[35A School St., Andover, Mass.]
I was glad to have your letter of the 19th which arrived in time for Christmas. One letter from me must have been much delayed, it seems to me, as you say you have had nothing since the end of November. I wrote after recovering from the exhaustion of my second visit to Paris. IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);l1 hope also that my cable to Aunt Edith arrived in time: I sent it off on the 24th. MostHale, Emilyas director ('producer');v9Twelfth Night;c4 of your news this time is good: I am delighted by the success of the play – not an easy one to produce, which must have cost infinite labour over cast, costumes and sets. I hope that your work was properly praised and appreciated by the authorities. I am also happy that your friends are able to speak so well of your appearance of health. Vitamins and wheat flakes are all very well (I take something of the former myself, but porridge for breakfast) but nourishing fresh food is better, andEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)undernourished;f4 IEliot, Margaret Dawes (TSE's sister);d6 fear that you, like my sisters, skimp yourself. WeLamb, Aiméesends TSE Christmas provisions;a2 have had here a full larder over Christmas: Aimee Lamb sent some fresh veal and pork (from Copenhagen) andBarnes, Djunasends TSE ribs of beef;a7 Djuna Barnes some ribs of beef (from Amsterdam): it seems odd that we get so little good meat here, and that when friends in America want to send it they order it from Holland or Denmark! And somebody gave John several pheasants. AndSykeses, theChristmas dinner with;a1Sykes, Christopher
IHale, Emilyreading;w8Henry Irving: The Actor and His World;a9 amIrving, LaurenceHenry Irving: The Actor and His World;a4 so glad that you like the Irving: it seems to me a very good job, and is in effect a kind of history of the English Theatre during Irving’s time. Laurence Irving is an artist rather than a writer. I don’t think he has ever attempted acting himself, but he has always been one of the most active promotors of the Canterbury Festival – which by the way is said to be in a moribund condition: from the point of view of interest in that, the Chapter are said to be even worse than the Dean, and only one Canon really takes an intelligent interest. It is not one of the more enlightened Chapters. WhichHoellering, George M.;c2 reminds me that theMurder in the CathedralHoellering film;g1soon to premiere;c1 Film is said, by Hoellering, to be coming on about the middle of January: you may learn the date as soon as I do, as it is to be synchronised with the opening at the Normandy Theatre (or Normandie) in New York, which I understand is a brand-new picture palace. When or where it will get a chance in Boston I don’t know; but I suppose it must have its run in New York first.
I am happy to think of you leaving tomorrow for New Bedford, and hope that the week there will be very restorative. You ought to have a longer holiday at Christmas than American schools allow.
AsEliot, Theresa Garrett (TSE's sister-in-law)for which TSE bears cost;g1 for Theresa, I got from her doctor a statement about the nature of the operation and the expenses to be defrayed, infinances (TSE's)and post-war capital controls;c2 preparation for a new attack on the Bank of England, which I have now drawn up. IBrand, Robert;a1 have learned not to expect anything from Government Departments; but this time I have got the name of a high official to write to, and a certain City magnate is supposed to have mentioned the case to him personally.1 Please treat this as highly confidential; I should not like it to get round to Theresa, and she would not like her difficulties to be talked about. What I am asking is, that even if they will not countenance any regular increase of my remittances, they will be prepared to consider any single crisis as it arrives. This would relieve me at least of my fear of illnesses in my family.2 Every time I make a contribution to a charitable enterprise I think of the much more compelling claims about which I can do nothing.
I’ll write to Aunt Edith.
Thank you for the programme. Somebody made an error of fifty years in saying that Twelfth Night was first produced three hundred years ago!
1.TheBrand, Robert City magnate in question was Robert Brand (1878–1963), a Fellow of All Souls (and friend of Geoffrey Faber), who was a civil servant and financier. He worked for the merchant bank Lazard Brothers, as managing director till 1944, and as a director till 1960. During WW1 he worked for the Ministry of Munitions, and in WW2 he was Head of the British Food Mission to the USA, 1941–4. A skilful counsellor, he was a director of the Times Publishing Company, 1925–59. In 1946 he accepted a peerage, becoming Baron Brand.
