15th January, 1946
Mr. Dawsey Adams
Les Vauxlarens
La Bouvee
St. Martin’s, Guernsey
Dear Mr. Adams,
I no longer live on Oakley Street, but I’m so glad that your letter found me and that my book found you. It was a sad wrench to part with the
I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.
Because there is nothing I would rather do than rummage through bookshops, I went at once to Hastings & Sons upon receiving your letter. I have gone to them for years, always finding the one book I wanted—and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted. I told Mr. Hastings you would like a good, clean copy (and
In the meantime, will you accept this small gift from me? It is his
I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a consumption and my religion getting faint.” You’ll find that in the
While there, Lamb helped Hunt paint the ceiling of his cell sky blue with white clouds. Next they painted a rose trellis up one wall. Then, I further discovered, Lamb offered money to help Hunt’s family outside the prison—though he himself was as poor as a man could be. Lamb also taught Hunt’s youngest daughter to say the Lord’s Prayer backward. You naturally want to learn everything you can about a man like that.
That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive—all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.
The red stain on the cover that looks like blood—is blood. I got careless with my paper knife. The enclosed postcard is a reproduction of a painting of Lamb by his friend William Hazlitt.
If you have time to correspond with me, could you answer several questions? Three, in fact. Why did a roast pig dinner have to be kept a secret? How could a pig cause you to begin a literary society? And, most pressing of all, what is a potato peel pie—and why is it included in your society’s name?
I have sub-let a flat at 23 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London S.W.3. My Oakley Street flat was bombed in 1945 and I still miss it. Oakley Street was wonderful—I could see the Thames out of three of my windows. I know that I am fortunate to have any place at all to live in London, but I much prefer whining to counting my blessings. I am glad you thought of me to do your
Yours sincerely,
Juliet Ashton
P.S. I never could make up my mind about Moses—it still bothers me.
From Juliet to Sidney
18th January, 1946
Dear Sidney,
This isn’t a letter: it’s an apology. Please forgive my moaning about the teas and luncheons you set up for
Bath is a glorious town: lovely crescents of white, upstanding houses instead of London’s black, gloomy buildings or—worse still—piles of rubble that were once buildings. It is bliss to breathe in clean, fresh air with no coal smoke and no dust. The weather is cold, but it isn’t London’s dank chill. Even the people on the street look different—upstanding, like their houses, not grey and hunched like Londoners.
Susan said the guests at Abbot’s book tea enjoyed themselves immensely—and I know I did. I was able to un- stick my tongue from the roof of my mouth after the first two minutes and began to have quite a good time.
Susan and I are off tomorrow for bookshops in Colchester, Norwich, King’s Lynn, Bradford, and Leeds.
Love and thanks,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sidney
21st January, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Night-time train travel is wonderful again! No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no black-out curtains. All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt as if we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I don’t consider myself a real peeper—they go in for bedrooms, but it’s families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions.
There was a nasty, condescending man in Tillman’s bookshop today. After my talk about