[No surviving envelope]
Another year – if, as we say now, there is another year – I shall ask you to send me your summer programme on a sheet of paper that I can pin up on my wall. I always think I have mastered it, and then find myself fumbling through letters, and even so wondering whether I am not addressing my letter just to the wrong place at the wrong time. However, off this goes to the Anchorage, Grand Manan. How I wish that I were free to make my visits to America to suit my own convenience, and then I might turn up at Grand Manan, in the right month, myself! But always now I must come at a time when some institution will pay for me; which means that I can never see you in vacation time. IFabers, the1948 Minsted summer stay;h7 went away for ten days to the Fabers in Sussex. It was really restful, though only the first three days were fine and sunny, and after that there was no temptation to bathe in their swimming pool. It was all very quiet: except for going to see a polo match at Midhurst (the first I have ever witnessed – it is certainly the next best sport to ice-hockey to watch) which was followed by a parade of the drum and bugle corps of girls of the Girls’ Brigade of the Golbourne Road W.10 church, complete with a sort of Matron (in uniform and white cotton gloves, goosestepping with the best of them) and a sort of jovial padre in a para-military uniform, wee mites tossing their drumsticks and clashing cymbals like mad bacchantes well disciplined – andDrummond, James Eric, 7th Earl of Perth;a1 aKinnaird, Kenneth Fitzgerald, 12th Lord Kinnaird;a1 cocktail party (excuse the term) at the house of Lord and Lady Perth1 (who have no business to be living in Sussex, they ought to be in Perthshire like John’s friends the Kinnairds)[.]2 IWilliams, CharlesTSE writes introduction to promote;b2 spentWilliams, CharlesAll Hallow's Eve;b3 my time writing an introduction for a novel of Charles Williams to be published by Pellegrini & Cudahy of New York3 – andCocktail Party, Theinterrupted;b9 this was a nuisance, because it interrupted THE COCKTAIL PARTY, butPellegrini, Sheila (née Cudahy);a1 Mrs. Pellegrini (née Cudahy, meatpackers of Chicago)4 came to see me and said that it would help a great deal to launch Williams’s novels in America, if I wrote an introduction, and I knew that his widow is very poor and needs any royalties she can get so what could I do? That’s done, and will be posted to Pellegrini & Cudahy tomorrow. I don’t expect the stay with the Brocklebanks will be quite so restful as that: apartHelpmann, Robertas Hamlet;a1 fromShakespeare, WilliamHamlet;b6 having to see Robert Helpmann as Hamlet, which I have already seen and didn’t like, and am sure that ballet dancers should not aspire to the theatre. IWavell, General Archibaldfond of Kipling;b1 shall no doubt have to dress for dinner every night (that means taking two bags with me) andKipling, Rudyardbeloved of General Wavell;a8 Wavell (who is in fact a pet) will try to make me talk about Kipling, and I shall try to find out what he thinks about Glubb Pasha whose sister is a friend of mine; and the Colonel will want to talk about the possibility of issuing an album of his Italian primitives, andSitwell, Edith;b9 Clara Brocklebank will talk about Edith Sitwell. That is how I foresee it: but I shall amend this prediction by an exact report later. AndBrocklebank, John Ralph Aucklandkilled in action;a1 I remember all the time the shadow under which the Brocklebanks live: their son killed in the war,5 andBrocklebank, Ursula Mary;a1 their daughter (but this is confidential) married to a man who has gone off his head.6
IPrinceton UniversityEH's information on;e5 am glad to know that you have the inside information about the Princeton situation. AfterThorp, Willard;c6 hearing from Willard (at your instigation it seems) IStewart, Walter W.;a2 wrote guardedly to theOppenheimer, J. Robertapparently a supporter of Wallace;a4 Mr. Stewart who seems to replace Dr. Oppenheimer during the holidays (I am rather doubtful now about Oppenheimer, sinceWallace, Henryhis supporters scorned;a3 I hear that he is oneMatthiessen, Francis Otto ('F. O.')apparently pro Henry Wallace;a9 of the chief WALLACE supporters, along with Matthiessen). Stewart wrote to say that he hadn’t heard anything; but followed the letter up with a cable saying that he had heard that whats-his-name was ill, that he would look into the question of alternative accommodation, and that he would let me know. Sotravels, trips and plansTSE's 1948 trip to America;g5itinerary;a8 I don’t know what I am going to at Princeton. AllGiroux, Robert ('Bob');a1 I know is that I expect to arrive in New York on Sept. 29th, be met by Bob Giroux of Harcourt Brace & Co. with some cash,7 andMcKnight Kauffers, the;b4 spend the night with the Kauffers (40 Central Park South) after dining with the Kauffers and Giroux. I suppose that the situation will be cleared up in some way. HaveThorps, thelikeness to the Webbs;e3 the Thorps suggested inviting you to Princeton? I suppose it would be difficult for you to get away from Andover during the term anyway.
