[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
First of all I do please want the photograph you tell of, and please I must have it. And I should like, I mean can you give me anything more recent, even a snapshot would do: if only on terms of reciprocity then I will have another print of one of mine made, but as I say I don’t like any of them. So meanwhile I send you another little one of me. There is a little frame goes with it but I won’t bother you with that now.
Abouttravels, trips and plansEH's proposed 1931 England visit;a2;a1 this summer; my dear, I have already thought about that a good deal, before you mentioned it; and I am still as much in the dark as you are. My first thought: it would be wonderful to look into your eyes, now, even for a moment. I can hardly imagine it. If we met alone I do not know what it would be like or how I should behave – I mean, it is one thing to speak as I feel when I write to you, and another thing to meet you when I could not behave as I feel: and yet I [am] sure I would do so if it were possible and you would see me; you would find me very meek and humble, probably dazed and stupid. But I must say frankly that such opportunity is unlikely. Of course I never know from week to week what is going to happen in my affairs. InWoolf, Virginiathe only woman TSE sees alone;a1 general, I see very few women, and never alone – not that that is any loss to me – except that with some difficulty I have tea with Virginia Woolf about three times a year.1 You do not know how very circumscribed my life is; once a month I go out for a brief evening to meet with some of the male Criterion contributors, and arrange to have someone spend the evening at home while I am out. If you were in London for a little time, I suppose there would be another teaparty, possibly a lunch party, or something else. I am however in the dark because I do not know until I do see you at all how difficult or how simple we should find it. I should like to have your further opinions, when you have thought over what I say.
I am rather worried about you at present: I mean worrying whether I am now a help or a hindrance and a strain to you.
YourAmericaNew England;f9and Unitarianism;a1 mention of Dr. Sperry2 at King’s Chapel reminded me of a letter from you early this summer, which I have. I am very glad that you have King’s Chapel, and I hope your uncle3 is still there. UnitarianismChristianityUnitarianism;d9the Eliots' as against EH's;a1 is more beautiful in New England than in England, possessed of a more lovely and dignified tradition; and I always thought that at King’s Chapel it is at its best. I have wondered sometimes, whether, if I had stayed in New England, I should have returned to the Unitarianism from which I had strayed; certainly my change would have been a more painful process there, surrounded by family and historical traditions. But your (personal) Unitarianism is a finer thing, I am sorry in a way to say, than that of my family: on the one side mine was a doctrine of social and public service (which I hope I have not lost), and on the other just intellectual scepticism. IEliot, Charlotte Champe Stearns (TSE's mother)her religious beliefs;a2 think that my mother, who wrote a good many religious poems, some of which I think very good,4 would have liked to believe more firmly than she did.
Well, dear Emily, I must stop now, until next week.
1.VirginiaWoolf, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), novelist, essayist and critic: see Biographical Register.
2.Willard Learoyd Sperry (1882–1954), Congregationalist minister; Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, 1922–53; Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, 1928–53.
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
4.See TSE’s introduction to Charlotte Eliot, Savonarola: A Dramatic Poem (1926); CProse 2, 771–6.
6.CharlotteEliot, Charlotte Champe Stearns (TSE's mother) Champe Stearns Eliot (1843–1929): see Biographical Register.
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
1.VirginiaWoolf, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), novelist, essayist and critic: see Biographical Register.