All this is to say that when I came to meet him Lawrence was at the end of that adventure which three years later he was to confide with some reluctance to the world in the cycle of poems called Look! We have Come Through! Besides The Rainbow, most of these astonishing, perfectly original poems were already in existence. Of course I did not know this. With Lawrence one was usually in the dusty rear in literary as well as other matters. His sister has told how in their youthful expeditions he always ranged ahead. He continued all his life to do so.

I have read that to Richard Aldington in those days Lawrence looked like a soldier and that to David Garnett he suggested a plumber's mate or the kind of workman that makes trouble with the boss. But to me, on that day in June, 1914, when I first set eyes on him, the immediately distinguishing thing was his swift and flamelike quality, which was quite unlike anything suggested by even the most fascinating type of British soldier or workman. I was sensible of a fine, rare beauty in Lawrence, with his deep-set jewel-like eyes, thick dust-coloured hair, pointed underlip of notable sweetness, fine hands, and rapid but never restless movements. The stiff, the slow or the unreal had as little part in that frame as had any mechanically imposed control, but he was beautifully disciplined.