Letters to a Sister (26 page)

I have been invited by Lady Ravensdale to a gathering about Penhalonga, addressed by Fr Huddleston, to raise money (some huge sum
²³⁰
—why does
everything
need such astronomic sums? It seems too ambitious; surely a little at a time would be better) and will I bring with me some ‘rich tycoon'. I know none, or none who would finance a missionary house in S. Africa. I don't move among millionaires. I get hundreds of appeals all the time, for this & that. People seem to start things in faith, and then have to beg in order to go on. We have become a nation of hitch-hikers, thumbing every one for lifts.... I met Mr Gaitskell at dinner, and liked him. It was at the Ian Flemings…

Very much love,

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W. 1 3 December, [1957]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I had a very interesting Sunday evening again at my club seeing two programmes, the ‘Brains Trust', on which… Sir Ifor Evans was nice, and also James Morris, and I always like [A. J.] Ayer. But I enjoyed much more the ‘Christian Meeting Point' programme, on which the Indian Mr Pande (Methodist) was seen at his leper college
[sic],
and being interviewed by C. Mayhew, about how he felt towards God.
²³¹
He said he had no direct perception of God, not being a mystic, no visions or anything, but felt God all the time in his work, and in his relations with other people, especially the lepers, to whom he is devoted. He was a very nice, smiling man; we saw him also in the leper chapel, taking a service and preaching, and with his wife and young son afterwards. The last part of the programme was an interview between Mr Mayhew and Fr Hugh Bishop, C.R., when they discussed the two Christian ideals shown by the Franciscan last Sunday and Mr Pande this Sunday, one mostly prayer & worship & monastic life, the other service and work. Fr Bishop said the two sides of Christianity depended on each other, and must weave in and out; he thought the work would become dry and stale without prayer, and the prayer rather sterile without the work. He is an excellent interviewee. I quite see why religious people don't go to evening church as much as they did; TV is so much more interesting and full of ideas. It is rather sad for the clergy, who naturally like a full church and a full collection; perhaps they all ought to hold services and discussions on TV, and have it in church, on a large screen. That would fill the churches all right.

I didn't see about the worker priest; what does he work at? There is a fashion for this just now, started by the French. I haven't yet read Canon Moore Darling's book about his experiences when in the factories talking to the workers.
²³²
The whole business of religion is in a state of great transition just now, and very interesting. If the Church wants people to belong, it's got to drop the present rigid system of set services.

Did you hear the religious Brains Trust on Sunday?
²³³
Rather foolish questions, on the whole, like the one about, in view of the sufferings of people in concentration camps (as if people hadn't suffered far worse than that in former ages), has the Atonement lost its meaning. People often seem to turn slightly mental when speaking of the Atonement; I wish we had less of it. It is a Hebrew idea carried on into Christianity, based on the sacrifice of animals to the glory of God, and had better be let drop now, surely. But it does seem to mean something to a lot of people. To me, nothing, and it spoils a number of hymns etc. for me. Advent, on the other hand, gets to mean more and more; perhaps because of so soon dying. Fr Harris preached so well on Sunday about Christmas, and not making it an orgy of present-giving to each other but sending the money saved to refugees and others in need. I think he had got some of his ideas from a Xmas article I wrote in
The Spectator
which had pleased him.
²³⁴
Is it part of my mission, do you think, to give the clergy good ideas? I wish the R.C. ones were more open to them. Really it seems scarcely credible, their view of the Christian Church. They leave their pamphlets in Grosvenor Chapel sometimes, to convert us, called ‘Reasons for being a Catholic', and so on. Fr Derry says an Anglican wrote an answer, called ‘But I
am
a Catholic',
²³⁵
but this is like a red rag
to a bull to them, and no use at all. When they say ‘Catholic toleration of Anglicans has been carried to its very limits', as someone in
The Tablet
did,
²³⁶
what do you think he meant to do about it? He sounded like Hitler, ‘my patience is exhausted', and we know what
he
did about it. We can't be saved without baptism, they keep saying; it is such a wild notion that one wonders if they are really unbalanced, or if their minds are so feeble that they really can believe that love of God and moral struggle can't save. I wish I knew one of them I could talk to about such things without upsetting them. I shall listen this evening to the Greek church on divorce.
²³⁷

I am glad you find J. L. May interesting.
²³⁸
He is rather too sold on unity, I think, but good on the people in the movement. They must have been exciting times. But what a terrible state of mind the majority were in about ritualism and popery! We have certainly improved.

