The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #202 ｜ Lawrence of Arabia with Luca Johnson： Part I

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Epochs. Just a little notice for you, unfortunately we are interrupting the

00:00:04.760 Henry V series, that will be continuing, to bring you this special two-part conversation with Luca

00:00:10.500 Johnson all about the life and career and achievements of Lawrence of Arabia. So once again

00:00:16.440 we will be returning to the Henry V series. Thank you for your patience. Hello and welcome to Epochs

00:00:22.080 where this episode we should be talking all about the life and achievements of T.E. Lawrence,

00:00:27.700 aka Lawrence of Arabia, aka the uncrowned king of Arabia, as well as other names. I'm joined by

00:00:33.620 Luca Johnson. How are you Luca? I'm great, really great Beau. Yeah, wonderful to be here. I think

00:00:38.140 this is the fifth Epoch I've done with you now, but it's the first that I've actually been able to sit

00:00:43.180 down with the venerable beard. So yeah, big moment, big moment. Cool, well I've been wanting to talk

00:00:51.500 to somebody or do some sort of content on Lawrence for a long, long time. I've been fascinated. I

00:00:58.140 remember seeing the film, the David Lean early 60s film when I was a kid. It was on TV. It used to be

00:01:04.420 on TV a fair bit, like The Great Escape or Zulu, Lawrence of Arabia. They used to show it on TV all the

00:01:15.420 time. They don't anymore for whatever reason. No. So I remember seeing that as a kid and then when I

00:01:18.940 grew up a bit in my late twenties, I suppose, I became aware of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. That is

00:01:24.520 the book, his memoir that he wrote after the war. And since then, I've read Seven Pillars of Wisdom,

00:01:32.200 I don't know, like four or five times, a bit too often. I've listened to it on audiobook a couple

00:01:37.620 more times than that. And then I've read around Lawrence a fair bit as well. There's a good book

00:01:44.920 by a guy called Michael Corder. Michael Asher wrote one, Scott Anderson. I got my copy,

00:01:53.460 the abridged copy by Robert Graves of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I've read that through a couple

00:01:59.420 of times. Because he wrote a biography about Lawrence, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. They were good.

00:02:04.840 They were good friends. Yes. Bernard Shaw and Robert Graves and Lawrence were all good friends.

00:02:09.860 Oh, he had a massive collection of friends. Yeah, yeah. Huge. So, yeah, I'm just fascinated

00:02:16.460 by the story. I'm fascinated by the war in the East. World War I we're talking about in the East,

00:02:20.480 the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the East. So, yeah, I just know loads about it. And so I'm

00:02:29.260 really looking forward to this conversation. What about your researches and readings?

00:02:34.300 Well, I do actually remember watching the film. I think my dad showed it to me when I was about

00:02:40.960 14, something like that. But I hadn't seen it since, you know, and obviously I've grown a lot

00:02:48.560 since then and developed an entire, you know, political understanding of the world and just,

00:02:53.140 you know, more of a historical grounding in it. And so, yeah, I still think, I mean,

00:02:57.760 David Lean is one of my absolute favourite directors. I have niggles with the film.

00:03:04.800 Oh, really?

00:03:05.220 But nothing that, you know, ruins, I still, it's basically a masterpiece. It is. But

00:03:11.140 on a personal level, I'm not saying it's an inferior film, but I think Bridge on the River

00:03:17.300 Quaid just ages it for me in terms of David Lean films. But it's absolutely remarkable as a film.

00:03:24.800 And then, yeah, in just preparation for this, I've just for months just buried my head in

00:03:30.780 all things Lawrence. Read Seven Pillars, of course, and The Mint. And I've not read his translation of

00:03:35.940 The Odyssey. Yeah, but, and then, yeah, a few, few barographies, Jeremy Wilson one in particular.

00:03:43.620 And yeah, so it's been, it's been really wonderful because you just, when you spend that amount of

00:03:48.400 time, you really feel like in a silly, you actually really get to know them. You know,

00:03:53.340 you do get to know them.

