The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 2, 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright by Dorothy L. Sayers
I’m not sure when next I shall be in Town. I’m dashing about the country rather a lot these next few months, but I’d very much like to see you, and I’ll let you know next time I can manage to be up on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
Please remember me very kindly to Mr. Fenn and Mr. Williams.
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 Talk given on 17 September at 8 p.m. at the Senior School in Hayward’s Heath. It was the 4th and last in a series entitled “A Christian New Order”. It was acclaimed as a “profound and brilliantly reasoned discourse” (The Mid-Sussex Times, 23 September 1941).
2 A revelation or manifestation of God, such as occurred at the baptism of Jesus.
3 Matthew, chapter 4, verse 15, relating the baptism of Jesus: And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. In The Man Born to be King, “The King’s Herald”, scene 1, Jesus says: “Do as I ask you now, John. It’s right to begin this way, like everybody else.”
4 Charles Lamb (1775–1834), essayist and poet.
5 R. A. Edwards, The Upper Room (London, Methuen, 1941).
6 Dr Welch had pointed out that oxen were urged on by a goad, not a whip. Cf. D. L. S.’ reference to this, The Man Born to be King, Introduction (Gollancz, p. 26): “It is doubtless true, as somebody pointed out, that a yoke of oxen would be driven, not with a whip but with a goad; but the lash of a whip can be heard on the air, whereas it is useless to ask the studio-effects-man to stand by making a noise like an ox-goad.”
7 “A Certain Nobleman”.
8 Eching the current reply to any request: “I suppose you know there’s a war on!”
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO THE REV. NEVILLE GORTON1
24 September 1941
Dear Mr. Gorton,
Many thanks for your letter and your two very interesting memoranda. I don’t know that I can do anything very direct to help on the good work – frankly, this “religious” business is already taking up so much time and energy in the way of making speeches, writing letters, and attending conferences that I am seriously hampered in my proper job of writing books and prevented from earning my living. But I will bear your activities in mind when a proper context occurs for making use of them.
As to your main point: I am well aware of the astonishing lack of any good theological literature for the layman. I am continually being asked for “a book which will tell me what Christian dogma is” – and, surprisingly enough, when one thinks of the British Museum shelves bending under the weight of theological volumes, I am obliged to say that there is no such thing. Everything one can think of is either (1) devotional (2) apologetic or (3) liturgical-ecclesiastical; moreover, one cannot seem to get the whole doctrine in one book, but only separate works on Christology, or Creation-doctrine, or the Trinity, or Sacraments or what not. I keep on complaining about this.
I believe that Messrs. Methuen are seriously interested in doing something along the lines you indicate for the use of Upper Forms, and that R. A. Edwards2 is a leading spirit in the venture. If you are not already in touch with him about it, it might be worth while to get on to him, or to Mr. E. V. Rieu3 of Methuen’s, who is dealing with the scheme. Of course, all publication is very difficult at the moment, owing to labour, paper, and pasteboard shortage.
As regards agreement about doctrine. I think it would be well if those who can agree on a basis should make a public statement4 about it. I mean, about doctrine, and not about “religion” or “Christian ethics”. Judging by my own experience in the last year or so, the “Christian” laity (and indeed the clerisy also) arc quite plainly and simply divided into two camps:
1. Those who believe that Jesus is fully God.
2. Those who do not, but hold Him to be a teacher of ethics, “divine” only in a Unitarian, Arian, or Adoptionist5 sense.
Between these two groups it seems almost impossible to patch up any real common platform, since the surface agreement will crack the moment any pressure is applied. As one correspondent has put it, the word “Christian” with its “implied theology” is [not] really applicable to Group Two, who might better be called “Jesuists”.
In my own popular talks and pamphlets I have settled down to a line which seems reasonably satisfactory in practice. I make no attempt to conciliate the “Jesuists”, but stick to what may be roughly called an “oecumenical and Catholic” interpretation of the Creeds. That is, I try to offer a doctrine that would be acceptable to the three “Catholic” branches of the Church: Roman, Greek-Orthodox, and Anglican. Differences of doctrine between these bodies I try not to discuss at all. considering that if the average ignorant reader or listener can get as far as grasping the main outlines of Christian doctrine common to those three communions, he will then be in a position to hammer out the details for himself. In practice, as I say, this kind of thing appears to be well received, not only by the bodies in question, but also by a great number of people in the Free Churches.
