[No surviving envelope]
New Year’s Eve
I am writing on this shabby-looking paper because I have run out of thin letter paper; and I believe that if airmail letters are over-weight they are sent ignominiously by a slow boat. After my long letter after Germany, I am afraid I postponed writing again until I had heard from you; but for several days now I have had your letter of the 13th (rather slow for air) and the charming card with charming verses.1 I knew that you would feel very exhausted at the end of the term, and in no state of energy for attacking the problems of Christmas presents and cards; andHale, Emilypost-Christmas stay in New Bedford;s9 I hope you had a quiet and restful week after Christmas, in New Bedford. And on Monday you will be back at work again. ItJerome, Jerome K.Fanny and the Servant Problem;a1 isHale, Emilyas director ('producer');v9Fanny and the Servant Problem;c2 strange to think of ‘The New Lady Bantock’ (sometimes called ‘Fanny and the Servant Problem’ – but that title can never be used again, as her servant problem was so different from the modern one!)2 as still surviving for amateur theatricals. I have no doubt that it went well, under your direction.
Whentravels, trips and plansTSE's October–November 1949 trip to Germany;g8the return via Belgium;b3 I last wrote I had still, I think, to pay my respects to Brussels, conveyedSpeaight, Robertin Belgium;e7 by Bobby Speaight (who loves that sort of ceremony, and took upon himself all the practical arrangements). Brussels is only an hour and a half away by flying time; and on returning one arrives half an hour after setting out, owing to the hour’s difference in time. WeLambert, Baroness Johanna von Reininghaus;a1 were the guests of a Baroness Lambert3 – evidently a very wealthy woman, for she lives in a splendour which is no longer reached in this country except perhaps by a few of the Rothschild connexion (and I understand that the baroness’s late husband was one of those connexions: but she herself is Viennese and very dévote – there is always a monk or two wandering about her vast palace. I had only to make two public utterances – one a few (supposedly) extempore words in French after a lunch party, the other a formal discourse which I had had translated for me, and read from manuscript.4 Bobbie delivered the Sermon from ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ – in French: rather a tour de force, but he did it very well. Not much sightseeing: we were taken on Sunday to Louvain (for Mass): a twice reconstructed town, but reconstructed rather well. All this was tiring: and yet, after Germany, one was so much more at ease with Belgians that it seemed rather like a holiday. ThenCocktail Party, The1949 Theatre Royal, Brighton run;d6closing;a4 back to London to face new rehearsals of ‘The Cocktail Party’. I don’t think that the new young man (Peter) is quite so winning as the former; butPeel, Eileenas Lavinia in Cocktail Party;a1 EileenJeans, Ursulaas Lavinia;a3 Peel is, I think, even better as Lavinia than Ursula Jeans was. It is finishing tonight at Brighton. JohnHayward, Johnat the Brighton Cocktail Party;n2 and I went down for the first performance, staying the night with a friend of his who lives there: a very good first night indeed. IMiller, Gilbertrepels TSE;a4 met Mr. Gilbert Miller, who is financing the New York production: one of the most repulsive men, on first acquaintance, that I have ever met. TheCocktail Party, The1950 New York transfer;d7;a7 company fly to New York on the 15th, and open on the 23d. IElsmith, Dorothy Olcott;c5 wonder whether Dorothy (who sent me a Christmas card of her assembly of grandchildren) or any other friend will ask you to New York during the run (which may of course not be a long one!) and if so whether you will want to go. IBrowne, Elliott Martin1949 Edinburgh Cocktail Party;e7surpasses himself with production;b1 am, at least, very well pleased with theGuinness, Alecin The Cocktail Party;a9 production: MartinWorth, Irenein The Cocktail Party;a3 has excelled himself, and the cast is altogether first-rate, though Alec Guinness and Irene Worth must be accounted the particular stars. There is some magnificent acting by those two together. My chief feeling about it at the moment is one of anxiety and responsibility towards the cast: first because of their flying there; and second if New York does not like the play, I shall feel that I have let them down badly. It’s very touching, their enthusiasm: and especially Guinness and Irene Worth, who are almost alarmingly inside their parts. Indeed, I sometimes shudder at the responsibility that an author assumes, towards those actors who really live their parts: I have made Bobby Speaight’s life very different from what it would have been without ‘Murder’ – and is it something to be thankful or repentant for? I don’t know.
