somewhereinmalta reblogged
“I wanted to read your long novel, and was afraid to. It was like your last keep, I felt: and if I read it I had you: and supposing I hadn’t liked it? I’m so funnily made up, sensually. At present you are in all respects right, in my eyes: that’s because you reserve so very much, as I do. If you knew all about me (perhaps you do: your subtlety is very great: shall I put it ‘if I knew that you knew…’?) you’d think very little of me. And I wouldn’t like to feel that I was on the way to being able to know about you. However perhaps the unpublished novel isn’t all that. You may have kept ever so much out of it. Everywhere else you write far within your strength.”
— T. E. Lawrence, letter to E. M. Forster, Karachi, 8 Sep 1927 [X]
#t.e. lawrence#e.m. forster#letters#sexuality#queer history#i wanted to read your long novel and was afraid to#however perhaps the unpublished novel isn’t all that#i very much like his way of writing#this paragraph is a masterpiece of subtlety#there's so much left unwritten#like a coded message written from an occupied country