George Orwell: A Life in Letters (21 page)

Once again, let me say how sorry I am about this whole business, but I have got to do what little I can to get justice for people who have been imprisoned without trial and libelled in the press, and one way of doing so is to draw attention to the pro-Communist censorship that undoubtedly exists. I would keep silent about the whole affair if I thought it would help the Spanish Government (as a matter of fact, before we left Spain some of the imprisoned people asked us
not
to attempt any publicity abroad because it might tend to discredit the Government), but I doubt whether it helps in the long run to cover things up as has been done in England. If the charges of espionage etc. that were made against us in the Communist papers had been given a proper examination at the time in the foreign press, it would have been seen that they were nonsense and the whole business might have been forgotten. As it was, the rubbish about a Trotsky-Fascist plot was widely circulated and no denial of it was published except in very obscure papers and, very half-heartedly, in the [
Daily
]
Herald
and
Manchester Guardian
.
The result was that there was no protest from abroad and all these thousands of people have stayed in prison, and a number have been murdered, the effect being to spread hatred and dissension all through the Socialist movement.

I am sending back the books you gave me to review. I think it would be better if I did not write for you again, I am terribly sorry about this whole affair, but I have got to stand by my friends, which may involve attacking the
New Statesman
when I think they are covering up important issues.

Yours sincerely

[XI, 424, pp. 116-20; typewritten with handwritten addition]

Handwritten on a separate sheet is a note by Orwell which, because there is no salutation, was almost certainly sent to Raymond Mortimer with the typewritten letter above. Orwell enclosed the letter from H. N. Brailsford which he said Spender had. (See XI, p.118.)

1
.
Basil Kingsley Martin (1897–1969), left-wing writer and journalist, was editor of the
New Statesman and Nation
, 1931–60.

2
.
John McGovern (
1887–1968), ILP MP, 1930–47; Labour M P, 1947–59, led a hunger march from Glasgow to London in 1934. Félicien Challaye, French left-wing politician, member of the committee of La Ligue des Droits des Hommes, a liberal, anti-Fascist movement to protect civil liberty throughout the world. He resigned in November 1
937, with seven others, in protest against what they interpreted as the movement’s cowardly subservience to Stalinist tyranny.

Raymond Mortimer quickly sent Orwell a handwritten note saying, ‘Dear Orwell, Please accept my humble apologies. I did not know Kingsley Martin had written to you in those terms. My own reasons for refusing the review were those that I gave. I should be sorry for you not to write for us, and I should like to convince you from past reviews that there is no premium here on Stalinist orthodoxy.’ On 10 February, Kingsley Martin wrote to Orwell: ‘Raymond Mortimer has shown me your letter. We certainly owe you an apology in regard to the letter about
The Spanish Cockpit
. There is a good deal else in your letter which suggests some misunderstanding and which, I think, would be better discussed than written about. Could you make it convenient to come and see me some time next week? I shall be available on Monday afternoon, or almost any time on Tuesday.’ It is not known whether Orwell accepted Martin’s invitation, but he probably did. Orwell’s review of Galsworthy’s
Glimpses and Reflections
was published in the
New Statesman
on 12 March 1938, and he contributed reviews to the journal from July 1940 to August 1943. However, as is recorded in conversation with friends, he never forgave Martin for his ‘line’ on the Spanish civil war.

To Cyril Connolly*

14 March 1938

The Stores

Wallington

Dear Cyril,

I see from the
New Statesman & Nation
list that you have a book coming out sometime this spring.
¹
If you can manage to get a copy sent me I’ll review it for the
New English
, possibly also
Time & Tide
. I arranged for Warburg to send you a copy of my Spanish book
²
(next month) hoping you may be able to review it. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

I am writing this in bed. I may not be going to India after all & any way not before the autumn. The doctors don’t think I ought to go. I’ve been spitting blood again, it always turns out to be not serious, but it’s alarming when it happens & I am going to a Sanatorium in Kent
³
to be X rayed.° I’ve no doubt they’ll find as before that I am O.K. but any way it’s a good excuse for not going to India, which I never wanted to.
⁴
This bloody mess-up in Europe has got me so that I really can’t write anything. I see Gollancz has already put my next novel
⁵
on his list tho’ I haven’t written a line or even sketched it out. It seems to me we might as well all pack our bags for the concentration camp. King Farlow* was here the other day & I am going to stay next week-end with him after leaving the Sanatorium. When in town I’ll try & look you up. Could you be kind enough to write me a line to 24 Croom’s Hill, Greenwich S.E. 10,
⁶
to let me know your telephone address, which of course I’ve lost again, & then if occasion arises I can ring you up. Please remember me to your wife.

Yours

Eric Blair

[XI, 431, p. 127; handwritten]

1
.
Enemies of Promise (
see Orwell’s letter to Connolly of
14.12.38
).

2
.
Homage to Catalonia
.

3
.
Orwell’s Preston Hall Sanatorium records show he coughed blood when ill in
1929, 1931, and 1934; that he had pneumonia in 1918, 1921,
1933, and 1934; and dengue fever when in Burma.

4
.
Orwell had been invited to write leaders and book reviews, and sub letters for
The Pioneer,
Lucknow in Pakistan. (See XI, 426, pp. 120–2.)

5
.
Coming Up for Air
.
Orwell is not being quite fair here: he had suggested that this be done (see his letter to Leonard Moore, 6 December 1937, XI, 412, pp. 100–1).

6
.
Home of Eileen’s brother.

