"SEVEN PILLARS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 224, 21 September 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

"SEVEN PILLARS."

LAWRENCE'S MASTERPIECE.

ACTION" AND LITERATURE,

(By CYRANO.)

"If I am remembered at all, I think it will be as a writer," said T. E. Lawfence, then Aircraftsman Shaw, to the New Zealander Hector Bolitho. "As a matter of fact, that is what I wish." His wish may be fulfilled. For remarkable as his military exploits were in Arabia and Syria, fascinating as his leadership of an alien people will be to generation after generation, Ins literary monument, "Seven Pillars ot Wisdom," will almost certainly be judged to stand higher in the world of art than his desert campaigns in the world of action. He has been compared, bv an English military critic with a hifh reputation, with Napoleon, a comparison that makes me, for one, doubt other judgments of this writer, but there can be no question of the outstanding crreatness of "Seven Pillars of Wisdom. An English critic says of it that, written in a style and imagery seldom surpassed or even equalled, it wiU live as a work of art, far greater than Lawrence's* material achievements. The history of the book itself is extraordinary. Most of the manuscript, which was to be about 200,000 worfc was lost at an English railway station. Tlie second draft was 400,000 draft was. reduced to 330,000. lnis third draft was printed privately at Oxford, and then reduced to 280,000 words for a limited number of subscribers. "Revolt in the Desert, pub lished for the public in 1027, was an abridgement of "Seven Pillars, and contained 130,000 words. Lawrence described "Revolt in the Desert as a By Scout edition." Even this he withdrew from the public after six months. Seven Pillars" was not to bo published in his life time. The present edition , a sumptuous, beautifully printed volume ot over 600 pages, superbly illustrated, is the text of 1927, with certain omissions and alterations —the omissions being considered necessary to avoid hurting the feelings of persons still living. Lawrence and the Arabs. "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" may be considered from several points of-view. "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars,' says "Proverbs," and in his prefacing poem, perhaps the only one he ever wrote, Lawrence refers to "Freedom, the sevenpillared worthy house." The book is a record of a great adventure,, the raising of an Arab revolt in the desert under Feisal, who afterwards became King or Iraq. " As a long and detailed narrative of desert action, its successes an failures, its intrigues, its thrusts and retreats,, its warring with heat ana

disease as well as with the slow-moving, slovenly, cruel, stupid and badly led Turk, it is masterly. The operations Of Feisal's ariny may not have been so important from the military point of view as has been claimed for them, but the tale of the endeavour is of breathless interest. Secondly, there is in the book an extraordinarily acute analysis of the Arab character.

Their mind was strange and dark, full of depressions and exaltations, lacking in rule, but with more of ardour and more fertile in belief than any other in the world. They were a people of starts, for whom the „abstract was the strongest motive, the process of Infinite courage and variety, and the end nothing. They were us unstable as water, and, like wnter, would perhaps finally prevail. Since the dawn of life, in 'successive waves they had been dashing themselves against the coasts of the flesh. Each wave was broken, but, like Ihc sea, wore away ever so little of the graiite on which it failed, and some day, ages yet, might roll unchecked over the place where the material world had been, and God would move upon the face of the waters. One such wave (and not the least) I raised and rolled before the breath of an idea, till it reached its crest, and toppled over and fell at Damascus. The Man. Lastly, there is tlie man himself revealed in the book, revealed with utter candour —the philosopher and mystic, the little Englishman with an uncanny insight into the Oriental mind, the ascetic who mortified the flesh until it could go days without food and suffer the agony of torture, the poet who could daily win beauty from the desert landscape, the man of action who liated responsibility, the soldier who loathed killing yet who had to decree the death in battle of many men, and was compelled to execute one of his command with his own hand. The glory of an idea warmed him, but not the glory of .battle. Here is his mind after a victory:

The dead men looked wonderfully beautiful The night was shining gently down, softening them into new ivory. Turks were wliite-skinned on their clothed parts, much whiter than the Arabs; and these soldiers had been very young. Close round them lapped tlie dark wormwood, now heavy with clew, in which the ends of the moonbeams sparkled like sea-spray. The corpses seemed flung so pitifully on the ground, huddled anyhow in low heaps. Surely if straightened they would be comfortable at last. So I put them all in order, one by one, very wearied myself, and longing to be of these quiet ones, not of the restless, noisy, aching mob up the valley, quarrelling over the plunder, boasting of their speed and strength to endure God knew how many toils and pains of this sort, with death, whether we won or lost, waiting to end the history.

Lawrence brought everything to a spiritual test. Throughout this long ordeal Lawrence apparently never knew peace of mind for any length of time. He scourged his mind as well as his body, and never subdued his conscience. The end of the war found him dissatisfied, restless, a man wandering between two worlds. His life with the Arabs, lived in all respects Arab fashion, "quitted me of my English self, and let me look at the West and its conventions with new eyes; they destroyed it all for me. At the same time I could not sincerely take on the Arab skin; it was an affectation only. Easily was a .man made an infidel, but he be converted to another faith. ■ The compromise was Aircraftsman Shaw.

The book is bountiful and varied in riches. Stark and hideous realism shoulders pure poetry. There are passages like swords gleaming in moonlight. There arc scenes of vivid and. terrible drama, and Humours of everyday life. Over and over again one is amazed at the capacity for endurance of the human body and tlie human spirit. These men rode and fought in heat, liuiiger ana colit. To the terrible heat of Arabia snow came as a sharp contrast .-uid foiind the Arab army unsuitably clad. On his rides Lawrence was frequently ill. At one place the Turks had deliberately fouled the wells by throwing into them dead camels. The putrid water had to be drunk, and one of the Englishmen became ill, about whom Lawrence remarks that he lacked the immunity of those more accustomed to the conditions. Lawrence was exacting, but never ungenerous, never mean. For the Englishmen who helped he has warm praise. He glows at the masterful skill and understanding of used all arms in perfect unison. Lawrence writes of that "girdle of humour and strong dealing" which Britain has thrown round the world. " Magnificent Writing. The book is magnificently written. The style has been likened to hammered steel in its hardness and strength, but it is steel with fine inlay work, and it shines in the sun and the moon. There is hardly a page that does not call for quotation. Lawrence is as impressive in writing of the quiet solitude of the desert, or the mysterious beauty of his hiding place in the valley of Rumrn. as he is in describing., the 'clamour of battle.

. . . We lay there lazily till afternoon, watching the Turks riding in a vain direction. and our fellows asleep, nnd their pasturing camels, and the shadows of the low clouds seeming like gentle hollows as the.v chased over the grass in the pale sunlight. It was peaceful, chilly, and very far from the fretting world. The austerity of height shamed back the vulgar baggage of our cares. In the place of consequence it set freedom, power to be alo„ne. to slip the escort of our manufactured selves; a rest and forgetfulness of the chains of being.

And so, on and on, to that wonderful passage in which the Turks are in full retreat and, losing order and coherence are "drifting through the blast in lorn pockets." harried by exultant Arabs, with German machine-gun detachments standing ■ true to their discipline in a way that made Lawrence "proud of the enemy who had killed my brothers."

They were two thousand miles from home, without hope and without guides, in conditions mad enough to break the bravest nerves. Yet their sections held hard together in firm rank, sheering through the wrack of Turk and Arab like armoured ships, high-faced and silent When attacked, they halted, took position, fired to order. There was no haste, no crying, no hesitation.

"Friend and foe, in one red burial blent"—this great book salutes them both.

•••Seven Hilars of Wisdom: A Triumph.' bv T. E. Lawrence. Forty-eight full-page illustrations and maps. (Jonathan Cape.)