PORTRAIT OF T. E. LAWRENCE
By Vyvyan Richards
The impression one gets from reading this latest book (Cape, 8s. 6d.) on T. E. Lawrence is that Mr. Vyvyan Richards is ' rather concerned to defend his friend against the real and imaginary criticisms of his' detractors than to paint a positive portrait. It seems hastily written, as if Mr. Richards had sensed a coming reaction to the present estimate of Lawrence's genius, character and -achievement, and rushed. to -turn the - stream against Lawrence of Arabia to save Lawrence of the Seven Pillars-:-whorn he Considers much more important. He sees the Arabian adventure as incidental to the book—the most important aspect of which is, he claims, Lawrence's revelation of himself. Mr. Richards considers that revelation valuable because (as he says in his introduction) Lawrence - "-is the representative of an individualist-age ; treectanct of the • personal spirit, of each individual person, even the humblest, - a ' hand' on an aerodrOme, a lorry-driver on the roads, a I3edouin Arab—in that cause he heard the :voice that inspired him." The common idea of Lawrence as a sort of knightly , Mystic born out of his time and finally retiring into monkish solitude is here contradicted, and Lawrence the modern set up in-his place. SO he nullifies' the attack On Lwrence as ei romantic. Similarly he meets the criticisms against Lawrence ' as an artist. " For the book was the thing ; not as the work of art he hoped it would be—and realised at last it was not—but as something greater, the vivid record of a mind supremely modern." Mr. Richards was an intimate friend of Lawrence from his Oxford days to the end, and his views deserve reading . with tespeet. 'He kr In fueWprobilbl,y;right.7--
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