[No surviving envelope]
[29 March]
YourChristianityliturgy;b9during Holy Week;b7 letter of March 19 arrived in good time for Easter, and I should have answered it at once but for the fatigues of the period. HolyChristianitythe Church Year;d8exhausting but refreshing;c2 Week gives me a great deal, of course, but is a physical tax – if there were more younger men one would not have to get up at 4 on Good Friday to take the last hour of the watch – the Tenebrae service comes at such a time that only a picnic supper is possible; and on Sunday I had to be at the 8 a.m. Mass, which means a half hour walk as the buses do not start in time (ordinarily I go twice during the week and on Sunday only to the 11 o’clock). AndMassis, Henrisolicits Maurras tribute;a5 the ‘holidays’ tend to be spent in dealing with arrears of correspondence – andMaurras, Charleshonoured while imprisoned;a2 I had to respond to a sudden call from Henri Massis to'Hommage à Charles Maurras';a1 write a short paper in honour of Charles Maurras’ birthday, which I felt bound to do as he will spend the rest of his life in prison1 – and there are duty visits to be paid. YesterdayRobertses, theEaster Egg hunt with;a9 to tea with the Roberts’s in the large old bleak house which serves as the Principal’s Lodgings for their Training College:2 out of doors was sunny and warm, watching the children hunt for their Easter Eggs (not real eggs, of course, nowadays, but real chocolate eggs – the hunt so arranged that each child finds one egg) and the interior was chilly and I caught a slight cold – very slight, and I have so far escaped very lightly this winter. AndIovetz-Tereshchenko, N. M.paralysed;a8 this afternoon to Wandsworth to pay a visit, the first since January, on the paralysed Tereshchenko.
Astravels, trips and plansTSE's postponed 1948 trip to Aix;g4;a2 for the immediate future: IUniversity of Aix-en-Provenceeventually confers degree on TSE;a1 have to go to Southern France on the 14th, for the postponed ceremony at Aix, returning on the 21st. I shall be glad to get that over with, finally, for indeed it has been nothing but a nuisance. TheItalian General Election, 1948particularly on TSE's mind;a1 Italian elections on the 18th are much in my mind: so much depends on the result – more perhaps than on any election anywhere before. If, that is, the Communists do not attempt a coup de force before that day.3 I mean to fly to Marseilles and back, by British Airways, in case there should again be any disturbance of the French railways.
When one writes only once a month, I find that curious blanks occur in my memory at the time of writing: such that it must seem as if I were deliberately omitting mention of some event or other. IGeorge VIinvests TSE at Buckingham Palace;a2 was not even sure whether I had written of the investiture or not.4 ItEnglandEnglish traditions;c4Order of Merit;a2 was a very informal affair: ILascelles, Alan ('Tommy')at TSE's investiture;a2 was given an appointment and arrived at the Palace about ten minutes beforehand, and was taken in to Alan Lascelles, the King’s Private Secretary, whom I know slightly anyway, which made it easier.5 Then a young equerry in naval uniform turned up who led me up a small staircase to a small drawing room, where he left me alone with the King (in the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet) who handed me the medal (or cross, a handsome gold and enamel construction with a red and blue ribbon to hang round the neck – suchLloyds Banksafeguards TSE's Order of Merit;a5 decorations are only worn on very formal state occasions, so it now rests in safe custody at Lloyds Bank) and made me sit down by the fire and chat for ten or fifteen minutes – about the Order (in which he takes an interest, as this is one of the few decorations which are directly his own gift and not made by recommendation of the Prime Minister), a few polite questions about my work, and some remarks about persons of our (very limited!) mutual acquaintance. I thought him very charming and easy, and he does not stammer in the least, in private conversations. WhatElizabeth, Queen, the Queen Motherattends Murder;a4 pleasedGeorge VIattends Murder;a3 meMargaret, Princessattends Murder;a1 particularly was that heMercury Theatre, Londongraced with royal visit;d2 and the Queen and Princess Margaret came to a performance of Murder in the Cathedral (the same old production with Speaight at the Mercury) the next week.6 It was not surprising that the Queen should have come, because she is interested in art and literature, but a great compliment for him to come too. In the interval, the cast was presented to them. I regret to say that I was not pleased with the performance. SpeaightSpeaight, Robertstill playing Becket;e5 is in some ways better than before – he is so much older, and quieter, than he was, and looks the part better, but he still puts too much pathos into his sermon – butBrowne, Elliott MartinChairman of the Drama League;e6 the tempter-knights were indulging in far too much buffoonery: I spoke to Martin about it afterwards. Martin, as I may or may not have told you, is now Chairman of the Drama League – a paid