[110] Intimates

Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.

   I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
 In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct! --
     So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and that held her spell bound for two seconds
	   while I fled.

	  -- D.H.Lawrence

I'm not precisely sure why this is a poem, but I'll take Lawrence's word for
it <g>. It certainly made me laugh out loud - lovely buildup (complete with
exclamation marks) and a wonderfully unexpected last line.

m.

From: BoNniBeLL211@

...

From: sandi_ordinario@

Comments on Poem #110, D.H.Lawrence's Intimates

I would take liberties to rename this poem Love's Friendly Battles. This
cat-and-dog type of interaction could be a necessary staple in any
form of normal love relationship.

I would guess the source of the tiff (for this account is nothing
but an entertaining form of lovers' quarrel) is the result of probably
a psychological assertion of whose ego has the upperhand between the two.

Lawrence refers to a person whether in jest or sarcasm, "the supreme
authority on emotional importance" and hands his lover the mirror to 
introduce her to that person.

In retaliation she would have broken the mirror over his head but her
vanity saves the day for him, for as she glances on her reflection in
the mirror for some seconds in self-admiration it as any woman would 
(definitely not an overstatement or for that matter not to be construed 
as a sexist statement), Lawrence is able to escape being beaned.

It is a refreshing rendering of love between the sexes which carries with
it the stamp of the basic difference between them--vanity for women, and 
exploitation for men stemming from the recognition of such vanity. But what 
happens next on the continuation? My guess is Lawrence will soon run out of 
tricks and his woman will surely have her revenge, for women by nature will 
not stop unless they get even. Perhaps another form of vanity?

Let us remember however that this type of horseplay is only possible between
intimates. Outside of this domain, the relationship could either be coldly
dull or scorchingly bitter.

Sandi

From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@>

--- sandi_ordinario@ wrote:
> I would take liberties to rename this poem Love's Friendly Battles. This
> cat-and-dog type of interaction could be a necessary staple in any
> form of normal love relationship.

Speaking of love's friendly battles:

 "To a girl with your ardent nature some one with whom you can
  quarrel is an absolute necessity of life. You and I are
  affinities. Ours will be an ideally happy marriage. You would be
  miserable if you had to go through life with a human doormat with
  'Welcome' written on him. You want some one made of sterner
  stuff. You want, as it were, a sparring-partner, some one with
  whom you can quarrel happily with the certain knowledge that he
  will not curl up in a ball for you to kick, but will be there
  with the return wallop. I may have my faults--" He paused
  expectantly. Ann remained silent. "No, no!" he went on. "But I am
  such a man. Brisk give-and-take is the foundation of the happy
  marriage. Do you remember that beautiful line of Tennyson's--'We
  fell out, my wife and I'? It always conjures up for me a vision
  of wonderful domestic happiness. I seem to see us in our old age,
  you on one side of the radiator, I on the other, warming our old
  limbs and thinking up snappy stuff to hand to each
  other--sweethearts still! If I were to go out of your life now,
  you would be miserable. You would have nobody to quarrel with.
  You would be in the position of the female jaguar of the Indian
  jungle, who, as you doubtless know, expresses her affection for
  her mate by biting him shrewdly in the fleshy part of the leg, if
  she should snap sideways one day and find nothing there."

        -- P. G. Wodehouse, 'Piccadilly Jim'

From: Ahipkitty@

What kind of poems does he write and what type of poems are the Week-night 
service and The Mystic Blue?