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TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 1):

Cherbourg.

Sunday.

Postmark: 6 January 1913

My dear Papy,

This scholarship question is going to be settled then once for all, in the coming week; the best or the worst will soon be known. It always seems to me a comforting fact before any important event concerning whose result one is anxious, that one’s own varying expectations about it can make no difference to the event. At any rate, I have tried, and the rest must remain to be seen. Tubbs was talking to our friend S.R. James¹ the other day about the affair, and we learn thence that Greek, which has been somewhat of a bugbear, is not a very important subject–that the most necessary things are French and English; my French of course is rather poor, but I think I can do alright in English. But perhaps we had better not think too much about the event until it is over. What shall happen shall happen, and in the mean time we hope.

I expect I shall see W. down at the Coll. when I am there, which will be a good thing, as I have not heard from him for a long time.

On Wednesday we went to see Benson’s company in ‘Julius Caesar’² which was very enjoyable. Benson himself as Mark Anthony acted as badly as anyone possibly could, overdoing his part exceedingly, and in places singing rather than speaking the words. Thus in the famous speech to the people we hear ‘all’ pronounced with four syllables in the passage–‘So are they all, all honourable men’. The rest of the company were however good, especially a man called Carrington as Brutus, and Johnston as Caesar. Although I do not join with Warnie in condemning Shakespeare, I must say that in a good many plays he has missed alike the realism of modern plays and the statliness of Greek tragedies. Julius Caesar is one of his best in some ways.

The cricket trousers arrived thank you, and fit excellently. Will you please send me some envelopes.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 26-7):

[Cherbourg School]

June 7, 1913

Saturday.

My dear Papy,

As you say, it was most unfortunate, more than unfortunate, that I should fall ill just now.³ I had, as I thought, discussed the coming exam with myself in every possible light, but just the one thing I had not taken into account happened. For a while I thought I should not be able to do the papers at all, so that even the chance of doing them in bed was a relief. I did not start till late on Tuesday evening when I did Latin and Greek grammar and Latin Prose: I am afraid I did horribly badly in the Greek, though tolerably well in that days Latin and in the Latin translation and verses which came on Wednesday.

That afternoon came the essay paper which was one after my own heart, the three alternative subjects being ‘The qualities of a successful soldier’ ‘The possibility of an universal language’, and ‘West is west and East is east, and never the twain shall meet’. I chose the last and applied it chiefly to the Indian question. It was much admired by Tubbs and by some masters at the College.

On Thursday I had a ‘General paper’ including History and Geography, Scripture and English, in which I got on alright but had not time to finish, a rather difficult French paper, and as a finale, Arithmetic and Algebra, which I think I did rather better than I anticipated.

Thus you have a brief schedule of my three days in bed. Not what one would choose for pleasure, but still what might have been worse. And I hear you have written something to our common respected friend on the subject of a scholarship elsewhere, to the effect that I have some objection to going to any other school than Malvern but that you keep an open mind.⁴ Very true. As a natural result I am honoured by the very well meant but rather importunate advice of the said respected friend that I should try for a scholarship elsewhere if I fail here. He is a great man for sticking to his guns; a man of purpose. I foresee that I shall find it very difficult to help taking his advice, which I by no means want to take. The good pedagogue has Uppingham at present in his eye for me. Now of this school I know absolutely nothing, good or bad. For this reason I do not like the idea of it–it is a leap in the dark. Of course for that matter Cherbourg, which has proved a success, was also a leap in the dark to a certain extent. But don’t write anything of this to the good pedagogue. I have so far looked with ostensible favour on Uppingham when talking with him of the matter, as, having been ill and working hard on scant food for some days, I do not really feel disposed yet to enter into a controversy which I know will prove sharp. I suppose by going in for an Uppingham scholarship I do not bind myself to go to that school.

I cannot help wanting to go to the Coll. For one thing for two years now–and two years recollect are quite a long time at the age of fourteen–I have been expecting to go to Malvern, not indeed with any great fervour, for I am happy here, but with as much pleasure as I look on any public school, and it has become rather a rooted idea. Then again, I know a good deal more of Malvern than I do of any where else, and it is in a sense familiar already. As well, I shall still be at the town of Malvern, and since I must needs spend the greater part of the year in England I had sooner do it here than anywhere else.

I am very glad indeed that Warnie has at last decided definitely on some career, as I know this will lift a great weight from your mind. I confess that I don’t know why you speak–as you have always spoken–so disparagingly of the Army Service Corps. It cannot be, can it, that you really liked the idea of putting W.⁵ into the L.N.W.R.? I admit that there are great and lucrative posts to be gained in this company; greater than in the Army Service Corps. But the depths of drudgery for the less successful are also greater. In the A.S.C., W., it is true, may not follow a great career, but, what is far more important, he will be always doing congenial work and mixing with other gentlemen; not with every railway clerk who may wear loud spats and button the last button of his waistcoat.⁶

I have got up today for a short time (Saturday), and am feeling almost all right. Hoping that your boils are better, and you are otherwise in good health, I am

your loving son,

Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 49-50):

Cherbourg.

Gt. Malvern.

[1? July 1913]

Dear old W.,

I have just heard from home the following statement, ‘I suppose you know that I am in further and worse trouble about Warnie’.⁷ What has happened? You haven’t been sacked have you? Whatever it is, I should be the last person to tell you that the plate is hot after you had burned your fingers, so we will look on the bright side as much as possible. After all we have always been justly famed for extracting the maximum of pleasure from the most depressing circumstances: let us live up to it.

I am afraid P. will be in a very cheerless mood for the hols. If we cannot have mental enjoyment from the atmosphere of Leeborough⁸ we can always fall back on our own resources and make the most of the physical comfort which, at their worst, the holidays always afford. Rows after tea and penitentiary strolls in the garden are not pleasant: but a soft bed, a nice Abdullah, a lazy walk with Tim, an occasional Hippodrome or Opera House, have their consolation and a sound gramophone can always refresh the jaded ear. But even now, in a rather dark hour, I do not dispair of P’s cheering up a bit for the hols; for, as good luck would have it, my scholarship has brightened things.