position of some importance; this is on the whole I think a good thing, but he will no longer be able to produce much, andDukes, Ashleytakes full control of Mercury;h2 Ashley Dukes is going to try to run the Mercury himself, producing verse plays etc. (atMercury Theatre, Londonstaging Playboy of the Western World;d3 theSynge, John Millington ('J. M')The Playboy of the Western World;a2 moment the Playboy of the Western World7), and according to his own ideas, for he has never seen eye to eye with Martin. I do not know how this will turn out. ButBrowne, Elliott Martin1949 Edinburgh Cocktail Party;e7to produce;a1 Martin is toCocktail Party, The1949 Edinburgh Festival production;d1Martin Browne to produce;a1 produce my new play, if I get it finished in time, in Edinburgh in the summer of 1949. (A good idea, I think, for if it should have a success in Edinburgh, there should be a chance of taking it to some larger theatre in London and getting out of the limited Mercury area). HeOld Vic, Theengages Martin Browne to produce Coriolanus;c1 isShakespeare, WilliamCoriolanus;b4 also producing ‘Coriolanus’ for the Old Vic in May, which should be interesting.8
AllHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3TSE criticised for following monthly injunction;i6 this is what I should have written some time ago if I had not taken you so literally. But your instructions were certainly categorical, though I am sorry that I interpreted them so literally: but I thought it better to err that way than the other! It should be needless to say that I have been constantly aware, and sometime uneasy, of the absence of news from yourself: your letter of the 19th does much to dispel the more practical anxieties. IAbbot Academy, Andover, Massachusetts;a5 am so glad that Abbott [sic] has proved a happy and appreciative place, and that you can see that your work there is producing results. OnPerkinses, thewhich is a burden;m7 the other hand, I know that the Perkins’s must become an increasing cause of anxiety and responsibility to you, without the compensating happiness which such a relationship ought to give.
TheEuropethe possibility of Federal Union;b1 shadowCold War, TheTSE on the threat of;a3 on the world is certainly darker than in 1938. Whatcommunismduring the Cold War;b6 gives the character of nightmare is the impression of something much more like a plague, the Black Death, than like a war. Two groups of nations set against each other is bad enough, in all conscience; but what is so appalling is the infection of communism in all the countries of the West, the dread of collapse without a war or with only a token war, because of the lack of strength for resistance. It is an upheaval of the undermost, most sinister elements of society everywhere. Some form of Federal Union is no doubt desirable, if there is still enough to unite, and if the organisms to be united can establish enough health in themselves.
You mention enclosures in your letter, but there was no enclosure except the very pretty Easter Card. Perhaps you will be sending them separately. I had a cable from the Perkins’s, presumably after receiving my letter and hearing other reports of the presentation, thanking me again as an Easter greeting. INason, Margaret ('Meg') Geraldine;b4 also had a letter from Meg, regretting very much that you could not visit them in Broadway after all.
I fear that your Easter holidays were too short to give you very much rest; andMolnár, FerencThe Swan;a1 the coming term, with the Molnar play,9 must be tiring. But I am glad that spring has come for you at last. Our mild winter has so far been succeeded by a beautiful spring, and, for London, very dry weather.
1.‘HommageBabbitt, Irvingcompared to Maurras;b2 à Charles Maurras’, Aspects de la France et du Monde 2 (25 Apr. 1948), 6. CProse 8, 165–70. ‘One thing that [Irving Babbitt, Professor of French at Harvard] had in common with Charles Maurras was an inability to accept Christianity. In Babbitt the alternative was a kind of Buddhism which I find romantic; in Maurras, a romantic neo-Hellenism, an idealisation of the Mediterranean pre-Christian world. My view may be mistaken; but the reader will be better able to judge if he is put in possession of it; and this view is that the only “classicism” possible for modern man is one which embraces the Christian faith. I believe this in spite of the fact that there can be a romantic Catholicism, and that this is an aberration: for romantic Catholicism always involves being a Catholic partly for the wrong reasons.’
Maurras had been sentenced to life imprisonment for his support of the collaborationist Vichy government.
2.Michael Roberts was (since 1945) Principal of the College of St Mark and St John in Chelsea, London.
3.Western countries feared that in the Italian national elections to be held on 18 April, the Communist party, controlled by the Soviet Union, might make a grab for power (the Communists had taken control of Czechoslovakia in Feb. 1948). In the event, the election resulted in a large majority for the Christian Democracy party, led by Alcide de Gasperi, who set up a ‘centrist’ coalition government excluding the communists.
