Complete works of wilfre.., p.57
Complete Works of Wilfred Owen, page 57
Our patrols shot a man last night, supposed to be a spy. I know nothing more.
Ever your own W.E.O.
To Susan Owen
18 — February 1918 — Scarborough
My dear, dear Mother,
Yours was the letter among five others. I will send you Mrs. Gray’s, for so you will learn much about her, and about myself!
You did not remark on the incidence that while you were writing to ask me whose ‘Life’ to read, I was writing to you the reply — Tennyson’s.
I have a life of R.L.S. somewhere. I think on the Biography Shelf in the Bureau, by Graham Balfour. Not a wonderfully good one.
I could make you like Scarborough. I could make you like anywhere I wished.
Last night I took an artist johnny — called Claus (!) (exhibits & sells at the Carfax, does Italian peasants in Italy, studio in London; reveres the name of Robert Ross, as one who with a word could raise him to eminence — ). I took old Claus, (a fat old tub, with round spectacles, and a conical head) — took old Claus to the Scarborough, where there’s not a house built since 1780, not a street much wider than Claus, and miles of it, mind you, miles of glorious eighteenth century. It was twilight and the Sunday evening bell.
Not a soul in the alleys.
Not a lamp lit. A dim moon — and the Past.
And we got excited. What excited us, who shall say? We jumped about, we bumped about, we sang praises, we cursed Manchester; we looked in at half open doors and blessed the people inside. We saw Shakespere in a lantern, and the whole of Italy in a Balcony. A tall chimney became a Greek Column; and in the inscriptions on the walls we read romances and philosophies.
It was a strange way of getting drunk. I wonder if the people in the officers’ bar suspected that evening, how much more cheaply a man can get fuddled on fresh air and old winding passages?
I am sorry you have disturbing and daylight-lingering dreams. It is possible to avoid them: by proper thinking before sleep. I confess I bring on what few war dreams I now have, entirely by willingly considering war of an evening. I do so because I have my duty to perform towards War.
I will copy out the best bit of Compression I have accomplished — -
P.T.O.
You know with what feelings I think of you — well or unwell. They are such, when I hear you are at least bettering, as make me a better creature, and my dreams younger. So must you think of me, and Harold and Colin.
If I do not read hymns, and if Harold marks no Bible, or Colin sees no life-guide in his prayer-book, it is no bad sign. I have heard the cadences of harps not audible to Sankey, but which were strung by God; and played by mysteries to Him, and I was permitted to hear them.
There is a point where prayer is indistinguishable from blasphemy.
There is also a point where blasphemy is indistinguishable from prayer.
As in this first verse:
Last Words
‘O Jesus Christ!’ one fellow sighed.
And kneeled, and bowed, tho’ not in prayer, and died.
And the Bullets sang— ‘In vain’
Machine Guns chuckled ‘Vain’
Big Guns guffawed ‘In vain’
‘Father and Mother!’ one boy said.
Then smiled — at nothing like a small child; being dead.
And the Shrapnel Cloud
Slowly gestured ‘Vain!’
The falling Splinters muttered ‘Vain’.
‘My Love!’ another cried, ‘My love, my bud!’
Then, gently lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Flares gesticulated, ‘Vain’
The Shells hooted, ‘In vain’
And the Gas hissed, ‘In vain’.
To Susan Owen
Midnight, 21 February 1918 — (Scarborough)
My own dear Mother,
My purple slippers & enchanter’s fleece are on, and off is the brisk soldierly authority, which is such a hindrance to my writings to you.
All day I’ve been hoping you’ve had weather like to ours. The Elements left nothing to be desired except a mild fire at half past four.
Which I had.
In truth, I am very comforted in Scarboro’. ‘For everything’ that Solomon mentions, ‘there is time’ except the singing and dancing. I cut the Local Concerts and the Select Bachelor Dances. Yet I do dance, privately in my room, to the music of good news from you. I dance when the melody of a good line comes into my noddle; I dance also when I dash my bad foot against a stone.
