[No surviving envelope]
I may decide to send you a cable after all, in spite of your request; because this (which should have been a birthday letter) has been delayed by a cold which has kept me in bed for several days and reduced me to complete stupidity also. I am now out and about again, to-day. I think this was the result of 1) the dental operation 2) a drop in the temperature on my return from the nursing home and the attempt to go on just a few days too long without turning on the electric heat 3) possibly inoculations and colds and flu, the last inoculation coming at the moment perhaps when I had just got a chill. I don’t really believe in any protection against colds except trying to avoid fatigue and chills simultaneously – I don’t think one catches cold except when tired: but at the same time it seems to be a kind of duty to try all the nostrums – inoculations, auto-inoculations, vitamins (IManwaring, Elizabeth;a6 haveSpencer, Theodore;c8 been conscientiously eating the Ascorbic Acid tablets which were so enthusiastically recommended to me by Miss Manwaring and Ted Spencer) and cold cure (Emagrin tablets recommended strongly by my sisters). As for the teeth, I am still wondering whether the time ever comes when one ceases to worry: at present I cannot eat soft bread or anything sticky, and even a coughing fit can dislodge them. But I hope that as the gums take their final shape the dentist can make the plates tighter. Other people seem to get on well enough and even make public speeches. SomehowFranceFrench language;b3and TSE's false teeth;a4 I have a suspicion that the teeth are more likely to come loose if I talk French. At least, it is reasonable to hope that I shall need no more general anaesthetics this year.
I was very glad to get your letter of the 15th, a day or two ago, with its description of your rooms and reassurance about your way of life. IEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)undernourished;f4 think Marion could give you tips on how to buy provisions for one person alone; but I should not like you to follow them too exactly, as I don’t think she eats enough – the way she attacked a beefsteak when I took her out to a meal seemed to tell a story. I should like to know that you buy yourself at least one beefsteak a week, and a good chop. IFaber and Faber (F&F)lunch at Wednesday board-meetings;f6 know that a joint is out of the question: I am myself very lucky to be able to get a good cut off a joint once a week, most weeks, at our weekly Board Lunch on Wednesdays.
As for parcels, there are some people who are in a position to send me a parcel from time to time, and want to do so; so I am discouraging you and my relatives, andPerkinses, the;m2 the Perkins’s, from doing so. Besides, one doesn’t want to be very much better off than other people.
ApartEuropeits post-war condition;a9 fromUnited NationsUNESCO's attempt to define Human Rights;a2 wrangles with UNESCO (letters to The Times, and direct)1 trying vainly to persuade them to clean up their language, and not attempt several silly projects which are a waste of time and money, when there is so much they could do helping the Greeks to get school desks, blackboards, textbooks and such essentials (as for most of Central Europe, we cannot do anything for that area with the Russians in control); andBlackburn, Raymondwith TSE against nuclear war;a1 discussing aLabour Party, the;a8 political statement with Captain Blackburn (one of the small number of Labour M.P.s who are both honest and courageous and independent)[,]2 I have done nothing but potter since I went to have my teeth out.
Perhaps somebody will take photographs of your rooms when you get settled – also I like to see the view out of each window, please: I don’t think you use a camera yourself. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1948 trip to America;g5;a1 don’t know why you should say that I shall not see the rooms for another year and a half: a year, please. IPrinceton Universityand TSE's Institute for Advanced Study position;e3 shall hope to get over in September, late, or the beginning of October; so as to have a couple of weeks in Massachusetts before settling in Princeton.
I am afraid that you will find the choice of plays in Concord very seldom to your taste; it is perhaps more serious if the producing is inefficient. With a good producer, and real discipline, one can always at least keep in practice, and get a drill useful for repertory work – the ability to throw oneself into any sort of part at short notice and make the best of it. But otherwise, any opportunity for serious work must, I fear, come from elsewhere. The prospect of giving recitations at schools etc. is interesting (what is the usual fee for such a performance, by the way?) and I should like to know what kind of poems are most in demand. I can send any new poetry books we publish, if new contemporary work is in any demand. TheLowell, Robertcommended to EH;a1 most interesting of the young American poets I have come across in the last two or three years is Robert Lowell.3
I'Milton II'apparently perceived as 'recantation';a8 imagination [sc. imagine] that my supposed ‘recantation’ refers to my lecture on Milton (which only recants on a few minor details, otherwise the title is merely sensationalism) which the British Academy are slow in producing. The text is only known from reports of my delivering it at the Frick Gallery in New York.4 ThoseEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)death;l5 days, when Henry was slowly sinking, were a nightmare: mostWellesley College1947 poetry reading at;a7 of all the afternoon and evening at Wellesley andManwaring, Elizabethon the day of Henry's death;a7 having to put up with Miss Manwarings [sic] fatuities.
This will not reach you till after your birthday, but I wish (much more than being able to give you a proper birthday present) that I could take you out on that evening and give you a very large and tender steak.
1.TSEUnited NationsUNESCO's attempt to define Human Rights;a2 to Julian Huxley (first director-general of UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation), in response to a draft memorandum on the scope of human rights, 27 Mar. 1947: ‘I will confess frankly … that my first sentiment is one of astonishment that Unesco should be occupied with such a formulation. A statement of the rights of man, unless it was a tissue of ambiguities, could never, I think, be framed in such a way as to command the assent of all intelligent men. It seems, therefore, a more appropriate activity for philosophers as private individuals than for an official body of the universal scope of Unesco. I should have thought that Unesco would be better occupied in the more particular activities of beneficence in helping injured countries to reorganize the higher part of their life.’ See too TSE, ‘UNESCO and the Philosopher’ (letter), The Times, 20 Sept. 1947, 5: CProse 7, 9–10. ‘UNESCO and its Aims: The Definition of Culture’, The Times, 17 Oct. 1947, 7; CProse 7, 19–20.