Please write soon (how often have I made that request and received no answer to it), and tell me exactly what has happened, and also tell me your arrangements for the journey home. We break up on Tuesday 29th July, and you as I understand, the following Wednesday. So I suppose we shall go on the Tuesday. Do write immediately and tell me about this matter. Don’t spend all your journey money. Cheer up.

your affect.

brother Jack.

P.S. Send a cab up for me first, and then down to S.H., and let it be in plenty of time. J.

In a letter to his father of 12 December 1912, Warnie told his father that, while he knew smoking was against the rules at Malvern College, he would like his permission to smoke ‘in moderation elsewhere (LP III: 317). Mr Lewis replied on 14 December, ‘School smoking I condemn unreservedly…But outside that–at dinners etc., where it would make you odd or uncomfortable not to smoke a cigarette– smoke it and smoke it with a clear conscience, knowing that you would not be ashamed to tell your father what you had done. But in school it is different’ (LP III: 318). No trouble seems to have come of this and Warnie was made a prefect on 9 March 1913. About this time he decided on a career in the army and, careless of College rules, he was involved in several escapades. In June 1913 he was degraded from the prefect-ship after being caught smoking at school. Warnie had hoped to remain at Malvern until Christmas 1913 so that he could be there for Jack’s first term, but while the headmaster, Canon S.R. James, was willing to reinstate him in his position as a prefect in July 1913 he would not allow him to remain another term. It was Warnie’s wish at this time to enter the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and pass from there into the Army Service Corps (ASC). For this Warnie would need to pass the entrance examination to Sandhurst and his father began considering how he might prepare for this.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 44-5):

Cherbourg.

6/6/13 [6 July 1913]

My dear Papy,

I have been extremely worried since I got your last letter. No: I do not know what has happened to W. I have had no news either of him or from him since the day when I heard that he had been degraded. What has happened? Surely he has not been expelled? I often had fears as to what he might do at Malvern, but I never thought it would come to this. It is of no use my writing to him for information, as he seems to consider the answering of letters a superfluous occupation. Of course I know that all this is worse for you than for me, but it is very unpleasant for both of us: what has he himself got to say upon the matter? However, please let me know as soon as you can what the exact position of affairs is: in the meantime I can only hope that my fears have no foundation; for after all, the great majority of the troubles which I have at one time or another anticipated, have never come to pass. But after all, the process of self consolation, if it were not such a terrible business, would be almost funny. We are ready to turn and twist the facts until they bear no resemblance to the original thing. Perhaps one could not go on at all without doing so. Perhaps however if W’s school career has been a failure, he may do better in the future.

Thank you very, very much for your kind suggestion about the present. You are really making too much of this scholarship.⁹ Nevertheless, there is nothing that I should prize more than a nice edition of Kipling, whose poems I am just beginning to read and to wonder why I never read them before–a usual state of mind, in the literary way, for me at Leeborough.

Today we leave our letters open and the authorities insert a printed notice of the date of breaking up. Its rather singular to notice the familiar landmarks–in a metaphorical sense–that cluster round as we reach the last weeks of the term–and there are only three more now. Nevertheless I hardly watch the flight of time with my usual eagerness. In spite of several rows both fierce and long drawn out, both with masters and boys, I have really been very happy at Cherbourg; and Malvern is unknown ground. More important than this is the fact that we shall see each other again in a short time.

Looking forward to which, I am,

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 45-6):

Cherbourg.

Gt. Malvern.

8/7/13.

My dear Papy,

I was more pleased than I can say to get your letter. Bad as the news is, it is not the worst, and it is always a relief to have certainty after a prolonged spell of suspense. I am afraid I cannot carry out your suggestion of letting W. speak first: shortly after I wrote my letter to you, I decided to write to him, partly because I hoped for an answer from the College which would naturally reach me before one from Belfast, and I could bear it no longer, partly to cheer W. up since no recriminations can improve the accomplished facts, and partly to settle arrangements about the journey home. In this letter I asked him of course, what exactly had happened, but I have received your answer. You are right in your supposition that I should resent being left in the dark, and I am very thankful that you wrote and told me everything.

Do not say in a letter that ‘you must stop, or else begin to pour out all your troubles, which would be unfair’. It would not be unfair; it would be wise. For, in the first place you would derive some comfort from the mere action of putting them into words, and, in the second place, I trust that they would be lighter after we had talked them over together in our letters. This small thing, this act of discussing and sympathizing over matters, is all the help I can give you at present, but, such as it is, I give it, as you know, very gladly.

Perhaps you will be somewhat cheered up by the visit of our Scotch relatives: but to be honest, I have spoken too fiercely and too often against society to endeavour now to preach in its favour.

I was very interested by what you told me about Jordan.¹⁰ Who knows but that I owe more to those early little essays in the old days than you or I imagine? For it is to this uneducated postman that I owe the fact that I was acquainted with the theory of essay writing, in however crude a form, at an age when most boys hardly know the meaning of the word. To him, of course, next to you and to the fact of my being born in a race rich in literary feeling and mastery of their own tongue, and in that atmosphere of culture which has always shrouded the study both at Dundela and Leeborough. Nowhere else have I met that peculiar feeling–that literary ether. Perhaps Archburn would have it were it not for the cats. No school ever had it, and libraries are too public. Thank goodness I shall soon be in it and with you.

Yet I do not enjoy saying goodbye to Cherbourg: a good many things happy and unhappy have happened there, and I like the place.

What a curious business about that post card. Thanks for sending it. Its rather alarming to think that our letters can go astray like that.

your loving

son Jack.

