Seven Pillars Of Wisdom: A Triumph, T. E. Lawrence, First Anchor Books Edition, c. July 199

For some time, off and on, I have wanted to read, or at least see if I wanted to read, T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It should have been easy to find, but for some reason I never ran across it. I probably wasn't looking too hard. Then, while looking for the new (2013) biography of T. E. Lawrence I spotted the soft cover book on the shelves of the South Lake, Texas, public library.

I found it incredibly easy to read, and incredibly interesting. It is too immense to take many notes, but a few things that catch my interest might be recorded here. 

c. 1926, 1935 by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

Author's Preface
/s T.E.S.
Cranwell, 15.8.26

3/4 page, a portion:

"Mr Geoffrey Dawson persuaded All Souls College to give me leisure, in 1919 - 1920, to write about the Arab Revolt. Sir Herbert Baker let me live and work in his Westminster houses.

The book so written passed in 1921 into proof: where it was fortunate in the friends who criticized it. Particularly it owes its thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Shaw for countless suggestions of great value and diversity: and for all the present semicolons. "

Contents

Synopsis (particularly good). Explains why there is no index: "Halfway through the labour of an index to this book, I recalled the practice of my ten years' study of history; and realized I had never used the index* of a book fit to read. Who would insult his Decline and Fall, by consulting it just upon a specific point." He says more. *An index has been added to this edition.

Synopsis: Book I through Book X

Epilogue: "Why the taking of Damascus ended my efforts in Syria (p. 661)." Particularly interesting.

Illustrations: many

Preface by A. W. Lawrence: ostensibly his brother Arnold, but written in the first person to suggest T. E. Lawrence, in fact, wrote it, and signed "T. E. Shaw," the name he used in 1923 after leaving the RAF.

Includes 1.5 page of questions (from publisher) and answers from "A. W. Lawrence" on inconsistency of place names and names of persons. Examples follow:

"Q: Slip 28. The Bisaita is also spelt Biseita. A: Good.

"Q: Slip 53. 'Meleager, the immoral poet'. I have put 'immortal' poet, but the author may mean immoral after all. A: Immorality I know. Immorality I cannot judge. As you please: Meleager will not sue us for libel."

Again, signed by "A. W. Lawrence."

Introductory Chapter: was chapter 1 at one time, then removed, then re-inserted. Finally left in but did not want to re-number all the chapters for the "nth" time.

Postscript  to the introductory chapter, also signed "A. W. L."

Then the book begins: SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM

An introduction, a short page, "Foundations of Revolt, Chapters I to VII.

Chapter I

"The Arab was nature continent; and the use of universal marriage had nearly abolished irregular courses in his tribes. The public women of the rare settlements we encountered in our months of wandering would have been nothing to our numbers, even had their raddled meat been palatable to a man of healthy parts. In horror of such sordid commerce our youths began indifferently to slake one another's few needs in their own clean bodies -- a cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and pure. Later, some began to justify this sterile precess, and swore that friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace, found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming effort. Several, thirsting to punish appetites they could not wholly prevent, took a savage pride in degrading the body, and offered themselves fiercely in any habit which promised physical pain or filth." -- p. 30

Later,

"A man who gives himself to be a possession of aliens leads a Yahoo life, having bartered his soul to a brute-master." -- p. 31

Chapter II (geography and population)

Chapter III (Arabic thinking, religiosity)

Chapter IV (the Turkish Revolution)

Chapter V (the beginnings of the Arab Revolution)

The position of the Sherif of Mecca had long been anomalous. The title of 'Sherif' implied descent from the prophet Mohammed through his daughter Fatima, and Hassan, her elder son. Authentic Sherifs were inscribed on the family tree - an immense roll preserved at Mecca, in custody of the Emir of Mecca, the elected Sherif of Sherifs, supposed to be the senior and noblest of all. The prophet's family had held temporal rule in Mecca for the last nine hundred years, and counted some two thousand persons.

