My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyHe showed me one day two drawings, of Stafford Cripps and of myself, and wasdispleased when I commented: 'The governess and the gorilla'. Apparently it was fatalto befriend him, for his savage satire, The Apes of God, was full of characters whowere mutual friends and who I knew had done him some kindness.Roy Campbell was an altogether more robust character, full of he-man postures,bronco-busting and similar exploits; a type which I usually rather suspect, but much inhim was genuine. These gifted men will undoubtedly get the recognition they deservewhen their opinions cease to be unpopular. How contemptible it is to denounce anywork of art on account of the artist's political beliefs, and how often has history heldup the mirror of ridicule to the perpetrators of this philistine absurdity. Ezra Pound Imet when I was just forty, and found him exactly the opposite of what I expectedfrom the abstruse genius of his poetry, which has so enthralled the younger generationof the present period. He appeared as a vivacious, bustling and practical person,making the shrewd observation that Englishmen of my class never grew up until theywere forty. I never met D. H. Lawrence, who is sometimes said to have an occasionalaffinity in his writing with my political action. Neither did I meet nor have anycommunication with T. E. Lawrence, despite many later rumours to the contrary. Twodistinguished writers, my great friend Henry Williamson and another friend RichardAldington, took diametrically opposed views of this enigmatic character. I do notreally feel qualified to express an opinion as I knew nothing of him apart from readingthe Seven Pillars of Wisdom.H. G. Wells seemed to me essentially a translator of science to a large public, a storytellerrather than a thinker, but some of his stories reveal a sense of beauty which wasnot evident in meeting him, except possibly in his curiously veiled eyes. We missedeach other in discussion, as at our first meeting we joined in playing his childish butmost enjoyable ball game in his house near Easton Lodge, and on the second I wasengaged in the equally youthful but necessary occupation of listening to marchingsongs for the new movement. Chance, or our obstinacy in our oddities, deprived us ofany intellectual contact. I did not seek to go further with him because from myinformation on his previous interventions in politics he appeared as a colleague to beas full of complexes as a hedgehog of prickles. He detested other literary figures likeShaw whom I admired, and anyone who physically was an entirely different type tohimself; some hefty lad in the local rugger fifteen must have lifted one of his ladyfriendsduring his shop-assistant days in one of the sexual encounters with which hewas unduly preoccupied.Shaw, by contrast, combined the highest flights of intellect with a noble character; hewas devoid of all small, mean qualities. If he had a fault, it was the really exaggeratedmodesty which underlay a public posture of the opposite extreme. He was afraid ofbeing laughed at, and when there was any risk of this, always resolved to get the laughin first. Great men of action, on the other hand, never mind on occasion beingridiculous; in a sense it is part of their job, and at times they all are. A prophet or anachiever must never mind an occasional absurdity, it is an occupational risk. EvenShaw's warmest admirers must admit that all those defence mechanisms of involvedparadox sometimes amounted to sheer silliness, which he sought at all costs to avoid.The origin seems partly timidity and partly—despite his innate kindness andcompassion —an underlying contempt for his audience. The man who worshipped theadult mind felt that he must play down to the children. It was both a weakness and an190 of 424