At the beginning of September Albert Lewis thought of asking his old headmaster at Lurgan College in County Armagh, William T. Kirkpatrick¹¹ (1848-1921) if he would prepare Warnie for the Sandhurst examination. Following his retirement from Lurgan in 1899 Mr Kirkpatrick had moved with his wife to ‘Gastons’, Great Bookham in Surrey, where he usually had one residential pupil each year whom he prepared for university or college examinations. He agreed to tutor Warnie and the latter arrived at Great Bookham on 10 September 1913.

Jack arrived in Malvern on 18 September to begin his first term as a scholar of Malvern College–or ‘Wyvern’ as he called it in his autobiography. Like Warnie before him, Jack was a member of School House.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 71-2):

[Malvern College,

Malvern.

21? September 1913]

My dear P.,

I arrived safely as you know by the telegram–reaching Malvern at about half past five. Most of the other new boys had arrived, but one or two didn’t come until the following day. So far everything has been very pleasant indeed.

Luckily I am going to get a study out of which the old occupants are moving today. There will be three other people in it–Hardman,¹² Anderson,¹³ and Lodge.¹⁴ The last of these is an intolerable nuisance, but the Old Boy manages these things and it can’t be helped.

I have seen quite a lot of W’s friend Hichens,¹⁵ who seems frightfully pleased at being head of the house; going about with a huge note book and a blue pencil, taking down quite unneccesary things.

Yesterday we made our first acquaintance of Smugie¹⁶–a queer, but very nice old man who goes on as if taking a form were a social function–‘a quaint old world courtesy’ as you read in some book. There is one other new boy from the School House in the Upper V–Cooper, who is quite all right.¹⁷ We begin ordinary work on Monday.

Could you please send me some plain socks, black, which are ‘de rigeur’ here. My size is rather uncertain, but get them almost as big as your own, for I have a large foot. I have not heard from W. yet. Hoping you are not ‘thinking long’, I am,

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 77):

Malvern.

28/9/13.

My dear Papy,

I hope you don’t object to the use of red ink, which is unavoidable, as our study has no black. Thanks very much for the money, note paper and socks. As you advise, I am being careful not to be rooked, and have already refused countless offers of utterly worthless merchandise. I have made the acquaintance of W’s friend Captain Tassell, who is quite an interesting study.¹⁸

Talking about W., I have heard from him since I came back. He seems to be settling down to the routine a la maison Gastons.

The work here is very heavy going, and it is rather hard to find time for it in the breathless life we lead here. So far that ‘breathlessness’ is the worst feature of the place. You never get a ‘wink of peace’. It is a perpetual rush, at high pressure, with short intervals spent in waiting for another bell. Roll is called several times each day, which of course helps to crowd up the time. However, I suppose this sense of being eternally hustled will wear off as things settle down. On the whole, it is very pleasant so far, and, which is a help, I like Smugie.

There is another thing that is worrying me rather. That is the fact that I miss Lea Shakespeare hours for drawing. Both of these subjects I should like to continue, but one must be dropped. What do you advise me to do? If we decide to give up the drawing, I suppose you can arrange that with the authorities.

I get on very well with the people in my own study, which is a great comfort. How is every thing at Leeborough?

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 78-9):

[Malvern 15?

October 1913]

My dear W.,

I was very glad to hear from you and acknowledge my remisness in writing, but honestly I am being worked to death by Smugy–with whom however I get on very well–not a moment of peace.

True, no 24 is rather near the pres. room, but both Hardman and I have extraordinary luck about fagging. One thing is that we are in the same study as that fat beast Lodge, whom everyone hates, so that if a pre. comes in he is sure to fag Lodge before us. I have only had to clean boots twice so far.

I have, among other things, written an article to appear in the ‘Malvernian’ under the name Hichens–whom I like best of the pres.¹⁹ I don’t see all the horrors which you heaped on Browning.²⁰ He’s always very decent to me. Bourne gets very much mobbed as a pre.²¹ I am in Walter Lowe’s math set.²² Were you ever there?

Two very exciting things have happened. A drawing of mine, which we had to do for Smugy as one of the questions in W.E., was pinned up on the Upper V door for a week, and the James came down and said it was spirited. Also an English poem of mine in imitation of Horace was ‘sent up for good’ to Jimmy.²³ Consequently I have to go down to South Lodge and copy the poem into his great book tomorrow.

Isn’t the Fish a glorious man?²⁴ Smugy keeps on asking about you. As he is so interested in O.M’s., you ought to write to him if you have time. He is a decent old Kod,²⁵ isn’t he? Recruit drill is at present the chief joy of my life. I got a Coll. pres. for skipping clubs the other day. Jervis I rather like,²⁶ but Bull II hasn’t come back yet.²⁷ It is a good business that I have got into a study with a decent lad. I like Hardman II very much.²⁸

By the way, you don’t enclose the Col. Rena May [list] whatever you may think you do. How goes the History? You must manage to come down to the House Supper. Everyone would be awfully bucked to see you. I shall write and tell P. that I am nervous about going home alone if you like. This is being written in the breathless interval between Supper and Prayers, so I must chuck it now.

your loving

brother Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 87-8):

[Malvern]

Postmark: 19 October 1913

My dear P.,

I hope you did not think that I was incurring reckless expense when I wrote to you for the money. The way you are rooked at Malvern by subscriptions, loans, and the fines which are shabbily arranged, is perfectly appalling. Thanks very much indeed for the five shillings.

The poem after Horace was, I am glad to tell you, somewhat in the nature of a success. It was top of the form and was sent up to the James. ‘Being sent up for good’ is a privilege enjoyed only by our form and the Upper Sixth and is rather a ceremony. I had to go down to Smugy’s house and copy the poem into a vast old volume of his, containing the works and signatures of all those who have been ‘sent up for good’ since 1895. I was of course greatly interested to read the other poems and things in the book: some of them are really very good. I enclose the poem which it may interest you to see. Smugy’s house is a queer little nook of the world, exactly typical of its owner.