The old Ottoman Governments regarded this clan of manticratic peers with a mixture of reverence and distrust. Since they were too strong to be destroyed, the Sultan salved his dignity by solemnly confirming their Emir in place. This empty approval acquired dignity by lapse of time, until the new holder began to feel that it added a final seal to his election. At last the Turks found that the needed the Hejaz under their unquestioned sway as part of the stage furniture for their new pan-Islamic notion. The fortuitous opening of the Suez Canal enabled them to garrison the Holy Cities. They projected the Hejaz Railway, and increased Turkish influence among the tribes by money, intrigue, and armed expeditions. 

As the [Turkish Ottoman] Sultan grew stronger there he ventured to assert himself more and more alongside the Sherif, even in Mecca itself, and upon occasion ventured to depose a Sherif too magnificent for his views, and to appoint a successor from a rival family of the clan in hopes of winning the usual advantages form dissension. Finally, Abdul Hamid took away some of the family to Constantinople into honourable captivity. Amongst these was Hussein ibn Ali, the future ruler, who was held a prisoner for nearly eighteen years. He took the opportunity to provide his sons -- Ali, Abdulla, Feisal, and Zeid -- with the modern education and experience which afterwards enabled them to lead the Arab armies to success.

Chapter 6 (the Revolt, a new factor) If the revolt was to succeed, a new "factor" was needed to counter the Turks. The Arabs needed assistance.

Nearly all of us rallied round Clayton, the chief of Intelligence, civil and military in Egypt. ...

The first of us was Ronald Storrs, Oriental Secretary of the Residency, the most brilliant Englishman in the Near East, and subtly efficient ... Storrs sowed what we reaped, and was always first, and the great man among us. ...

George Lloyd entered our number. He gave us confidence, and with his knowledge of money, proved a sure guide through the subways of trade and politics, and a prophet upon the future of the Middle East. ...

Then there was this imaginative advocate of unconvincing world-movements, Mark Sykes: also a bundle of prejudices, intuitions, half-sciences. His ideas were of the outside; and he lacked patience to test his materials before choosing his style of building. ...

Not a wild man, but Mentor to all of us was Hogarth, our father confessor and adviser, who broughtus the parallels and lessons of history, and moderation, and courage. To the outsiders he was peacemaker (I was all claws and teeth, and had a devil). ...

We called ourselves 'Intrusive' as a band; for we meant to break into the accepted halls of English foreign policy ....

The 'Intrusive' band began to work upon all the chiefs, far and near.

Sir Henry McMahon, High Commissioner in Egypt, was, of course, our first effort...
Others, like Wemyss, Neil Malcolm, Wingate, supported us in their pleasure at seeing the war turned constructive. Their advocacy confirmed in Lord Kitchener the favourable impression hehad derived years before when Sherif Abdulla appealed to him in Egypt; and so McMahon at last achieved our foundation stone, the understanding with the Sherif of Mecca.

Chapter VII (how Lawrence strategizes his removal from Cairo as a mapmaker and to join Storrs (who the Brits in Cairo also did not like) in the Arab Bureau. This was a key move, if Lawrence were to lead the Arab Revolt.

An introduction, a short page, "The Discovery of Feisal," Chapters VIII to XVI.

Chapter VIII (to the Arab Bureau; permission to join Feisal to protect Mecca) The Lawrence party sails down the calm Red Sea to Jidda. Colonel Wilson, British representative to the new Arab state, sent his launch to meet the ship. On shore they met Ruhi, Consular Oriental assistant, whose old patron was Storrs, great friends still. Abdullah arrives on a white mare, flushed with his success at Taif, and happy. Discussed the dismal state of affairs. Abdullah noted that his failure to cut the Hejaz Railway, the Turks had been able to collect transport and supplies for the reinforcement of Medina. The Turks were on their way to capture Mecca; Abdullah said, "over his dead body." Storrs instrumental in getting the Sherif's permission to join Feisal in Jebel Subh.

Chapter IX