00:03:54.800 I know what you mean. There's another one by Little Hart, Sir Basil Little Hart.

00:03:58.700 Yeah, the military historian.

00:03:59.940 Yeah, yeah.

00:04:00.600 Yeah.

00:04:00.780 So, yeah, I feel like I sort of know Lawrence. Although, having said that, he's a really,

00:04:08.020 really complicated person, a complicated character, right? So a lot of people, many,

00:04:12.720 most people, really, you meet in the world, they're kind of, what you see is what you get, usually.

00:04:17.620 Like, it's kind of rare where someone deep down inside their core is sort of unknowable or very,

00:04:23.480 very difficult, many, many layers to their character or personality, and you only ever see the top layer

00:04:28.560 of it. That's actually quite rare when people are that complicated. But Lawrence, T. Lawrence

00:04:32.600 is one of those people.

00:04:34.840 Incredibly.

00:04:35.920 Definitely one of those people where, well, we'll get into it and we'll talk all about his life.

00:04:40.400 So before we start, I wanted to just give a little bit of an overview for perhaps a few people

00:04:44.280 who might not know anything about him, or even if they have seen the film, don't know about him

00:04:49.180 in great detail. So, I mean, he was Victorian, essentially, right? All the people that were adults

00:04:56.720 by the time of World War I were born and raised in the Victorian period, essentially. So his

00:05:02.140 upbringing, his childhood was a late Victorian one. Yeah. You've got to remember that, right?

00:05:06.580 1888, wasn't he? So, yeah, still got, well, yeah, 13 years left of Queen Victoria's reign

00:05:12.680 herself.

00:05:13.540 Or Edwardian, at least.

00:05:14.600 Yes.

00:05:15.000 Late Victorian Edwardian.

00:05:16.480 And so, you know, when people live on into the 30s or even into the World War II era or

00:05:23.180 after, you remember that what's rolling around in their head is sort of the late Victorian,

00:05:28.480 early Edwardian period.

00:05:29.580 The world they came out of.

00:05:30.880 Yeah.

00:05:31.240 Yeah.

00:05:31.940 You know, I hope to live for a few decades more, but rolling around my head is like the

00:05:35.820 1980s.

00:05:36.660 Right.

00:05:37.160 And the 1990s.

00:05:38.420 Yes.

00:05:38.860 It could be like the 2050s, but I'm still in the 1990s in some way.

00:05:43.780 Anyway, so the people of World War I, particularly a sort of late Victorian Edwardian people,

00:05:49.260 I think that's worth remembering.

00:05:50.920 Certainly the older people, right? 0.98

00:05:53.480 If you're a field marshal or a general in your 60s in 1916.

00:05:59.000 Yes.

00:05:59.480 You're fully a Victorian person. 0.83

00:06:01.300 Oh, yes.

00:06:02.000 Yes.

00:06:03.000 Okay.

00:06:03.700 So a few quotes then.

00:06:06.180 He was called the uncrowned King of Arabia.

00:06:08.140 That's one of the famous ones.

00:06:09.300 Of course, just Lawrence of Arabia.

00:06:11.120 Um, but when, uh, one of the, um, one of the military intelligence officers, when they

00:06:17.900 first met him on his, on the deck of a ship, when he first went to Jidda for the first time,

00:06:22.720 uh, remarked of him, uh, who is this extraordinary pipsqueak?

00:06:28.940 Which I think says a lot.

00:06:30.160 That's how a lot of people thought of him.

00:06:31.560 Right.

00:06:31.700 Abu, uh, Abu Tayy, um, the, the great Bedouin war master called him the world's imp.

00:06:40.680 Um, it's one of the first things to mention is he was quite short, wasn't he?

00:06:44.200 Yes.

00:06:44.760 About five foot four, five foot five at most.

00:06:47.580 Yeah.

00:06:48.020 Yeah.

00:06:48.400 Some people say he was as short as five two, but I think when he joined the RAF, they measured

00:06:53.880 him properly and he was like five five.

00:06:55.360 Yes.

00:06:55.720 But still a short, fairly short dude.