I am inclined to agree with you that it will be a pity to lose Mr. Peacocke. He was neither a great preacher nor reader, but he was an educated gentleman, which is something to say in these times.²⁹

I hope this business of Aunt Minnie³⁰ will turn out all right. Coming on top of the trouble about Norman it is very hard lines, and I should imagine that the Moorgate household is one of the worst fitted to receive trouble, as there is always, even when things are at their brightest, a certain gloom there.

It certainly is a grievous pity that Shakespeare filled Romeo and Juliet³¹ with those appalling rhymes. But the worst thing in the play is old Capulet’s preposterous speech to the guests. Still, it is a very fine tragedy. So is the Greek play that we are doing. It is quite unlike all that stiff bombast which we are accustomed to associate with Greek tragedy. There is life and character in it.

your loving

son Jacks

‘“Carpe Diem” after Horace’ ‘In the metre of “Locksley Hall”’ (Tennyson)

When, in haughty exultation, thou durst laugh in Fortune’s face, Or when thou hast sunk down weary, trampled in The ceaseless race, Dellius, think on this I pray thee–but the Twinkling of an eye, May endure thy pain or pleasure; for thou knowest Thou shalt die, Whether on some breeze-kissed upland, with a Flask of mellow wine, Thou hast all the world forgotten, stretched be- Neath the friendly pine, Or, in foolish toil consuming all the springtime Of thy life, Thou hast worked for useless silver and endured The bitter strife: Still unchanged thy doom remaineth. Thou art Set towards thy goal, Out into the empty breezes soon shall flicker Forth thy soul, Here then by the plashing streamlet fill the Tinkling glass I pray Bring the short lived rosy garlands, and be Happy–FOR TODAY.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 90-1):

[Malvern]

Postmark: 26 October 1913

My dear P.,

I hope it did not seem that my act of sending you the poem was meant for a ‘draw’, which it was not. All the same, thanks very much for the P.O. which has restored ‘the firm’ to its pristine health and prosperity. Anderson, one of the people in our study, has just received a huge crate of pictures from home which will enable us to sell some of our older pictures and raise capital. I had not been able to see about the extra copies of the Cherbourg magazine, as I have not yet been up to see Tubbs. I think however that I am going up today, when I shall be able to transact all my business.

On Thursday we had our field day and it was really a great affair. We started for the place, which is quite near Malvern about an hours march, at ten o’clock. W’s friend Captain Tassell was in great form, mounted on a steed of which he was obviously terrified. Of course no one knew in the least what was meant to be happening, but we all dashed about, lying down and firing at intervals: on the whole it was very enjoyable.

You ask me what type of person one meets at Malvern: I will tell you. The average Malvernian may be, in fact usually is, a very good fellow in reality, but he always does his best to make himself out as bad as possible. Never believe his own account of his thoughts, deeds, or ideals. It is always far worse than the truth. Beyond this very childish and thoroughly British foible, there are very few faults in him. When you break through the shell of foolish affectation, you find him an honest kind hearted manly enough sort of fellow. At least that is how six weeks acquaintance of him strikes me. To use for once the phrase you have condemned, ‘I may be wrong’. But I think not.

Yesterday there was a lecture in the Gym by that man Kearton who came to the Hippodrome last holidays. I must confess that I thought him very poor indeed. So we did not miss much by leaving that ‘popular house of entertainment’ alone.

The mother of Stone,³² one of our House Pres., has died this week and he has consequently gone home. It is a very nasty business.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 96):

[Malvern 2?

November 1913]

My dear W.,

Although always quite ready to fall in with your wishes whenever they are within the bounds of possibility, I always like to point out some of the more glaring absurdities in the same. It has not occurred to you that this simultaneous attack on the paternal purse will savour somewhat too much of preparation. But to proceed. The following is what I intend to write home, coming at the end of a long and cheerful letter, when he will be bucked.

‘I have heard from W. again in the course of this week, and he seems to be comfortable with Kirk, although still working at high pressure. He mentions in this last letter, as he has done frequently before, that he entertains an idea of coming down here at the end of the term and travelling home with me as we did in the old times. This of course would be exceedingly pleasant for me, especially as most of the other new boys here have got friends coming down at the end of term; and it is undoubtedly pleasanter as well as more economical to travel in pairs than singly. The Old Boy, who by the way is one of the real good points about Malvern, has asked once or twice after W., and expressed a hope that W. will come down some time soon. Of course I am aware all this has nothing to do with me, but still he seems to have set his heart on it, and as I gather from the tone of his letter he has not mentioned it to you…’

As I said, it looks rather artificial, and can’t be made much better. How are you getting on, old man? I hope this thing will work, as I am looking forward to another journey in the good old style. As you will notice in my epistle, I have made it the Oldish and not the James who wants you to come down.³³ I think that his name will carry more weight.

So far I am having a very good time here. You ask me what I think about Jacks.³⁴ I’ll tell you. He’s always most awfully nice to me, spends half hall talking to me about you and Smugy and things, and never fags me or drops me; but all the same I can’t blind myself to the fact that he is an absolute ______ to most other people. But of course that doesn’t worry me.

We had field day on Thursday at Malvern. I have managed to get into my house section, ‘mirable dictu’,³⁵ although I mob all the recruit drill. I can’t go on now.

your affect.

brother Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 101-2):

[Malvern 9?

November 1913]

My dear W.,

You don’t seem to be having a bad time at Gt. Bookham with your visits to ‘The Laughing Husband’ and the Hippodrome etc. I wouldn’t boom these diversions over loudly in the paternal ear, as, innocent though they may be in themselves, yet they would not convey an impression of ‘good hard work’. You may bet your boots I’ve heard enough about ‘warm singlets and drawers etc.’ to last me for a life time. P. tells me that ‘when I come home he’s going to take me in hand and see that that chest of mine gets as sound as a bell’. I wonder what that means?

