Note by JRW: The following is an extract from a handwritten letter by Myatt, addressed to me. He dated it The First Week of April.


 

Early cloud has given way to warm April Sun, and I sit, having eaten my lunch, resting beside a hedge coming into blackthorn bloom, with a view of the wooded hill beyond, the morning's work done. 

There is, of course, peace here, while the warm Sun lasts and there is some physical tiredness from the hours of physical work, and the very early, Dawn, start. But there is also not only an undercurrent of sad loneliness - for she whom I love has gone, to another - but also an intimation of the past when action, violence, in the world to change the world, brought that exhilaration which true, honourable, warriors know and often seek and which is an end to such loneliness.....

So, to be honest, there is temptation, even here, amid this quiet rural splendour: the temptation to be again what I was when action, a goal, a seeking, an assignment, made me a harmony of body, mind, soul, and life became suffused with a glory redolent of the gods because life was lived on a different, higher, level. There were then no obstacles that could not be overcome; no doubts; not even any self-reflexion.

Is this, then, just one of those periods in my life - of months, maybe a year - when I quietly drift, suffused with the numen, before returning to that other world, of duty, of exploration, of challenges, where lives the honourable warrior? I do not believe it is one of these periods, but I could be wrong; I have been wrong in the past.

It was not always some woman - rather than my quest, my sense of duty - which propelled me to explore, to act, to change my way of life, to seek out new challenges, new adventures. But sometimes it was a woman: or rather, a particular type of woman, such as she, now lost to another. Such an exquisite passion between us; such a sharing, without words; such a sense of quiet belonging in her presence, as if she, often without knowing it, is some natural force of Nature, completing me, us. Such women - betraying their nature in their beautiful eyes, in their, often sexually ecstatic, passion for life - with their loss creating a vortex in my very soul. How were they lost? In my case mostly from my own mistakes, my own stupidity; my own selfishness; but in one case, through her untimely death.

Thus am I all too human: for even knowing all this does not significantly change how I feel, how I was, am, affected by such a woman. But this all seems rather self-indulgent, given the weather, the world beyond.....

Shall I then, instead - and against one of my own resolutions - write about the current war, raging in a part of the world I know, and against a people whose culture I respect? Shall I wrote of the dishonour that this war is? Of the government who are indulging, like bullies, in modern warfare against a much weaker enemy whose defensive capabilities they have spent over then years destroying so that when their planned war finally started they knew their enemy could barely defend themselves? Of a government, in its utter hypocrisy, that whined about the hunting of foxes being cruel and barbaric and yet has sanctioned a war which has so far killed thousands of people?

Shall I then write about how their is no honour in this war for the so-called allied coalition troops, which troops are doing the dirty work for the arrogant hypocrites who want to impose a certain way of life, a government of occupation, upon a cultured people because these hypocrites in their hubris believe that such a way is "right" - or more correctly, necessary, for their nefarious purposes - and must therefore be imposed, by force of arms, upon a people?

No, I shall not write about such things. There is no need. Rather, I should write about the numen, about how the acausal will balance things, again, as it always does. For there is a higher perspective - the longer-term view - which I sense, and to a certain extent know. In this particular conflict, the allies will have their victory, but it will be a temporary one, as the victories of occupying powers always are. Thirty, fifty, a hundred, years on, things will be very different. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people will have suffered, and died. The centuries will balance things out, so long as honour, reason, and empathy exist; and the real sadness is that this truth of balance - while evident if one thinks rationally, learns from history and possesses empathy - has not been acted upon, and probably will not be acted upon in the near future. People, especially those with power or seeking power, will continue to be insolent, continue to commit hubris, continue to be dishonourable, and continue to cause suffering. Governments, occupying powers, Empires, tyrants, conquerors, nefarious cabals, military victories, even religions, come and go; sometimes a few monuments remain, sometimes a few stories, of past glories, or defeats. A lot will happen in a hundred years; even more in a thousand years. Through it all Nature will endure, as She has done for tens of thousands of years  - the Sun will still rise and descend each day, baring some cosmic event, just as the Seasons in this temperate land will come and go. There will be the view of the stars, on cloudless nights; the clouds that form to bring a life-giving rain; the rivers that flow to the seas; glorious Spring days of warm Sun..... Through it all - through all the disputes, the Empires, governments, military campaigns - ordinary, honourable, people will endure, and laugh and cry, and raise their children as best they can, and get on with their toil, their work to provide food, clothing, shelter, for themselves, perhaps cultivating the land, as they have done for thousands of years. These things will be, as they have been - that is, if we do not in our stupidity end up killing Nature. Already, we are harming Her, hurting Her and Her children.

I find it very sad that we are still squabbling among ourselves, like petulant children, about irrelevant things. Instead, we should be using our resources to explore, and move outward, from this planet. Maybe one day...

We who know - or believe we know - can only sigh, and continue in our slow, calm, non-angry way to present a numinous, rational, honourable, empathic alternative that does not involve contributing to the dishonour, the unreason, the suffering, that afflicts us.

So it is that I will continue to sit here for a while at least, notebook resting upon my knee, feeling, knowing, the beauty of Nature, and possessing a certain inner calm, despite my sadness of having lost - again - a woman whom I loved.

And there is this glorious Spring weather to make me smile.

 

DW Myatt