I saw a film about Tarzan this afternoon, but not v.g.
²³⁹
I am told
The Ten Commandments
aren't v.g. either, in spite of the Red Sea dividing and drowning Pharaoh's army and chariots, as on the posters. How very religious the Jews were! Melting down all their precious gold ornaments in order to have a golden calf to worship in the desert; it was really rather touching, tho' stupid….

Very much love.

E.R.M.

I still brood over the Dame business.
²⁴⁰

If you invest your £1000 well, you will have a little more to give away annually.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 New Year's Eve, 1957

Dearest Jeanie,

This is to send my love for 1958. I shall be going out soon to a watch night party, tho' we shall not watch much, but see the new year in with babble & revel & wine. I don't know why we don't have a Mass for it.

I am busy with the Articles, reading Newman's
Tract 90
on them, and Pusey on Newman. Newman & Pusey both quite disobey the preliminary order of 1562 about not putting one's own interpretation on them,
²⁴¹
but sticking to the sense and literal meaning as put down, on pain of punishment. ‘Dr Jenkinson' (who is Jowett in Mallock's
New Republic
²⁴²
)
preaches in a sermon ‘Even if we do come across some incident in the history of our religion which seems, humanly speaking, to subserve no good end at all—such as our own 39 Articles—let us not suffer such to try our faith, but let us trust in God, believing that in his secret councils He has found some fitting use even for these'…. When I have more time, I will look up which I don't believe, and perhaps can tell you on Friday.

The news of my Dameship has reached the Press, which rings me up for photographs, but I won't have this. I think the list is sent to the papers two days before Jan. 1st. I am told that, as regards literature, it is a rather dull list, which tends I am afraid to concentrate interest on me, as Dames are considered interesting. Well, I hope it will soon blow over. People ring me up to say how pleased they are, which is nice
of them. But I am afraid I shall also have to answer a lot of letters.

I enclose the
Times
sermon, which I like. It is what I have felt always, after childhood, that the Bethlehem legends, on which Xmas tends to concentrate, are irrelevant to me, and I expect it is true that they cause disbelief in the Incarnation in many people. On the other hand, no doubt many others find their faith strengthened by them….

Very
much love, and a good year to you both….

R.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 Twelfth Night
[5
January] 1958

Dearest J.,

I send the Epiphany sermon in
The Times, a
v.g. one, I think. Also, as I know you don't take the
Sunday Times,
a photograph they published of me typing, or rather pretending to type. I look very industrious! Do you ever hear any of ‘Woman's Hour'?
²⁴³
On Wednesday at 2.0 they begin with New Year Honours guests; they asked me to speak at it, but I am lunching elsewhere at that time, so they asked me to record a few remarks tomorrow afternoon, for transmission on Wednesday. They say they will ask me a few questions, which is easier than speaking without stimulus. If you listen, tell me what it is like. I believe it is repeated (perhaps more fully) next Sunday at 9.10 or so, in the morning, on the Home programme ‘Home for the Day'. I don't think I can hear that either, as I shall be staying in Dorset and probably shan't be able to listen. I think they said they would ask me about things I like and don't like. If so, I shall probably say I like beautiful country and buildings, driving through romantic scenery, swimming in warm seas when no one else is doing so near me, good company and talk, listening to good music,
including a well sung and orchestrated Mass. I shan't include the things every one likes, such as nice food & bed, being loved & flattered, watching people happy etc., reading interesting books. I shall say I dislike crooning, especially vulgar and silly love songs, repairing things that have gone wrong, such as my car, my clothes, etc., religious intolerance (I don't mind other intolerance nearly so much, as it isn't paradoxical), industrial towns, ugly and monotonous rows of houses, etc. I shan't mention the obvious things, such as cruelty & wickedness & oppression & cold. But whether there will be time for all these I don't know. The more vulgar and silly newspapers, I might add. I don't know who else will be speaking.