I am looking forward to seeing some good Boxing on Sat. night.
Last week I went to an excellent play, a really charming Comedy —
Quinney’s, by Vachell. Am now reading a book by Vachell The Hill, a tale of Harrow, and the hills on which I never lay, nor shall lie: heights of thought, heights of friendship, heights of riches, heights of jinks.
Lovely and melancholy reading it is for me.
Still, was there not Broxton Hill for my uplifting, whose bluebells it may be, more than Greek iambics, fitted me for my job.
Midnight, 22 February 1918
I got so thoughtful last night that I could not go on writing. I hope I did not Harrow you too much.
That ‘Last Words’ seems to have rather a harrowing effect on you. I have shown it to no one else as it is not chastened yet. It baffles my critical spirit.
What can I talk about tonight?
Priestley bought some wonderful large Ranunculi this morning; and they are so fine that nothing would do but he must buy a fine bowl to set them in. So we are winning at least the ‘Wamess’ of War.
Things look stupefyingly catastrophic on the Eastern Front. Bainbrigge of Shrewsbury, (over some oysters we consumed in our little oyster-bar this afternoon) opined that the whole of civilization is extremely liable to collapse.
Let us therefore think of more enduring things, my lovely Mother.
Such as the February flowers. These are they whose whiteness I have not yet suffered enough to buy. They are what I prayed to when Colin had Scarlet Fever. I could not buy them then for poverty. Now I cannot buy them for shame: For to my extraordinary thinking, it is a wicked traffic, this of grabbing up the Mediterranean Narcissi, and vending them to the rich. Still they are to be seen in the shop-windows of Grange Road West; in Birkenhead; and in Scarborough, and I suppose in Bermondsey, Stockport, Dudley, and perhaps in the uttermost parts of Lybia about Berlin.
For that we must be thankful.
Their odour is disinfectant of souls, as Carbolic is of mortal breath.
Narcissi and Carbolic: that is all Life. The Field Daffodils and the Field Dressing Station: these are the best ideas of Heaven and Hell for the senses.
You will notice that Christ is never represented with the Syrian Lilies in His hand. That is to be expected: for as one says ‘There were many Christians before Christ; The astonishing thing is: there have been none since.
One Spring, Carbolic may have saved you and me. Every Spring the Narcissus is enough to save a man’s soul, if it be worth saving.
Show now therefore the Narcissus to Colin at this time.
The immensity of our devotion to Childe Colin has yet to be achieved.
A fever more scarlet is already inculcating in his veins; and you must take him apart to yourself, wash him with pure words of truth, feed him with the best, and that according to his desires. In the strangeness of his fever he will push you from him; and all your thought will not be able to quench his thirst. Deny him not the thing he craves, as I was denied; for I was denied, and the appeal which, if you watched, you must have seen in my eyes, you ignored. And because I knew you resisted, I stretched no hand to take the Doll that would have made my contentment.
And my nights were terrible to be borne.
For I was a child, and you laughed at my Toys, so that I loved them beyond measure; but never looked at them.
Y — et no man is ashamed of his first doll.
With Harold it has been otherwise. He was always insensible to laughter.
Make easy, I say, the pillow of Colin’s fever, for it will be soon; and let us draw aside and think together for him; and tremble before this thing of life and death.
I had meant this to be a consoling kind of letter, and if you read it rightly, it will prove so: — In spite of this Latest News: Leave only once in 3 months (8 days)!
Always your own loving Wilfred x
To Susan Owen
Postcard
Sat. (Postmark 11 March 1918) — Scarborough
Just heard I’ve got to go to Northern Command Depot Ripon — as a result of my last Medical Board. There I shall do physical drill and so on, till I am quite fit. Not a bad idea even if I be demobilized! Am glad it’s not to Manchester I’m going. Shall be glad to explore this part of Yorkshire. I start on Tues, and the above is all my Address. Have tried to get home for this weekend, but Priestley is away, and they won’t let me go. You might come & stay at Harrogate!