00:06:58.020 And what, what's even more, um, incredible about his height is that it was atypical within

00:07:02.780 his family.

00:07:03.380 He was the only one of his several brothers who was quite a shorty, you know, they all,

00:07:09.820 you know, the genes just missed him.

00:07:11.980 But he just wasn't, he wasn't a big guy, which is interesting because, um, Peter O'Toole

00:07:16.580 is quite tall.

00:07:17.720 Mm.

00:07:17.860 Um, so in the film, Lawrence of Arabia is, but he was blonde haired and blue eyed.

00:07:22.240 Yes.

00:07:23.280 So could not pass as an Arab. 1.00

00:07:25.640 No.

00:07:26.460 Um, I mean, there's the Circassian people, Sarah from that region, but still, and sometimes

00:07:32.260 blue eyed, but still couldn't really pass as an Arab.

00:07:36.600 Um, another quote by, uh, Michael Corder, he said of him, no man ever tried harder to

00:07:44.600 serve two masters or punished himself more severely for failing.

00:07:49.260 Mm.

00:07:49.940 Because one of the headlines to talk about Lawrence is that, of course he was a British

00:07:55.260 officer.

00:07:56.020 Yes.

00:07:56.460 So he's loyal to the crown, King George, but also tried to serve the Arabs, truly serve

00:08:02.060 the Arab cause.

00:08:03.700 Yeah.

00:08:03.920 Uh, his heart was genuinely in it.

00:08:06.080 Yeah.

00:08:06.300 Yeah.

00:08:06.600 Whether you'd say that was either King Hussein of Mecca or Faisal himself.

00:08:11.880 Yes.

00:08:12.180 Either way, he's sort of got two masters.

00:08:14.320 Mm.

00:08:15.220 Um, and you know, that's one criticism of Lawrence is that he was duplicitous and stuff.

00:08:22.700 Mm.

00:08:23.000 In a sense, I suppose he was, but he massively beat himself up for it and felt guilty,

00:08:28.500 great crazily for it, almost to the point of suicide and depression.

00:08:32.280 Took him a long time after the war to come to terms with his part.

00:08:36.140 In the whole thing and just come to peace with that aspect of his life.

00:08:40.700 Yeah.

00:08:41.340 He definitely thought it was completely disgraceful what he'd done or what the British had done, 1.00

00:08:46.800 what the foreign office or the colonial office had done.

00:08:49.280 Um, another quick quote from Young, one of the other officers that was out there with

00:08:54.300 him, who in fact was, uh, one, one book I read said he was Lawrence's understudy.

00:09:00.320 And that's not quite right.

00:09:01.380 But anyway, there was another army intelligence officer that was out there and they didn't

00:09:05.760 see eye to eye.

00:09:06.540 Eventually they sort of came to terms, but for a long time, they were sort of rivals and

00:09:09.940 Young didn't like him at all.

00:09:11.700 So this is a quote from someone who didn't like Lawrence.

00:09:15.060 He said, but he still can't deny the rightness of the man.

00:09:19.060 He said, uh, Lawrence could certainly not have done what he did without the gold.

00:09:23.180 A load of gold was thrown around and couldn't have done what couldn't have done what he did

00:09:29.140 without the gold, but no one else could have done it with 10 times the amount, no amount

00:09:33.960 of pomp and circumstance could have won him the position he gained among Arabs.

00:09:38.460 If he had not established himself by sheer force of personality as a born leader and shown

00:09:44.100 himself to be a greater daredevil than any of his followers.

00:09:46.860 Um, there is a, it's towards the end of seven pillars of wisdom, but it feels like an appropriate

00:09:54.760 thing to bring up now that he does say, even since when he was at, um, uh, the Oxford high

00:10:00.420 school, you know, back in when he was about 13, 14, he had some dreams, some vision of actually

00:10:06.760 playing some sort of part in the middle East.

00:10:09.580 You know, even then there was almost that desire within him to be like a Carlisle and great

00:10:16.640 man of history to move events, to, to change the world.

00:10:20.360 Yeah.

