Last Tuesday was the foulest day I ever was out in. I was in Town, having addressed a bunch of clergy in the morning, and spent the afternoon and evening trudging about in a downpour. No taxis – buses crowded and anyhow not going to any of the places I wanted to visit – and one could scarcely even take refuge in a shop, because the streams of water that poured off one’s hat and clothing were an absolute menace to the stock-in-trade. But I was determined to go to the theatre and went – the St. James – no bus goes nearer to it, of course, than Piccadilly! The wretched programme-girls and people had (so the woman in the cloak-room said) all come in soaked, with their shoes and stockings wringing wet and nothing to change into and nowhere to dry themselves. I blessed the chance that had made me put on hand-knitted woolly stockings, which were certainly very hot (the day being muggy) but didn’t let in a drop of water. But one couldn’t wear a sopping coat in the theatre – still less, a drowned fur, which smelt like a wet dog and was acutely embarrassing all day – and there was a draught from the stage the like of which I have seldom encountered! However, I enjoyed the show – The Duke in Darkness7 – good melodrama, with striking performances by Leslie Banks8 and Michael Redgrave, and a lot of Renaissance colour. But an elderly man and woman next me were bored and resentful to the point of antagonism. They made me feel adolescent, as though I really ought to have grown out of my liking for the drama of cloak and sword. I think I’m really rather uncritical in the theatre, ready to take things at their face-value and be pleased with any story the author chooses to tell. Is it weakness of intellect, birdie, I cried?9 – After which, I made my sodden way to the Moulin d’Or,10 had two drinks, and a Hamburger Steak, and chummed up in George’s sanctum with two bobbies. I’d seen them come in, and thought George must have been infringing the food laws; but it appeared that one of the diners had bought a farm somewhere, and was showing his friend a map of the place over dinner; whereupon a woman at the next table had taken it into her head that they were Fifth-columnists discussing war-maps and had rushed out and fetched the police. They were friendly cops, and rather apologised for having come to investigate the mare’s nest, but it was their duty so to do. I replied that no doubt 999 of these scares were all nonsense to attract attention, but the thousandth time there might be something in it, and we might find a traitor clever enough to do the bluff of discussing his plans openly in a public restaurant. They said eagerly that that was just it, madam, and we became very chummy, and debated how many people could be conveniently knocked on the head or thrown off bridges in the black-out with complete impunity, and how greatly war-conditions must add to the work and worries of the police force. By this time, the police had had their drinks (at poor George’s expense, I suppose) and I feared my last bus had gone. So I departed under police escort, hoping for a taxi. They said that, even if there was one, they were unfortunately not allowed to call taxis for the public. I replied that they need only pretend they had arrested me and were hauling me off to custody, and we made merry over this till, happily, the last bus arrived after all and I was carried off, “in lowly pomp” as the hymn puts it.11 I almost think I shall be sorry when “war-conditions” are over: one gets so much simple fun.
Bless you, dearie, and all the best,
Dorothy
I didn’t know I’d written such a lot of twaddle. Sorry!
1 Dr Welch first put the proposal to her on 5 February 1940. The time is therefore exactly 2 years and 8 months.
2 Mabel Constanduros (1880–1957), comedienne.
3 Henry Ainley (1879–1945). There is an error in the cast list as printed, the name of Henry Ainley being given as playing a Roman guard.
4 See letter to Father Herbert Kelly, 19 October 1937, note 11.
5 Workers’ Educational Association.
6 Play 12, “The King Comes to His Own”, scene 2, sequence 4: the words of Doubting Thomas.
7 By Patrick Hamilton (1904–1962).
8 Leslie Banks (1890–1952).
9 A line from Ko-Ko’s song in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, Act II.
10 A restaurant in Great Newport Street, where D. L. S. had an account and entertained her friends in London.
11 The Palm Sunday hymn beginning “Ride on! ride on in majesty”, stanza 2, line 2: “In lowly pomp ride on to die”. (Words by H. H. Milman.)
“We must make you a prophet to this generation and hand you the microphone to use as often as you feel able”, Dr Welch had written. This the B.B.C. proceeded to do, to D. L. S.’s increasing dismay, as this letter shows.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
[14 December 1942]
TO THE REV. ERIC FENN
Dear Mr. Fenn,
I have just been passionately writing to Dr. Welch that I think it is rather a mistake for me to go on with this business of direct exhortation or instruction in the Christian faith. I am so obviously getting to be considered one of the old gang, whose voice can be heard bleating from every missionary platform; and when that happens the surprise value of the amateur theologian has pretty well disappeared and it is time to make way for the professionals. Also, the theme that “God is Agape”1, is not really my line. Had you said Logos now!
