ABSTRACT
Lewis’ sexual life was closely related to his creative impulse, and he needed a stream of women for distraction and inspiration. His attitude toward sex was deliberately offhand and sardonic, if we are to believe one of his anecdotes. These sexual adventures were not without real hazards. Lewis enjoyed manly intellectual camaraderie as an antidote to what he felt were degrading yet necessary relations with women, whom he considered less intelligent than men and resented for their power to awaken and exploit his passions. Lewis had met the fiery feminist Beatrice Hastings, a married woman who had been A. R. Orage’s co-editor and mistress, when he first contributed to the New Age in 1910. In March 1916 Lewis volunteered as a gunner in the Royal Artillery and described military life as a “concentration of furious foolishess.” Lewis spent the rest of the year in artillery camps in Weymouth, Horsham and Lydd; and soon became a non-commissioned officer, or bombardier.