AnywayCocktail Party, The1950 New York transfer;d7revisions made in mind of;a5, my other occupations, which have been numerous and pressing, have been interfered with by continual alterations of the text; and, of course, just as I am about to leave for South Africa, the proof begins to come from the printers. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin1949 Edinburgh Cocktail Party;e7continues to propose revisions;b2 keeps proposing little changes. The usual procedure seems to be this: in order to try to shorten a play which is much too long, Martin suggests omitting certain lines here and there. I usually resist at first, but give way because of the need for abbreviation. Then I come to think that it is better in the shorter form, and pass the text for the printer in that way. Then Martin comes back and says he finds that those lines are needed, and he wants to put them back. Even when we agree that something is superfluous, a few lines are needed to sew the cut together, and somehow or other cutting seems to have the effect of making the play longer. In order to avoid Julia’s eves-dropping [sc. eavesdropping] on the consultation with Edward and Lavinia, I have had to give her at that point more lines than she had before, in order to explain why she is there at all (but this is quite right: the audiences were justified in objecting to her overhearing what was going on, and there is no need for her to overhear it). So I don’t think the play will run (with interval) for less than two and three quarter hours. (IAmericaNew York (N.Y.C.);g1New York theatres;a6 am told that there are no Bars in New York theatres: so that those folk who feel that they must drink repair to neighbouring hotels: I don’t know whether this means that intervals can be shorter than in London or have to be longer).
Incidentally, besides all the correspondence that had to accumulate while I was away, my visit to Germany has stimulated correspondence from Germans. AndHarcourt, Brace & Co.;a8 I have not only to pass proofs, but to prepare before I go a text for Harcourt Brace & Co., and texts for the French, German, Italian and Swedish translations.
Andtravels, trips and plansTSE's January 1950 voyage to South Africa;g9itinerary;a4 I sail on Thursday. My dates are these: arrive at Cape Town (on the ‘Edinburgh Castle’ of the Union Castle Line) on January 19th. WeFabers, theon 1950 South Africa trip;i1 spend three days (Geoffrey and Enid Faber and myself) asMillin, Sarah Gertrude;a1 guests of Judge and Mrs. Sarah Gertrude Millin5 (Mrs. Millin is one of our authors – wife of a Judge in Johannesburg) at a seaside place with the name of Fish Hoek: then go, for the rest of my stay, to the Robin Gordon Hotel, St. James – a seaside place accessible to Cape Town. ThereSmuts, Field Marshal Jan;a1, I believe, we bathe (I have even been led to expect the sight of General Smuts6 in bathing costume): I hope escaping the shark, the octopus, and various poisonous fish. IMirrlees, Hopein Stellenbosch;d5 may run up to Stellenbosch to see Hope Mirrlees,7 but otherwise shall be inert and incurious. I return from Cape Town by the same ship on February 3d, arriving at Southampton on February 17th. The Fabers proceed to Durban, and Johannesburg, and fly back by way of Khartoum and Cairo. They should reach London not much later than I: but, as my motive is entirely health, I thought that the rapid transit by air from midsummer in South Africa to midwinter in London might not be prudent; and besides, it wasn’t South Africa that I wanted to visit, but it seemed that South Africa was the only place within the Sterling Area that I could visit. In other words, I am going on the most practible [sc. practicable] sea voyage, on my doctor’s instructions. Also on his instructions, I shall decline any invitations to make speeches.
I did succeed in getting a quiet Christmas. I feel really very exhausted after this past year, and very stupefied. I shall take a light-weight portable typewriter, so I may write to you from the Antipodes: for the first half of the voyage I know I shall do nothing but sleep and eat. AndUniversity of Chicago'The Aims of Education' being prepared for;a2 when I come back I shall immediately have to face the question: what am I going to lecture about in Chicago in October next. I shall be in Boston of course at both ends of that visit.
The German account was not to be a round robin – I mean there would be a copy direct to yourself. But it hasn’t been written.
EleanorHinkley, Eleanor Holmes (TSE's first cousin)recollected as girl;e4 was always a stay-at-home. IHinkley, Susan Heywood (TSE's aunt, née Stearns);d4 remember that when they were little girls, Aunt Susie once arranged to spend a winter at Vevey. After a short time they had to come back to Berkeley Place, because Eleanor pined and wouldn’t eat. ISheffield, Alfred Dwight ('Shef' or 'Sheff')exasperation with Eleanor Hinkley;c9 remember that Sheff was exasperated with the child for her failure to appreciate the benefits of foreign travel.
TomorrowRoberts, JanetTSE reads to her children;b4 I have to go to Janet (Roberts) for tea, with the children (thisHarris, Joel ChandlerUncle Remus;a1 always means reading Uncle Remus to them)[;]8 she is doing very well as assistant editor of the literary section of the New Statesman – thenTrevelyan, Marya 'kindly thorn';b2 dine with Mary Trevelyan – one of several kindly thorns in my flesh9 – thenBrownes, the MartinSilver Wedding Party;d1 go to a Silver Wedding Party of the Martin Brownes. MondayGeorge, Robert Esmonde Gordon ('Robert Sencourt');c8 I must dine with poor Mr. Sencourt: Tuesday evening and the whole of Wednesday for packing.
