ABSTRACT
Such was already the meaning of Mark Rampion's message. But at this point a more serious ambiguity needs to be resolved. We have seen that Lawrence had served as a model for the portrait of Mark Rampion. Huxley was Lawrence's friend, the editor of his Letters, the champion of his memory; it has even been hinted that the depiction of Denis Burlap was an anticipated vengeance. Thus to associate Lawrence and Huxley in terms of affection and gratitude is amply justified; to endow them with a common creed would be to confuse and distort notions which Huxley has very subtly distinguished. At the very most we can only go as far as conjecturing that Lawrence's thought was one of Aldous Huxley's great temptations. Could he be otherwise than captivated by the generosity of this lyrical naturism? And yet, as is evidenced in Beyond the Mexique Bay, he vigorously reacted to it. For he has gauged the weakness of the Lawrencian gospel, on the level of art and of life as well. Rereading The Plumed Serpent in Mexico, he rediscovers some admirable passages; but the work as a whole strikes him as an 'artistic failure' in which he sees 'the evidence of some inner uncertainty of conviction'. Putting aside all manner of oratorical or poetic effect, it is clear that Lawrence has cheated: he and his protagonists claim they reject civilization, when in fact they have secured its most valuable achievements. Huxley, on the other hand, invites to a more honest assessment: 'When man became an intellectual and spiritual being, he paid for his new privileges.' At what cost? By giving up 'a treasure of intuitions, of emotional spontaneity, of sensuality still innocent of all self-consciousness.' But could we not recover such bygone treasure by renouncing our latest acquisitions? Vain imaginings, Huxley will retort, 'we must be content to pay, and indefinitely to go on paying, the irreducible price of the goods we have chosen.' For all those who advocate the return to blind instincts come up against this obstacle: the 'goods chosen' by man have been for centuries those of conscious intelligence.
