MANUSCRIPT LETTER
FORSTER, E.M. A 1½pp. a.l.s., dated West Hackhurst, Abinger Hammer, Dorking, 17.9.46, to John Arlott, thanking him "for your kind letter", apologising "for letting your and your department down" which had made him expect "at the best something sniffy and resigned", and continuing in the second paragraph: "It's a horrid business here. We have been in this house for 70 years, my father was the architect, and I am being turned out by 'family friends,' and losing a garden which I shall miss even more than the house. I shan't go in for roots any more, but propose, for the years that remain, to be one of those graceful floating wobbly objects that occasionally sting." In the third paragraph, he concludes: "I hope you will enjoy Italy, although there can't be many bats and balls there, and I look forward to seeing you on your return and to being more reliable ...."
Details
FORSTER, E.M. A 1½pp. a.l.s., dated West Hackhurst, Abinger Hammer, Dorking, 17.9.46, to John Arlott, thanking him "for your kind letter", apologising "for letting your and your department down" which had made him expect "at the best something sniffy and resigned", and continuing in the second paragraph: "It's a horrid business here. We have been in this house for 70 years, my father was the architect, and I am being turned out by 'family friends,' and losing a garden which I shall miss even more than the house. I shan't go in for roots any more, but propose, for the years that remain, to be one of those graceful floating wobbly objects that occasionally sting." In the third paragraph, he concludes: "I hope you will enjoy Italy, although there can't be many bats and balls there, and I look forward to seeing you on your return and to being more reliable ...."
Forster inherited West Hackhurst after the death of his aunt Laura in 1924, and both he and his mother moved in. However, the lease had only 13 years to run. His mother, "Lily", finally died in 1945 aged 90. When he returned from a visit to India towards the end of the same year, Forster received notice to quit in a year's time. His relationship with the Farrer family, his landlords, had long proved difficult. "With all his ironies about 'feudalism' and 'visiting his estates', he was not indifferent to his status in Abinger. It was part of his place in the world, the place he had won for himself as a writer, and he felt his expulsion as an attack on it" (P.N. Furbank, E.M. Forster, II, 1978, p. 266).
Forster inherited West Hackhurst after the death of his aunt Laura in 1924, and both he and his mother moved in. However, the lease had only 13 years to run. His mother, "Lily", finally died in 1945 aged 90. When he returned from a visit to India towards the end of the same year, Forster received notice to quit in a year's time. His relationship with the Farrer family, his landlords, had long proved difficult. "With all his ironies about 'feudalism' and 'visiting his estates', he was not indifferent to his status in Abinger. It was part of his place in the world, the place he had won for himself as a writer, and he felt his expulsion as an attack on it" (P.N. Furbank, E.M. Forster, II, 1978, p. 266).