00:10:20.780 Yeah.

00:10:21.260 Oh, no, big time.

00:10:22.420 Cause on one level, he was very sort of gentlemanly and humble and understated and softly spoken.

00:10:26.680 And the other side of his personality, this is what we're talking about where he's multiple

00:10:29.660 layered sort of a deep character is that he's very humble and gentlemanly on one level, but

00:10:34.880 also dying to be a man of action and a self-publicist and a giant ego underneath this very humble

00:10:44.680 sort of quiet exterior, like sort of academic, but, but, but actually not that really at his

00:10:52.060 core.

00:10:53.080 Um, so one last quote I just got here about sort of kind of his appearance, uh, cause loads

00:10:58.920 of people always sort of talked about his appearance.

00:11:00.840 Um, this is from Michael Corder, who wrote, um, un-military in appearance, he might be.

00:11:08.980 He often neglected to put on his sand brown belt.

00:11:11.880 This is obviously in the period of the second half of world war one.

00:11:16.680 Sure.

00:11:17.300 Um, yeah, he often neglected to put on his belt and he wore leather buttons rather than

00:11:21.740 shiny brass ones on his tunic.

00:11:23.400 But few people disputed his intelligence, his attention to detail, or his capacity for hard

00:11:29.140 work.

00:11:29.860 His manner was more that of an Oxford undergraduate than a staff officer.

00:11:34.380 And many people below the rank of a field marshal or a full general were offended by it or dismissed

00:11:39.440 him as an eccentric poseur or show off who did not belong in the army at all.

00:11:45.320 Not only did Lawrence not fit in, but he was a non-smoker, a teetotaler, and when bothered

00:11:50.560 to eat at all by inclination of vegetarian, except on occasions when he was obliged to

00:11:56.200 please his Arab hosts by sharing their mutton. 0.85

00:12:00.120 Um, so you get that in the film actually, like quite early on.

00:12:02.900 Yes.

00:12:03.420 Uh, cause obviously in the military, in the beginning of the 20th century, it's all, everything's

00:12:11.180 all spick and span and squared away.

00:12:12.620 And, um, like it's, it's disgraceful not to have your uniform in perfect condition and

00:12:19.040 everything's, yes, sir.

00:12:20.260 Very good, sir.

00:12:20.820 Right away, sir.

00:12:21.340 Sort of thing.

00:12:21.700 And he's not that at all.

00:12:22.660 No.

00:12:23.000 He's just like, um, yes, if you want.

00:12:24.840 Okay.

00:12:25.680 He's just really casual with the officers.

00:12:27.960 Couldn't be more casual.

00:12:28.960 Really informal.

00:12:30.340 Yeah.

00:12:30.600 Um, one of his senior officers, but you either hated him or you loved him for that.

00:12:37.320 And all the people that mattered, people like field marshals and secretaries of states and

00:12:42.640 kings and generals, they liked him for it though.

00:12:45.740 Yes.

00:12:46.360 Because they're sort of above that, uh, having to be very formal.

00:12:51.400 So they liked it largely, not every single one of them.

00:12:54.620 Like quite often he'd meet someone, a senior officer, a colonel or something.

00:12:57.700 And their first impression of him is, uh, who does this guy think he is?

00:13:03.240 I don't like this guy.

00:13:04.220 Yeah.

00:13:04.800 And then very quickly he befriends them and they end up loving him and being his, their

00:13:08.680 friend for life.

00:13:09.460 A lot like Colonel Wilson.

00:13:10.720 Right.

00:13:11.080 Exactly.

00:13:11.600 Exactly.

00:13:13.120 I think it might've been Wilson or it might've been Newcomb said when they first met him,

00:13:18.180 they said, um, that he's quote, an odd gnome, half cad with a touch of genius.

00:13:25.200 Yeah.

00:13:25.600 But that's what lots of people thought, like what a queer fellow.

00:13:28.760 And he was actually queer, right? 0.95

00:13:30.120 He was homosexual. 0.99

00:13:31.220 Uh, let's get that out of the way. 0.98

00:13:32.660 Um, or asexual, somewhere between homosexual and asexual.

