Emily Hale to T. S. Eliot
I have to thank you for three letters of November 15, 24 and the 30th. You took pains to write at length on the 24th in the midst of your crowded hours and on the 30th. I am sure you wrote after consideration and evaluation as truly and as fairly as you could. I think the matter from your point of view is wholly clear to me now.
I have been thinking of you much these last days as in Rome. I was much obliged for your cable about the French cancellation and anxiously wait word now of your return from Italy. You will be very much worn out and I am sorry for all the presumable anxiety and uncertainty which have beset you so intensely lately. ThePerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle);g5 Perkins – Uncle John rather – was very pleased by your affectionate note to him andTucker, J. Josephine;a5 Miss Tucker was elated apparently by word from you this last week.1 IHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3EH asks TSE to reduce;i5 shall miss your regular letters, of course, in a great many ways, but I shall hope that if you write once a month, you can write at some length, or at least, summarize the leading events in your life, if not the more detailed less significant affairs.
It may be after a longer period of adjustment on my part, I shall ask you to correspond more often again – all our life everywhere, world affairs and personal, is a moving forward as bravely, as trustfully, as possible, from day to day merely. Perhaps that is all we are ever meant to do, anyway.
Much has happened here since my last letter to you. I9 Lexington Road, Concord, Massachusetts;a4 left 9 Lexington Rd. one Monday afternoon the 9th of December, with Miss Flaherty and her married sister – housekeeper in residence as usual, to return Tuesday afternoon, to find the married sister had died after an illness from heart weakness of which she was, apparently, in ignorance. So, the rest of that week, I spent in making myself useful as I could to poor, bereaved Miss F. arranging flowers, doing errands, listening to the low voices of those watching thro’ the night by the casket, and finally attending, with the others in the house – awfully good people – the mass on Friday.
All this has made me sweetly friendly with little Miss F. who really is a great dear when you get by her first rather formal, nervous manner. She – being not strong herself – now finds it best to go to live with a close friend nearby here in town, so that her own rooms below me will be open for new tenants. This I regret in many ways, but she is only going to let either to someone – a lady – the opposite tenants know – or to two younger teacher friends of mine at the Academy, who may be interested in the rooms.
But Miss F. and her sister were such thoughtful, mouse-like creatures, I have been already spoiled for even the best substitutes. However, Miss F. will be equally anxious to have all of us suited and she seems to depend upon me already for future plans and responsibilities here. The three rooms do really have charm, home-likeness, and if I do say so, individuality, and each week sees some tiny change or addition which constantly adds to their attractiveness. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1948 trip to America;g5;a2 shall be anxious for you to see them next autumn and I think you’ll be pleased with them too – the outlook from the front windows is very charming – a full view of the Meeting House – or First Parish and its green, with the Congregational Church spire silhouetted against lovely sky colors beyond. IsabelWhiting, Isabelvisits EH;a4 Whiting came for this last Monday night and all of yesterday, sleeping, against my protests, on my very comfortable sofa in the front room, and fitting into it admirably, I must say. SheHale, Emilygives Christmas readings;r4 came, primarily, dear that she is, to hear my program of Christmas readings which I gave at the Parish house, Monday P.M.
I worked hard and long, not merely over the selections (I only memorized a few) but on the research work of background material of ‘Christmas down the ages’. I know myself it was all good and Isabel’s reaction was very complimentary indeed – in fact, everyone seems to have been delighted. As I miss sincerely the work with the children in the Christmas preparations, I was very happy to be given such a satisfactory substitute for my own expression for Christmas.
To-morrow evening comes my successor’s first public presentation – in the Christmas play – and I await it with great curiosity and expectation. All the children are very sweet in their expressions of missing me etc. – but I take some of their expressiveness to be only natural after so short an absence from me, tho’ I know it is also very sincere, which touches me. I'Journey of the Magi'EH reads to students;a4 read your ‘Journey of the Magi’ by the way on Monday, and for the dormitory girls last week at their Christmas party.
In the New Year I am contemplating trying to ‘get up’ enough programs to offer a choice to a few schools or organizations where I am known, and where I should like to be engaged to earn a little pin money.
