[35A School St., Andover, Mass.]
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1952 visit to Rennes and the Riviera;h7recounted;a5 have been living in such a confusion of currency licences, visas, photographs and business correspondence to be cleared off, that I am not even sure that I wrote to you upon my return from Nice. ThatFrancethe South;b9Paris
I have worked out a provisional schedule. I arrive in New York on the 5th May, and propose to stay there until Sunday, when I shall come to Cambridge. I shall be there from the 11th to the 23d May, when I shall go to Washington for the weekend, and then have three more days in New York before flying back on the 29th. I grudge the time in New York, but I must do some business in order to justify my business letter of credit! and that is the only alternative to a much longer visit on which I should have to live by lecturing. InEliot, Theresa Garrett (TSE's sister-in-law)hosts TSE in 1952;g2 Cambridge, my headquarters will be Theresa’s as usual, though I do not know whether I shall be staying with her or at the faculty Club. I wish you would drop me a line to Theresa’s, about the time of my arrival, indicating your engagements and also giving me your telephone number, which is in some previous diary which I cannot now find. I am afraid that May is a very bad month from the point of view of your engagements, with incessant rehearsals having to be fitted in to inconvenient times. And as I know from experience how much I have to fit in to a short visit to Cambridge, I want to fix times and places for seeing you as soon as I arrive. InHarcourt, Brace & Co.;a9 New York my headquarters are always Harcourt Brace & Co., 383 Madison Avenue: ifMcKnight Kauffers, the;b9McKnight Kauffer, Edward
ILe Gallienne, Evataken to lunch;a6 see that I am taking Eva La Gallienne to lunch on Friday. WeLe Gallienne, Evaher Hedda Gabler;a7 are publishing her translation of ‘Hedda Gabler’ with her producing introduction!2
I had the interesting privilege of being invited (bySmyth, Revd Charlesinvites TSE to Royal Maundy;b1 a Canon of the Abbey) to the Royal Maundy on Maundy Thursday.3 ItElizabeth II, Queen (formerly Princess Elizabeth of York)at Royal Maundy;a5 was the Queen’s first public ceremony since her accession; she performed it well, with a becoming combination of dignity and shyness. Our seats were quite close to the aisle where the old pensioners were lined up, and I could watch the expression of the old women as they tried to curtsey to her.
1.An evening of music and drama, organised by the University of Rennes at the Grand Théâtre on 21 Apr., included an abridgement in French of Murder in the Cathedral performed by the Jeunes Comédiens. TSE received an honorary doctorate at a ceremony at the Hôtel de Ville on the next day: see ‘Notes for speech at the University of Rennes’, CProse 7, 724–8.
2.See Hedda Gabler, trans. with a preface (F&F, 1953). F&F would also bring out her translation of The Master Builder (1955).
3.TSE attended Royal Maundy on Good Friday, 11 Apr. 1952, as the guest of his friend the Revd Canon Charles Smyth.
7.RobertGiroux, Robert ('Bob') Giroux (1914–2008): American book editor and publisher: see Biographical Register.
7.EvaLe Gallienne, Eva Le Gallienne (1899–1991), British-born American actor, director, producer; director of the Civic Repertory Company, New York. In 1932 Le Gallienne staged Eleanor Holmes Hinkley’s Dear Jane, with an intimate friend, Josephine Hutchinson, playing Jane Austen.
9.RevdSmyth, Revd Charles Charles Smyth (1903–87), ecclesiastical historian; Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: see Biographical Register.