MyPieper, Josef;a2 interpreter in Germany – Bertha Hochberger – is coming to tea tomorrow. IJungmann, Elisabeth;a1 acquired several kindly thorns in Germany: Bertha, Elisabeth Jungmann,10 Paddy Duder, Josef Pieper and the Pieper trio etc.
1.EH sent out a printed Christmas greetings card, ‘A Christmas Prayer’: see Appendix.
2.In the play Fanny and the Servant Problem (1909), by the English writer and humourist Jerome K. Jerome, the title character, a music-hall performer, has married a young man about town, Vernon, who happens crucially to be Lord Bantock, of Bantock Hall, Rutlandshire. To redouble her dismay, she finds out that all of her numerous new servants – including the butler Benner and his wife – are in fact her uncle and aunt and cousins whose oppressive behaviour she had sought to escape in an earlier year. When they start to bully her into changing her nature and behaviour, she learns how to triumph by asserting herself over them. This was the very play in which TSE had taken part in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in March 1913, along with EH and their friend Amy de Gozzaldi – and also with the young E. E. Cummings (who was smitten with Amy).
3.BaronessLambert, Baroness Johanna von Reininghaus Johanna von Reininghaus Lambert (1899–1960): widow of Baron Henri Lambert (1887–1933), the grandson of Baron James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868) and great-grandson of Samuel Lambert, who in 1840 established the family-owned Banque Lambert.
4.TSE’s speech for Les Grandes Conférences catholiques, delivered in Brussels on 4 Dec. 1949 – CProse 7, 446–50 – was translated into French by his friend Joseph Chiari.
5.SarahMillin, Sarah Gertrude Gertrude Millin (1889–1968): South African novelist and writer of non-fiction and biography. Works include The Night is Long (autobiography: F&F, 1941); a six-volume diary (F&F, 1944–8); and The Measure of My Days (1955). See Martin Rubin, Sarah Gertrude Millin: A South African Life (Johannesburg and London: Ad. Donker, 1977). In Oct. 1934 F&F had offered a remarkable advance of £2,500, with royalty of 25%, for Millin’s two-volume life of General Smuts (1936). Her husband was Philip Millin (1888–1952), Judge of the South African Supreme Court.
GCF to Millin, 29 Sept. 1949: ‘We are making the journey out with Mr T. S. Eliot, who is going entirely for a vacation and is most anxious to keep it dark, since his main object is to get away from everybody and everything for a time. How long he will spend at the Cape when we get there he hasn’t yet made up his mind. But it is probable that he may be coming back separately from us by boat’ (Faber Archive).
6.FieldSmuts, Field Marshal Jan Marshal Jan Smuts, OM, CH (1870–1950): South African (Afrikaner) lawyer (he read Law at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple), soldier, statesman; Prime Minister of the Union of S. Africa, 1919–24, 1939–48. An internationalist, he was a proponent of the League of Nations, United Nations and Commonwealth of Nations.
7.Hope Mirrlees was living at Molenvliet, Stellenbosch, Cape Province.
8.JanetOld Possum’s Book of Practical Catsread to the Roberts children;d7n Adam Smith was to recall TSE being coaxed into reading Old Possum’s Book to the Roberts children: ‘Did they really want it? Book pressed into his hand, with some merriment; affected surprise; adjustment of spectacles; much turning to and fro of pages; renewed reluctance; increasing encouragement from audience – then, launched into Skimbleshanks, Growltiger or the Rum-tum-tugger, we were well away for another hour, Johnny sometimes on Tom’s knee, especially when it came to his favourite Macavity – “the feline equivalent of the later Professor Moriarty”’ (‘Tom Possum and the Roberts Family’, in T. S. Eliot: Essays from the ‘Southern Review’, ed. James Olney [1988], 221).
9.II Corinthians 12: 7: ‘And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of its revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.’
10.ElisabethJungmann, Elisabeth Jungmann (1894–1958): German Jewish translator; secretary and translator for Gerhart Hauptmann, 1922–33. During the war she worked for the Jewish Central Information Office in London; then for the Political Intelligence Department, and after the war for the Control Commission for Germany and Austria. Following the death of Max Beerbohm’s first wife, in Italy in 1951, Jungmann – who had been a close friend of the Beerbohms for several years – travelled out to Italy to support and work for Beerbohm. She was to marry Max Beerbohm in Apr. 1956, becoming his literary executor after his death the following month.
