Dear Mr Lawrence,
I am very nervous as I begin this
letter, deeply aware of the literary pedestal upon which history has
placed you, deservedly, as an author of great merit and a man
possessed of both wisdom and courage. I received a copy of your
book, The seven pillars of wisdom
from my father and I began reading it during a period in which he lay
in a hospital bed suffering from a terrible stomach ailment. He
nearly died. I read a few sections to him, the first of which I will
quote here:
All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in
the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are
dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make
it possible. This I did.
I have read this
passage to friends at the dinner table, I have quoted it in letters
to my many living correspondents, I even read it out to the men at
the barber shop, so taken was I with this passage and so eager was I
to share with any who might listen this powerful statement of purpose
so meaningfully placed within the introduction to your book.
But there is more
than inspiring philosophy and poetic turns of phrase in your book,
which is a remarkable account of your personal experiences of the
Arab revolt. I half expected it to be a history of the war much like
other histories: an accounting of the movements of armies and the
deployment of arms, the counting of the dead and the cruel
manipulations of political back room dealings. Instead I find that
you have written a deeply personal, and heartbreakingly beautiful
account of a people and a landscape that no longer exists in my
world. Not truly.
In these pages the history is not of
the Arab movement, but of me in it. It is a narrative of daily life,
mean happenings, little people. Here are no lessons for the world,
no disclosures to shock peoples. It is filled with trivial things,
partly that no one mistake for history the bones from which some day
a man may make history, and partly for the pleasure it gave me to
recall the fellowship of the revolt.
Your humility is
startling, and equal only to your audacity. Not only in your actions
themselves which are a tale of courage and genius, but in your
recounting of their minute details and the exquisite beauty of the
landscape and the culture you so wholeheartedly devoted yourself to
understanding. I will not write a letter to you expressing my
admiration of every part of your book, (my letter might become a
facsimile of every page) but, as I am a musician, I will begin by
highlighting those few peculiar mentions you have made of the music
and poetry of the Arabs you rode, and fought with.
From Chapter IX
In the evening Abdulla came to dine
with Colonel Wilson. We received him in the courtyard on the house
steps. Behind him were his brilliant household servants and slaves
and behind them a pale crew of emaciated, bearded men with woe-begone
faces, wearing tatters of military uniform, and carrying tarnished
brass instruments of music. Abdulla waved his hand towards the and
crowed with delight, 'My Band'. We sat them on benches in the
forecourt an, and Wilson send them cigarettes, while we went up to
the dining room, where the shuttered balcony was opened right out,
hungrily, for a sea breeze. As we sat down, the band, under the guns
and swords of Abdulla's retainers, began, each instrument apart, to
play heartbroken Turkish airs. Our ears ached with noise, but
Abdulla beamed.
...We got tired of Turkish music,
and asked for German. Aziz stepped out on the balcony and called
down to the bandsmen in Turkish to play us something foreign. The
struck shakily into 'Deutchland uber Alles' just as the Sherif came
to his telephone in Mecca to listen to the music of our feast. We
asked for more German music; and they played 'Eine feste Burg'. Then
in the midst they died away into a flabby discord of drums. The
parchment had stretched in the damp air of Judda. They cried for
fire; and Wilson's servants and Abdulla's bodyguard brought them
piles of straw and packing cases. They warmed the drums, turning
them round and round before the blaze, and then broke into what they
said was the Hymn of Hate, though no one could recognise a European
progression in it at all. Sayed Ali tuned to Abdulla and said, 'It
is a death march'. Abdulla's eyes widened; but Storrs who spoke in
quickl to the rescue turned the moment to laughter; and we sent out
rewards with the leavings of the feast to the sorrowful musicians,
who could take no pleasure in our praises, but begged to be sent
home.
This rather grimy
description of worn out military musicians is tempered somewhat by
the more lively tale of the soldiers around their campfires, making
music for themselves.
From Chapter XXXIX
Each evening round the fires they
had music, not the monotonous open throated roaring of the tribes,
nor the exciting harmony of the Ageyl, but the falsetto quarter tones
and trills of urban Syria. Malaud had musicians in his unit; and
bashful soldiers were brought up each evening to play guitars and
sing café songs of
Damascus or the love verses of their villages. In Abdulla's tent,
where I was lodged, distance, the ripple of the fragrant outpouring
of water, and the tree leaves softened the music, so that it became
dully pleasant to the ear.
...Nesib and his friends had a
swaying rhythm in which they would chant these songs, putting all
hope and passion into the words, their pale Damascus faces moon-large
in the firelight, sweating. The soldier camp would grow dead silent
till the last stanza ended, and then from every man would come a
sighing, longing echo of the last note.
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