[No surviving envelope]
I now have two letters to answer. My cable must have been a little enigmatic. But the last days in New York were feverish. My plane for the Thursday had been cancelled, owing [to] the oil shortage. WithoutGiroux, Robert ('Bob')TSE's New York mainstay;a6 the persistence of Robert Giroux (who is my mainstay in New York) I don’t know when I should have got off. He first succeeded in getting me a passage on a tourist plane for the following Wednesday – but of course with no assurance that by that time further cancellations would [not] have taken place. So this was insecure: and it would have given me a very difficult period, because I was to leave for Edinburgh the next morning after its arrival. Had I had to wait in the hope of that plane, I should have telephoned to say that he could get me on to a plane for Paris the same afternoon. So we scurried about, I got my ticket changed, and got off on Saturday afternoon. We arrived at Orly airport at about one o’clock midday on Sunday. There I finally got a rather poor lunch (after prolonged negotiations had taken place between TWA and Air France as to which was responsible for feeding me) and waited until half past four when I got a plane for London. It was well arranged, because TWA had cabled to Paris to get me a reservation for London; where I arrived at about 6.30.
This'Presidential address to the Alliance Française';a1 in itself was pretty tiring, after a very fatiguing month; butAlliance FrançaiseTSE addresses in Edinburgh;b3 I had little time to rest, as I had to prepare myself for making a speech in Edinburgh.1 That involved four very tiring days talking French most of the time, including two days in the train talking with two French Academicians who had come over for the meeting. The arrangements were good – I had a comfortable room at the Caledonian Hotel – but as every event was delayed in starting, and as I as Chairman was responsible for seeing that all the formal proceedings ended punctually, I had a good deal of anxiety about the time table. A dinner (speeches) Friday night, two meetings (speech Saturday morning, a lunch given by the Franco-Scottish Society (no speeches) a business meeting in the afternoon, a vin d’honneur at the French Institute, a wreath-laying on the Grave of the Unknown Scottish Soldier, a dinner by the Lord Provost, followed by a Ball with Highland Exhibition Dancing, a lunch on Sunday at Linlithgow given by the French Consul, an excursion to Loch Lomond – fromDraper, Ruth;a1 which we got back just in time to attend an entertainment by a French imitator of Ruth Draper,2 so that I got no evening meal until 10.30 (sandwiches) the journey back with the French on Monday, andSachville, Herbrand, 9th Earl de la Warr;a1 finally a small dinner party given by Lord de la Warr3 for the French Guests on Monday night in London.
All this is of little interest in itself, but explains why I have not written before, and why I feel pretty well worn out. Fortunately I have the weekend to myself, and no public engagements until week after next. But the rest of June and July will be fairly busy, and there will be, no doubt, numerous American visitors. DuringEliot, Esmé Valerie (née Fletcher, TSE's second wife)fending off invitations for TSE;a7 my absence I was glad to find that my secretary sensibly refused invitations to three distinct Cultural Congresses, in Nice, Segovia and Florence, all taking place at the same time at the end of June.
IHale, Emilyas director ('producer');v9Prunella;c5 was very happy to hear that Prunella was such a great success, andHousman, Laurence;a2 I hope you will let Laurence Housman know, as it should please him. I only wish that your successes were more highly appreciated by the Head of the School. And I wish that you would take a long and continuous holiday in one place at once.
YourHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9source of mutual anguish;g8 first letter has left me depressed. I am sorry about the telephoning (though you need not have suggested that I might be deterred by the expense!) but rather shocked that you should think I was wholly unaware of the strain of the situation for you, or that (although emotions are incommensurable) that [sic] it was even more difficult for you than for me. I simply thought (wrongly it seems) that it was more delicate not to refer to it, but merely to express the brighter side, if I could, of my own very mixed and unhappy feelings – which are always present with me in my daily life. I do not know whether it is more painful meeting or not meeting – that must be as you find it for yourself. It is all such a vulture on the liver that I cannot think of it for long at a time, though it is always present.4 And I do not think I shall accomplish much to-day.
Do keep me in touch with your vacation movements. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1952 rest cure in Switzerland;h9;a2 shall not go away again until I get my Swiss holiday in September.
1.‘Presidential address to the Alliance Française [1]’, delivered in Edinburgh on 7 June 1952: CProse 7, 741–3.
2.RuthDraper, Ruth Draper (1884–1956): American actor and dramatist, and noted monologuist.
3.HerbrandSachville, Herbrand, 9th Earl de la Warr Sachville, 9th Earl De La Warr (1900–75), was the first hereditary peer to join the Labour Party: he held a number of ministerial posts (including President of the Board of Education, 1938–40), and concluded his political career by serving as Postmaster-General in the last Conservative administration of Winston Churchill.
4.TSE adverts to the myth of Tityus; and to the punishment of the Titan Prometheus, in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. Cf. TSE to Geoffrey Faber, 21 Jan. 1941 (Letters 9, 714): ‘Neither religious nor artistic treatment of past agony is, in my experience, a pain killer: they don’t let you off the rock – but they do make you get the vultures into some kind of pattern.’
2.RuthDraper, Ruth Draper (1884–1956): American actor and dramatist, and noted monologuist.
7.EsméEliot, Esmé Valerie (née Fletcher, TSE's second wife) Valerie Fletcher (1926–2012) started work as TSE’s secretary on 12 Sept. 1949, and became his second wife on 10 Jan. 1957; after his death in Jan. 1965, his literary executor and editor: see 'Valerie Eliot' in Biographical Register.
7.RobertGiroux, Robert ('Bob') Giroux (1914–2008): American book editor and publisher: see Biographical Register.
3.HerbrandSachville, Herbrand, 9th Earl de la Warr Sachville, 9th Earl De La Warr (1900–75), was the first hereditary peer to join the Labour Party: he held a number of ministerial posts (including President of the Board of Education, 1938–40), and concluded his political career by serving as Postmaster-General in the last Conservative administration of Winston Churchill.