[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
I was very joyful in receiving your letter of December 28 yesterday – you see what a time it was coming – and it made me particularly happy, I don’t know why any of your letters should make me happier than another – apart from the appetite sharpened by delay – but so it is sometimes. Please don’t think that I had been reproaching you for omissions, far from it; I only wanted to remind you that I hadn’t forgotten and still hoped; and if anyone should know what it is to have constantly to defer things one wants to do, it is I.
Buttravels, trips and plansTSE's 1932–3 year in America;a7;a7 really, MadamHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9and the prospect of TSE's Harvard year;b4, did you think that I was criticising your use of the phrase ‘force an issue’, or your epistolary style of writing the English language? What a prig & pedant I must seem – but I do not like even the tiniest misunderstanding to pass unresolved. No indeed, I find that what you outline is much as I had anticipated myself. (I do write badly in letters, I know, trying to say as much as possible in the time). Whattravels, trips and plansTSE's 1932–3 year in America;a7TSE's itinerary;a8 I should expect is this: IHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3TSE hopes to telephone;b5 shall communicate with you as soon as possible after arrival, possibly by telephone. I must then see my three sisters and the Hinkleys at once; and as soon as that is done I shall crave permission to see you, when and as you please. I must see my relatives (or those mentioned) first of course; but I should prefer to see you alone, for however brief an interview, before the Hinkleys or the Noyeses or anybody have time to ask us together. And I know I shall want to see you again just before I leave; but as to whether we meet again privately in between, very likely we shan’t, unless some special reason, now unforeseen, arises. WhatHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3TSE wishes to maintain when in America;b6 I do hold to however is the hope that we may correspond regularly the whole time; I think it would be a great pity (from my point of view at least) to interrupt our intimacy in this channel. What I feel is, frankly, that as I can’t have what I want, which is of course to have you with me day and night always, then all I want is to pursue and develop the mutual sympathy and understanding and companionship through letters. For an intimacy like this is not a static thing, even limited to correspondence it does, I am sure, bring greater and greater understanding and unity of mind as long as we are alive.
It will seem very exciting to be able to write a letter at night which you will get in the morning, or to get a letter from you and know that you wrote it the night before. What a readjustment that will be. I hope I shall not be spoiled by it for the future. As to how often to write, that we must settle when the time comes.
VivienneEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)and TSE's departure for America;e9adjusting to the prospect;a2 is I think gradually getting habituated to the notion of my going, and without her, though she bursts out occasionally. But I think she is pretty well fixed in the acceptance of remaining at home; in fact, she does not even want to go. AtEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)and TSE's departure for America;e9might coordinate with a return to Malmaison;a3 present, she believes that she wants to go back to the Malmaison sanatorium, when I leave for America. I fear that that would consume the most of my profits, but if she really sticks to the notion she shall go. But I suspect that when the time comes she will feel frightened to go abroad away from her family and most of her friends. ThereCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin)potential guardian for VHE;a3 will be nobody in Paris who would keep an eye on her except Marguerite de Bassiano, and she would certainly be in Rome for a large part of the time. WhenEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)mental state;e8at the Malmaison sanatorium;a5 V. was there before I came over every fortnight or so for a few days, andHaigh-Wood, Rose Esther (TSE's mother-in-law, née Robinson)visited VHE in sanatorium;a5 also her mother came for Christmas; and now her mother is not strong enough for such an exertion, and there would be no one to visit her at all. I think the best thing would be for her to go to a country sanatorium in England for a time, and then have a nurse-companion in the flat with her. How she will manage I can’t conceive; and I shall have to surround her with a ring of medical, legal and friendly care. My lawyers will have to pay my periodical bills for rent etc. and pay out an allowance to her. It all makes my head swim to think of.
SheEliots, the T. S.;b9 is giving aThorps, theVHE invites to party;b1 small party tonight – somebody reciting and someone to sing and someone to play – and we expect the Thorps.
IWilburs, the;a1 am glad you know the Wilburs.1 I liked them very much when I saw them this summer; they have a daughter Elizabeth, who is working in New York, who struck me as rather an interesting girl of definite personality. Of course they were very sad when I saw them, and it must have been very hard for him to give up a looked forward to year of research in Central Europe.
No, I am ashamed to say that I have never heard of the Thomas’s, or of Beeleigh Abbey either.2 Would that I did.
I loved your description of your Christmas. IdogsEH fond of;a4 wish indeed that you might live in the country, and have horses and dogs, of which I know you are fond. … But really, I cannot believe that in painting your face yellow and blacking your eyes to look Chinese, you are going to exhibit your beauty to advantage! If you ever do send a photograph, not in that role please. I saw the play years and years ago, done with what was supposed to be Chinese setting (a stepladder representing a mountain, and so on) [sic] Chinese music.
1.EarlWilbur, Earl Morse Morse Wilbur (1866–1956), Unitarian minister, educator and historian, studied at the University of Vermont and at Harvard Divinity School, and succeeded TSE’s cousin Thomas Lamb Eliot as minister of the Portland Oregon Unitarian Church in 1893. In 1898 he married Eliot’s daughter, Dorothea Dix Eliot (1871–1957); they had two children. He was Dean, President, 1911–31, and Professor of Homiletics and Practical Theology, 1931–4, of the Pacific Unitarian School for Ministry, in Berkeley, Caifornia. A dedicated scholar, he studied languages including Latin, Hungarian and Polish, and did research in countries including Poland, Italy, Spain, France and England, as well as in American archives. His crowning achievement was the publication of his two volumes: A History of Unitarianism: Socinianism and Its Antecedents (1945), and A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England, and America to 1900 (1952). In 1953, the American Unitarian Association awarded him the Annual Unitarian Award in Recognition of Distinguished Service to the Cause of Liberal Religion.
2.Beeleigh Abbey, on the banks of the River Chelmer, near Maldon, Essex, was founded in 1180 as a home for the White Canons. In 1920 the abbey was purchased by Richard and Jessie Thomas, who undertook restoration work; and it was subsequently owned by William Foyle, of Foyles Bookshop in London.
4.MargueriteCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin) Caetani, née Chapin (1880–1963) – Princesse di Bassiano – literary patron and editor: see Biographical Register. LéliaCaetani, Lélia Caetani (1913–77), sole daughter, was to marry Hubert Howard (1908–87), a scion of the English Catholic House of Howard, who worked to preserve the Caetani heritage at Rome and at the castle of Sermoneta.
2.RoseHaigh-Wood, Rose Esther (TSE's mother-in-law, née Robinson) Esther Haigh-Wood (1860–1941), wifeHaigh-Wood, Charles of Charles Haigh-Wood (1854–1927), artist.
1.EarlWilbur, Earl Morse Morse Wilbur (1866–1956), Unitarian minister, educator and historian, studied at the University of Vermont and at Harvard Divinity School, and succeeded TSE’s cousin Thomas Lamb Eliot as minister of the Portland Oregon Unitarian Church in 1893. In 1898 he married Eliot’s daughter, Dorothea Dix Eliot (1871–1957); they had two children. He was Dean, President, 1911–31, and Professor of Homiletics and Practical Theology, 1931–4, of the Pacific Unitarian School for Ministry, in Berkeley, Caifornia. A dedicated scholar, he studied languages including Latin, Hungarian and Polish, and did research in countries including Poland, Italy, Spain, France and England, as well as in American archives. His crowning achievement was the publication of his two volumes: A History of Unitarianism: Socinianism and Its Antecedents (1945), and A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England, and America to 1900 (1952). In 1953, the American Unitarian Association awarded him the Annual Unitarian Award in Recognition of Distinguished Service to the Cause of Liberal Religion.