I don’t really know that a house tie would be worn with a black suit, but we’ll see. Anyhow you must provide the tie as I am too ‘stoney’ for anything. I am amused to see that you have fallen into the excellent Marathon trap of spending 20/-where 5/-would do. As well, I wonder if ‘Miss Thompson’ would have heard about it. No one in T. Eden’s shop ever seems to have heard of anything, do they?

It’ll be a great weight off your chest when this filthy exam is over, so I am glad that it is comparatively soon.³⁶ I should think you ought to pass fairly easily if you’ve been oiling with Kirk. I am longing to find out from you in the hols what Kirk is really like. A kod of the first water I should imagine by all reports.

At the end of this term we really must get Jarnfeldt’s Preludium.³⁷ I heard it again at the Classical Orchestral Concert, and was more than ever charmed with it. Perhaps too you are right about this Marathon scheme. We can talk that over anon.

P. of course refuses to accept your scheme of taking the trip to Malvern as a birthday and Xmas gift. At least he writes to me, ‘W of course with his usual ingenuity says that this trip is going to be his Christmas and birthday present. But that is not quite the way I do things’. By the way, are we travelling home a day early or do you want to stay for the House Supper? I don’t mind staying a bit if you like, only it is so close to Xmas with that fearful problem of P’s present.

yours Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 104-5):

[The Sanatorium,

Malvern]

Postmark: 24 November 1913

My dear Papy,

I am sorry to hear that you are ‘thinking long’, but, as you know, there is a good reason for the absence of letters as this is the first day I have been able to write. As you say, I have a lot of things to talk about and the first is Smugy’s half term report.

I must confess that I was very disappointed in it. But I should have expected it all. For, the fact of the matter is about this Greek Grammar, that I know very little indeed: and the consequence of this is that what the rest of the form are running over in a sort of casual way for the third or fourth time, I am often learning for the first time in my life. This of course makes it rather difficult to keep up with the running. Then again, there are a lot of points of Greek grammar which I learnt up in furious haste at Cherbourg in the last few moments before the exam–and of course forgot again. These have to be faced with a half knowledge which is worse than ignorance, because it only muddles one’s brain. But all these things should come right in time; as I flatter myself I am not cursed with ‘an inability to grasp the elements’ of any reasonable subject. As for the place in form, I was prepared for it to be poor, as the general standard of the form is rather beyond me–seeing that with the exception of the other scholars it consists of people who have filtered through to Smugy’s care just at the end of their Malvern career. However, I get on well with Smugy and really that is half the battle.

You need not have been so worried about my temporary indisposition. It is only one of those trifling, although irritating chills to which I am subject in the winter months. Anyway, the worst of it is over now, as I am up in my room at the San. today. The San. is about the most curious place I have ever been in. I arrived here a week ago on Friday and was placed in a bed in a large and many windowed apartment, in one corner of which a fire was cheerfully engaged in belching forth dense clouds of smoke, which rendered it well nigh impossible to see or breathe. Conquering a natural terror of at once becoming unconscious in such an atmosphere, I resigned my self to sleep that night–but not for long. I soon discovered to my cost that the room in which I had been deposited was directly over the kitchen. I was apprised of this fact by the musical efforts of the domestic staff, whose vigorous and unwholesome concert was prolonged far into the night. But the funniest thing about this place is the noises that one hears in the morning. I really cannot imagine what the staff do. Judging from the loud peals of laughter and the metallic clangs which strike my ears before breakfast daily, they engage in hand to hand combat with the fire irons.

After a short period of the smoky room I was removed to a smaller but much more comfortable chamber where I still remain. Here my only trouble is the determined ‘quacking’ of a body of geese imprisoned somewhere in the neighbourhood.

As for your kind enquiries about the approaching natal gift, I have made up my mind that I should like ‘The Rhinegold and the Valkyries’ to match the ‘Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods’ which I have got.³⁸ I think however that the purchase of the book had better be deferred until Xmas when I can talk to my friend Carson in person.

I am glad to hear that W. is coming down at the end of the term as it is nicer travelling ‘in comp.’ than alone. I must stop now. How are you yourself keeping these days?

your loving

son,

Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 108-9):

The Sanatorium,

Thursday or Friday.

(I am not quite sure what

day it is today)

Postmark: 28 November 1913

My dear Papy,

I have advanced yet another stage and am now enjoying the priveledge of being downstairs in the San. That is, instead of sitting up in my bedroom, I have been moved to a sitting room where I can look out upon the hideously ugly garden of the San. And yet there is a homely touch about this garden. It is full of laurels that will never grow because of the wind: we’ve seen these before haven’t we?

I have been condemned by the school doctor, as soon as I go back, to join the ranks of people who do ‘special exercises for delicate chests’ in the gym. This is a piece of ‘sconce’ after your own heart, and I have no doubt that you will be more pleased to hear about it than I was. Your remarks about the sealskin etc. strike me as being both in questionable taste and the products of a fevered imagination rather than of a sane mind. But still, the human mind is so constituted that the bizarre must ever appeal more potently than the normal. Which is a consolation.

Congratulations on your victory at the Pattersonian musical festival. You’ll be becoming quite a noted Strandtown diner out if you are not careful.

Talking about social functions reminds me of some wild fantastic talk of another dance this year.³⁹ Don’t let us spoil the Xmas holidays by a chore as colossal as it is disagreeable, and as disagreeable as it is unnecessary. No one else gives a dance on two consecutive years. Nip this matter in the bud ‘which has a bitter taste’ and of which ‘sweet will not be the flower’. (Do you remember the quotation?) But seriously, I hope no such folly is really toward. It is quite bad enough having to attend the functions of others without adding to the nuisance ourselves. Please convey to Aunt Annie and the other conspirators that you are determined not to hear of it, as I am sure you are. For one thing it is a considerable and uncalled for expense, and an expense of the most annoying kind–namely where you get absolutely no return for your money: unless you derive any great pleasure from hovering about among the noisy and objectionable throng who have invaded the pristine seclusion of Leeborough. But I don’t fancy that you do. I am certain that I don’t.