The sequence of events leading to Orwell’s admission to Preston Hall Sanatorium is uncertain and complicated by doubts about the dating of Eileen’s letter to Jack Common. Orwell’s Case Record (found by Michael Shelden) shows that Orwell was admitted to Preston Hall on Tuesday, 15 March, and discharged that same day; and that he was re-admitted on Thursday, 17 March, and remained until 1 September 1938. The records also include an analysis of X-rays of Orwell’s lungs dated 16 March. It might reasonably be assumed that he was rushed to the hospital on 15 March; that the heavy bleeding described by Eileen was then stopped, and that X-rays were taken; after these were examined on the following day, he was admitted for treatment. This involved complete rest, colloidal calcium injections and vitamins A and D until pulmonary tuberculosis could be definitely excluded.

Preston Hall Sanatorium, Aylesford, Kent, was a mile or two north of Maidstone. It was a British Legion hospital for ex-servicemen (hence the name of Orwell’s ward, after the World War I Admiral, Jellicoe). Initially Orwell was given a single room; this aroused comments about preferential treatment, but he insisted on mixing with the others and got on easily with them. (See Crick, 358–60; Shelden, 316–19, and for a fuller note, XI, 432, pp. 127–8.)

Eileen Blair* to Jack Common*

Monday [and Tuesday, 14–15 March 1938]

24 Croom’s Hill

Greenwich

Dear Jack,

You’ll probably have heard about the drama of yesterday. I only hope you didn’t get soaked to the skin in discovering it.
¹
The bleeding seemed prepared to go on for ever & on Sunday everyone agreed that Eric must be taken somewhere where really active steps could be taken if necessary—artificial pneumothorax to stop the blood or transfusion to replace it. They got on to a specialist who visits a smallish voluntary hospital near here & who’s very good at this kind of thing & he also advised removal, so it happened in an ambulance like a very luxurious bedroom on wheels. The journey had no ill-effects, they found his blood pressure still more or less normal—& they’ve stopped the bleeding, without the artificial pneumothorax. So it was worth while. Everyone was nervous of being responsible for the immediate risk of the journey, but we supported each other. Eric’s a bit depressed about being in an institution devised for murder, but otherwise remarkably well. He needn’t stay long they say,
²
but the specialist has a sort of hope that he may be able to identify the actual site of haemorrhage and control it for the future.

This was really to thank you for being so neighbourly from such a distance, & in such weather. One gets hysterical with no one to speak to except the village who are not what you could call soothing.

I’ll let you know what happens next. I have fearful letters to write to relations.

Love to Mary & Peter,
³

Eileen

[XI, 432
, pp. 127–9; handwritten]

1
.
Although Common lived only some half-dozen miles from Wallington, the journey was awkward and he had no car.

2
.
He did not leave the sanatorium until 1 September 1938.

3
.
Jack Common’s wife and son.

Orwell wrote to Spender on 2 April. Spender, in an undated reply told him that he had arranged to review
Homage to Catalonia
for the
London Mercury
. He then broached the matter of Orwell’s attitude to him. Knowing nothing of Spender, Orwell had, he said, attacked him, but he was ‘equally puzzled as to why when still knowing nothing of me, but having met me once or twice, you should have withdrawn those attacks’, and wanted to discuss this. In the meantime, saying how sorry he was to hear Orwell was ill, he sent him his play,
Trial of a Judge
, which he thought Orwell might care to read if he had little else to do: ‘If you can’t bear the thought of it, don’t look at it: I won’t be offended.’

To Stephen Spender*

Friday [15? April 1938]

Jellicoe Pavilion

Preston Hall

Aylesford, Kent

Dear Spender,

Thank you so much for your letter and the copy of your play. I waited to read the latter before replying. It interested me, but I’m not quite sure what I think about it. I think with a thing like that one wants to see it acted, because in writing you obviously had different scenic effects, supplementary noises etc. in mind which would determine the beat of the verse. But there’s a lot in it that I’d like to discuss with you when next I see you.

You ask how it is that I attacked you not having met you, & on the other hand changed my mind after meeting you. I don’t know that I had ever exactly attacked you, but I had certainly in passing made offensive remarks about ‘parlour Bolsheviks such as Auden & Spender’ or words to that effect. I was willing to use you as a symbol of the parlour Bolshie because
a
.
your verse, what I had read of it, did not mean very much to me,
b
.
I looked upon you as a sort of fashionable successful person, also a Communist or Communist sympathiser, & I have been very hostile to the C.P. since about 1935, &
c
.
because not having met you I could regard you as a type & also an abstraction. Even if when I met you I had not happened to like you, I should still have been bound to change my attitude, because when you meet anyone in the flesh you realise immediately that he is a human being and not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas. It is partly for this reason that I don’t mix much in literary circles, because I know from experience that once I have met & spoken to anyone I shall never again be able to show any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel that I ought to, like the Labour M.Ps. who get patted on the back by dukes & are lost forever more.

It is very kind of you to review my Spanish book. But don’t go & get into trouble with your own Party—it’s not worth it. However, of course you can disagree with all my conclusions, as I think you would probably do anyway, without actually calling me a liar. If you could come & see me some time I would like it very much, if it’s not much of an inconvenience.
¹
I am not infectious. I don’t think this place is very difficult to get to, because the Green Lines°
²
buses stop at the gate. I am quite happy here & they are very nice to me, but of course it’s a bore not being able to work and I spend most of my time doing crossword puzzles.

Yours

Eric Blair