[41 Brimmer St., Boston]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
Faber & Faber Ltd
4 February 1932
My dear Lady

NoScripps College, Claremont;a8 letter this week – no American mail for me at all this week: so I am left speculating over Scripps, not longer, I hope, than next Monday; but on Friday, Monday always seems a long way off. It sometimes surprises me to find how much I live from day to day: I look forward every week to a letter on Friday (or on Monday, according to the periodical shifts of the mails) and to writing on Tuesday and Friday – on the whole I prefer letters to come on the Monday, for then I have one day to read your letter and another day to write mine; and I think of my engagements for the next day, and of the writing I have to get done in the next month or so, and my regular hours and masses; superficially I have come to worry very little, considering; underneath, I am sure there is a continuous state of worry and strain which, if suddenly removed, would cause an excessive shock of readaptation. I sometime envy those who have a definite, attainable goal towards which their work is all directed. I have not lived so, myself. It has always been living merely to keep on, to do what one can in the circumstances, and largely to wait upon circumstances for what to do, to accept that and make the best of it. Certainly, I think, very little of ambition has operated with me; ambition in daydreams, no doubt as with most people, but little in action; just to endure, to keep up appearances, and do what [is] possible, inside and outside of oneself – trying to be resigned to the fact that this would never come up to one’s ideal, and at the same time trying never to extenuate oneself for falling short by the excuse that more was impossible in the circumstances.

MauriceHaigh-Wood, Mauriceand Ahmé dine chez Eliot;a3 andEliots, the T. S.host Maurice and Ahmé to dinner;c3 his wife came to dinner last night; IHaigh-Wood, Emily ('Ahmé') Cleveland (TSE's sister-in-law, née Hoagland)grows on TSE;a2 liked her better than before, as she seems to become more serious, at least about her practical responsibilities. LyingChristianityevil;b6and moral percipience;a2 awake for a couple of hours in the early morning, I fell to thinking what it was that one most prized in people, beyond intelligence and refinement: it seems to me that the finer, more sensitive, intuitive or reasoned (preferably both, with clear reasoning based on true intuition) perception of the distinctions between good and evil is what matters. The ‘defectives’, those towards whom, below some degree, one feels real repulsion, are not so by being, in the ordinary way, blockheads, but those whose perception of good and bad – and it seems to me to be the majority of people – is blunt. The highest degree of them, perhaps, is that of the people who are satisfied with ordinary ‘goodness’ – honour, decency etc. – and who feel no obligation to be their own master, to make themselves something better, by the time they leave the world, than they were when they left school; who never feel that every moment is a moment of choice, between the better and the worse. One is so used to such people that they make no impression, ordinarily; and it is perhaps harsh to say that this is the highest stage of imbecility. And the world is largely run by clever moral defectives; so much genius, even, seems bound up with moral obliquity, that it is difficult to stick to one’s own instinct.

I am just rambling on, I see quite incoherently; but this must do for a letter until I hear from my dear girl, as I hope, on Monday.

