From Rananim to Thelnetham

One contributor to Garden City was Philip Morrell, then M.P. for Oxfordshire and after 1910 M.P. for Burnley. ⁶³⁷ He and his wife Lady Ottoline were an advanced pair who at Garsington Manor, Oxfordshire, entertained or employed most of the intellectuals of their day—Clive Bell, Edward Garnett, W. B. Yeats and D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence regarded her almost as a St. Simonian femme libre, and in February 1915 told her:–

I want you to form the nucleus of a new community which shall start a new life amongst us—a life in which the only riches is integrity of character . . . And the new community shall be established upon the known, eternal good part in us. This present community consists, as far as it is a framed thing, in a myriad contrivances for preventing us from being let down by the meanness in ourselves or in our neighbours. But it is like a motor car that is so encumbered with non-skid, non-puncture, non-burst, non-this and non-that contrivances, that it simply can’t go any more . . . The ideal, the religion, must now be lived, practised. We will have no more churches. We will bring church and house and shop together. I do believe that there are enough decent people to make a start with. Let us get the people. Curse the Strachey who asks for a new religion—the greedy dog. He wants another juicy bone for his soul, does he? Let him start to fulfil what religion we have. ⁶³⁸