The treachery of friendship
OF all the injustices faced by DH Lawrence in his lifetime, his arrest on suspicion of being a British officer spying on Germany at Metz 1912, and the accusation he spied for Germany, assisting an invasion of England in 1917, take some beating.
But then, a friend like Ford Madox Hueffer eventually betrayed him. Hueffer printed Lawrence’s poems in his November 1909 English Review. He recommended Lawrence’s first novel, The White Peacock, to Heinemann, who published it. He even shouted to Lawrence aboard a London bus “You have GENIUS!”. Lawrence called him “the kindest man on earth”.
Through Hueffer, Lawrence dined with literary luminaries – Hilaire Belloc, GK Chesterton,. HG Wells telling Lady Londonderry’s table “Hooray, Fordie’s discovered another genius! Called DH Lawrence!”. This label “genius” was meant to “console me for not having their incomparable advantages”, Lawrence felt. But he thought Hueffer a genius, too!
At a poet’s supper party in Hampstead, where WB Yeats recited while Ezra Pound devoured red tulips, Lawrence took his turn to perform. Sitting with his back to them all, he delivered his poems softly, expressively, for fully half an hour, before being asked to pause. Later he would read “one more”, but Hueffer escorted him out, quoting “Nunc, nunc dimittis”, Simeon’s “lettest thou thy servant depart in peace”.
Hueffer’s father was German. Germany was his “beloved country”. He knew the Kaiser – “my august sovereign”. But, just as British royals went from Saxecoberg-gothe to Windsor in 1917, Hueffer became Ford Madox Ford in 1915 – now “a patriotic English gentleman”. He assisted good friend CFG Masterman, Minister of Information, Director of Propaganda, by investigating the Lawrences in Greatham, reporting they were pro-german – to their great disadvantage.
Ford even enlisted – getting gassed and shell-shocked.
■■100 years ago, on May 17, 1921, Lawrence’s letters urge Robert Mountsier to “bring cigarettes”. And bring sister Ada – “to relieve me of my duty to go to England”. She’s “Mrs LA Clarke, Grosvenor Rd, Ripley”. It’s “full in the Nottderby coalfield. You might do an article on the strike if you like”. They’ve “a tailoring business – and shop”. Might “pick you up... in Nottingham”. Bring “velour cloth” from Marshall and Snellgrove or Liberty, and “silk for lining”, for Frieda’s coat. two pairs “cotton drawers” for me. If these requests “bore you horribly, don’t bother... just come straight here”.
He tells Marie Hubrecht Germany has a “sense of vacancy, life-emptiness”.