à toi
Tom
Christianity, and human isolation, and modern economics, Ada on TSE's personal piety, scheme for 'Pro Fide' bookshop, among the Eliot family, and beauty, its sects like different clubs, Anglo-Catholicism, TSE's conversion to, which he dates to Eccleston Square meeting, Anglican Missal sought for EH, but unfortunately out of print, discussed at Boston Theological School, and the Petrine Claims, apostolic succession, over Roman Catholicism, as refuge from VHE, and the Reformation, asceticism, discipline, rigour, the necessity for, and TSE's daily exhortation, making and breaking habits, mastering emotions and passions, as salubrious, only remedy for a prurient culture, confession and communion, more possible during Harvard year, the case for unattainable ideals, in time of war, gets TSE up before 7 o'clock, hereditary with TSE, belief, and good poetry, faced with Second World War, and conversion, antidote to TSE's skepticism, Christendom, TSE ponders the decline of, TSE on his prominence within, its ruin, the Church Visible and Invisible, and TSE's war work, the Malabar Church, prospect of total reunion within, confession, helps to objectify sin, more dreaded than dentist, harder in the morning, death and afterlife, the struggle to prepare for, consoles TSE in life, and cremation, Requiem Mass, gives meaning to life, and what makes a desirable burial place, the nature of eternal life, divorce, unrecognised by Anglo-Catholic Church, which TSE regrets, in church law, would separate TSE from Church, evil, TSE's belief in, and moral percipience, guilt, and the New England conscience, hell, TSE's 1910 vision of, and damnation, according to TSE, liturgy, TSE's weekly minimum, Mass of the Pre-sanctified, Requiem Mass versus Mass of Good Friday, and whether to serve at Mass, Imposition of Ashes, at Christmas, High Mass over Mattins, aversion to Low Church Mattins, Roman service in Wayland, Tenebrae, in country parish church, as guest at Kelham, remarkable sermon, over Christmas, Tenebrae and Family Reunion, during Holy Week, Mass of Charles King and Martyr, love, loving one's neighbour, marriage, TSE's need for privacy within, mysticism and transcendence, interpenetration of souls, intimations of life's 'pattern', 'doubleness', arrived at through reconciliation, orthodoxy, only remedy for contemporary culture, and pagans, sets TSE at odds with modernity, necessarily trinitarian, 'Christian' defined, iniquities of liberal theology, and creed, authority, Transubstantiation, TSE disclaims 'self-centredness' in maintaining, politics, the Church and social change, how denomination maps onto, need for working-class priests, church leaders against totalitarianism and Nazism, Christianity versus Fascism and Communism, Papal Encyclical against Nazi Germany, the 'Dividend morality', Presbyterianism, TSE quips on the meanness of, Quakerism, resignation, reconciliation, peace, TSE's love allows for, 'peace that passeth all understanding', the struggle to maintain, following separation from VHE, retreat and solitude, EH at Senexet, the need for, a need increasing with age, and TSE's mother, Roman Catholicism, TSE's counter-factual denomination, Rome, sacraments, Holy Communion, marriage, sainthood, TSE's idea of, the paradoxes of, susceptible of different sins, sins, vices, faults, how to invigilate, the sense of sin, the sinner's condition, bound up with the virtues, as a way to virtue, TSE's self-appraisal, when humility shades into, when unselfishness shades into, among saints, proportionate to spiritual progress, daydreaming, despair, lust, pride, perfection-seeking pride, spiritual progress and direction, TSE's crisis of 1910–11, EH's crisis, versus automatism, TSE's sense of, towards self-knowledge, in EH's case, as personal regeneration, temptation, to action/busyness, the Church Year, Advent, Christmas, dreaded, happily over, TSE rebuked for bah-humbugging, church trumps family during, season of irreligion, thoughts of EH during, unsettling, fatiguing, in wartime, Easter preferred to, Ash Wednesday, Lent, season for meditation and reading, prompts thoughts of EH, Lady Day, Holy Week, its intensity, arduous, preserved from public engagements, exhausting but refreshing, excitingly austere, Easter, better observed than Christmas, missed through illness, Unitarianism, the Eliots' as against EH's, the prospect of spiritual revival within, as personified by TSE's grandfather, regards the Bible as literature, as against Catholicism, divides EH from TSE, and whether Jesus believed himself divine, according to Dr Perkins, in England as against America, over-dependent on preachers' personality, TSE's wish that EH convert from, outside TSE's definition of 'Christian', the issue of communion, baptism, impossibly various, virtues heavenly and capital, bound up with the vices, better reached by way of sin, charity, towards others, in Bubu, TSE's intentness on, delusions of, as against tolerance, chastity, celibacy, beneath humility, TSE lacks vocation for, faith, and doubt, hope, a duty, TSE's struggle for, humility, distinguished from humiliation, comes as relief, greatest of the virtues, propinquitous to humour, not an Eliot virtue, opposed to timidity, danger of pride in, is endless, TSE criticised for overdoing, theatre a lesson in, most difficult of the virtues, possessed by EH, possessed by EH to a fault, TSE compares himself to EH in, the paradox of, distinguished from inferiority, self-discovery teaches, possessed by Dr Perkins, patience, recommended to EH, its foundations, possessed by Uncle John, purity, distinguished from purification, temperance, with alcohol, beneath humility,
Eliots, the T. S., receive Aldous Huxley, give tea to Nora Joyce, give dinner-party for Joyces, Fabers and Osbert Sitwell, described by Osbert Sitwell, give dinner for Philippa Whibley, host the Morleys, Joyces and Hutchinsons, take tea with OM, who describes their appearance, invite OM to meet Mrs Joyce, introduce TSE's nieces to Lucia Joyce and Barbara Hutchinson, host the Joyces, host the Thorps to tea, host Dorothy Pound to supper, again to OM's, have the Huxleys to tea, more harmonious for Gordon George's stay, host Maurice and Ahmé to dinner, host Ralph Hodgson, Aurelia Bolliger, Gordon George and Scott Moncrieff, to OM's tea-party for Yeats, host Ralph Hodgson despite his dog's behaviour, have the Hodgsons for the weekend, attend Derby Day with the Hodgsons, host the Faber children to tea, host OM and D'Arcy, host Mark Gertler and wife, at James Stephens's party, have fifteen to tea, Evelyn Underhill and Force Stead to lunch with, spend weekend with VHE's mother, join farewell dinner for the Hodgsons, in 1926, holiday in Eastbourne, where they dine with the Morleys, then visit the Woolfs at Rodmell,
Haigh-Wood, Emily ('Ahmé') Cleveland (TSE's sister-in-law, née Hoagland), disconcertingly hard to place for an American, grows on TSE, smooths TSE's day of departure, discusses Raggie's education with TSE, at VHE's funeral,

