In another life, D.H. Lawrence could have worked for Thomas Cook...
It’s that time of year when Lawrence comes down from the mountain, fills up his travel trunks, and heads south to warmer climes. He takes on the role of travel agent with Dorothy Brett, sharing information on connections from Chicago to New York, the merits of first and second class travel, the time it takes to get to Naples, useful banks, acquiring a permit to sail and when to buy a visa. In another life, Lawrence could have worked for Thomas Cook.
He recognizes there are sacrifices to moving continents, not least saying goodbye to his beloved animals, and the psychological challenge that awaits him as ‘one leaves off living when one gets inside a city’ but is insistent he wants ‘to get to sea’.
Once aboard the S.S. Resolute he complains the Atlantic is an ‘unsympathetic ocean’ as ‘one never sees so much as a friendly fish.’ Uncharacteristically, he complains how much he hates these ‘beastly journeys’ and that he is going to stop this ‘continual shifting.’ We’ll see…
These video essays are based on the letters of D.H. Lawrence one hundred years ago and are published monthly as part of the D.H. Lawrence Memory Theatre project.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1922, click here, from 1923, click here, from 1924, click here, from 1925, click here.
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