Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1948 Nobel Prize visit to Stockholm;g6itinerary;a2 shall try to get you on the telephone, but the situation has become so complicated that I must put it on paper also. The obligatory visit to Stockholm means that I am sailing on the Queen Mary on the night of November 30th. I cannot cancel my engagements in Washington, where I go on the 17th2 until Sunday the 21st. ThenSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)visited in Baltimore;c9 IAmericaBaltimore, Maryland;c6and TSE's niece;a1 go to Baltimore for the afternoon and evening, to see Theodora, and take a night train to New York, where I must attend to income tax and other business andvan Doren, Markintroduces TSE to Crowe Ransom;a1 shallRansom, John Crowemeets TSE at van Doren's;a1 spend one night with Mark van Doren3 to meet John Crowe Ransom.4 IRichards, Ivor Armstrong ('I. A.')invited for Institute for Advanced Study discussion;c4 return to Princeton on Tuesday 23d, as I have invited Richards to come down for a night for a discussion to which the Sub-Director of the Institute attaches much importance. I shall then come up via New York to Boston by night, arriving on the morning of the 26th. I see no way of getting up sooner. That will give me Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Cambridge, where I shall expect to stay at the Faculty Club. But the date of my departure has become a little uncertain because of the dockers’ strike in New York. If it continues, the Queen Mary will probably sail from Halifax, which might mean leaving a day earlier (I hope that it might also mean a day later) and I am advised to reserve a berth on the train from Boston to Halifax on the night of the 28th.
This means that I shall at best have to crowd a week’s seeing people into three or four days. And it means that I see no way of giving the reading; I am much grieved to disappoint others; andEliot, Theresa Garrett (TSE's sister-in-law)visits lawyer with TSE;e7 I would suggest Monday but I have an appointment to go with Theresa to see a lawyer in Boston on Monday morning at 10 a.m. IHearsey, Dr Marguerite Capen;a2 shall write to Miss Hersey [sc. Hearsey] and express my regret, but I want you to know first. Things have developed rapidly during this week. What I am chiefly concerned about however is when I shall see you. I could come out on the Saturday or the Sunday, or on the Friday but the latter would be a tight squeeze between arriving at the South Station at 7 a.m., getting to the Faculty Club for breakfast, and getting to the North Station by 10.15. OnEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)hosts family dinner-party;f7 Saturday night isHarding, Ruth;a1 Marion’s family dinner party with Ruth Harding.5 SO Sunday would be best if there are possible trains. I don’t want to make any other engagements until this is settled. ItNobel Prize for LiteratureTSE's response to;a3 is all very trying and very disappointing, and I had much rather not have had that prize this year, and as for the money, it will give me no satisfaction unless the Treasury will let me deal with it as I wish, which I think is very unlikely. And I want you to tell me what to give you for a present – even the time to buy presents for people is so restricted. I feel as if I had lost my personal liberty and private rights, and am rebellious.
I am sorry about your telephone, indeed; the fact is simply that the telephone rang all day and I did not dare answer it – there were so many reporters and papers trying to get hold of me. It is all very dreadful and distressing. Forgive me for not putting anything into this letter but these questions of time and place.
1.Misdated ‘October’ by TSE.
2.TSE may have meant the 18th, as in the preceding letter.
3.Markvan Doren, Mark van Doren (1894–1972), who was literary editor of The Nation, 1924–8, taught English for many years at Columbia University, New York (where his pupils included John Berryman, Robert Giroux and Allen Ginsberg). Works include The Poetry of John Dryden (1920).
4.JohnRansom, John Crowe Crowe Ransom (1888–1974): celebrated Southern poet, critic and essayist. Educated at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and as a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, 1910–13, he taught for many years from 1914 at Vanderbilt, where he was a central figure in the group known as the Fugitives (other prominent members included Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren), and as a ‘Southern Agrarian’ he advocated the preservation of a traditional Southern culture centring on agriculturalism rather than on industrialism. From 1937 he taught at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, where he was founding editor of the Kenyon Review. He was a key figure in the influential critical movement known as the New Criticism. His small body of poetry includes Chills and Fever (1924) and Two Gentlemen in Bonds (1927); winner of the Bollingen Prize for Poetry 1951 and the National Book Award 1964. Works of criticism include The World’s Body (1938) and The New Criticism (1941).
5.SeeHarding, Ruth Ruth Harding, ‘Dear Ruth: With letters and visits T. S. Eliot maintained a warm and unusual friendship in Cambridge’, Boston, Aug. 1967, 39. Ruth Harding was an African-American who prepared occasional meals for the Henry Eliots in Cambridge, Mass. Her memoir gives details of TSE’s kindness and friendship.
Theresa Eliot to Valerie Eliot, 3 June 1965: ‘I met Ruth Harding yesterday and she told me Mr Bond had paid her $350.00 for seven letters of Tom’s. She has 2 more that she is holding on to. Also that “Goodspeed’s” our best book dealer had given her $10000 for 4 books inscribed to her. When I think how badly she acted, even to me long ago I feel irritated, as no doubt some people will think she was Devotion itself to Marian’ (EVE).
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
5.SeeHarding, Ruth Ruth Harding, ‘Dear Ruth: With letters and visits T. S. Eliot maintained a warm and unusual friendship in Cambridge’, Boston, Aug. 1967, 39. Ruth Harding was an African-American who prepared occasional meals for the Henry Eliots in Cambridge, Mass. Her memoir gives details of TSE’s kindness and friendship.
1.DrHearsey, Dr Marguerite Capen Marguerite Capen Hearsey (1893–1990) was 14th Principal of Abbot Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, 1936–55. Educated at Hollins College, Roanoke, Virginia, and at Radcliffe College, she taught French and English at Georgetown College in Kentucky; and English at both Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, and Wellesley College, 1924–5, 1927–9. In 1929 she earned a PhD at Yale, where she was a Sterling Fellow and specialised in Elizabethan literature; she studied too at the Sorbonne. Before moving on to Andover, she taught at Hollins, 1929–36. She served, too, as President of the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls.
4.JohnRansom, John Crowe Crowe Ransom (1888–1974): celebrated Southern poet, critic and essayist. Educated at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and as a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, 1910–13, he taught for many years from 1914 at Vanderbilt, where he was a central figure in the group known as the Fugitives (other prominent members included Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren), and as a ‘Southern Agrarian’ he advocated the preservation of a traditional Southern culture centring on agriculturalism rather than on industrialism. From 1937 he taught at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, where he was founding editor of the Kenyon Review. He was a key figure in the influential critical movement known as the New Criticism. His small body of poetry includes Chills and Fever (1924) and Two Gentlemen in Bonds (1927); winner of the Bollingen Prize for Poetry 1951 and the National Book Award 1964. Works of criticism include The World’s Body (1938) and The New Criticism (1941).
4.I. A. RichardsRichards, Ivor Armstrong ('I. A.') (1893–1979), theorist of literature, education and communication studies: see Biographical Register.
2.TheodoraSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece) Eliot Smith (1904–92) – ‘Dodo’ – daughter of George Lawrence and Charlotte E. Smith: see Biographical Register. Theodora’sSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece) sister was Charlotte Stearns Smith (b. 1911), known as ‘Chardy’.
3.Markvan Doren, Mark van Doren (1894–1972), who was literary editor of The Nation, 1924–8, taught English for many years at Columbia University, New York (where his pupils included John Berryman, Robert Giroux and Allen Ginsberg). Works include The Poetry of John Dryden (1920).