00:13:36.020 Anyway, we'll talk about that when we get to it.

00:13:37.560 Sure.

00:13:37.880 But, um, um, people thought what a weird one, what a funny character.

00:13:42.120 And then, but they nearly always, with one or two exceptions, ended up loving him and being

00:13:48.840 a correspondent and a, and a, and a, and a friend for life.

00:13:51.900 Yes.

00:13:52.240 Uh, because he just did seem charismatic, right?

00:13:55.060 It seemed to have that, whatever it is, that thing, that certain something about him.

00:13:58.360 Really witty.

00:13:59.700 Um, humorous, you know, a great deal of humor.

00:14:04.720 Yeah.

00:14:05.300 No, absolutely.

00:14:06.260 Okay.

00:14:06.460 Should we just start then talking about his early life then?

00:14:08.880 Yeah, sure.

00:14:09.300 Um, so, um, I don't know how much you know about, like, the illegitimacy of his father.

00:14:16.220 Yeah, which is Thomas Chapman, wasn't it?

00:14:18.820 Of Anglo-Irish, yeah, ancestry.

00:14:23.920 Um, well, do you want me to...

00:14:26.000 It's up to you.

00:14:26.440 Oh, well, I was just going to say that it's, it's one of those things that actually, so

00:14:30.760 Lawrence was the second son, of course, of, uh, Thomas Chapman.

00:14:34.760 Of five boys.

00:14:35.720 Yeah, five boys.

00:14:36.900 Yeah.

00:14:37.320 It's quite remarkable actually, because the whole point was that his father, Thomas Chapman,

00:14:41.900 had been Anglo-Irish gentry.

00:14:45.020 And I think that family stretched back with lands in Ireland all the way back to the first

00:14:50.360 John Chapman, who was a cavalry officer in Cromwell's army.

00:14:53.640 And so, you know, right back until the 1600s.

00:14:56.260 And then his, his father, I suppose, somewhat cocked it up a little bit by, um, basically

00:15:03.280 losing out on, on the inheritance because he ran away with the, the mistress, like the,

00:15:10.500 um, governess, the governess, yes, of the, of the household.

00:15:14.380 Because, um, he was pushed away from his wife by, she had a turn to sort of radical Christian 0.65

00:15:22.340 fanaticism and, um, you know, which, um, isn't the most romantic thing in the world.

00:15:28.200 And so Mr.

00:15:29.360 Chapman took other interests in other women who ended up being Lawrence's mother. 0.73

00:15:34.820 So the first child, um, Bob Robert was actually born in Dublin, but then they, they moved quickly

00:15:43.320 to, to Wales where Lawrence was born in 1818.

00:15:48.600 Yeah.

00:15:49.060 So, I mean, that's sorry, 88.

00:15:50.860 Yeah.

00:15:51.320 Yeah.

00:15:51.540 Sorry.

00:15:51.960 So that's like a big thing.

00:15:52.980 So his father was a, a, a, a baronet.

00:15:56.060 He was, uh, a low, one of the low list peers, but yeah.

00:16:00.760 So landed gentry though, in Ireland, the English aristocracy in Ireland, um, you know, not an

00:16:07.420 earl or a duke or something, but, but a peer with a big estate, a massive house, like a giant

00:16:12.980 sort of, um, uh, mansion or sort of thing, lots and lots of money, like an income.

00:16:19.360 Um, and he like rode horses and was just, uh, yeah, landed gentry and he had, I think

00:16:26.700 four daughters with his wife.

00:16:29.060 Yeah.

00:16:29.760 But he didn't like his wife, didn't love her.

00:16:32.260 No. 1.00

00:16:32.580 And she apparently was a, an insufferable pain in the ass. 1.00

00:16:37.180 And as you can imagine, like all English aristocracy in Ireland, she was massively Protestant, 1.00

00:16:43.020 like a Protestant fundamentalist, you might say.

00:16:45.940 Odd thing to say almost, isn't it?