Am sending a big box of books & winter clothes home — to be left unopened. I did so want to see you getting well; and Colin before he left. Am writing to Colin tonight.
W.E.O.
To Susan Owen
Postcard
Tuesday (Postmark 12 March 1918) Officers Command Depot32 — Lines, Ripon
An awful Camp — huts — dirty blankets — in fact WAR once more.
Farewell Books, Sonnets, Letters, friends, fires, oysters, antique-shops.
Training again!
Your W.E.O.
Scroll arrived just in time to see Priestley open it. Thank you!
To Susan Owen
Postcard
Wednesday (13 March 1918) — Ripon P.O.
Off duty at 3 p m.! Glorious weather. So strolled into the Tow’n, & was just going into Cathedral when I met Isaacson the actor coming out. He is now very much the Actor, having been discharged from Craiglockhart. Benson is giving The Merry Wives of Windsor in the Garrison Theatre tonight. I am going round to be introduced to B. & Lucy Benson. I feel much bucked after a tea with an old Craiglockhartian!
To Susan Owen
Friday (15 March 1918) — Address to Officers Command Depot B. Coy, Ripon
Dearest my Mother,
As you foretold, this place has made me completely ill. I am now in an Isolation Hut, sweating under Army Blankets and the disappointment of not seeing the Bensons. Don’t know the name of my Complaint, but a staggering headache came on yesterday, accompanied by pains in limbs, sore throat, fever etc. etc. It’s not influenza, and I am very much better today, (after a perfectly ghastly night.)
But don’t be bothered about me now. I am getting as suddenly better as I fell suddenly ill. It was rather curious to have a bad sore throat for an hour or so, and then — quite all right again.
I think the Disorder is traceable to my extreme disgust of the life here — and the badly served cold food. Will write tomorrow.
Am in for a good night.
Your W.E.O. x
To Susan Owen
Sat. Morning (16 March 1918) — (Ripon)
This is a sorry Birthday Letter, my darling Mother, but I can assure you that this morning I already feel better than you — alas! Ate my breakfast egg, even without salt, and thirsted for the tea though without sugar. I am now able to be amused at the bad style of my attendance.
It is only the style that is bad: I was put into sheets stippled with somebody’s blood, and blankets caked with mud, like a cow’s flank.
The Doctor has just been in. He says this fever has no connection with previous fevers of mine, but is one which often attacks newcomers to this Camp.
I shall be going back to my hut tomorrow as I am not bad enough for hospital.
There are 14 officers in that hut and 13 too many. Most of them are privates & sergeants in masquerade (as were half the officers at Clarence Gdns.) I’d prefer to be among honest privates than these snobs.
It was something to have seen Isaacson and to be made welcome by the merry company of Shakesperians.
Just after I left Craiglockhart a great wave of Discharges swept in, and floated off Isaacson and crowds of others. I am left here ‘bound in shallows & in miseries’.
Please do let me have Mrs. A— ‘s address. I know nothing more of her than of her association — I will not risk the word friendship — with the Gunstons.
I will now think about Colin. If I were his age, with his obvious disqualifications for 1. — steady business, 2. — or a learned profession, S. or pictorial or literary Art, and with 1. — great emotional faculties 2. — the promise of great good looks in a year or two 3. — high ideals I should join the Benson Company. He has been given an excess of emotional faculty, and that excess he must turn to account in the form of bread & butter. But must I suppose he has only 3 months’ liberty?
Then send him to school.
Or if pride forbids, call it an agricultural college.
Say, to Reading or the Shropshire College. You couldn’t make a better investment.
Y — es, this is my advice.
I will make another suggestion if this won’t do.