Look! I shall be seeing Dr. Welch shortly after Christmas; may I talk it over with him before deciding? I think he understands my position, which I have already explained to him in another connection. After talking it over with him I may be able to see a little more clearly whether it would, or would not, be a good thing to take part in this particular series.
With kindest remembrances,
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 Agape is a theological term signifying God’s love, as opposed to eros, earthly love.
1943
Responsibilities of fame
Though reluctant to continue speaking in public about Christianity, D. L. S. nevertheless responded generously to individuals who wrote to her in good faith. A great deal of her time and energy was spent in this way.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO THE REV. G. E. WIGRAM1
14 January 1943
Sir,
Four hundred years ago the Church understood her proper relation to the artist and craftsman and their functions, and it was then true that the best architecture, music and plastic art were to be found in the churches.
Today it is not so. The Church of Christ has, generally speaking, lost the allegiance, both of the arts and the sciences. With comparatively few exceptions the men who are taken seriously by their own profession neither work directly for the Church, nor derive inspiration from her Faith; and it is hardly too much to say that the name of Christianity has become identified with artistic frivolity and intellectual dishonesty.
The first Christian duty of a man, as man, is to serve God; his first duty, as a worker, is to serve his work, since this is the only means by which his work can be made to serve God.
You will find the whole question of the finis operis and the finis operantis2 fully discussed in Art and Scholasticism by Jacques Maritain3 – one of the very few regular theologians to understand the theology of art and work.
By “the Church” I mean the whole body of those who profess the Christian faith, and by “the official church” I mean, more particularly, those priests and ministers whose official duty it is to represent her.
Yours faithfully,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 The Rev. Gerrard Edmund Wigram, b. 1898; vicar of Leamington Hastings.
2 Latin: aim or conclusion of the work, of the worker.
3 See letter to Maurice B. Reckitt, 8 May 1941, note 8. Art and Scholasticism was first published in French in 1920; English translation 1927.
[24 Newland Sstreet
Witham
Essex]
TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT BRYAN W. MONAHAN
R.A.A.F. Overseas H.Q.
15 January 1943
> Dear Mr. Monahan,
Thank you for your very interesting letter. The distinction between “work” and “employment”, and the still more vital distinction between creative work (man’s divine occupation) and work for a living (the curse of Adam) are questions with which I dealt in another speech1 – the one mentioned in a footnote to “Why Work?”- so I won’t pursue that matter now, except to say that I quite agree that we have fallen into a verbal confusion, by using “work” and “employment” as though these were synonymous terms. In yet another speech (about to be published as a pamphlet by Methuen under the title “The Other Six Deadly Sins”)2 I have also tried to say something about wasteful production to provide “employment”; and perhaps you will forgive me if I refer you to this to save writing again (and probably worse) what I have already tried to write to the best of my ability.
The one point in your letter about which I should like to raise a query is the statement about the upper limit of production for the fruit of the earth. In a sense we do not know it – yet there are signs that there is a limit and that we are within measurable distance of reaching it. It may be true, for example, that the applications of coal to production have been touched upon: but there is a fixed quantity of coal in the earth and no more, and if we too brutally exploit the source of power we may find ourselves up against a limit of another kind. The same is true of oil – and, in a more alarming way, of the actual fruits of agriculture. If we make ourselves greedy and grasping tyrants of the earth – ravishing and not serving it – it takes its revenge in waste lands, barren soil, flood, drought and dearth. Every time we upset the balance of natural forces by over-cultivation, either of earth, animals or what-not, we seem to come up against some law which sends back to us in famine or disease the catastrophes we tried to avoid. And there seems to be also some compensatory law about the use of machines, by which, the more vigorously we endeavour to eliminate labour, the harder and more desperately we have to work to keep things going. R. K. Barlow’s book, The Discipline of Peace3 is an attempt to examine this state of things. We have got it into our heads that, as a speaker remarked to me the other day at a W.E.A.4 meeting, “the earth is for us to use”, but I think we shall be making a great mistake if we interpret this as meaning that it is there for us to exploit without reverence and without caution. That is to make nature, our fellow-creature, into our slave – and not much better, perhaps, than making slaves of our fellow-men.
Otherwise, as I say, I agree with you. Except that, provided the worker is engaged in his “own” or “proper” work, I don’t see that it matters much whether the employer is public or private. At the moment, the public body of the State seems to be concerning itself almost exclusively with the idea of providing “employment” rather than “work” – and most of our public men are thoroughly confused in their minds between the two meanings of the word “work”. The emphasis on providing paid employment is likely to end either in the establishment of a vast bureaucracy or a population engaged in preparing munitions of war, or both together, as in The House That Hitler Built5 – not a very cheerful prospect!
Yours truly,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 “Work and Vocation”, given at Brighton, 8 March 1941. Published in A Christian Basis for the Post War World, ed. A. E. Baker, S.C.M. Press, May 1942.
