Part 2
“Do I like music, and what music I like best? I know nothing whatever about music. Once I heard Schubert’s ‘Unfinished Symphony’ at the band; and—well, I was in heaven. It was a blur of sounds—sweet, fading and blending. It seemed to draw the sky down, the whole spirit out of me; it was articulate feeling. The inexpressible in poetry, in painting, was there expressed. But I have not heard much, and the sensation that gave me I never had again. I should like very much to be one of the initiated.
* * * * *
“Some more confidences. I’ve discovered I’m a very bad talker: I find it difficult to make myself intelligible at times; I can’t remember the exact word I want, and I think I leave the impression of being a rambling idiot.”
In 1910 he went to see the wonderful collection of Japanese paintings lent by Japan to the Exhibition at Shepherd’s Bush.
“The thoroughness is astounding. No slipshod, tricky slickness, trusting to chance effects, but a subtle suggestiveness, and accident that is the consequence of intention.”
Here are a few sentences from some “Notes on Art”:
“Life stales and dulls; the mind demands noble excitement, half-apprehended surmises, the eternal desire, the beautiful. It is a vain belief that Art and Life go hand-in-hand; Art is, as it were, another planet.
“Mere representation is unreal, is fragmentary. The bone taken from Adam remains a bone. To create is to apply pulsating rhythmic principles to the part; a unity, another nature, is created.”
_To Miss Seaton._
“Thanks so much for the Donne. I had just been reading Ben Jonson again, and from his poem to Donne he must have thought him a giant. I have read some of the Donne; I have certainly never come across anything so choke-full of profound meaningful ideas. It would have been very difficult for him to express something commonplace, if he had to.”
_To Miss Seaton._
“I forgot to ask you to return my poetry, as I mean to work on some [of the poems]. I agree the emotions are not worth expressing, but I thought the things had some force, and an idea or so I rather liked. Of course, I know poetry is a far finer thing than that, but I don’t think the failure was due to the subject—I had nothing to say about it, that’s all. Crashaw, I think, is sometimes very sexual in his religious poems, but it is always new and beautiful. I believe we are apt to fix a standard (of subject) in poetry. We acknowledge the poetry in subjects not generally taken as material, but I think we all (at least I do) prefer the poetical subject—“Kubla Khan,” “The Mistress of Vision,” “Dream-Tryst”; Poe, Verlaine. Here feeling is separated from intellect; our senses are not interfered with by what we know of facts: we know infinity through melody.”
After leaving the Slade School, at a loss for work and anxious about his health, Rosenberg thought for a time of going to Russia. But it was difficult for a Jew to get a passport, and he reverted to the African journey which he had contemplated already some years before.
_To Miss Seaton._
“So I’ve decided on Africa, the climate being very good, and I believe plenty to do.... I won’t be quite lost in Africa.... I dislike London for the selfishness it instils into one, which is a reason of the peculiar feeling of isolation I believe most people have in London. I hardly know anybody whom I would regret leaving (except, of course, the natural ties of sentiment with one’s own people); but whether it is that my nature distrusts people, or is intolerant, or whether my pride or my backwardness cools people, I have always been alone. Forgive this little excursion into the forbidden lands of egotism.”
The next letter was written to Mr. Edward Marsh, in the midst of packing for the voyage to the Cape. Mr. Marsh was interested in Rosenberg both as an artist and as a poet; he printed one of his poems in “Georgian Poetry, 1916–1917,” and befriended him in many ways. The letter throws light on Rosenberg’s use of language in poetry. As the piece referred to—“Midsummer Frost”—is not in the present selection, it may be given here:
A July ghost, aghast at the strange winter, Wonders, at burning noon, all summer-seeming, How, like a sad thought buried in light [woven] words, Winter, an alien presence, is ambushed here. See from the fire-fountained noon there creep Lazy yellow ardours towards pale evening, Dragging the sun across the shell of thought; A web threaded with fading fire; Futile and fragile lure, a July ghost Standing with feet of fire on banks of ice, My frozen heart, the summer cannot reach— Hidden as a root from air, or star from day, A frozen pool whereon mirth dances, Where the shining boys would fish.
_To Edward Marsh_ (1914).