IMcPherrin, Jeanettehosts EH at Wellesley;f9 went out a few weeks ago, by the way, to spend the night with Jeanette at Wellesley before a public concert. She had me in her new little home which is most perfect for her as Dean2 – andManwaring, Elizabeth;a8 entertained me very pleasantly at dinner by asking seven ladies to meet me – including your Miss Manwaring of whom J. is truly fond, I discover – the feeling seems to be mutual also. MissHinkleys, the;f3 M. inquired, naturally, for you, and placed me somewhat, after I spoke of meeting her at the Hinkleys long ago.
I am absorbed in writing or addressing some 100 of the cards like the enclosed, and getting off my few presents, none of which have even been done up yet.
I am trying to get off to Boston on Monday as, of course, IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt)according to EH;h8 am really much needed there, tho’ Aunt Edith has been very generously kind in not making any requests upon my time this week. I confess I dread being there any length of time, a little, as my poor aunt cannot accept her condition, norPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle)according to EH;g6 can my uncle in his years of patience and sweetness, seem able to help her much, except as you would comfort a child. Of course, with one’s nearest, one is inclined to be more emotionally free – but once again my aunt to me and to the public are two very different people, but I think I am understanding better how to take it all and I am so sorry for them both.
IKnowles, Sylvia Hathaway;a9 may or may not go to New Bedford, as I have never heard definitely from Sylvia (Miss Knowles) about coming. MaryFoss, Mary;a2 Foss is to use my rooms while I am gone – she is due in Concord tomorrow and made the suggestion about coming here which of course I am glad to have her do.
I am in such good physical condition that I gave a pint of my blood last week at the local Red Cross Chapter Blood bank, and suffered no ill effects at all. Well, call your monthly letter soon after this one to reassure me how you are. May you have some peace I pray – some comfort to your soul and strength to your body.
TheRock, Thequoted by EH;d9 New Year is indeed dark for all of us unless we pray for Light – Light – Light,3
1.TSE to J. C. Perkins, 6 Dec. 1947: ‘I think constantly of you both, and wish that I could be near enough to come in from time to time, to read aloud, or to go out with you when you can get out: but I fear that you are both now confined to the flat a great deal of the time […] I am glad that you will, as usual, have Emily with you for Christmas; but otherwise I fear it will not be a very merry one – as, even apart from private difficulties, it can hardly be for anyone who is concerned about the future of this world’s affairs. But I hope it may be a blessed one, and it will have the loving prayers and memories of myself, hoping to see you both again before another Christmas comes – to be more exact, in October of next year. / Very affectionately, / Tom’ (Beinecke).
2.JeanetteMcPherrin, Jeanettenow Lecturer in French at Wellesley;g1n McPherrin had become Lecturer in French at Wellesley College in 1946; she served too as Dean of Freshmen.
3.Cf. The Rock:
After much striving, after many obstacles;
For the work of creation is never without travail;
The formed stone, the visible crucifix,
The dressed altar, the lifting light,
Light
Light
—
The visible reminder of Invisible Light.————[end of Chorus IX]
And the concluding words of the Rock, now St Peter:
And there with us is night no more, but only
Light
Light
Light of the Light.
1.MaryFoss, Mary Foss was an old friend of EH: they were contemporaries at Miss Porter’s School, Farmington, CT, where they acted in plays and were members of a Shakespeare club. EH would often visit the Fosses at their home in Concord, and she taught the daughter, Sally Foss, while at Concord Academy.
2.SylviaKnowles, Sylvia Hathaway Hathaway Knowles (1891–1979), of New Bedford, Mass. – a descendant of a long-established merchant and business family based there – was a friend and room-mate of EH from their schooldays at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Vermont.
2.JeanetteMcPherrin, Jeanette McPherrin (1911–92), postgraduate student at Scripps College; friend of EH: see Biographical Register.
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.
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
3.TSETucker, J. Josephine mischievously implies that EH’s boss, J. Josephine Tucker, Head of Concord Academy, 1940–9, might be the Ukrainian-born American singer, comedian and actor Sophie Tucker (1886–1966), ‘Last of the Red-Hot Mamas’. Josephine Tucker invited TSE to give the Commencement address at Concord Academy in 1946.
1.AnWhiting, Isabel old, close friend of EH’s, Isabel Whiting lived for some years at 11 Mason Street, Cambridge, MA; later at 9 Phillips Place, Cambridge, MA.