2.RaymondBlackburn, Raymond Blackburn (1915–91), who served in WW2 as a captain in the Royal Artillery, was a Labour Party Member of Parliament, 1945–51. (He was an alcoholic, was declared bankrupt in 1952, and in 1956 was convicted of fraud and served a prison sentence.)
TSECold War, Theand atomic war;a1n, who met Blackburn through Lord Vansittart, advised Blackburn on the wording of a statement warning of the dangers of nuclear proliferation: see ‘Control of Atomic Energy: Appeal for Anglo-U.S. Approach to Russia’, Manchester Guardian, 22 Dec. 1947, 5:
As a result of the failure of the Foreign Ministers’ Conference a group of prominent people in Britain, including members of both Houses of Parliament, have issued a statement drawing attention to what they regard as the seriousness of the threat of letting loose an atomic war as a result of a deterioration of international relations. After pointing to respects in which Communism, Fascism, and Nazism resemble each other, and to the concern felt at the growing strength of Communism the document says: ‘All attempts to control atomic energy have been frustrated by the intransigence of the Soviet Union. Unless within the very near future strict international control of atomic energy is established we shall face a desperate world situation.’ The idea of despots that war could be localised was a dangerous illusion, as was shown in 1914, and the illusion was infinitely multiplied in an atomic age. The signatories add –
‘Suspicions and strains were greatly increased as the time draws nearer when atomic and other weapons of mass destruction will probably be possessed by the major Powers and may be possessed by minor Powers. If the peoples of America and Britain have to choose between being engulfed by Communism and a new war, we believe that they would choose war.’
SOVIET PARTICIPATION
We think that it should be clearly indicated to the Soviet Union that a policy of wishing to have the fruits of war, without war itself, might eventually land them into a war which they do not, in our opinion, desire. We should make one last attempt, at the highest possible level, to secure Soviet participation in a scheme for the control of atomic energy. Above all, it should be pointed out to Mr. Stalin, by Mr. Attlee and President Truman, that it is to the interests of the Soviet Union that an atomic war should be averted. If this last and most powerful intervention were to fail, we suggest that the freedom-loving Powers closely associated with Britain and America should act in concert. They should together develop such a predominance of defensive strength, including atomic strength, that no Power would dare to challenge them. If this policy had been followed before 1939 there would have been no war.
COMMUNIST FIFTH COLUMN
The document goes on:
‘It is the sad fact that after six years of war the Allies overthrew one form of totalitarianism only to see another form become even more powerful in Europe than Fascism had been. It is most important for the British people to realise that the Communist fifth column in Britain is far more dangerous and powerful than the Fascist fifth column ever was. Liberty is sporadically dying and needs for survival a fervour at least equal to that of the force arrayed against it. This ideal cannot be achieved unless far greater attention is paid to a regeneration of the moral, spiritual, and religious consciousness of the British people.’
The signatories of the document are Lady Violet Bonham Carter, the Very Reverend W. R. Matthews (Dean of St. Paul’s), Mr. T. S. Eliot, Lord Brabazon of Tara, Lord Quibell, Earl Russell (Bertrand Russell), Lord Vansittart, Mr. Raymond Blackburn, M.P., Mr. Clement Davies, M.P., the Rev. Gordon Lang, M.P. and Mr Tom O’Brien, M.P.
3.RobertLowell, Robert Lowell (1917–77): celebrated American poet of American cultural history (though often associated with the so-called ‘Confessional’ school); descendant of a distinguished Boston family; Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1947–8. Author of collections of poetry including Land of Unlikeness (1944), Lord Weary’s Castle (1946) and Life Studies (1959; winner of the National Book Award 1960). His poetry was to be promoted in the UK by TSE at Faber & Faber. Other awards included a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1947; the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1947 and 1974; and the National Book Critics Circle Award, 1977.
4.TSE gave his lecture on Milton as the Annual Lecture on a Master Mind, Henriette Hertz Trust, 26 Mar. 1947 (it was also broadcast on the BBC Third Programme); again at the Frick Gallery, New York, 3 May 1947. Published as Milton (1947); repr. in On Poetry and Poets: CProse 7, 21–43.
2.RaymondBlackburn, Raymond Blackburn (1915–91), who served in WW2 as a captain in the Royal Artillery, was a Labour Party Member of Parliament, 1945–51. (He was an alcoholic, was declared bankrupt in 1952, and in 1956 was convicted of fraud and served a prison sentence.)
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
3.RobertLowell, Robert Lowell (1917–77): celebrated American poet of American cultural history (though often associated with the so-called ‘Confessional’ school); descendant of a distinguished Boston family; Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1947–8. Author of collections of poetry including Land of Unlikeness (1944), Lord Weary’s Castle (1946) and Life Studies (1959; winner of the National Book Award 1960). His poetry was to be promoted in the UK by TSE at Faber & Faber. Other awards included a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1947; the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1947 and 1974; and the National Book Critics Circle Award, 1977.
3.ElizabethManwaring, Elizabeth Manwaring (1879–1959), a Professor of English at Wellesley College, was author of a pioneering study, Italian Landscape in Eighteenth Century England: a study chiefly of the influence of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa on English Taste, 1700–1800 (New York, 1925). Good friend of TSE’s sister Marian.
2.TheodoreSpencer, Theodore Spencer (1902–48), writer, poet and critic, taught at Harvard, 1927–49: see Biographical Register.