“I believe that all poets who are personal see things genuinely—have their place. One needn’t be a Shakespeare and yet be quite as interesting. I have moods when Rossetti satisfies me more than Shakespeare, and I am sure I have enjoyed some things of Francis Thompson more than the best of Shakespeare. Yet I never meant to go as high as these. I know I’ve come across things by people of far inferior vision that were as important in their results to me. I am not going to refute your criticisms; in literature I have no judgment, at least for style. If in reading a thought has expressed itself to me in beautiful words, my ignorance of grammar, etc., makes me accept that, I should think you are right mostly, and I may yet work away your chief objections. You are quite right in the way you read my poems, but I thought I could use the ‘July Ghost’ to mean the summer, and also an ambassador of the summer, without interfering with the sense. The ‘shell of thought’ is man; you realize a shell has an opening, the ‘ardours’; the sense of heat forms a web; this signifies a sense of summer; the web again becomes another metaphor, a July Ghost. But, of course, I mean it for summer right through. I think your suggestion of taking out ‘woven’ is very good.”
The next letter is from Cape Town.
_To Edward Marsh_ (1914).
“I should like you to do me a favour if it’s not putting you to too much bother. I am in an infernal city by the sea. This city has men in it—and these men have souls in them—or at least have the passages to souls. Though they are millions of years behind time, they have yet reached the stage of evolution that knows ears and eyes. But these passages are dreadfully clogged up: gold dust, diamond dust, stocks and shares, and Heaven knows what other flinty muck. Well, I’ve made up my mind to clear through all this rubbish, but I want your help. Now, I’m going to give a series of lectures on modern art (I’m sending you the first, which I gave in great style. I was asked whether the Futurists exhibited at the Royal Academy). But I want to make the lectures interesting and intelligible by reproductions or slides. Now, I wonder whether you have reproductions which you could lend me till I returned or was finished with them. I want to talk about John, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Innes, the early Picasso (not the cubistic one), Spencer, Gertler, Lamb, Puvis de Chavannes, Degas. A book of reproductions of the P.-Impressionists would do, and I could get them transferred on slides. I hope this would not put you to any great trouble, but if you could manage to do it you don’t know how you would help me. Stanley gave me a little job to paint two babies, which helped me to pay my way for a bit. I expect to get pupils and kick up a row with my lectures. But nobody seems to have money here, and not an ounce of interest in Art. The climate’s fine, but the Sun is a very changeable creature and I can’t come to any sort of understanding with this golden beast. He pretends to keep quiet for half an hour, and just as I think, ‘Now I’ve got it,’ the damned thing has frisked about. There’s a lot of splendid stuff to paint. We are walled in by the sharp upright mountain and the bay. Across the bay the piled-up mountains of Africa look lovely and dangerous. It makes one think of savagery and earthquakes—the elemental lawlessness.”
The next extract is from a letter written in 1915, just after hearing the news of Rupert Brooke’s death.
_To Miss Seaton._
“Do you know Emerson’s poems? I think they are wonderful. ‘Each and All’ I think is deep and beautiful. There is always a kind of beaminess, like a dancing of light in light, in his poems. I do think, though, that he depends too much on inspiration; and though they always have a solid texture of thought, they sometimes seem thin in colour or sensuousness.”
_To Miss Seaton._
“I saw Olive Schreiner last night. She’s an extraordinary woman—full of life. I had a little picture for her from a dear friend of hers in Africa I stayed with while I was there. She was so pleased with my pictures of Kaffirs. Who is your best living English poet? I’ve found somebody miles and miles above everybody—a young man, Lascelles Abercrombie—a mighty poet and brother to Browning.”
Other references in letters show how deep at this time Mr. Abercrombie’s influence was. Rosenberg calls his “Hymn of Love” the finest poem of our time.
He has now joined the Army, and writes from Bury St. Edmunds.
_To Edward Marsh_ (1915).
“I have just joined the Bantams, and am down here amongst a horrible rabble. Falstaff’s scarecrows were nothing to these. Three out of every four have been scavengers, the fourth is a ticket-of-leave. But that is nothing; though while I’m waiting for my kit I’m roughing it a bit, having come down without even a towel. I dry myself with my pocket-handkerchief. I don’t know whether I will be shifted as soon as I get my rig-out.”
The next was written in hospital at Bury.