4.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffreyon TSE's Order of Merit;k8n Faber to Stephen Spender, 25 Feb. 1948: ‘I expect you saw about Tom’s O.M.? As you can imagine, he has been very careful not to display any emotion over this; but I think it gave him great satisfaction, as it did to all of his friends and admirers. I haven’t heard how it was received in America.’
5.TSE had enjoyed Lascelles’s company at a Literary Society dinner in Nov. 1937.
6.King George VI came to the performance with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret: see Kensington Post, 21 Feb. 1948.
TSE to Marian Eliot, 22 Feb. 1948: ‘It is very unusual for the King to do anything like this, though the Queen and Princesses often do so, and is considered a great honour. Between the acts they came round and had the actors presented to them. The Queen (whom I have met before in similar circumstances) is also very charming, and I talked with her a little’ (Bodleian).
7.The Playboy of the Western World (1907), by the Irish playwright J. M. Synge (1871–1909).
8.TheGuinness, Alecin Martin Browne's Coriolanus;a2n company for Browne’s production of Coriolanus included Alec Guinness as Menenius Agrippa.
9.The Swan (1921), by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár, translated by Norman Lee Swartout, Sr.
2.IrvingBabbitt, Irving Babbitt (1865–1933), American academic and literary and cultural critic; Harvard University Professor of French Literature (TSE had taken his course on literary criticism in France); antagonist of Rousseau and romanticism; promulgator (with Paul Elmer More) of ‘New Humanism’. His publications include Literature and the American College (1908); Rousseau and Romanticism (1919); Democracy and Leadership (1924). See TSE, ‘The Humanism of Irving Babbitt’ (1928), in Selected Essays (1950); ‘XIII by T. S. Eliot’, in Irving Babbitt: Man and Teacher, ed. F. Manchester and Odell Shepard (1941): CProse 6, 186–9.
4.E. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin Browne (1900–80), English director and producer, was to direct the first production of Murder in the Cathedral: see Biographical Register.
4.AshleyDukes, Ashley Dukes (1885–1959), theatre manager, playwright, critic, translator, adapter, author; from 1933, owner of the Mercury Theatre, London: see Biographical Register.
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
5.AlecGuinness, Alec Guinness (1914–2000), distinguished English actor: see Biographical Register.
2.N. M. Iovetz-TereshchenkoIovetz-Tereshchenko, N. M. (1895–1954), B.Litt. (Oxon), PhD (London): Russian exile; Orthodox Catholic Christian; university lecturer in psychology: see Biographical Register.
13.AlanLascelles, Alan ('Tommy') ‘Tommy’ Lascelles (1887–1981), courtier and civil servant; Assistant Private Secretary to George V, 1935–6; to Edward VII; and to George VI (by whom he was to be knighted in 1939); Private Secretary from 1943; Private Secretary to Elizabeth II, 1952–3.
5.Henri MassisMassis, Henri (1886–1970), right-wing Roman Catholic critic; contributor to L’ Action Française; co-founder and editor of La Revue Universelle: see Biographical Register.
6.Charles MaurrasMaurras, Charles (1868–1952), French poet, critic, political philosopher and polemical journalist; founding editor and moving spirit of the monarchist paper, L’ Action Française (1908–44) – which was ultimately to support Pétain and Vichy during WW2. Building on ‘three traditions’ – classicism, Catholicism, monarchism – Maurras’s ideology was to become increasingly right-wing, authoritarian and anti-democratic. In 1925 TSE had planned to write a book about Maurras; and he later wrote ‘The Action Française, M. Maurras and Mr. Ward’, Criterion 7 (March 1928). In a later essay, TSE cited Whibley, Daudet and Maurras as the ‘three best writers of invective of their time’ (Selected Essays, 499). Eliot to William Force Stead, 19 Mar. 1954: ‘I am a disciple of Charles Maurras only in certain respects and with critical selection. I do owe Maurras a good deal, and retain my admiration for him, but I think he had serious errors of political judgment – in fact, he should have confined himself, I think, to the philosophy of politics, and never have engaged in political agitation at all.’ See further James Torrens, SJ, ‘Charles Maurras and Eliot’s “New Life”’, Publications of the Modern Language Association 89: 2 (Mar. 1974), 312–22. TSE on Maurras in Christian News-Letter 44 (28 Aug. 1940), 2; CProse 6, 122–3.
1.MargaretNason, Margaret ('Meg') Geraldine (Meg) Geraldine Nason (1900–86), proprietor of the Bindery tea rooms, Broadway, Worcestershire, whom TSE and EH befriended on visits to Chipping Campden.
2.RobertSpeaight, Robert Speaight (1904–77), actor, producer and author, was to create the role of Becket in Murder in the Cathedral in 1935: see Biographical Register.