Tell me how you all exactly ‘are’. ——
Your lovingest Wilfred x
To Mary Owen
Wed. (? 25 March 1918) — 7 Borage Lane, Ripon
My dearest Mary,
So glad to have your cheery letter. You know, we scramble for letters, twice a day, almost as eagerly as when on Active Service Abroad. Many of the officers here have been wounded over and over again. People with crippled arms do special physical exercises. It is rather pitiful. The Senior M.O. is a Harley St. Heart Specialist. He put me in the 6th and Lowest Class of Fitness! But I shall be moved up any day. No leave longer than 48 hours is possible yet. Is it worth while? Every battalion, I understand, has sent two companies of A 4 (boys) on Draft Leave: in consequence of our Straits. (Don’t see the joke, I didn’t mean it.) It is specially cruel for me to hear of all we gained by St. Quentin having been lost. They are dying again at Beaumont Hamel, which already in 1916 was cobbled with skulls.
Meanwhile I think less of leaving the Army: and more of getting fit.
My realest thanks to dear Mother for her packing of the Chinese Scrolls. Priestley (before he could have received the parcel) sent me some lovely Mediterranean Flowers... That’s how we keep our war-weary spirits up!
I don’t like the charwoman idea. I think I shall postpone my Leave till I hear you’ve a regular servant, what?
Your loving old Brother
To Colin Owen
(Circa 30 March 1918) — Ripon
My dear Colin,
I send you a rather well-composed photograph of the village-city.
You’ll see that it’s quite pleasant, though not beautiful.
Note the grooved tiles of the roofs.
The five minutes walk from Camp to my Cottage is by a happy little stream — tributary of the Ure. There is boating of a kind on the Ure; but much better at Knaresborough on the Ouse itself, I think. How I look forward to your Invitation to a Pengwem boat. Didn’t know you were a member of the Club.
Evidently you need the bicycle more than I. Ripon is only a mile from my hut, and through Borage Lane (my lane) it is an interesting walk; — especially this morning when the buds all made a special spurt between dawn and noon, and all the Lesser Celandines opened out together.
I don’t think there is the least probability of demobilization now. On the contrary, I am trying to get fit.
Our Physical Exercises are varied by tricks like doing the opposite of the order, or on the command Do This! you do what the instructor does, but on the command Do That! you don’t move. It’s really an old parlour game, but frightfully difficult done quickly. Last time we played this mental game I was the last man out, or rather I was never caught out.
So I consider myself completely restituted now from Shell Shock.
Do tell me about your Farm, & farmers, and also what your arrangements are for joining the Royal Air Force.
Your dearly loving Wilfred
What have you read during March?
To Susan Owen
Easter Sunday (31 March 1.918) — The Ante-Room, O.C.D., Ripon
My Mother Dear,
I am writing crouched up in one of the good easy chairs with which we have stocked our Common Room Hut. We have also a good piano, which helps to drown the chinkling of silver on the Bridge Tables. I scarcely have spoken to any of this crowd of ‘gentlemen’ except to decline to make a Four at bridge.
I find myself growing more conventional in the matter of ‘Proper Introductions’ as I grow older. There are no less than five people made aware of my presence in Ripon, by friends who tell me I must go and see them
1) Mrs. A. — done.
2) — A Major, friend of Bainbrigge of Shrewsbury — not done.
3) — A friend and relation of Priestley’s — not done.
4) — A great friend of the Grays of Edinburgh — not done yet.
5) — Two maiden ladies, benefactresses when he was in Ripon of the Scottie in Clarence Gardens (who faints and has undiscoverable parents). These old dears as I had been advised provide a mighty good tea to anything in khaki that strays into their house. They have also some inklings of breeding, and traces of Accent, having been in the service of the Marchioness of Ripon for 37 years. I shall go there again the next time there’s a bad lunch in Camp.
Outside my cottage-window children play soldiers so piercingly that I’ve moved up into the attic, with only a skylight. It is a jolly Retreat.
There I have tea and contemplate the inwardness of war, and behave in an owlish manner generally.
