I can imagine going to the middle of the Pacific, to die. LAWRENCE, D.H. Autograph letter signed (‘D.H.L.’) to Adele Seltzer, wife of his American publisher, written from the edge of the Pacific. 9 October [1923]. Two pages, octavo, autograph envelope, Hotel de France Mazatlan [on the Mexican west coast] Adele Seltzer’s husband Thomas had for a time been Lawrence’s exclusive American publisher. ‘The Seltzers almost worshipped Lawrence. Thomas would not let his wife touch Lawrence’s letters without washing her hands. Adele thought Lawrence was “Chaucer, Piers Ploughman, John Bunyan, Fielding, Shakespeare, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche rolled into one, modernized and added to”’ (Keith Sagar, The Life of D.H.Lawrence, p.149). In return for her adoration, Adele was the recipient of this remarkable letter: Poor Adele! Can you imagine how the sun blazes here! That whole vast Pacific blazes back a light that is almost unearthly and quite inhuman. There is a certain fascination also about the place. It’s very like the South Sea Isles in quality: as remote & soft and sensuous. No money here. And Cocoa-nut palms like snakes on end. But good cocos to drink. And a green bay with tropical [33]
huts & natives very like islanders, soft dark, some almost black, & handsome. That Pacific blue-black in the eyes & hair, fathomless and timeless. They don’t know the meaning of time. And they can’t care. All the walls and nooks of our time-enclosure are down for them. Their eternity is so vast, they can’t care at all. Their blue-black eyes. I have learnt something from them. The vastness of Pacific time, unhistoried, undivided. I can imagine going to the middle of the Pacific, to die. £3,000