Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949. Walter Hooper

old rascal!’ said Thomas, bursting into laughter. ‘Do you know the history of that? The Wednesday after he preached it, he met me and asked me if there had been a reporter in the Church, for somehow or the other they had got hold of his sermon. So I taxed him with it. “You sent it to the papers,” I said; and then he owned up. The old rascal—the old rascal!’

He also gave me the final stages of the footpath quarrel, in which we have practically got our point: at least a route v. nearly the same as the original path has been conceded.⁴ Apparently old Snow ended, as he had begun, by being the hero of the story. Thomas asked for written statements from as many parishioners as he could get hold of, and Snow produced one the length of your arm—a marvellous and highly autobiographical document which Thomas forwarded to the committee of the Town Council as likely to move anyone who had a sense of humour. But it was embarrassing when the case came into court and Thomas, going down to give evidence, found that old Snow had prepared the second and much longer statement which he proposed to read to the Magistrates from the spectators gallery during the hearing of the case: and since the old man thought that he could give a good account of himself if the police attacked him, Thomas had great difficulty in persuading him that he would be removed if he spoke or that the probability of removal was any reason for not at any rate beginning to read his statement. By the bye, the doury old man who made the speech about women and children turns out to be our local member of the Town Council, in fact one of the enemy: so that Snow’s instinct (‘I want him stopped’) guided him very well.

The next important event since you left is that Maureen has been offered and accepted a residential job in a school at Monmouth⁵—a choice of time in which again you might have been more fortunate. I didn’t know whether to approve or disapprove. Minto⁶ was in favour of it, and I only held back by the greater solitude she would be exposed to. Now that it is all settled, Minto, as I foresaw, fears the loneliness and is a little depressed about the whole thing. One must hope that the actual freedom from the innumerable extra jobs and endless bickerings wh. Maureen’s presence occasions will make up in fact for any feeling of ‘missing’ her.

      In public works I have made tolerable headway. As soon as I began to choose a site for my first tree in this autumn’s programme, it occurred to me that even if uprooting of all the elders were impracticable, still, there was no reason why each tree should not replace an elder instead of merely supplementing it. The job of digging out a complete elder root proved much easier than I had expected, and does not take much longer than digging an ordinary hole—the extra time you spend on extraction being compensated for by the fact that when once you have got the root out you find little solid digging left to be done. Unfortunately some of the places I chose as sites for the trees did not contain elder stumps, and many elders are in spots where one could hardly hope to make a new tree grow. However of the four tree holes which I have dug in the wood three are vicê elders cashiered. When I came to the problem of afforestation outside the wood I was held up by the necessity of doing a good deal of mowing. I have now scythed a wide open space round the western clump (i.e. the clump containing the ill fated beech) and a more or less continuous strip along past the Wasps nest to where I rejoined my summer’s mowing. General October has proved a complete failure and last week while I was at work near the enemy lines vedettes seemed to be out and as twilight drew on riders or working parties were constantly passing me on their homeward journey.

Talking of beeches, Snow (you remember, the Magdalen botanist)⁷ tells me that beeches will never grow well on a soil of clay and sand: chalk is what they want. I am inclined (if you agree) after one more trial to give up the effort to grow beeches, as Snow certainly knows his stuff: and you remember Johnson ‘Nay Sir, never grow things simply to show that you cannot grow them.’⁸

And this, in turn, raising the idea of books, I hasten to tell you of a stroke of good luck for us both—I now have the 15 volume Jeremy Taylor, in perfect condition, and have paid the same price of 20/-.⁹ My old pupil Griffiths¹⁰ spent a night with me last Monday and told me that Saunders¹¹ the bookseller, who is a friend of his, had a copy. He went round next day, got the book reserved and arranged the price: so we have done much better than if Galloway and Porters had had it. It is not indeed the nicest type of book—nineteenth century half leather of the granular and nearly black type, giving the volumes a legal or even commercial appearance. Still the Cambridge copy would probably have been the same plus its admitted dilapidations.

On the same visit Griffiths presented me with a poorly bound but otherwise delightful copy (1742) of Law’s An Appeal/To all that doubt, or disbelieve/The Truths of the Gospel/Whether they be Deists, Arians/Socinians or Nominal Christians/. It bears the book plate of Lord Rivers. I like it much better than the same author’s Serious Call,¹² and indeed like it as well as any religious work I have ever read. The prose of the Serious Call has here all been melted away, and the book is saturated with delight, and the sense of wonder: one of those rare works which make you say of Christianity ‘Here is the very thing you like in poetry and the romances, only this time it’s true.’

I had nearly forgotten about the Parkin dinner.¹³ I think it was a success: at any rate he sat with me till 12.30. We didn’t get much beyond puns, bawdy, and politics, but there is a real friendliness (and an almost embarrassing modesty) about him which makes even ordinary ante-room talk worth while. By a stroke of luck he had Christie next to him at dinner who is one of the few fellows of Magdalen who keeps up the quaint old tradition of being polite to guests.¹⁴ He told me your sunset at Southampton had been richly illuminated: you had departed, as Browne would doubtless say, like that unparalleled piece of nature the Phoenix.

I am glad you like Browne as far as you got when your letter was written.¹⁵ Your query ‘Was there anything he didn’t love?’ hits the nail on the head. It seems to me that his peculiar strength lies in liking everything both in the serious sense (Christian charity and so forth) and in the Lambian¹⁶ sense of natural gusto: he is thus at once sane and whimsical, and sweet and pungent in the same sentence—as indeed Lamb often is. I imagine that I get a sort of double pleasure out of Thomas Browne, one from the author himself and one reflected from Lamb. I always feel Lamb, as it were, reading the book over my shoulder. A lot of nonsense is talked about the society of books, but ‘there’s more in it than you boys think’ in a case of this sort: it is almost like getting into a club.

The discomforts of your train journey must have added the finishing touch to that unpleasant evening. Your departure affected Mr. Papworth so much that he retired to his basket as soon as you and I had left the house and refused to take any notice of anyone till the following morning.¹⁷ I am glad the book on the literature of the Grand Siecle proved a success. I owe it one little debt myself, for I have been repeating at odd moments ever since the La Fontaine quatrain—‘j’aime le jeu, l’amour, les livres, la musique’.¹⁸

Yes indeed: how many essays I have heard read to me on Descartes’ proofs (there are more than