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"IT IS SO WRONG, IT IS UNBEARABLE...THERE IS SOMETHING NASTY ABOUT HIM, LIKE BLACK BEETLES..."

D. H. Lawrence went to Cambridge in 1915, and visited with David Garnett, the son of Lawrence's sometimes-champion Edward Garnett.  During his visit, he met the set that Garnett had attached himself to, including Duncan Grant, Maynard Keynes, and Francis Birrell. "The repulsion that D. H. Lawrence felt for Cambridge when he was the guest there of Bertrand Russell in March 1915 has become part of the mythology of modern English literary history" (S. P. Rosenbaum, "Keynes, Lawrence, and Cambridge Revisited," in The Cambridge Quarterly, Vol. II, No. 1, 1982, p.252).  Following the visit, Lawrence held the belief that Garnett was homosexually involved with Birrell.  

Following the visit, Lawrence wrote to Garnett: "It is foolish of you to say that it doesn't matter either way -- the men loving men. It doesn't matter in the public way. But it matters so much, David, to the man himself...that it is like a blow of triumphant decay, when I meet Birrell or the others. I simply can't bear it."

Lawrence implored him to end his relationships with several mutual acquaintances whom Lawrence considered repulsive. Recalling an encounter during their visit with a pjyama-clad John Maynard Keynes, Lawrence writes: "It is so wrong, it is unbearable. It makes a form of inward corruption which truly makes me scarce able to live...It is something almost unbearable to me. And not from any moral disapprobation. I myself never considered Plato very wrong, or Oscar Wilde. I never knew what it meant until I saw K." Of Birrell, he concludes: "Never bring B. to see me any more. There is something nasty about him, like black-beetles. He is horrible and unclean, I feel as if I should go mad, if I think of your set, D.G. & K. & B." 

Invoking Garnett's parents, Lawrence implores: "You must wrench away and start a new life. B. & D.G. are done for, I think -- done for for ever... No David, in the name of everything that is called love, leave this set and stop this blasphemy against love." 

Accompanying Lawrence's letter is a compassionate and sympathetic letter from Freida: "Are you getting sick of being bombarded with letters? I was so very fond of you when you were here...I felt a great strength and livingness and a genuine you..." With a post-script from D.H. Lawrence imploring: "Do leave this group of 'friends.' You have always known the wrong people..."

Prior to this visit, Garnett and Lawrence experienced a deeply-felt friendship. David met Lawrence and Freida in Germany during a visit arranged by his father, and he was immediately taken with the couple. The group of correspondence also includes an ALS from Garnett to D. H. Lawrence, written in Hampstead on 20 October 1912. Garnett writes Lawrence about his second book, The Trespasser: "It is splendid. ou are not simply a clever devil but an understanding one -- You are so sensitive...I felt it all the more acutely because I have felt it personally before..."

Lawrence's letter is published in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence (Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 320-321). Accompanying the group of letters is a typed affidavit signed by Richard Garnett, David Garnett's oldest son and executor, confirming that the letter was loaned by Garnett to Cambridge University Press for inclusion in the Letters, and attesting that he consigned the letter for sale on behalf of the estate with Hamill & Barker.