One good thing is that there are only three more weeks or so this term. I suppose W. will have both tickets when it comes to travelling. Is it next Tuesday or the Tuesday after that his exam comes off?

As to your remarks about the school san., in spite of smoky chimneys and a villainous domestic staff, there are a good many worse places to spend a few weeks of a long winter term. There are plenty of books and fires, and I always derive a certain savage pleasure in sitting with my feet on the fender, watching through the window a body of my unfortunate fellow beings setting off for a run across that cold, dismal golf links that always reminds me of the moorland in ‘Locksley Hall’.

Talking about ‘Locksley Hall’, I have discovered a tattered copy of Tennyson’s works here, buried among the sixpenny novels and illustrated weeklies, with which I have spent a few enjoyable afternoons reading ‘In memoriam’⁴⁰ and some other things that one ought to know.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 111):

The Sanatorium,

St. Andrew’s Rd.,

Sunday.

Postmark: 30 November 1913

My dear P.,

I am now I think really quite better and shall be leaving the San. in a few days. It is funny, isn’t it, how soon you get accustomed to a new kind of life? I’ve been down here for a fortnight or so, and I have grown so used to it that I could almost believe that Malvern never existed. But I shall be amply reminded of its life shortly. I am beginning to go out now on those intensely dull convalescent walks–progressing at two miles an hour, muffled up like an arctic explorer, and getting in the bits of sunshine. Thanks very much for the postal order which arrived yesterday. One good thing about being down at the san. is that it prevents your spending money, which is always an advantage.

For three days during this week I have had a companion–one Waley⁴¹ of the School House, who had a boil on his arm and talked an amazing amount of agreeable nonsense. I pretended to be interested in and to understand his explanation of how an aeroplane engine works, and said ‘yes’ and ‘I see’ and ‘really’ at suitable intervals. I think I did all that was required very well.

However I am very pleased that he’s gone, as I find my own society infinitely more agreeable than his, and prefer Tennyson to lectures, however learned, on aeronautics. That’s just the perversity of fate. Anyone else who’d been down here alone for a fortnight would have been longing for a companion and of course wouldn’t get one, while I, who have been thoroughly enjoying the solitude, (so rare a blessing at school), must have not only a companion, but a talkative one, dumped down. However it was only for three days.

You were saying the other day that when you sat doing nothing of an evening you passed the time in day dreams. I used to day dream a tremendous lot, but these last few days I find when I sit down in a nice chair in front of the fire that I get up an hour later and realise that I’ve been thinking about absolutely nothing. Is this a sort of mental stagnation I wonder.

Have you seen to the quashing of that dance conspiracy yet? Don’t dare to answer in the negative. At any rate there must be no dance for me; nor for any other rational being I hope. So let that matter receive your immediate attention. You have your orders. Now we may go on.

I suppose the winter has set in at home by now, as it has here. But a very different kind of winter is the good old Belfast ‘rainy season’ from the English equivalent. Have you been winning any more musical laurels? That is a deed of daring do which should be set up in ‘letters all of gold’ (vide ‘brave Horatius’)⁴² under a statue in the hall representing you with a symbolical lyre and ‘plectrum’. (Look ‘plectrum’ out in a dictionary of classical terms).

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 115):

School House,

Malvern College.

Postmark: 8 December 1913

My dear Papy,

I am now once more safely ensconced in the house, and so my illness is officially dead and buried. Unfortunately I have missed the Lea Shakespeare exam., in which I think I might have done something. However, these things will happen. There are only two more weeks ‘and odd days’ as they say in Romeo and Juliet,⁴³ now. I suppose we shall revise this week and have exams. next, so that the routine is practically over. Write and tell me about W’s exam as soon as possible.

We have settled down into real winter weather here, which is always rather pleasing.

I notice in your recent correspondance an absence of any answer to my remarks re the quashing of the dance conspiracy. What is the meaning of this? Am I to understand that it has not been duly slain and buried? If not, why not? As I said before–‘you have your orders’. They were put before you in a plain and forcible manner so that you have no excuse for misunderstanding them. I hope to hear by return of post that the matter is now a thing of the past.

I can quite believe that the Peacockean platitudes were a come down after grandfather’s production.⁴⁴ Yes: that is a very appropriate text.

During the course of my walks abroad while I was at the San., I met Mr. Taylor, the old Cherbourg drawing master whom you met. He was very distressed because he had heard that I had given up my drawing at the Coll., but was consoled by my assurance that it was only a temporary fixture so long as it clashed with English. We had a very pleasant little chat indeed.

Today was the Repton match, and I suppose Cherbourg was there, but I didn’t notice them. It ended in a draw of one all after a very exciting game.

Allow me to observe that your noisy salutations to this insolent physician are not at all apropos and also were in somewhat questionable taste. I cannot write any more now.

your loving

son Jack.

1 The Rev. Canon Sydney Rhodes James (1855-1934) was the headmaster of Malvern College 1897-1914. His story is told in Seventy Years: Random Reminiscences and Reflections (1926).

2 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (1623).

3 Jack fell ill on about 1 June and had to retire to bed. He nevertheless managed to take the exams in the infirmary between 3 and 5 June.

4 He was referring to Mr Allen who on 2 June wrote to Albert saying, ‘I believe you want him to go to the college here; if not, he might have a try for some other school which holds its Exams later’ (LP IV: 25).