As far as the intelligent but uninstructed laity are concerned, I find they complain of vagueness in all the manifestoes, schemes, syllabuses, and suggestions put forward about “religious education”. A personal friend of my own,6 who has had to do with school and university education all her life, said to me the other day (à propos of the recent correspondence in The Times): “What I want to know, and what nobody tells me, is this: What do you suggest that children should be taught? Is there any ascertainable set of Christian dogmas that they could be instructed in? Can you formulate anything definite beyond ‘Bible history’ and ‘Christian morals’?” I replied in the sense of the preceding paragraph, saying that I proposed (or should propose if asked) that children should be taught (in addition, of course, to the actual New Testament text) the dogmas contained or implied in the Nicene Creed, and should be made to understand that this was, in fact, the corpus of Christian theology, so that when they became adult, they could accept or reject it, but not until they had learnt what it actually was. She replied that this proposal satisfied her perfectly; but added that, although brought up as a “Christian” she had never had the Creed expounded to her, did not know what its clauses implied, and had never heard from any pulpit a unified exposition of Christian doctrine as a coherent philosophy. She said further that the haphazard and unconvincing way in which Christianity was commonly set forth in pulpits seemed to her completely contemptible, and the sort of thing that would not be countenanced in any secular lecture-room.
She may be an exaggerated case; even so, it seems surprising and regrettable that a well-educated woman of forty-five, whose work has been chiefly concerned with English literature (so strongly influenced by Christian thought) should have grown up so wholly unaware of the Creeds, or of the general structure of Christian philosophy.
One great trouble, as you say, is the late-nineteenth-century-science outlook. I have come to the conclusion that the majority of people who are in a position to influence the organisation of “Christian education” are middle-aged or elderly people out of touch with youth. A master at one of our greatest public schools7 writes to me of his young men: “Christian ethics without dogma leaves them, I am glad to say, stone-cold; but they will take dogma with both hands and ask for more”. But the influential people who write to The Times are still saying, “Youth does not want dogma; it just wants the spirit of love”. Which isn’t true; and in any case, how the blazes do they propose to embody the spirit of love in a school syllabus? It is useless to go on saying that general uplift and nice religious feeling plus science will draw the world together in concord – we’ve tried that for a couple of centuries, and just look at the world!
I know next to nothing about the present position in State-aided schools, except that it seems to satisfy nobody. But it seems clear to me that, in schools generally speaking, there can be no intelligent teaching of Christian doctrine unless the s
(a) members of the school staff who are qualified both by professional training and personal conviction to teach it,
or
(b) by outside teachers (e.g. priests, ministers etc.) who are allowed to enter the school and freely teach the doctrine of their communion, and who are also professionally qualified to be teachers.
At present we seem to have either teachers who know nothing about doctrine or dogmatists who know nothing about teaching – a state of things that would scarcely be permitted in any subject that was considered serious, such as trigonometry or woodwork.
As regards books, we are in much the same difficulty. The people who are up-to-date in their theology can’t write English, and the people who can write English are either untheological or have only a sketchy impression of nineteenth-century liberal-humanist ethics mixed up with a lot of outmoded “higher criticism” – in fact their “outline” of Christian theology is like that of Mr. Mantalini’s admirers: “The two countesses had no outlines at all, and the dowager’s was a demmed outline”.8 Or as Fr. V. A. Demant9 put it: “The people who can think can’t write, and the people who can write can’t think”.
Anyway, I like your memoranda, which contain some good pungent paragraphs that I shall take every opportunity of thrusting under the noses of the clergy, and of anybody to whom I think they may do good.
Yours sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
P.S. One small personal bleat: in official memoranda, will you favour my fancy for having my name given as it invariably appears on my title-pages and in official signatures – with the “L” in it? I have a “thing” about “Dorothy Sayers” and never use that form. I don’t mind “Sayers” by itself!
1 Headmaster of Blundell’s School, 1934–1943, later Bishop of Coventry.
2 See letter to James Welch, 17 September 1941, note 3.
3 Later editor of Penguin Classics.
4 D. L. S. discussed the matter more fully in her letter dated 28 November 1941, q.v. She had conceived the idea of a symposium, to be entitled “The Oecumenical Penguin”, to which she was willing to contribute, though anonymously. (See Giles Watson, Catholicism in Anglican Culture and Theology: Responses to Crisis in England: 1937–1949, Ph.D. Thesis, Department of History, Australian National University, especially chapter 8, “The Oecumenical Penguin: Dorothy L. Sayers and the popularisation of Christian dogma”.) The project failed to materialize.
5 Adoptionist: one of a sect who believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God by adoption only.
6 Possibly Marjorie Barber.
7 Eton College. See letter to J. D. Upcott, 1 September 1941.
8 Charles Dickens, Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, chapter 34: Mr Mantalini to Ralph Nickleby. Instead of “demmed”, Dickens prints “demd”.
9 See letter to the Rev. V. A. Demant, 4 April 1941, note.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO THE REV. DR JAMES WELCH
24 September 1941
Dear Dr. Welch,
Here is the Third Play – “A Certain Nobleman”.
