James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence, Photo Essay

Locating Lawrence: June 1924

Lawrence has five horses and twelve bottles of smuggled whisky to keep him company in the Lobo Mountains.

Keeping the Lawrence’s company in the Lobo Mountains were two French bulldog pups[i] and five horses[ii] that acted like ‘devils,[iii]’ refusing to be tamed. The horses were vital to their survival, enabling Lawrence to fetch milk and butter, and on one occasion, ’12 bottles of smuggled whisky.[iv]’

Horses are a recurring theme throughout his letters in June. The Hawks family, who owned the Del Monte Ranch, ‘had three horses struck by lightning[v]’ that month. In gifting the ranch to Frieda, Mabel Dodge Luhan now had nowhere for her own horses to graze, which was a source of irritation to her husband Tony. As tensions mounted, horses become a symbol for Lawrence’s deteriorating relationship with Mabel Dodge Luhan: ‘Instead of being all wild like the horses. We’ll all chew the cud of contemplation in our little corrals, then trot out for a reunion.[vi]’

Luhan had a chair made for Lawrence. In her memoir she proudly details its creation: ‘I carved it a little and cut up a fine old blanket to upholster it, with shining brass nails. It was intended to become Lawrence’s very own chair. I fancied him always sitting in it and always writing in it…one of those dedicated pieces of furniture that would slowly become associated with him.’

She fancied it. Lawrence didn’t. He was happier writing under a tree than in a grandiose piece of furniture clearly designed with posterity in mind. He subsequently nicknamed it the Iron Maiden after the infamous torture cabinet. Then Luhan made the cardinal mistake of forcing him to dance at a social gathering. He was seething.

Lawrence was mentally exhausted after his latest excursion in Europe which was soured by memories of the war which ‘changed me forever.[vii]’ He was also physically exhausted renovating the ranch, as this letter from the 4th June indicates: ‘I’ve done one of the hardest days work in my life today – cleaning the well. All the foul mud of the Thames – and stank like hell. Now it’s excavated and built in with stone, and the pipe sunk two feet deeper – Lord, this is the week we promised ourselves rest. I’ve still got to go to the Hawks’ for milk – and it’s 7pm. Wish we had a cow.’

The renovations meant he hadn’t written for awhile and instead was enjoying the natural rhythms of evening treks through the mountains with Frieda and Brett. ‘I don’t know why,’ he confessed to his mother-in-law ‘but words and speech have become a bit boring to me. We understand so well, without saying anything (…) Here, where one is alone with trees and mountains and chipmunks and desert, one gets something out of the air: something wild and untamed, cruel and proud, beautiful and sometimes evil, that really is America.[viii]’

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

[i] Jerome and Alfred were the pups of Bibbles, Mabel Dodge Luhan’s French bulldog who lived with the Lawrence’s in the Winter of 1923.

[ii] The horses were called Contentos, Cequa, Poppy, Azul and Bessie. 

[iii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 4 June (L3137)

[iv] Letter to Thomas Seltzer, 23 June (L3194)

[v] Letter Thomas Seltzer, 19 June (L3147)

[vi] Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, 7 June (L3141)

[vii] Letter to Frederick Carter, 3 June 1924

[viii] Letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 28 June (L3150)

James Walker letters, literary locations, Locating Lawrence

Locating Lawrence November 1922.

In November 1922, Lawrence finally got his hands on a copy of Ulysses thanks to Thomas Seltzer. He presumed the book was a loan and was offended when he discovered Seltzer had bought it for him. ‘Please charge them to me, or I feel uneasy[i].’

A week later, Lawrence confides ‘I am one of those people who can’t read Ulysses. Only bits. But I am glad I have seen the book, since in Europe they usually mention us together – James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence – and I feel I ought to know in what company I creep to immortality. I guess Joyce would look as much askance on me as I on him. We make a choice of Paola and Francesca floating down the winds of hell.[ii]’

Virginia Woolf was more scathing of the modernist masterpiece, writing in her diary that it was ‘an illiterate, underbred book it seems to me: the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating[iii]’

Lawrence was finding Mabel Dodge Sterne nauseating on account of her overbearing personality. The only solution was to move on to one of her other properties, ‘a little abandoned ranch… about 16 miles from here – on the Rockies foothills – Lobo[iv]’. Robert Mountsier, who was planning a visit, had hurt his hand. Lawrence doesn’t have much sympathy, warning he best ‘be better’ as ‘we shall have to chop much wood[v]’. However, bad weather meant he had to delay his plans to move further into the abyss.

Despite the set-back, he was clearly glad to be in New Mexico and enjoyed an uncharacteristic splurge on clothing, all detailed meticulously: ‘I actually wildly bought a pair of Justin’s Cowboy boots – 20 dollars – but very nice. You should see me – cowboy hat, good one, $5: sheepskin coat – $12.50 – corduroy riding-breeches, very nice, $5.’[vi]’

This seems quite the indulgence, particularly given he had only received a cheque for eight dollars that month for his submissions to Poetry, A Magazine of Verse[vii]. In terms of other writing, he was working through edits on Studies in Classic American Literature. However, his correspondence with Mabel Dodge Sterne was so strained it was reduced to lists of points, the first three of which begin ‘I don’t believe’[viii].

Fortunately, he was provided with another escape route courtesy of Alfred Decker Hawk (1862 – 1950) who lived with his wife Lucy and their daughter Elizabeth at the Del Monte Ranch, about two miles from Mable Dodge Sterne’s Lobo Ranch. They would be the Lawrence’s landlords on the 1000-acre ranch through the winter of 1922. Accompanying them were two impoverished Danish painters, Knud Merrild (1894 –1954) and Kai Gøtzsche (1886-1963).

‘The news at the moment is that we are leaving Mabel Sterne territory,’ Lawrence informs Mountsier, ‘it is unbearable’. And once more he’s fallen on his feet. The ranch is there’s for $100 until March and includes meat and milk. The Hawk’s had about 100 cattle and the Lawrence’s would have access to three or four horses[ix]. He would get to put his cowboy boots to good use.

One thing that is strikingly evident in Lawrence’s letters is how supportive he is of fellow artists and how much influence he exerted over all areas of his published work[x]. Just as he fought to have Jan Juta’s painting included in Sea and Sardinia, so to he begins pitching on behalf of Merrild, who would go on to produce designs for Kangaroo, Studies in Classic American Literature and The Captain’s Doll – all of which were bought by Seltzer, though he would only go on to use the latter.   

His final letter of November is to Tony Luhan, Mabel Dodge Sterne’s future husband, whom he thanks profusely ‘for letting us live in your house’. There is even the offer of an olive branch, ‘come over soon with Mabel and see us at Lobo[xi].’

To see other video essays from 1923 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

  • [i] Letter to Thomas Seltzer (L2660)
  • [ii] Letter to Mr. Wubberhorst (L2654)
  • [iii] VW Diary 2, p 188-89
  • [iv] Letter to Thomas Seltzer (L2646)
  • [v] Letter to Robert Mountsier (L2647)
  • [vi] Letter to Robert Mountsier (L2647)
  • [vii] Letter to The Editor, Poetry, A Magazine of Verse (L2648)
  • [viii] Letter to Mabel Dodge Sterne (L2649)
  • [ix] Letter to Robert Mountsier (L2659)
  • [x] For more explicit example of this see Annalise Grice. DH Lawrence and the Literary Marketplace: The Early Writings. (2021, Edinburg University Press).
  • [xi] Letter to Tony Luhan (L2661)