To Dorothy Plowman
To Dorothy Plowman
"It is hard to make much more than a living nowadays."
20 June 1941
111 Langford Court Abbey Road London NW8
Dear Dorothy,1
I can’t say much about Max’s death. You know how it is, the seeming uselessness of trying to offer any consolation when somebody is dead. My chief sorrow is that he should have died while this beastly war is still going on. I had not seem him for nearly two years, I deeply disagreed with him over the issue of pacifism, but though I am sorry about that you will perhaps understand when I say that I feel that at bottom it didn’t matter. I always felt that with Max the most fundamental disagreement didn’t alter one’s personal relationship in any way, not only because he was incapable of any pettiness but also because one never seems able to feel any resentment against an opinion which is sincerely held. I felt that though Max and I held different opinions on nearly all specific subjects, there was a sense in which I could agree with his vision of life. I was very fond of him, and he was always very good to me. If I remember rightly, he was the first English editor to print any writing of mine, twelve years ago or more.
There is still the £300 which I borrowed through you from my anonymous benefactor.2 I hope this doesn’t embarrass you personally in any way. I can’t possibly repay it at this moment, though I hope you understand that I haven’t abandoned the intention of doing so. It is hard to make much more than a living nowadays. One can’t write books with this nightmare going on, and though I can get plenty of journalistic and broadcasting work, it is rather a hand-to-mouth existence. We have been in London almost from the outbreak of the war. We have kept on our cottage, but we let it furnished and only manage to go down there very occasionally. For more than a year Eileen was working in the Censorship Department, but I have induced her to drop it for a while, as it was upsetting her health. She is going to have a good rest and then perhaps get some less futile and exasperating work to do. I can’t join the army because I am medically graded as class D, but I am in the Home Guard (a sargeant!) […]
Eileen sends her best love. Please remember me also to Piers and everyone. I gather from your card that Piers is now in England. I hope you succeed in keeping him out of danger. This is a rotten time to be alive, but I think anyone of Piers’s age has a chance of seeing something better.
Yours
Eric Blair
First published, including footnotes, in The Complete Works of George Orwell (Vol. XII), edited by Peter Davison with assistance from Ian Angus and Sheila Davison. “George Orwell” was Eric Blair’s pen name.
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Dorothy Plowman (1887-1967) was the widow of Max Plowman, who had encouraged Orwell in his early writing and was one of the first publishers to publish him. He and his wife had been friends of Orwell since 1930.
This was the novelist L. H. Meyers. An admirer of Orwell’s work, he met Orwell with Max and Dorothy Plowman in the Sanatorium at Aylesford in 1939. Realising that Orwell needed to recuperate in a warm climate, he lent him, anonymously, £300 through Dorothy Plowman. Orwell always regarded this as a loan and as late as 1946 was still unaware of the source of the money.
I like “For more than a year Eileen was working in the Censorship Department, but I have induced her to drop it for a while, as it was upsetting her health. She is going to have a good rest and then perhaps get some less futile and exasperating work to do.”