5 Warnie was very often referred to in correspondence with family and friends as ‘W.’

6 Warnie had just begun thinking of entering the Army Service Corps, the one career he was always sure he wanted, while his father favoured a job with the London and North Western Railway

The Army Service Corps, which supplied food, weapons and other necessities to the troops, began in 1794 as the Corps of Waggoners. Over time it evolved until in 1888 it was recreated the Army Service Corps. In 1918, in recognition of its good work, it became the Royal Army Service Corps. It was renamed the Royal Corps of Transport in 1965. See John Fortescue, The Royal Army Service Corps: A History of Transport and Supplies in the British Army, vol. I (1930). Volume II by R. H. Beadon was published in 1931.

7 Albert’s letter to Jack of 30 June 1913 (LP IV: 41). Warnie had been caught smoking.

8 ‘Leeborough’ was Jack’s and Warnie’s private name for Little Lea. It had the advantage of yielding the adjectives ‘Leeburian’ and ‘Leborough’, as in a volume of their Boxen drawings called ‘Leborough Studies Ranging from 1905-1916’.

9 On 9 June Jack won a classical entrance scholarship to Malvern College.

10 In a little piece called ‘My Life During the Exmas Holadys of 1907’, Jack paid tribute to the postman: ‘Our postman is called Gordon [Jordan] and is a very nice and sensible man, and often sets me an essay to wright, the subject of which he provides’ (LP III: 90). In his letter to Jack of 30 June 1913, Mr Lewis congratulated Jack on his scholarship, saying: ‘I met Jordan the postman the other night, and as he used to set you essays, I thought I would tell him. He was as pleased as Punch. He said “Sir, the next time you’re writing will you say–Jordan is delighted.”’ (LP IV: 41).

11 See William Thompson Kirkpatrick in the Biographical Appendix. Mr Kirkpatrick had a number of nicknames, including ‘The Great Knock’, ‘Knock’ and ‘Kirk’.

12 (Sir) Donald Innes Hardman (1899-1982) was Jack’s study-mate in School House. On leaving Malvern he went to Hertford College, Oxford. While serving in the First World War during 1916-19 he joined the Royal Air Force and became a professional serviceman. He was promoted to wing commander in 1939, air commander in 1941, air commander of South East Asia 1946-47, and was chief of air staff and organization 1954-57, retiring in 1958.

13 Edward Anderson (1898-1928) was a member of School House 1913-17. After leaving Malvern he served in the war as a 2nd lieutenant. He later moved to Northern Rhodesia, dying there in November 1928.

14 Kenneth Ernest Lodge (1899-?) was a member of School House 1913-17. During the war he served overseas as a 2nd lieutenant with the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry. He was promoted to captain and remained in the army.

15 Fitzgerald Charles Cecil Baron Hichens (1895-1977) was at Malvern 1909-14 and was the head of School House when Jack arrived in 1913. From Malvern he went to Exeter College, Oxford, but soon left there for Sandhurst from where he passed into the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in 1915, becoming a captain in 1918. Following the war he resigned from the army and obtained a regular commission in the Royal Air Force, in which he became a wing commander. He retired in 1943.

16 ‘Smugie’ or ‘Smewgy’ was Harry Wakelyn Smith (1861-1918) who taught Classics and English to the Upper Fifth and for whom Jack was to have great affection. He had been educated at St John’s College, Oxford, and he joined the staff of Malvern in 1885. In SB/VII, Lewis said: ‘Except at Oldie’s I had been fortunate in my teachers ever since I was born; but Smewgy was “beyond expectation, beyond hope”. He was a grey-head with large spectacles and a wide mouth which combined to give him a froglike expression, but nothing could be less froglike than his voice. He was honey-tongued. Every verse he read turned into music on his lips…He first taught me the right sensuality of poetry, how it should be savoured and mouthed in solitude…Had he taught us nothing else, to be in Smewgy’s form was to be in a measure ennobled. Amidst all the banal ambition and flashy splendours of school life he stood as a permanent reminder of things more gracious, more humane, larger and cooler. But his teaching, in the narrower sense, was equally good. He could enchant but he could also analyse. An idiom or a textual crux, once expounded by Smewgy, became clear as day.’ This deeply loved man died in his little house in the school grounds, where he lived alone, on 13 November 1918, a victim of the influenza sweeping Europe that year.

17 Harry Richard Lucas Cooper (1899-1936), of Oxford, entered Malvern as a minor scholar in 1913. When he left in 1918 he ranked as the second boy in the school, head of School House, a cadet officer in the OTC and a football star. From Malvern he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his BA in 1922. He worked for the Imperial Bank of India, and in 1924 was employed in the Calcutta office.

18 Douglas Spencer Montague Tassell (1872-1956) took a BA in ‘Greats’ at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1894 and began teaching classics at Malvern in 1905. On the retirement of the geography master in 1928 he took over the teaching of geography. Perhaps his greatest work, and that which gave him most satisfaction, was with the Officers’ Training Corps. In 1909 he was put in charge of the Malvern contingent of the OTC, which he commanded until 1919 when he was awarded the Territorial Decoration. Warnie wrote of him: ‘In appearance he was a jaunty, dark haired, short mustached, dark eyed little man, very much the soldier with a permanent expression of busy irritation’ (LP IV: 73). It was he who first reported Warnie for smoking.

19 For whatever reason his article did not appear in The Malvernian.

20 Stanley Forrester Browning (1896-1917) became a member of School House in 1910 and by the time he left at the end of summer term of 1914, he had been a house prefect and in the second eleven at football. In 1914 he joined the Royal Flying Corps, and was a captain in that branch of the service when he was killed in action 3 May 1917.

21 John Arthur Watson Bourne (1896-1943) was at School House 1910-14, during which time he was a house prefect. During World War I he was a captain in the RAF. He then worked as an engineer in the technical and research department of a petroleum company. During World War II he served as a captain in the Royal Signal Corps. He died in March 1943.

22 William Walter Lowe (1873-1945) entered Malvern in the winter of 1888. When he left in 1893 he was junior chapel prefect, captain of the football eleven, and had been four years in the cricket eleven. From Malvern he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a BA in 1896. He returned to Malvern as an assistant master in 1896, and was house master 1913-32. He retired in 1932 and died in May 1945.

