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PARTISAN REVIEW
1919 helped preserve his personal equilibrium.
The Huxleys ' marriage was in almost every respect opposite to that of
D.H. Lawrence and Frieda-who nonetheless became their intimate friends .
Both husbands were in precarious health; Maria's response was to assume
the role of a devoted, self-effacing custodian of Aldous's comfort, whereas
Frieda was so indifferent to Lawrence's physical needs that she was widely ac–
cused of hastening his death. Lawrence, notoriously, conceived of sexual re–
lationships as open and continuous struggles between the participants; but
Maria so much revered Aldous's intellect, and considered his gifts so far
above her own, that she felt it her duty to shield him from all outside claims
that might threaten his solitary cerebration. Not only would she serve his
needs at the expense of her own, and ward off every mundane annoyance,
she would do it so discreetly that he would not even realize the extent of
her services. Telling a young niece how to please a husband, Maria advised
her to work on his behalf "incessantly, invisibly, and without his know–
ledge," in order that he "won't have to tire himself by thanking you." Ma–
ria even took on the management of Aldous's love
affairs,
from the selection
of likely candidates through to their early, though courteous, dismissal. This
ultimate token of devotion Sybille Bedford explains as a facet of Maria's
" aristocratic view of sex" ; but she leaves us in doubt as to whether Aldous
conceded to Maria an equivalent sexual liberty.
Perhaps most marriages would appear similarly distorted if exposed to
the cold light of outside scrutiny; nonetheless, Maria's extreme subservience
seems a tainted gift, one that mired Aldous ever deeper in his "besetting sin,
the dread and avoidance of emotion, the escape from personal responsibil–
ity." Her ability to infuse warmth into relations with their mutual friends,
while admirable in itself, relieved Aldous of the need to make his own con–
tribution. The course of her final illness sounds as grotesque, in its own way,
as anything in his novels. She was privately obsessed with having to outlive
Aldous, since "How would he manage without me? ... I should have
failed in my duty to him"; while he apparently did not even realize she had
cancer until a week before her death, though it had been diagnosed more
than three years previously. After she died, his tribute to her admitted his
own delinquency: " in so far as I have learned to be human-and I had a
great capacity for not being human-it is thanks to her."
"Extraordinary" indeed, to use one of Aldous's favorite words; yet
despite this evidence there is truth also in Bedford's passing remark that he
was "the least neurotic of men." He seems to have been quite content with
the terms of his second marriage to Laura Archera-who had a profession of
her own, often lived apart from
him,
and made it clear from the beginning
that she would not devote herself to him as Maria had. The only difficult re-
