T H E S I S

77
lies, navels, and breasts* (It has been said that Lawrence put
the loins into literature*)
Even the physical man in The White PeacockT Annable, is not
so frank as Mellors, His account of his first sexual encounter
with Lady Crystabel, before they got married, is vague and hazy:
”**« we played a sort of hide and seek with the party. They
thought we’d gone, and they went and locked the door* Then
she pretended to be frightened and clung to me,•and said
what would they think, and hid her face in my coat* I took
her and kissed her, and we made it up properly«"(TOP 1?6)
This passage is followed by that one paragraph already quoted on
page 37 which substituted for the real passage censored by the
editor* So the sexual relationships between Annable and Lady
Crystabel are obscure because of Lawrence’s disguised style*
Of course, sometimes in LCL a passage becomes controversial and
obscure too because of his bold choice of language* For instance,
in Mellors' language, he feels it necessary to use a common person’s
level of speech* However, some critics think that Mellors’
broad dialect is dispensable* I think that Lawrence uses the dialect
to reinforce Mellors* tenderness on one hand, and on the o~
ther hand the class distinction* He uses the dialect when he
speaks of sex and tenderness to Connie or when he argues with
Hilda, Connie’s conceited sisters
” ’lot a ’ that far, I assure you. I’ve got my own sort o’
continuity, back your life. Good as yours, any day. An’ if
your sister there comes ter me for a bit o’ cunt an* tenderness,
she knows what she’s after. She’s been in ray bed
afore: which you ’aven’t, thank the Lord, with your continuity*.»
(LCL 256)
Lawrence’s style is so realistic in LCL that he is able to
describe sexual relations without using the four-letter words,