey, somewhere abroad, to Harriet, his wife, at Talboys. (Extract.)

... You are a writer - there is something you must tell people, but it is difficult to express. You must find the words.

Tell them, this is a battle of a new kind, and it is they who have to fight it, and they must do it themselves and alone. They must not continually ask for leadership - they must lead themselves. This is a war against submission to leadership, and we might easily win it in the field and yet lose it in our own country.

I have seen the eyes of the men who ask for leadership, and they are the eyes of slaves. The new kind of leaders are not like the old, and the common people are not protected from them as they were from us. In our time their ignorance was a protection, but now they have eaten knowledge and are left naked. I have no time to explain myself properly, but you will understand.

It's not enough to rouse up the Government to do this and that. You must rouse the people. You must make them understand that their salvation is in themselves and in each separate man and woman among them. If it's only a local committee or amateur theatricals or the avoiding being run over in the black-out, the important thing is each man's personal responsibility. They must not look to the State for guidance - they must learn to guide the State. Somehow you must contrive to thell them this. It is the only thing that matters.

I can't very well tell you just how and why this conviction has been forced upon me, but I have never felt more certain of anything. To be certain of something is rather an achievement for me, isn't it? Well, there it is - I am perfectly certain for once. ...

© The Spectator