00:16:47.220 Where we're the Easter Church of England. 0.92

00:16:49.060 How can you be a, can you be a fundamental, anyway.

00:16:51.660 So, um, but in Ireland, um, and he had four daughters with her and he obviously, obviously

00:16:56.460 wasn't in love with her because when he got his young governess in to help raise these four

00:17:01.560 daughters, um, he got her pregnant and it was a disgrace. 0.75

00:17:06.820 And, um, and when his wife found out, she kicked him out, uh, but refused to give him a,

00:17:14.240 uh, a divorce.

00:17:15.720 Um, so he just, he walked away from the estate, from the money, from the title.

00:17:24.100 I mean, technically he's still got the title.

00:17:26.460 You can't sort of just renounce that.

00:17:29.260 But he just left her, his daughters, the estate, went and lived with the new woman and went 0.99

00:17:37.600 on to have, well, she got pregnant eight times. 1.00

00:17:41.880 Um, three of them didn't live.

00:17:43.240 I mean, it's the late Victorian period, child mortality is insanely high, even then, but

00:17:47.840 five boys that lived.

00:17:48.740 So he had four girls with his first wife and five boys with his second wife.

00:17:51.920 Yeah.

00:17:52.920 Yeah.

00:17:53.920 Remarkable.

00:17:54.920 He had swimmers.

00:17:55.920 We can say that.

00:17:56.920 Um, so, uh, and yeah, it seemed to be very happy with her.

00:18:00.100 Um, it seems they changed his name from Chapman to, to Lawrence.

00:18:04.700 Yes.

00:18:05.140 Which is the name that she'd come across to Ireland with.

00:18:07.580 Right.

00:18:08.260 Right.

00:18:08.860 And they traveled, they sort of moved around a fair bit over the years.

00:18:13.140 Yeah.

00:18:13.500 Ended up in Oxford though.

00:18:14.820 Yes.

00:18:15.180 And that's where T.E.

00:18:17.400 Lawrence, so his name's Thomas Edward Lawrence, because his middle name's Edward, in his family,

00:18:21.960 everyone called him Ned.

00:18:23.000 Right.

00:18:23.700 Right.

00:18:23.980 All his, all his family.

00:18:25.200 And I think close friends from childhood all called him Ned.

00:18:27.680 Yes.

00:18:28.980 So, okay. 1.00

00:18:29.980 Um, uh, so, but, but so he's illegitimate and, and, uh, so, and a bastard. 1.00

00:18:37.860 Right. 0.99

00:18:38.760 Um, now to that, I've said, I've talked about being a bastard before. 0.98

00:18:42.080 I, I, myself am one. 0.98

00:18:43.380 My mom and dad never married. 0.98

00:18:44.600 Uh, nowadays, no one gives a shit, right? 0.99

00:18:46.820 No. 0.98

00:18:47.100 It doesn't matter at all.

00:18:48.860 No one's going to ask you about that.

00:18:50.020 Your life's never going to be harder.

00:18:52.220 Yeah.

00:18:52.520 Because, yeah, look, back then.

00:18:54.280 And also because Lawrence was, seems to have been the only one of his brothers to actually

00:19:00.960 suspect that was just something unorthodox about his parents' situation.

00:19:06.740 You know, whether it was that he overheard a conversation one time or, you know, so he grew

00:19:12.100 up with this feeling of insecurity within himself about his upbringing, about his positioning

00:19:18.300 life that, you know, that, that I, I think he incorrectly believed that his father wasn't

00:19:25.520 actually his father.

00:19:26.560 Yeah, there's some suggestion of that, isn't there?

00:19:28.640 Yeah.

00:19:29.360 Yeah.

00:19:30.020 But we don't know if, yeah, there's some suggestion of that.

00:19:33.160 I've seen that written.

00:19:34.320 Yes.

00:19:34.740 But he suspected something was up.

00:19:36.240 Yes.