As you will see, I have taken one or two liberties with the material, so as to episodes neatly together:
1. (Following the Archbishop of York)1 I have supposed that Mary has something to do with the household arrangement at Cana, as this obviously makes her interference in the matter of the wine much more convincing, and also gives an opportunity for introducing her account of the Finding in the Temple, and for linking that first “rebuke” with the “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” in a reasonably intelligent manner (I have put a line or two about this in the “Note on the Characters”).2
2. I have made the “certain nobleman” of Capernaum a guest at the wedding, implying that the Bride was a native of Capernaum and that the Bridegroom was fetching her from Capernaum to Cana. The “nobleman” would be invited as one of the Bride’s party. This links up the two miracles of the wine and the healing to the same set of characters, and prevents an unnecessarily congested cast, besides explaining how the nobleman came to hear about the Cana affair. The two places are not far apart, so the thing appears quite plausible.
3. I have inserted a bit out of the Sermon on the Mount into Scene Two. You will realise that it won’t be possible to put the whole sermon into one play; and I believe many commentators think that the “Sermon” is to some extent an artificial collection of scattered sayings. The exhortation to faith in God seems to fit in pretty well with the general atmosphere of this play; and the bit of wayside talk allows the Disciples to be kept before the mind of the listener, and to display themselves at one of those less-inspired moments which seem to have been very frequent with them. They too, in their way, like Mary, are coming up against the human and practical results of divine missions.
4. Similarly, I have inserted the Parable of the Virgins into the Wedding Feast. It was dramatically unconvincing for Jesus to sit though the party without uttering, except to perform a miracle; so I had to choose between letting Him give one of the recorded discourses or parables, and inventing conversation for Him. The former seemed the better way, and the Virgins fitted in reasonably well, and offered something that the servants could apply to the business of the wine. I see no reason to doubt that Jesus like other Oriental preachers (indeed, most preachers!) frequently repeated the same parable. If he did, this would account for the Evangelists having been able to remember and record them, for the occasional variations in what looks like the same story (e.g. the King’s Marriage and the Great Supper, or The Talents and the Pounds) and for the reappearance of the same story in different contexts in different Gospels.
5. You will notice that I have followed St. John for the date of the Cleansing of the Temple, for reasons which seem good to the Archbishop of York3 and to me! St. John is the only Evangelist with a really careful chronology, and he is so convincingly right about most practical details that he may very well be right about this. Again, I have expanded the speech of Jesus in the Temple, and for the same reason as at the Wedding. When one has to rely only on the car and not on the eye, it is not impressive for an important character to come on suddenly and say only one sentence – it doesn’t carry enough weight to “get over”. I have therefore made Him recite the passage from Malachi to which the remark about “the house of prayer” seems to refer (see Hoskyns4 in The Fourth Gospel) and have put the remark itself into His conversation with “the Jews”; leaving it to Simon to make explicit the reference to “the zeal of Thy house” which (says St. John) the Disciples “remembered” in this connection.
I hope you will not object to these tamperings with the text.
For the Temple Scene I have tried a technique of “running commentary”, with the actual scene faded into the narration. I hope this will work all right. To set an entirely new scene for it would have been very elaborate, and also very jerky. Done this way, it is made part of the “Nobleman” story instead of being disconnected – and it also helps the nobleman to get an idea of the new Prophet’s importance.
Forgive my boring you with all these technical details and explanations. I don’t want you to think that I am carving the text about irresponsibly or carelessly. Nearly always, these things come down to some question of dramatic structure or “theatre” presentation – the difference between the thing narrated and the thing shown. What I am trying to do is to make of the series as a whole, and of each item in the series, something that shall have the quality of a play, and not simply of a Scripture lesson illustrated by snatches of dialogue. That is why I have reduced the interventions of “The Evangelist” to the minimum (altering the Bible phrases here and there to provide extra information), and have cut out altogether the “B.B.C. Narrator” giving historical, geographical and moral instruction. This way of doing it demands a bit more alertness from the listener, to pick up the necessary data from the dialogue; but I think it is worth it, because
I do hope the treatment of Mary will not violently offend either the “Mariolaters” or the circles in which “Christian hateth Mary whom God kissed in Galilee”. The position adopted by the Romans and “spikes”5 when they present a Mary so divine that she apparently knows more about the Incarnation than her Son seems oddly inconsistent with the fact that she only appears in the Gospels three times between Bethlehem and Calvary, and each time to suffer rebuke; on the other hand, a Mary so utterly unaware of her Son’s true nature as she is represented (I understand) in that American play, Family Portrait,6 is irreconcilable with the Annunciation and Magnificat stories, and deeply offensive to Catholic minds. I have tried to strike a reasonable mean on the “highest human” level. The superhuman Mary is painfully undramatic – being, in fact, completely static; no character in a play can be made effective unless it experiences something in the course of the action. I shall be interested to know how this part of the play strikes your committee of all denominations – or nearly all, for the See of Peter is not represented – perhaps fortunately!
With much gratitude for all your encouragement,