I go on getting cartsfull of kind letters daily. It is nice to get them and read them, tho' less so to answer them. I have laid in a lot of convenient cards, with flowers on them, but do feel I must write many letters too. I wish more people would type theirs. When they don't I often revenge myself by hand-written answers, of which they have to make what they can. Such a nice one from E. M. Forster this morning. I bagged 4 bishops (perhaps more, I forget), 2 ambassadors, and of course most of my literary colleagues, and too many wires signed with names I can't identify, tho' sometimes the postmark helps. I see how neglectful I have usually been in writing congratulations. Some years after he became a Knight Hugh Walpole told me I hadn't written to him about it; he was a pettish man.

I have been asked to a Foyle lunch on 31st where the Soviet ambassador is to be the chief guest
²⁴⁴
; the long telegram which invites me says there will also be present statesmen, scientists, writers, actors, industrialists, athletes, and philosophers; but I don't expect they'll all come. Perhaps I shall sit between an athlete and a philosopher, which will be like a banquet in 4th century Athens, only they wouldn't have asked any dames.

I'm sorry I shall be away on Friday. I go to Dorset for the week end, with my 4 gentlemen friends at Crichel,
²⁴⁵
and any one else they may have asked. I hope the weather won't be very cold. In cold weather there is no place like home. Luckily our management has postponed the operation they threatened on the boiler, so we keep warm. I hope you do, but I wish you too had central heating.

Next Monday I am asked to a sherry party at the clergy house of St Mary's, Graham Street, one of the most extreme churches (no chalice unless you wait on for it) to meet some young men who it seems were persuaded into Anglicanism by the
Towers of Treb.
I feel very proud of this. Next thing should be to persuade them into intercommunion with dissenters. I went to the Weigh House again on Sunday evening, and stayed on for the communion. I like the Epistle, very short (in the 1928 P.B., I mean).
²⁴⁶
We used it on Sunday at St Paul's.

Jan.
7. We have the famous Mr Stott lifting our hearts this week: he is the most influential Low vicar in London. I thought him poor yesterday, but good today. Tho', as he was religious enough at school to pray often alone in the chapel, I don't quite see why it was news to him to be told of Christ; he should have been told about that before, both at home and at school. But tomorrow he will no doubt ‘accept' him.

Now I must go on wading thro' my letters and cards. Writing to you is a restful interlude….

E. M. Forster says ‘What a silly title!' He is right.

[No signature]

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 17 January, 1958

Dearest Jeanie,

... I enclose our abolition [of nuclear weapons] papers, also the [Church] Unity Week notice; I only got to half this meeting
²⁴⁷
as I had to go first to a wedding reception. Neither abolition of nuclear weapons nor of Church divisions got far, I'm afraid. The [abolition] committee discussed and talked too much about differences in wording of our propaganda, instead of making plans. But there is a large public meeting on Feb. 17th, with several good speakers. The Unity meeting was nice, every one very polite and charitable to one another but no definite plans laid. The Methodist speaker
²⁴⁸
was v.g. Afterwards some of us went and had supper at a neighbouring restaurant; I was with Gerard Irvine and another priest and two women from Gerard's parish. The Bishop who had presided
²⁴⁹
came over & spoke to us, also the Methodist, both very nice. A R.C. reporter went to visit the Methodist & the vicar of St Martin's [-in-the-Fields]
²⁵⁰
for the
Catholic Herald,
and wrote a nice ecumenical polite account of what they had said to him. The Methodist, Mr Spivey, he said, had a crucifix in his study, and laid great emphasis on sacraments, as Wesley did. Mr Austen Williams laid more stress on the Good Life. But it was quite a nice useful article to have in the
Catholic Herald,
and I hope will do good to the more intolerant R.C. writers in it. The editor
²⁵¹
is a v. nice man.