_To Edward Marsh._
“First, not to alarm you by this heading, I must tell you that while running before the Colonel I started rather excitedly and tripped myself, coming down pretty heavily in the wet grit, and am in hospital with both my hands cut. I’ve been here since last Saturday, and expect to be out by about the beginning of the week. It is a dull kind of life in the hospital, and I’m very anxious to get out and be doing some rough kind of work. Mr. Shiff sent me some water-colours, and I amuse myself with drawing the other invalids. Of course, I must give them what I do, but I can see heaps of material for pictures here. The landscape, too, seems decent, though I haven’t seen anything but from the barracks, as this accident happened pretty near at the start. I hope you were not annoyed at that fib of mine, but I never dreamt they would trouble to find out at home. I have managed to persuade my mother that I am for home service only, though, of course, I have signed on for general service. I left without saying anything because I was afraid it would kill my mother or I would be too weak and not go. She seems to have got over it, though, and as soon as I can get leave I’ll see her, and I hope it will be well. It is very hard to write here, so you must not expect interesting letters; there is always behind or through my object some pressing sense of foreign matter, immediate and not personal, which hinders and disjoints what would otherwise have coherence and perhaps weight. I have left all my poems, including a short drama, with a friend, and I will write to him for them, when I shall send them either direct to Abercrombie or to you first. I believe in myself more as a poet than a painter; I think I get more depth into my writing. I have only taken Donne with me, and don’t feel for poetry much in this wretched place. There is not a book or paper here; we are not allowed to stir from the gate, have little to eat, and are not allowed to buy any if we have money, and are utterly wretched. (I mean the hospital.) If you could send me some novel or chocolates, you would make me very happy.”
_To Edward Marsh (from Bury St. Edmunds)._
“I received a letter to-day (sent over a week ago) from Abercrombie, and I feel very flushed about it. He says no one who tries to write poetry would help envying some of my writing. Since I wrote you I have had more mishaps. My feet now are the trouble. Do you know what privates’ military boots are? You are given a whole armourer’s shop to wear; but, by God! in a few hours my heels were all blistered, and I’ve been marching and drilling in most horrible pain. I drew three weeks’ pay and had some money sent me from home, and bought a pair of boots three or four sizes too large for me, my feet had swelled so. Besides this trouble I have a little impudent schoolboy pup for an officer, and he has me marked; he has taken a dislike to me: I don’t know why.”
_To Miss Seaton (from Bury St. Edmunds)._
“Thanks for your letter and your books which they sent me from home. It is impossible to read as we are, and I don’t expect to get proper leisure for reading till this rotten affair is over. My feet are pretty nigh better, and my hands, and I am put down for a Lance-Corporal. The advantage is, though you have a more responsible position, you are less likely to be interfered with by the men, and you become an authority. I expect to be home for four days shortly. I don’t know whether I told you Lascelles Abercrombie sent me a fine letter about my work, which made me very bucked. There is nobody living whose praise could have pleased me so much. I have some pictures at the N.E.A.C., one of which is likely to be sold.”
_To Edward Marsh (from Bury St. Edmunds)._
“I suppose my troubles are really laughable, but they do irritate at the moment. Doing coal fatigues and cookhouse work with a torn hand, and marching ten miles with a clean hole about an inch round in your heel, and bullies swearing at you, is not very natural. I think when my hands and feet get better I’ll enjoy it. Nobody thinks of helping you—I mean those who could. Not till I had been made a thorough cripple an officer said it was absurd to think of wearing those boots, and told me to soak them thoroughly in oil to soften them. Thank you for your note; we get little enough, you know, and I allow half of that to my mother (I rather fancy she is going to be swindled in this rat-trap affair), so it will do to get to London with. You must now be the busiest man in England, and I am sure would hardly have time to read my things; besides, you won’t like the formlessness of the play. If you like you can send them to Abercrombie, and read them when you have more time. I don’t think I told you what he said: ‘A good many of your poems strike me as experimental and not quite certain of themselves. But, on the other hand, I always find a vivid and original impulse; and what I like most in your songs is your ability to make the concealed poetic power in words come flashing out. Some of your phrases are remarkable; no one who tries to write poetry would help envying some of them.’ I have asked him to sit for me—a poet to paint a poet. All this must seem to you like a blur on the window, or hearing sounds without listening while you are thinking.”
_To Miss Seaton (from Blackdown Camp, Farnborough)._
“Thanks very much for the bread and biscuits, which I enjoyed very much. I am in another regiment now, as the old one was smashed up on account of most of the men being unfit. We that were left have been transferred here. The food is much better, but conditions are most unsettling. Every other person is a thief, and in the end you become one yourself, when you see all your most essential belongings go, which you must replace somehow. I also got into trouble here the first day. It’s not worth while detailing what happened and exposing how ridiculous, idiotic, and meaningless the Army is, and its dreadful bullyisms, and what puny minds control it. I am trying to get our Passover off, which falls Easter. If I do I’ll let you know. The bother is that we will be on our ball-firing then, and also this before-mentioned affair may mess it up. This ball-firing implies we will be ready for the front. I have been working on ‘Moses’—in my mind, I mean—and it was through my absent-mindedness while full of that that I forgot certain orders, and am now undergoing a rotten and unjust punishment. I’m working a curious plot into it, and of course, as I can’t work here, I jot little scraps down and will piece it together the first chance I get.”