2.TSEfinances (TSE's)and post-war capital controls;c2 applied to Lord Bolton, 31 Dec. 1951, forEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)efforts to support financially;h1n special permission to send over to the USA sums of money in support of his ageing sisters, and of his sister-in-law, considerably above the regulation allowance: ‘MyEliot, Margaret Dawes (TSE's sister)efforts to support financially;d7n justification for taking the course of approaching you personally, is that my case seems to me in all probability unique. There cannot be many former Americans, naturalised in this country, needing to aid their next of kin in the United States. Of such as there are, there cannot be many who happen to be the youngest of their family by many years, with two unmarried sisters aged 80 and 74, living on fixed incomes of dwindling value, and too old to aid themselves by their own exertions. The case in which, as in mine, there are no relatively affluent close relatives in America to give assistance, must be rarer still. And there is hardly likely to be another such case in which the disparity between the size of income of would-be donor and beneficiary is so great, and the proportion of this income arising in America (through my own exertions) is so high.
‘It is to be observed that my original application was for a yearly allowance of $4000 (four thousand dollars), which I estimated as the minimum needed to assure my sisters modest comfort. The sum allowed is only $2000.
‘Even if no increase of the regular allowance can be contemplated, I should still hope that applications apart from this allowance might be considered, in particular crises, such as exceptional illnesses. Such a situation has actually arisen. My sister-in-law, who normally is the best able to look after herself – as she is only 67, and is still able to supplement her income by her own work – has recently had to have a very serious operation on her ear, from which she has only partially recovered. She has surgical and other expenses to meet; and I hold a letter from her doctor informing me that the costs of this illness, which she will have to defray gradually as she can, amount to some $1700.
‘I find the situation bitterly ironic, and I trust that you will take this into account as justification for this letter. A man labouring under a sense of injustice is impelled at least to make his grievance known.’
1.DjunaBarnes, Djuna Barnes (1892–1982): American novelist, journalist, poet, playwright; author of Ryder (1928); Nightwood (her masterpiece, 1936); Antiphon (play, 1958). See ‘A Rational Exchange’, New Yorker, 24 June and 1 July 1996, 107–9; Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts, ed. Cheryl J. Plumb (1995); Miriam Fuchs, ‘Djuna Barnes and T. S. Eliot: Authority, Resistance, and Acquiescence’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 12: 2 (Fall 1993), 289–313. Andrew Field, Djuna: The Formidable Miss Barnes (1983, 1985), 218: ‘Willa Muir was struck by the difference that came over Eliot when he was with Barnes. She thought that the way Barnes had of treating him with an easy affectionate camaraderie caused him to respond with an equally easy gaiety that she had never seen in Eliot before.’ See Letters 8 for correspondence relating to TSE’s friendship with Barnes, and with her friend, the sassy, irresistible Emily Holmes Coleman, and the brilliant editing of Nightwood.
1.TheBrand, Robert City magnate in question was Robert Brand (1878–1963), a Fellow of All Souls (and friend of Geoffrey Faber), who was a civil servant and financier. He worked for the merchant bank Lazard Brothers, as managing director till 1944, and as a director till 1960. During WW1 he worked for the Ministry of Munitions, and in WW2 he was Head of the British Food Mission to the USA, 1941–4. A skilful counsellor, he was a director of the Times Publishing Company, 1925–59. In 1946 he accepted a peerage, becoming Baron Brand.
6.MargaretEliot, Margaret Dawes (TSE's sister) Dawes Eliot (1871–1956), TSE's second-oldest sister sister, resident in Cambridge, Mass. In an undated letter (1952) to his Harvard friend Leon M. Little, TSE wrote: ‘Margaret is 83, deaf, eccentric, recluse (I don’t think she has bought any new clothes since 1900).’
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
3.GeorgeHoellering, George M. M. Hoellering (1898–1980), Austrian-born filmmaker and cinema manager: see Biographical Register.
1.LaurenceIrving, Laurence Irving (1897–1988) – theatre designer and author; grandson of the legendary actor-manager Sir Henry Irving – served with distinction as a pilot during WW1 (Croix de Guerre, 1916) before spending a period in Hollywood as art director to Douglas Fairbanks Sr. From 1931 he worked in London and elsewhere – designing among other plays the first production of Murder in the Cathedral in 1935 – and in film. His writings include Henry Irving: The Actor and His World (1951), The Successors (1967), The Precarious Crust (1971); he was a director of the Times Publishing Company, 1946–62, and he campaigned for the establishment of the British Theatre Museum.
5.AiméeLamb, Aimée LambLambs, theLamb, Aimée