00:19:36.520 Um, and, uh, well, so, I mean, as back in those days, the Edwardian period, it, it did

00:19:44.000 matter if it sort of dictated all sorts of things about your life, if you were illegitimate 0.88

00:19:51.480 or not, if you was a bastard or not. 0.87

00:19:53.680 Um, but yeah, so, but I think one of the things to say about Lawrence in the context of his 0.98

00:19:59.420 family and his four, his four brothers, uh, he seems to have been the odd one out in every

00:20:05.080 way.

00:20:05.620 As you say, like physically, he seemed like the odd one out, um, intellectually, they were

00:20:11.040 all bright boys, but he was like some sort of child prodigy, right?

00:20:14.000 Yeah.

00:20:14.440 Apparently he could read when he was three or four, or he could read the paper upside down

00:20:18.620 when he was five.

00:20:19.420 They started on Latin when he was five, stuff like that.

00:20:22.860 Like to me, that's crazy.

00:20:24.560 I was a kind of precocious child, but, um, that he was crazy, like an actual genius, right?

00:20:29.360 Yes.

00:20:29.840 And when he went, started to go into school, all the teachers saw in him some sort of project,

00:20:35.720 but he refused to play games and all his brothers were real team players.

00:20:39.160 Yeah.

00:20:39.420 So he just seems like a, the odd one out.

00:20:41.740 Yeah.

00:20:41.940 I think I had a quote from, uh, his form tutor, if you want me to.

00:20:46.000 Yeah, please do.

00:20:46.580 Yeah.

00:20:46.840 Yeah.

00:20:46.940 I found it really interesting because actually, you know, Lawrence is one of the things to

00:20:52.140 say about Lawrence is that his views about life and about the world, obviously, like

00:20:57.480 anyone changed a lot.

00:20:58.840 You know, he started out as a very idealistic youth and then became more and more, I think

00:21:03.980 it's fair to say nihilistic actually as, as time went on, but there was this, but, but

00:21:08.980 then there were also some aspects of him that from a young age, you can say, no, they stayed

00:21:13.180 with him forever throughout his entire life.

00:21:15.860 Yeah.

00:21:16.100 And yeah, this was from his, uh, form master in 1901.

00:21:20.260 He said, he had a strong sense of humor, which must have saved him many times in troublesome

00:21:25.340 boyish days.

00:21:26.560 He knew no fear.

00:21:27.880 And we all wondered why he did not like, not play games when the free wheel bicycle came

00:21:34.020 into use.

00:21:34.780 He was the first boy in the school to have one and to have the first three speed gear.

00:21:39.740 Uh, he was an enthusiast on the physical excellence in human beings, although his own build was

00:21:46.560 not as handsome as that of his brother, Will, or as upright, tall and straight as that of

00:21:51.820 his elder brother.

00:21:52.840 He was unlike the boys of his age and time, for even in his school days, he had a strong

00:21:58.300 leaning towards the Stoics and apparent indifference towards pleasure or pain.

00:22:03.500 Hmm.

00:22:04.220 Hmm.

00:22:04.380 Which sums, that's a lifelong trait, actually.

00:22:09.340 All of that stays with him for all his life.

00:22:12.860 What a remarkable bunch of things to say about a kid.

00:22:15.760 Yeah.

00:22:16.420 Right.

00:22:16.600 None of those are sort of childish qualities, really, aren't they?

00:22:19.280 If you would like to see the full version of this premium video, please head over to

00:22:22.820 lotuseaters.com and subscribe to gain full access to all of our premium content.

00:22:27.460 Thank you very much, ville.

00:22:27.840 Thank you very much.

00:22:34.240 Thank you very much.

00:22:43.720 Thank you.

00:22:46.020 Bye.

00:22:48.020 Bye.

00:22:50.080 Bye.

00:22:52.320 Bye.

00:22:54.300 Bye.

00:22:54.540 Bye.

00:22:55.600 Bye.

00:22:56.160 Bye.

00:22:56.360 Bye.

00:22:56.460 Bye.

00:22:56.500 Bye.

00:22:56.680 Bye.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 20, 2025

PREVIEW： Epochs #202 ｜ Lawrence of Arabia with Luca Johnson： Part I

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