5.MauriceHaigh-Wood, Maurice Haigh-Wood was eight years younger than his sister Vivien. InHaigh-Wood, Emily ('Ahmé') Cleveland (TSE's sister-in-law, née Hoagland) 1930 he married a 25-year-old American dancer, Emily Cleveland Hoagland – known as known as ‘Ahmé’ (she was one of the Hoagland Sisters, who had danced at Monte Carlo) – and they were to have two children.

Haigh-Wood, Maurice, shilling life of, and Ahmé dine chez Eliot, facilitate TSE's leave-taking, on TSE's departure for America, blamed by VHE during separation, negotiates separation, at crisis-meeting about VHE, and VHE's death, at VHE's funeral,

5.MauriceHaigh-Wood, Maurice Haigh-Wood was eight years younger than his sister Vivien. InHaigh-Wood, Emily ('Ahmé') Cleveland (TSE's sister-in-law, née Hoagland) 1930 he married a 25-year-old American dancer, Emily Cleveland Hoagland – known as known as ‘Ahmé’ (she was one of the Hoagland Sisters, who had danced at Monte Carlo) – and they were to have two children.

Scripps College, Claremont, EH headhunted to teach at, but EH declines post, still a possibility, TSE on whether or not to accept post, which EH does, TSE hopes to visit EH at, sounds picturesque, EH expects suite at, EH reassured about feeling 'inadequate', EH arrives at, TSE asks for full report of, grows on EH, EH's all-arts theatrical workshop at, TSE's lecture at, TSE's desire to deliver EH from, TSE's visit to, its suspicious characters, its effect on EH despaired of, year's leave requested from, EH considers returning to, encouraged by TSE to return, despite TSE forswearing, refuses EH's return, EH on not returning, under Jaqua, EH's existence at, EH's extra-curricular work at, preferred to Smith, bequeathed EH's TSE book collection, compared to Concord Academy,