Lot Essay
T.E. Lawrence had been a close friend of Sassoon's, and was one of the few guests who attended his wedding to Hester Gatty on 18th December 1933.
Details
SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886-1967)
A long and detailed 2pp. a.l.s., signed with initials, dated Heytesbury 4.3.55., to H.M. Tomlinson, discussing Lawrence, Hardy and other literary matters: 'My thoughts have been active only about T.E.L. [Lawrence] ... I don't know how one would feel about him - from his letters - if one hadn't met him, or heard about his sudden kindness & generosity. His continual devaluing of himself as a writer I still find very puzzling. The Seven Pillars is a magnificent book; & The Mint, though much of it painful to read, a masterly performance.His passionate desire to be a literary artist, combined with intense self-consciousness, got him into a tangle ... I am more certain than ever that he was one of the most extraordinarily empowered beings on record. The foibles that have been made so much of were only his mutable humanity ... Genius is not explainable, is it? ... Did you ever see Lawrence plain? ... There he was, quite convinced that he wasn't worthy to tie T.H.'s [Thomas Hardy's] shoe-strap. While T.H. admired him enormously ... My muse has been absent this winter -- I can't say why ... It needs a lot of patience, being a poet of my type -- episodic & unpredictable in output ....'
A long and detailed 2pp. a.l.s., signed with initials, dated Heytesbury 4.3.55., to H.M. Tomlinson, discussing Lawrence, Hardy and other literary matters: 'My thoughts have been active only about T.E.L. [Lawrence] ... I don't know how one would feel about him - from his letters - if one hadn't met him, or heard about his sudden kindness & generosity. His continual devaluing of himself as a writer I still find very puzzling. The Seven Pillars is a magnificent book; & The Mint, though much of it painful to read, a masterly performance.His passionate desire to be a literary artist, combined with intense self-consciousness, got him into a tangle ... I am more certain than ever that he was one of the most extraordinarily empowered beings on record. The foibles that have been made so much of were only his mutable humanity ... Genius is not explainable, is it? ... Did you ever see Lawrence plain? ... There he was, quite convinced that he wasn't worthy to tie T.H.'s [Thomas Hardy's] shoe-strap. While T.H. admired him enormously ... My muse has been absent this winter -- I can't say why ... It needs a lot of patience, being a poet of my type -- episodic & unpredictable in output ....'