Iris

I want you to come quick.

Don't go!

Edward Lanman was sitting in

his pleasant house in London

The sun was shining

It was an early morning in June, not quite...

Iris.

Iris, wait for me.

Just keep tight hold of me and it'll be all right.

-You won't keep still.

-I can't keep still.

I can't catch up with you.

-Iris, you've got bicycle oil on your ankle.

-I don't care, John.

Those of you, our guests...

... on whose magnificent generosity

we depend...

...we really are most frightfully grateful...

...will need no introduction to

one of our most distinguished graduates...

... an honorary fellow, Dame Iris Murdoch.

She's a noted philosopher as well as

author of some twenty-six novels.

And we are honoured to have her with us today.

As well as the distinguished

Warton Professor of Literature..

...who has the great good fortune

of being married to her.

I need say no more about her.

For good wine needs no bush.

But she will not mind comparison with...

... say, a really fine vintage claret.

... Dame Iris will speak to you

about the importance of education.

Education doesn't make you happy.

And nor does freedom.

We don't become happy

just because we're free -- if we are...

... or because we've been educated, if we have.

But because education may be the means...

... by which we realise we are happy.

It opens our eyes, our ears.

Tells us where delights are lurking.

Convinces us that there is only one freedom...

... of any importance whatsoever.

That of the mind.

And gives us the assurance,the confidence...

...to walk the path our mind,

our educated mind offers.

I shall tell him all my love.

All my soul's adoration.

And I think he will hear me.

And will not say me nay.

It is this that gives my soul.

All it's joyous elation.

As I hear the sweet larks sing.

In the clear air of the day.

Yes, of course there's something fishy...

... about describing people's feelings.

Try hard to beaccurate, but...

... as soon as you start to define

such and such a feeling...

... language let's you down.

When we really speak the truth,

words are insufficient.

Almost everything,

except things like "pass the gravy" ...

... is a lie of a sort.

And that being the case, I shall shut up.

And pass the gravy.

But love, or at least unsatisfied love...

... is concerned as much with understanding.

And real love, extreme love...

... once it's recognised

has stamp of the indubitable...

Ah, John, may I call you, John, may I?

Meet Miss Murdoch.

Iris, my dear, John Bayley.

One of the more promising young lecturers

in the English School.

Though I caught him out over

Old English grammar, his weaker side I fear.

A minor question of Anglo-Saxon syntax.

Wine!

I mean...

... It went down the wrong way.

Yes, I like that.

There is a right way down, of course.

Amazing how most of us find it

without even thinking about it.

I rarely think...

If you think about it, you'll never find it.

Best thing to do

is hang on and trust the body. I do.

Human beings love each other.

In sex, in friendship...

... and when they're in love.

And they cherish other beings.

Humans, animals, plants - even stones.

The quest for happiness

and the promotion of happiness--

--is in all of this

and the power of our imagination.

I'm writing a novel.

I don't suppose you have the time

or the inclination to even read a novel.

I've written one. It's going to be published.

And I'm writing another.

Can I read it?

No-one has read It -- None of my friends.

What's it about?

About? It has something for everyone.

A bit like Shakespeare?

Perhaps, yes.

Please don't talk to anyone about it.

No. Course not.

I won't tell a soul.

Every human soul has seen,

perhaps even before their birth...

... pure forms. Such as justice, temperance...

... beauty ...

... and all the great moral qualities

which we hold in honour.

We are moved towards what is good...

... by the faint memory of these forms.

Simple - -and calm and blessed...

...which we saw once in a pure clear light...

... being pure ourselves.

'Wholegrain'.

Do we have wholegrain or something other?

What is whole?

Is It something in itself or does it have parts?

Oh, spaghetti.

If you have a whole you have a whole.

Ooh, sausages.

You and me is a whole.

If you toddle off there's a hole in the whole.

Or, if I do.

But a whole can't be broken,

it just forms another whole.

-Baked beans.

-Baked beans.

Do you want Premium points?

Do we deserve them?

-Do you want bags?

-Bags, yes.

You know, it's all around us,

people like you and me talking nonsense.

I know, I know.

Bag for life:

-For life?

-That's what it says.

We have to ask, give you the choice.

Ooh, rather.

You just have to listen, that's the job.

You call it a job but it's like music, what you do.

You live with the angels,

speak their language, the music of the spheres.

Nowadays the only language

anyone really understands...

...is pictures. Paint the picture.

See, now I'm bagged for life.

Love's the only language everyone understands.

Ooh love, yes.

I can read It but I can't speak it.

My coat's caught on your chair.

And the captain said

as the two weevils dropped out of the biscuit...

..."which would you rather have, Mr Smith?"

"The bigger one, sir."

"Wrong, Mr Smith, wrong."

"In the Navy you should always...

...choose the lesser of the two weevils."

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