INason, Margaret ('Meg') Geraldineill;b5 have just heard from Meg, who is, as always, in trouble. She writes of course cheerfully, but is in bed with gall bladder trouble, and is looking forward to her holiday in October, to take it by going to Guy’s Hospital to have it taken out! I have never known anyone like her – her first question, of course, was when to get me a birthday cake before I left England.
IThorp, Margaret (née Farrand)TSE on;a3 infer that the Thorps have conducted a salon in Cambridge as they do in Princeton, and that you have only seen them when they have been receiving. MyWebb, Beatrice and Sidneylikened to the Thorps;a1 only criticism of them is that they do tend to be, largely I think under Margaret’s influence, as she is so much the stronger member of the team, rather like the late Sydney and Beatrice Webb – purely Public Characters. Without any private life at all? Margaret is so very serious.
ICocktail Party, Theattempts to reconcile EH to title;c1 am somewhat shaken by your severe objection to THE COCKTAIL PARTY. My first title was ONE EYED RILEY: Martin seemed very well pleased by the alternative Cocktail Party. Perhaps the term has acquired more sordid associations in America than here. ItFamily Reunion, Thegoes nominally with The Cocktail Party;i7 seemed to me to fit in very well with THE FAMILY REUNION. That was a reunion distinguished by the absence of two members. The COCKTAIL PARTY is a party which the host has tried to put off: so that the only persons present, in the opening scene, are the people whom he couldn’t get hold of on the telephone to tell them not to come. That seems to me just the sort of group to get together, to begin what I hope will be a comedy even more hilarious than THE FAMILY REUNION.
My dear, I shall hope to write to you twice before you return to Boston on Sept. 14th.
1.JamesDrummond, James Eric, 7th Earl of Perth Eric Drummond, 7th Earl of Perth (1876–1951): politician and diplomat; first Secretary-General of the League of Nations, 1920–33; British Ambassador to Rome, 1933–9. After the war he was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. He became a Roman Catholic before his marriage to the Hon. Angela Constable-Maxwell (1877–1965).
2.KennethKinnaird, Kenneth Fitzgerald, 12th Lord Kinnaird Fitzgerald Kinnaird, 12th Lord Kinnaird (1880–1972): Lord-Lieutenant of Perthshire, 1942–60.
3.Introduction to All Hallows’ Eve (New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1948): CProse 8, 185–93. TSE dated his work 14 Aug. 1948. TSE contributed an obituary of Williams to The Times, 15 May 1945, and ‘The Significance of Charles Williams’ for a BBC broadcast 3 Oct. 1946: see CProse 6, 623–4; 772–8.
4.SheilaPellegrini, Sheila (née Cudahy) Pellegrini, née Cudahy (1920–2001), poet, editor and publisher; daughter of Edward Aloysius Cudahy, Jr., who was son of the co-founder of the Cudahy Packing Company, Omaha. In 1943 she married Giorgio Pellegrini and launched a publishing firm with him. Following her husband’s death in 1952, in 1953 she merged her firm with Farrar, Straus.
5.JohnBrocklebank, John Ralph Auckland Ralph Auckland Brocklebank (1921–43). The Brocklebanks had lost another child, Bindon Henry Edmund, at the age of five in 1919.