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.TSEElsmiths, theseminal Woods Hole stay with;a1Elsmith, Dorothy Olcott
3.RobertGeorge, Robert Esmonde Gordon ('Robert Sencourt') Esmonde Gordon George – Robert Sencourt (1890–1969) – critic, historian, biographer: see Biographical Register.
5.AlecGuinness, Alec Guinness (1914–2000), distinguished English actor: see Biographical Register.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
5.EleanorHinkley, Eleanor Holmes (TSE's first cousin) Holmes Hinkley (1891–1971), playwright; TSE’s first cousin; daughter of Susan Heywood Stearns – TSE’s maternal aunt – and Holmes Hinkley: see Biographical Register.
2.RogerLivesey, Roger Livesey (1906–76), Welsh stage and screen actor, was marriedJeans, Ursula to the English stage and film actor Ursula Jeans (1906–73) – Lavinia Chamberlayne in The Cocktail Party.
10.ElisabethJungmann, Elisabeth Jungmann (1894–1958): German Jewish translator; secretary and translator for Gerhart Hauptmann, 1922–33. During the war she worked for the Jewish Central Information Office in London; then for the Political Intelligence Department, and after the war for the Control Commission for Germany and Austria. Following the death of Max Beerbohm’s first wife, in Italy in 1951, Jungmann – who had been a close friend of the Beerbohms for several years – travelled out to Italy to support and work for Beerbohm. She was to marry Max Beerbohm in Apr. 1956, becoming his literary executor after his death the following month.
3.BaronessLambert, Baroness Johanna von Reininghaus Johanna von Reininghaus Lambert (1899–1960): widow of Baron Henri Lambert (1887–1933), the grandson of Baron James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868) and great-grandson of Samuel Lambert, who in 1840 established the family-owned Banque Lambert.
5.GilbertMiller, Gilbert Miller (1884–1969); American theatrical producer. In 1950 he was to win a Tony Award for his production of The Cocktail Party. The Gilbert Miller–Ashley Dukes production of Murder in the Cathedral (with Miller taking a quarter-share in the enterprise, and Dukes three-quarters to secure artistic control), starring Robert Speaight, was to open at the Ritz Theatre, West 48th Street, New York City, on 16 Feb. 1938. It ran for 21 performances.
5.SarahMillin, Sarah Gertrude Gertrude Millin (1889–1968): South African novelist and writer of non-fiction and biography. Works include The Night is Long (autobiography: F&F, 1941); a six-volume diary (F&F, 1944–8); and The Measure of My Days (1955). See Martin Rubin, Sarah Gertrude Millin: A South African Life (Johannesburg and London: Ad. Donker, 1977). In Oct. 1934 F&F had offered a remarkable advance of £2,500, with royalty of 25%, for Millin’s two-volume life of General Smuts (1936). Her husband was Philip Millin (1888–1952), Judge of the South African Supreme Court.
2.HopeMirrlees, Hope Mirrlees (1887–1978), British poet, novelist, translator and biographer, was to become a close friend of TSE: see Biographical Register.
1.EileenPeel, Eileen Peel (1909–99), British stage and screen actor, was to play Lavinia Chamberlayne at Henry Miller’s Theatre in New York, 21 Jan. 1950–13 Jan. 1951; later in London. GreyBlake, Grey Blake (1902–71), British stage and film actor, was to be Peter Quilpe.
6.JosefPieper, Josef Pieper (1904–97): German Catholic philosopher influenced by Thomas Aquinas, Professor of Philosophical Anthropology at the University of Münster, 1950–76. His noted publications include Leisure, the Basis of Culture, trans. Alexander Dru, with introduction by TSE (F&F, 1952); The End of Time: A Meditation on the Philosophy of History, trans. Michael Bullock (1954); and The Silence of St Thomas, trans. Daniel O’Connor (F&F, 1957).
8.AlfredSheffield, Alfred Dwight ('Shef' or 'Sheff') Dwight Sheffield (1871–1961) – ‘Shef’ or ‘Sheff’ – husband of TSE’s eldest sister, taught English at University School, Cleveland, Ohio, and was an English instructor, later Professor, of Group Work at Wellesley College. His publications include Lectures on the Harvard Classics: Confucianism (1909) and Grammar and Thinking: a study of the working conceptions in syntax (1912).
6.FieldSmuts, Field Marshal Jan Marshal Jan Smuts, OM, CH (1870–1950): South African (Afrikaner) lawyer (he read Law at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple), soldier, statesman; Prime Minister of the Union of S. Africa, 1919–24, 1939–48. An internationalist, he was a proponent of the League of Nations, United Nations and Commonwealth of Nations.
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.