Locating Lawrence: May 1924

Literature’s greatest DIYer has replaced his pen for a trowel…

Lawrence spent the winter of 1923 on the Del Monte Ranch as tenants of the Hawk family. So on his return to the Lobo mountains, he gets in contact with William Hawk for ‘a wagonload[i]’ of timber to begin work on the 160 acre ranch gifted to Frieda by Mabel Dodge Luhan. Mabel is also good for tools and in accessing ‘a sack of fine straw[ii]’ so that he can begin work on plastering a new chimney. Lawrence loves hard graft and signs off his letter to Luhan with ‘been a very busy day – very satisfactory.[iii]’

Mabel Dodge Luhan wants to keep Lawrence happy because she still hopes he will record the lives of the Pueblo Indians, so she sends him some topical reading in the form of The Delight Makers (1890) by the anthropologist and explorer Adolf Bandelier (1840-1914).

Lawrence is in his element at an altitude of 8,600 ft. He’s got four horses, a two-room cabin for Mabel, a one-roomer for Brett and ‘with three Indians and a Mexican carpenter[iv]’ he begins work on a three-room log cabin for him and Frieda. No wonder Geoff Dyer claimed Lawrence was ‘perhaps the first great DIYer in English literature.[v]’

But the graft takes its toll: ‘I don’t write when I slave building the house – my arms feel so heavy, like a navvy’s, though they look as thin as ever.[vi]’ The isolation of cabin life has left him detached from the world. He’s not ‘seen a newspaper for two months[vii]’. He has replaced paper and pen for hammer and trowel and is only interested in disappearing into ‘the big, unbroken spaces round me[viii]’ that are ‘almost Arcadian.[ix]’

What I love about Lawrence is his lack of interest in possessions. He just likes making home. And as he will only be here for the summer, hopes to find someone who might enjoy the fruits of his endeavour when he leaves, ‘so that the place needn’t be abandoned in the winter.[x]’

His writing in May is full of the colours of spring and you can feel him awakening too. He does this by connecting to the natural rhythms of his immediate environment: ‘The sun is setting, the pines are red, the Indians are just started drumming.[xi]’ Not for the first time, he is happiest when ‘right away from the world.[xii]’

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

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[i] Letter to William Hawk, 2 May (L3120)

[ii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 12 May (L3123)

[iii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 12 May (L3123)

[iv] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[v] Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage (p 141-2)

[vi] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[vii] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 18 May 1924 (L3130)

[viii] Letter to Catherine Carswell, 18 May 1924 (L3130)

[ix] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[x] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 18 May (L3129)

[xi] Letter to John Middelton Murry, 16 May (L3125)

[xii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 2 May (L3118)

Locating Lawrence: April 1924

In April 1924, the Klu Klux Clan shot 22 people in  Lilly, Pennsylvania, Hitler was found guilty of treason and imprisoned for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch, and the BBC broadcasts its first educational radio program.

Lawrence is happily away from it all in Taos which ‘alternates between hot sun and birds singing, and deep snow and silence.’ But his main focus is sorting out the various loose threads of his writing.

Mollie Skinner sends through some last-minute adjustments for The Boy in the Bush, her cowritten book with Lawrence. ‘If there is time,’ he asks Martin Secker, ‘please make these little changes to please her.[i]’ Curtis Brown is sent three short stories and instructed to find them a home anywhere other than John Middleton Murry’s The Adelphi. The stories have a cathartic function for Lawrence, helping him ‘work off some of the depression of that Europe.[ii]’ Brown is also sent the essay ‘Indians and Entertainment’ which would be published in The New York Times Magazine before being collected in Mornings in Mexico (1927).

In 1921, Lawrence was forced to write the school textbook Movements in European History as he faced destitution. He used the pseudonym Lawrence H. Davidson, so as not to cause controversy, given he had been prosecuted for alleged eroticism with the publication of The Rainbow (1915). Now there were plans for new editions with illustrations.

Things seem to be going well with Mabel Dodge Luhan, but these are early days. Although Lawrence didn’t appreciate being ‘bullied by kindness,’ Luhan was incredibly supportive, giving Frieda ‘the ranch above Lobo[iii]’ which she had previously gifted to her son. Not one for accepting gifts, Lawrence would eventually give Luhan the original manuscript to Sons and Lovers in exchange[iv].  

Ever conscious about money, Lawrence urges Willard Johnson to accept payment for typing out a story for him and insists on settling the finances of Maurice Magnus, who had recently committed suicide after getting into debt with Michael Borg. Martin Secker is less magnanimous, insisting on one third of royalties – given nobody else was interested in publishing Magnus’s memoir of life in the Foreign Legion.

Things seem to be going remarkably well. Even Dorthy Brett, who had accompanied the Lawrence’s to Taos, has settled into the pioneer life and ‘rides like an amazon in a cowboy hat, on a huge old brown mare. You never saw such a thrilled female.[v]’ What could possibly go wrong with three females – Frieda, Mabel and Brett – all vying for Lawrence’s attention…

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

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[i] Letter to Martin Secker, 4 April (L3099)

[ii] Letter to Curtsi Brown, 4 April (L3100) ‘that’ is my emphasis.

[iii] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 4 April (L3098)

[iv] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 3 July (L3152)

[v] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10 April (L3105)