6.UrsulaBrocklebank, Ursula Mary;a2 Mary Brocklebank (1911–82).
7.RobertGiroux, Robert ('Bob') Giroux (1914–2008): American book editor and publisher: see Biographical Register.
5.JohnBrocklebank, John Ralph Auckland Ralph Auckland Brocklebank (1921–43). The Brocklebanks had lost another child, Bindon Henry Edmund, at the age of five in 1919.
1.JamesDrummond, James Eric, 7th Earl of Perth Eric Drummond, 7th Earl of Perth (1876–1951): politician and diplomat; first Secretary-General of the League of Nations, 1920–33; British Ambassador to Rome, 1933–9. After the war he was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. He became a Roman Catholic before his marriage to the Hon. Angela Constable-Maxwell (1877–1965).
7.RobertGiroux, Robert ('Bob') Giroux (1914–2008): American book editor and publisher: see Biographical Register.
2.RobertHelpmann, Robert Helpmann (né Helpman; 1909–86), Australian ballet dancer and actor, director and choreographer, joined the Vic–Wells Ballet in London under its creator, Ninette de Valois, in 1932. In Feb. 1944 he starred in an Old Vic production of Hamlet, directed by Tyrone Guthrie (1900–71) and Michael Benthall (1919–74); he alternated the title role with Paul Scofield (1922–2008).
2.KennethKinnaird, Kenneth Fitzgerald, 12th Lord Kinnaird Fitzgerald Kinnaird, 12th Lord Kinnaird (1880–1972): Lord-Lieutenant of Perthshire, 1942–60.
7.F. O. MatthiessenMatthiessen, Francis Otto ('F. O.') (1902–50) taught for 21 years in the English Department at Harvard, where he specialised in American literature and Shakespeare, becoming Professor of History and Literature in 1942. The first Senior Tutor at Eliot House, he was a Resident Tutor, 1933–9. Works include The Achievement of T. S. Eliot (1935) and American Renaissance (1941).
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.
7.J. RobertOppenheimer, J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–67): American theoretical physicist, known as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ for his wartime work as head of the Los Alamos Laboratory as part of the Manhattan Project which developed the nuclear weapons that were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1947 he became director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton; chair of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, 1947–52.
4.SheilaPellegrini, Sheila (née Cudahy) Pellegrini, née Cudahy (1920–2001), poet, editor and publisher; daughter of Edward Aloysius Cudahy, Jr., who was son of the co-founder of the Cudahy Packing Company, Omaha. In 1943 she married Giorgio Pellegrini and launched a publishing firm with him. Following her husband’s death in 1952, in 1953 she merged her firm with Farrar, Straus.
2.EdithSitwell, Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), poet, biographer, anthologist, novelist: see Biographical Register.
4.WalterStewart, Walter W. W. Stewart (1885–1958), economist and expert on banking, and government adviser, had joined the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University in 1938. TSE to Elizabeth Horton, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, 27 Jan. 1960: ‘I was terribly sorry to hear of Professor Stewart’s death. He was very kind to me when I was in Princeton, and also I liked him immensely and enjoyed his company.’
16.MargaretThorp, Margaret (née Farrand) Farrand (1891–1970), author and journalist – see Margaret Thorp in Biographical Register.
1.Margaret Thorp, née Farrand (1891–1970), contemporary and close friend of EH; noted author and biographer. WillardThorp, Willard Thorp (1899–1990) was a Professor of English at Princeton University. See Biographical Register. See further Lyndall Gordon, Hyacinth Girl, 126–8, 158–9.
1.HenryWallace, Henry Wallace (1888–1965) was U.S. Vice President in F. D. Roosevelt’s third term in office, but was replaced on the ticket for the 1944 election by Harry Truman.
5.GeneralWavell, General Archibald Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883–1950), Commander-in-Chief Middle East in the early phase of WW2. He was later Commander-in-Chief in India and finally Viceroy of India until not long before Partition.
5.CharlesWilliams, Charles Williams (1886–1945), novelist, poet, playwright, writer on religion and theology; biographer; member of the Inklings: see Biographical Register.