2 Published on 11 March 1943.
3 First published 1942; second edition 1971.
4 Workers’ Educational Association
5 By Stephen H. Roberts, published 1937, second edition 1939.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO DR. BRYAN W. MONAHAN
29 January 1943
Dear Dr. Monahan,
Let me say again that with your main contention I heartily agree. The root trouble is that we have come to assess everything in terms of profit and loss in a ledger, losing sight of the real values – even the actual concrete values of men and things, whenever they cannot be reduced to this simple and superficial method of accounting. We have almost lost respect either for men or objects, and therefore waste them regardless. There was an excellent article on the subject in a fairly recent number of The Christian News-Letter, showing clearly the effects of this subjugation to the “profit-rule”, as distinct from the so-called “profit motive”, which was the more striking because it was written by an industrial accountant, who might well be expected to over-estimate, rather than under-estimate, the importance of “book-keeping”.
As to the morality or otherwise of having to “work for a living” I cannot argue. Generally speaking, I think the effect of being given a living without working for it is not too good, either for the man or for such work as he may do without having to live by it. Unless he is possessed by a real passion for his occupation, there is a tendency to amateurishness, whenever the product is not judged by the rule of thumb of the common market. But what is undoubtedly corrupt or wrong is the assessing of the value of work solely by the living it brings in. And one gets a number of old and vicious perversions. There is, for instance, the insistence by some Marxists that unless a worker gets back from the community the full value of the work he does, he is being somehow cheated – which is nonsense, because it leaves out all the incalculables, and reduces the “value” of the work again to something that can be written off in an account-book. And there is the dreadful situation that it has come to be considered a sort of social crime to do any work for nothing, however one may enjoy it, because it is taking somebody else’s living away – an argument which was largely responsible, after the last war, for keeping men idle on the dole, rather than allowing their work to compete with the vested interests and those of the trade unions.
The suggestion that the work of the world could be done by each person about an hour a day has often been put forward, but seems to imply that machine work is all the work there is. How about farming? It will be a long time before, say, lambing ewes will fall in with the scheme – or take kindly to being attended by relays of workers doing an hour at a time. How about sailors and fishermen? How many decent meals can be cooked in one hour? (unless you are going to eat exclusively out of tins, which would not suit me for one). How about the professions? Could a doctor, surgeon, actor, school-master, discharge his obligations so briskly? Or have you, too, insensibly fallen into the way of thinking that nothing is really “work” unless it comes off the assembly-band?
That, of course, might well come to pass in the establishment of a new and vast leisure aristocracy of factory hands, exercising by their numbers a strong tyranny over a new sort of “workers”; but what political and social results this would have, I cannot say.
As regards the “point of attack” – I think it is really necessary somehow to get people to see that an evil is an evil before they can direct their efforts to getting it put right. That work should be, in the words of a great Labour leader,1 “the proper exercise of the creature”, and that this is not the same thing as mere “paid employment” is a truth which, I am sure, one has somehow got to put across to people, whether they are all ready to receive that gospel or not.
Yours very truly,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 Possibly Keir Hardie.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO THE REV. CANON S. M. WINTER1
2 February 1943
Dear Sir,
The trouble is not so much the official teaching of the Church as the practice and general attitude of mind of ecclesiastics and official Church bodies – which in turn influences the general attitude and practice of Christians as such. I said something on this subject at the Malvern Conference2 … and there are also a number of passages in Michael de la Bedoyère’s Christian Crisis3 … which bear on the question – e.g. pp. 144, 147–8. (This book, of course, deals particularly with the Church of Rome, but mutatis mutandis4 what he says holds good for the Churches generally.)
Taking the thing in its
widest aspect, there is, I feel (a) on the negative side a great failure to envisage Christian Truth as the great co-ordinate of all truth (whether in science, art, workmanship or anything else), with an accompanying lack of respect for what is called “the autonomy of technique” in all departments of human activity. With this goes a tendency to separate the ecclesiastical from the secular, and to consider that only to be “Christian” art, science, work etc which is specifically directed to Christian apologetic as an extrinsic end, rather than co-ordinated by Truth-to-itself as a principle of inner unity. To exclude the latter from “Christianity” amounts to a tacit denial that all truth is in Christ, so far as it goes. (b) On the positive side, there is the direct encouragement by the Church of much that is false to itself (as science, art, workmanship etc), on the ground that it is morally edifying. This attitude, which is only the (a) attitude turned inside-out, as it were, is largely responsible for the current impression that Christendom, as a body, is artistically imbecile and intellectually corrupt – an impression which is naturally reflected upon Christianity as a philosophy.
The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers Vol II: 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright Page 49