The remaining letters are all from France.
_To Miss Seaton_ (1916).
“We made straight for the trenches, but we’ve had vile weather, and I’ve been wet through for four days and nights. I lost all my socks and things before I left England, and hadn’t the chance to make it up again, so I’ve been in trouble, particularly with bad heels; you can’t have the slightest conception of what such an apparently trivial thing means. We’ve had shells bursting two yards off, bullets whizzing all over the show, but all you are aware of is the agony of your heels.... I had a letter from R. C. Trevelyan, the poet.... He writes: ‘It is a long time since I have read anything that has impressed me so much as your “Moses” and some of your short poems....’ He confesses parts are difficult, and he is not sure whether it’s my fault or his.”
The next letter is the first of a series to Mr. Bottomley, whom he was only to know by correspondence. He was now for a time working with the Salvage Corps.
_To Gordon Bottomley (Postmark, June 12, 1916)._
“If you really mean what you say in your letter, there is no need to tell you how proud I am. I had to read your letter many times before I could convince myself you were not ‘pulling my leg.’ People are always telling me my work is promising—incomprehensible, but promising, and all that sort of thing, and my meekness subsides before the patronizing knowingness. The first thing I saw of yours was last year in the Georgian Book, ‘The End of the World.’ I must have worried all London about it—certainly everybody I know. I had never seen anything like it. After that I got hold of ‘Chambers of Imagery.’ Mr. Marsh told me of your plays, but I joined the Army and have never been able to get at them. It is a great thing to me to be able to tell you now in this way what marvellous pleasure your work has given me, and what pride that my work pleases you. I had ideas for a play called ‘Adam and Lilith’ before I came to France, but I must wait now.”
_To Gordon Bottomley (Postmark, July 23, 1916)._
“Your letter came to-day with Mr. Trevelyan’s, like two friends to take me for a picnic. Or rather like friends come to release the convict from his chains with his innocence in their hands, as one sees in the twopenny picture palace. You might say, friends come to take you to church, or the priest to the prisoner. Simple _poetry_,—that is where an interesting complexity of thought is kept in tone and right value to the dominating idea so that it is understandable and still ungraspable. I know it is beyond my reach just now, except, perhaps, in bits. I am always afraid of being empty. When I get more leisure in more settled times I will work on a larger scale and give myself room; then I may be less frustrated in my efforts to be clear, and satisfy myself too. I think what you say about getting beauty by phrasing of passages rather than the placing of individual words very fine and very true.”
_To Miss Seaton (written in Hospital, 1916)._
“I was very glad to have your letter and know there is no longer a mix-up about letters and suchlike. Always the best thing to do is to answer at once, that is the likeliest way of catching one, for we shift about so quickly; how long I will stay here I cannot say: it may be a while or just a bit. I have some Shakespeare: the Comedies and also ‘Macbeth.’ Now I see your argument and cannot deny my treatment of your criticisms, but have you ever asked yourself why I always am rude to your criticisms? Now, I intended to show you ——’s letters and why I value his criticisms. I think anybody can pick holes and find unsound parts in any work of art; anyone can say Christ’s creed is a slave’s creed, the Mosaic is a vindictive, savage creed, and so on. It is the unique and superior, the illuminating qualities one wants to find—discover the direction of the impulse. Whatever anybody thinks of a poet he will always know himself: he knows that the most marvellously expressed idea is still nothing; and it is stupid to think that praise can do him harm. I know sometimes one cannot exactly define one’s feelings nor explain reasons for liking and disliking; but there is then the right of a suspicion that the thing has not been properly understood or one is prejudiced. It is much my fault if I am not understood, I know; but I also feel a kind of injustice if my idea is not grasped and is ignored, and only petty cavilling at form, which I had known all along was so, is continually knocked into me. I feel quite sure that form is only a question of time. I am afraid I am more rude than ever, but I have exaggerated here the difference between your criticisms and ——’s. Ideas of poetry can be very different too. Tennyson thought Burns’ love-songs important, but the ‘Cottar’s S. N.’ poor. Wordsworth thought the opposite.”
_To Miss Seaton (November 15, 1916; written in Hospital)._