From: edwardbelsky@worldnet.att.net   
      
   Boy was I knocked by these letters!  My working image of Eileen had been   
   that she was a walk-onish, retiring, help-mate in tweeds of George,   
   consuming whatever spark she had in the genteel firebuckets were allowed to   
   women   
   before the war and in drudgery for the MOI or the BBC during the war.  That   
   was how I roujnded out her picture.  These letters disabuse.  She was cool   
   as a cucumber and dauntless as a lord..   
      
   Of course, these letters are to a college girlfriend and continue in their   
   tone of former days, when Eileen was self-identified as "Pig" probably for   
   theoretical amoralism, and you could argue that all women sound like   
   Tamburlaine when writing to girlfriends about keeping unsuccessful suitors   
   on a string but in terms of audacity the letters transcend even their genre.   
      
    " I don't think I want any news of you and Quartus because I am quite sure   
    I know all about you and it would be so dreadful to hear something quite   
   different."   
   What daring in saying that!  It says that Eileen's need  to keep her sense   
    of omniscience about Nora and Quartus outweighs Nora's need to spout   
   exactly the kind of   
   bubbly news that Eileen's letter is filled with.  It is a pre-emption that   
   would incense Nora   
   if Eileen and she were strangers but Eileen gets away with it because she   
   is really recalling to Nora her (Eileen's) cold-bloodedness when she was in   
   the social whirl at Oxford, which contrasts sharply with   
   her current rough life.   
      
      
   These letters show that the most important thing in life is character, more   
   important than living conditions. Character is the primitive construct. It   
   is the seed-bed. The resources of your country count too because they set   
   the limits on what character can accomplish. Orwell wrote 8 books in the   
   thirties as a time when he was poor and his health was starting to go.   
   Eileen must have been terribly important as a facilitator and sounding-board   
   and advisor on which publisher to trust, not because she didn't complain but   
   because she knew how to gaffe the men (in this case, one man), hew to a   
   bruising schedule, sense strategies and openings and do all with a light   
   touch.   
      
    Something of Eileen may have "rubbed off" on George after her death.  When   
   a person you have been close to dies, you miss them.  One way of bridging   
   the gap created by the loss is to imitate the departed, which is a way of   
   keeping them present.  So Eileen's ability to condense complex information,   
   apparent in these letters, may appear in the post-war essays which do seem   
   to be his best.   
    wrote in message   
   news:udCoh.32719$Gr2.32185@newssvr21.news.prodigy.net...   
   > georgeorwell@email.com wrote:   
   > > Martha Bridegam a écrit :   
   > >   
   > >> Did someone already post material out of Eileen's letters in *The Lost   
   > >> Orwell*, and/or would anyone like to read same?   
   > >>   
   > >> /M   
   > >   
   > > I don't know, but if you are offering to post some of this yourself,   
   > > yes please do.   
   > > B.   
   > >   
   >   
   > All the newly published letters were written to Norah Myles, a classmate   
   > from St. Hugh's College, Oxford. Some of them make you feel alternately   
   > sorry for each of them. E.g. this one, conjecturally from Nov. 3 or 10,   
   > 1936:   
   >   
   > "Tuesday   
   > 36 High Street   
   > Southwold   
   > Suffolk   
   >   
   > I wrote the address quite a long time ago & have since played with three   
   > cats, made a cigarette (I make them now but not with the naked hand),   
   > poked the fire & driven Eric (i.e. George) nearly mad -- all because I   
   > didn't really know what to say. I lost my habit of punctual   
   > correspondence during the first few weeks of marriage because we   
   > quarrelled so continuously & really bitterly that I thought I'd save   
   > time & just write one letter to everyone when the murder or separation   
   > had been accomplished. Then Eric's aunt [Footnote says this was the   
   > famous Nellie Limouzin of Paris/Esperanto fame] came to stay & was so   
   > dreadful (she stayed *two months*) that we stopped quarrelling & just   
   > repined. Then she went away & now all our troubles are over. They arose   
   > partly because Mother drove me so hard in the first week of June that I   
   > cried all the time from pure exhaustion & partly because Eric had   
   > decided that he mustn't let his work be interrupted & complained   
   > bitterly when we'd been married a week that he'd only done two good   
   > days' work out of seven. Also I couldn't make the oven cook anything &   
   > boiled eggs (on which Eric had lived almost exclusively) made me sick.   
   > Now I can make the oven cook a reasonable number of things & he is   
   > working very rapidly. I forgot to mention that he had his 'bronchitis'   
   > for three weeks in July & that it rained every day for six weeks during   
   > the whole of which the kitchen was flooded & all food went mouldy in a   
   > few hours. It seems a long time ago now but then seemed very permanent..."   
   >   
   > Here's another sorry-for-Eileen one, together with some Kopp revelations   
   > that make you sorry for Eric again:   
   >   
   > "New Year's Day, 1938   
   > You see I have no pen, no ink, no glasses and the prospect of no light,   
   > because the pens, the inks, the glasses and the candles are all in the   
   > room where George is working and if I disturb him again it will be for   
   > the fifteenth time tonight. But full of determined ingenuity I found a   
   > typewriter, and blind people are said to type in their [sic] dark.   
   > I have also to write to a woman [w]ho has suddenly sent me a Christmas   
   > present (I think it may be intended for a wedding present[)] after an   
   > estrangement of five or ten years, and in looking to see whether I had   
   > any clues to her address I found a bit of a letter to you, a very odd   
   > hysterical little letter, much more like Spain than any I can have   
   > written in that country. So here it is. The difficulty about the Spanish   
   > war is that it still dominates our lives in a most unreasonable manner   
   > because ["Eric" written and stricken out] George (or do you call him   
   > Eric?) is just finishing the book about it and I give him typescripts   
   > the reverse sides of which are covered with manuscript emendations that   
   > he can't read, and he is always having to speak about it and I have   
   > returned to complete pacifism and joined the P.P.U. [Peace Pledge Union]   
   > partly because of it. (Incidentally, you must join the P.P.U. too. War   
   > is fun so far as the shooting goes and much less alarming than an   
   > aeroplane in a shop window, but it does appalling things to people   
   > normally quite sane and intelligent -- some make desperate efforts to   
   > retain some kind of integrity and others like Langdon-Davies make no   
   > efforts at all but hardly anyone can stay reasonable, let alone honest.)   
   > The Georges Kopp situation is now more Dellian [The editors suggest she   
   > means "Delian," being a reference to Delos as home of a mystifying   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)