23 i.e. Canon James, the headmaster.

24 ‘The Fish’ was Henry Geoffrey Curwen Salmon (1870-1933) who went up to Jesus College, Oxford, in 1888 on a Classics scholarship. He joined the staff of Malvern College in 1901 and taught French and German to the sixth form. In 1914 he helped prepare the third edition of the Malvern Register, and he was entirely responsible for the fourth edition of 1924. When he retired from teaching in 1929 he was appointed secretary of the Malvernian Society, which work he undertook with enthusiasm for the rest of his life.

25 In his Glossary of Words in Use in the Counties of Antrim and Down (1880), William Hugh Patterson (1835-1918) defined ‘cod’ as ‘(1) sb. a silly, troublesome fellow. (2) v. to humbug or quiz a person; to hoax; to idle about. “Quit your coddin.” ’ (p. 22). Warnie said, ‘It has however a third meaning, namely an expression of humourous and insincere self depreciation; an Ulsterman will say of himself, “Amn’t I the square oul’ cod to be doin’ so and so?”’ (LP IV: 306). Jack Lewis used the expression often, and he seems to have invented the diminutive ‘codotta’ or ‘Kodotta’ which appears occasionally in his letters. A notebook of his poems written about this time was entitled ‘Metrical Meditations of a Cod’.

26 Edwin Cyril Jervis (1896-?) was at School House 1911-15. On leaving Malvern he went to Sandhurst. He joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in 1916, was made a lieutenant in 1917 and during the war was seriously wounded. He received the Military Cross.

27 Charles Edward Bristow Bull (1900-77) was at School House 1912-15. During the war he served in the OTC. After the war he was private secretary to Aylesbury Brewery Co. Ltd, and also an actor.

28 This was the younger brother of Jack’s study companion. Wallace George Hardman (1897-1917) was at School House 1911-14. After leaving Malvern he was a 2nd lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment, and was killed in action near Kut on 9 January 1917.

29 The Rev. Gerald Peacocke, who succeeded Thomas Hamilton as rector of St Mark’s, was leaving. He was the son of the Most Rev. Joseph Ferguson Peacocke, Archbishop of Dublin, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin where he took the Hebrew Prize in 1892. He was ordained priest in 1894, and was curate of Carnmoney, Co. Antrim, 1893-6. After four years in Holywood, Co. Down, he was rector of St Mark’s, Dundela, 1900-14. He was prebendery of Geashill, Co. Offaly, 1914-23, and Archdeacon of Kildare 1923-44.

30 Aunt Minnie was the wife of Albert’s brother, William Lewis (1859-1946). See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

31 William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597).

32 Noel Herbert Stone (1895-1918) was at Malvern 1910-14. After training at Sandhurst he joined the Worcestershire Regiment and was promoted to captain in 1917. He fought in France and was killed in action near Amiens on 27 April 1918.

33 ‘The Old Boy’ or ‘The Oldish’ was George Gordon Fraser (1870-1958), the headmaster’s assistant in the management of School House. He entered the College as a day boy in 1879 and remained until 1885. On leaving there he went to London University where he obtained a degree in 1889. In 1895 he became an assistant master at Lord William’s School, Thame, and in 1895 he went in the same capacity to Forest School. In 1901 he was appointed an assistant master at Malvern, and in 1917 he became house master of No. 9 House, which position he held until 1927.

34 Stopford Brooke Ludlow Jacks, JP, FRSA (1894-1988), son of Professor L.P. Jacks, entered School House in 1910 and left in 1915. During the war he served with the artillery, became a major, and won the Military Cross. He took a Diploma in Economics in 1920 from Balliol College, Oxford, and became a director of Messrs. Greg and Co., cotton spinners, Manchester. He served as a governor of the Royal College of Arts, chairman of HM Prisons for Women, president of the Prestbury Petty Sessions, and a governor of Malvern College.

35 Mirabile dictu, ‘Wonderful to relate’.

36 Warnie was preparing to take the entrance examinations (25 November-2 December) for Woolwich and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

37 Armas Järnefelt, Praeludium (1904).

38 Jack already had the last two parts of Wagner’s Ring cycle, Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, translated by Margaret Armour, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham (1911). For Christmas his father gave him the volume containing the first two parts, The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie (1910).

39 ‘Christmas will be here almost immediately,’ Albert wrote to Warnie on 9 November 1913, ‘and amongst other questions that must be decided is the all important one–are we to have a dance or not? No doubt our friends expect it. To me of course the thing is an expensive nuisance. But I don’t want you and Jacks to drop out of things here’ (LP IV: 99). ‘No dance!!’ replied Warnie on 10 October (LP IV: 101). Jack hated dancing, and years later he wrote in SBJ III: ‘It was the custom of the neighbourhood to give parties which were really dances for adults but to which, none the less, mere schoolboys and schoolgirls were asked…To me these dances were a torment…How a small boy who can neither flirt nor drink should be expected to enjoy prancing about on a polished floor till the small hours of the morning, is beyond my conception.’

40 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Locksley Hall (1842), In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850).

41 Reginald Philip Simon Waley (1897-1951) was a member of School House 1911-15. On leaving Malvern he served as a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal West Kent Regiment. In 1923 he went to work on the Stock Exchange.

42 Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome,‘Horatius’, LXVI, 6.

43 Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, I, iii, 15.

44 Mr Peacocke, the rector, gave his last sermon at St Mark’s on 30 November. Remembering Thomas Hamilton’s farewell sermon from the same pulpit, Albert wrote to Warnie on 30 November saying that Mr Peacocke’s sermon was ‘an extraordinarily poor performance even for him. I remember an old man some thirteen years ago preaching a farewell sermon from the same place, and I have never been more deeply touched by spoken words in my life’ (LP IV: 110).