[35A School St., Andover, Mass.]
IHale, Emilytours westward to California during summer holiday;t3 have no letter since you wrote from Claremont, but I have to thank you for a birthday card and for a birthday cable, the latter of which was particularly welcome as it announced that you had re-crossed the Rockies unscathed. (I suppose it is an impressive spectacle, if not too cloudy). Nortravels, trips and plansTSE's 1952 rest cure in Switzerland;h9;a6 have I written since before I left for Vevey, except for three post cards which will probably reach you, all together, in two or three weeks time. I shall hope to hear that your health has stood the strain, though I feared that the fatigue of Boston immediately on your return, and with term beginning immediately after that, might cancel any good the trip had done you. I hope you got a letter from me in Berkeley.
My own holiday was a mixed blessing. Rest, certainly; good food, and adequate comfort, a charming vista, and nobody to talk to, exceptSargent, John Singer;a1 for lunch one day with the very agreeable M. Ormond, a tobacco merchant who is a nephew of John Singer Sargent.1 The first four days were hot and brilliant, and good for bathing; the next ten days were cloudy and sometimes raining, but good for walking; the last week was torrential rain, and I could only sit on my balcony and take a short breather between downpours. AlsoClements, thein Geneva;a8, I caught cold, which I fought for a week, successfully though not very cheerfully, and then spent the final weekend with the Clements in their flat in Geneva, whereClement, Margotministrates to TSE;a5 Margot treated me with mint tea and other herbs and simples. I was rather relieved to get back to London, and then went to the Fabers for a week, where I was given inhalations. So now I am pretty well, but must be careful and I shan’t dine out until the spring except on the two nights a week when the housekeeper is out.
OtherwiseConfidential Clerk, Thewhich TSE rewrites;a6, I have not much to report of myself, except that I have re-written the first two scenes of my play, cutting out some superfluous matter and converting them into one scene; I hope in the next two weeks to re-write the second scene, and then have something to show so that the Edinburgh people can decide whether they are likely to want the play when it is finished.
I’llPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);l7 try to write to Aunt E. again soon; but I am much in arrears: this is the first letter I have written to anybody in America. YouAmerican Presidential Election1952;a2 will all be glad when the 4th of November is over.2
NoElsmith, Dorothy Olcott;c9 news of Dorothy Elsmith.
1.Either Guillaume Francis Ormond (1896–1971) or Henri Eric Conrad Ormond (1896–1979), members of a wealthy family of tobacco merchants; descendants of the artist John Singer Sargent (Sargent’s niece Rose-Marie Ormond had posed for many of his pictures).
2.In the 42nd quadrennial presidential election, on 4 Nov., Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower – running with the campaign slogan ‘I Like Ike’ – was to worst the Democratic contender, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois.
2.JamesClement, James Clement (1889–1973), Harvard Class of 1911, marriedClement, Margot Marguerite C. Burrel (who was Swiss by birth) in 1913. In later years, TSE liked visiting them at their home in Geneva.
4.TSEElsmiths, theseminal Woods Hole stay with;a1Elsmith, Dorothy Olcott