[No surviving envelope]
This is the continuation of my Air Letter of the same date, and if, as they should, they arrive simultaneously, I shall expect you to read the other one first. Mytravels, trips and plansTSE's 1953–4 trip to South Africa;i4itinerary;a1 other piece of news is that IFabers, theon 1953–4 South Africa trip;i8 shall be taking two months holiday from December 31st, when I sail, in the company of Geoffrey and Enid Faber, from London, on the Union-Castle Liner ‘Rhodesia Castle’ for Durban. The itinerary is as follows:
——Las Palmas Jan 5
——Ascension Jan 10
——St. Helena Jan. 12
——Cape Town Jan. 17
——Port Elizabeth Jan. 19
——East London Jan. 21
——DURBAN Jan. 22. Stay in Natal until Feb. 1: Leave by motor coach for Cape Town, stopping at Plattenberg Bay for a week – a sort of quiet summer resort with bathing –
——Cape Town Feb. 12. IMirrlees, Hopein Stellenbosch;d5 shall stay with them for most of the time, at Queen’s Hotel, Seapoint, but shall also visit Hope Mirrlees in Stellenbosch.
After that, the Fabers leave for Johannesburg, Pretoria, Salisbury (tour of S. Rhodesia) andRichards, Audrey;a1 then to Uganda to visit Mrs. F.’s sister who is a professor at a University for natives in that territory on the Equator,1 and also to visit an Astronomical Observatory for which All Souls’ College seems to be responsible. They will fly from Entebbe to London. But as for me, I shall stay in Cape Town until Feb. 25th, when I return to England by the ‘Pretoria Castle’. Arriving towards the end of the first week in March. I am following the advice of my doctor, who wants me to get out of England during January and February, to a warm climate so as to avoid bronchitis and pneumonia, but who agrees with me that the expedition to the tropics of darkest Africa, and the subsequent projection by Comet to England, would not be a good thing.
But, as I shall be able to avoid air travel, I shall take a small typewriter, and so shall be able to write letters.
My main object, is not to visit foreign parts, but to get away (1) from the London winter (2) from the people in London who plague me, and (3) to get a long sea voyage. And I am refusing to make any engagements in London until after my return: for May and June are the months in which one is most called upon to attend ceremonies at which it is necessary to make speeches.
So much for my own present and future, until the spring. IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);m5 propose to write, if possible over this weekend, to Aunt Edith: IEliot, William Greenleaf, Jr. (TSE's cousin)delights TSE in London;a3 haveEliot, Ruth Kayser (TSE's cousin);a1 the subject matter of a visit from my Cousin Will Eliot of Portland (whoWilbur, Earl Morse;a2 knewPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle);j5 and loved, as did Earl Wilbur, your Uncle John) and his daughter, Ruth.2 I had seen Cousin Will (who is 85!) in St. Louis, and then he turned up in London! and I must say that I find him a perfect pet. He is really the finest of that Portland family, and I am quite happy that he should be the Head of the Family.3 WeMorison, Catharine;a1 had them to tea here – together with a strange girl, theMorison, Samuel Eliot;a4 daughter of Sam Eliot Morison, who is for some reason living at present in Chelsea4 – andGarrick Club, London;a7 I had them to lunch at the Garrick, where we all drank tomato juice and Malvern water, and Will admired the pictures. I was relieved to know that the Suit Case reached you in Sussex, and hope that it was according to specification and the lettering right. I like to think of you, when you do travel, using that case. But I do long for news of you! And now, that the first arduous weeks of term are over (indeed the Thanksgiving and even the Christmas holidays are drawing near) can’t you find time to write and talk to me about your life on returning? ItConfidential Clerk, The1953 Edinburgh production;b2dress rehearsal;a7 was such a brief glimpse I had: but that extraordinary dress rehearsal, only the later part of which we saw, andShereks, the;a2Sherek, Henry
1.AudreyRichards, Audrey Richards (1899–1984): social anthropologist and author, who had taught and undertaken research at the London School of Economics, at the University of Witwatersrand, and at the University of London, was the first Director of the East African Institute of Social Research at Makerere College, Kampala, Uganda, 1950–6. She was later to hold the post of Smuts Reader in Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 1961–7. Appointed CBE in 1955, she was elected FBA in 1967. See further Adam Kuper, ‘Audrey Richards 1899–1984’, in Cambridge Women: Twelve Portraits, ed. Edward Shils and Carmen Blacker (1996), 221–44.
2.Will Eliot (1866–1956), of Portland, Oregon, andEliot, Ruth Kayser (TSE's cousin) his daughter Ruth Kayser Eliot (1899–1994).
3.TSEEliot, William Greenleaf, Jr. (TSE's cousin)delights TSE in London;a3 to Edith Perkins, 8 Nov. 1953: ‘It was very pleasant, and a surprise, to have Will Eliot and his daughter Ruth in London for some time in October. Will’s energy is amazing; they had been touring the highlands and elsewhere by motor bus, and were off for a visit to Devon before returning. Until we met in St. Louis in June, it was many years since I had seen Will: I took an immense liking to him, and found him a cousin to be proud of – modesty, dignity, and great mental alertness. And in St. Louis he almost seemed younger than his younger brothers.’
4.MostMorison, Catharine probably Catharine Morison (b. 1925), later Mrs Julian Cooper, who lived in Islington, London. Or possibly a slightly older daughter, Emily Morison Beck (1915–2004), who was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and who worked as an editor for Harper & Brothers, Knopf and the Atlantic Monthly Press, before joining in 1952 the editorial staff of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations – she edited the 13th, 14th and 15th editions – until 1975.
2.Will Eliot (1866–1956), of Portland, Oregon, andEliot, Ruth Kayser (TSE's cousin) his daughter Ruth Kayser Eliot (1899–1994).
3.WilliamEliot, William Greenleaf, Jr. (TSE's cousin) Greenleaf Eliot, Jr. (1866–1956), who was born in St. Louis, Missouri, served for twenty-eight years as Minister of the Church of Our Father (Unitarian), in Portland, Oregon, 1906–34.
2.HopeMirrlees, Hope Mirrlees (1887–1978), British poet, novelist, translator and biographer, was to become a close friend of TSE: see Biographical Register.
4.MostMorison, Catharine probably Catharine Morison (b. 1925), later Mrs Julian Cooper, who lived in Islington, London. Or possibly a slightly older daughter, Emily Morison Beck (1915–2004), who was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and who worked as an editor for Harper & Brothers, Knopf and the Atlantic Monthly Press, before joining in 1952 the editorial staff of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations – she edited the 13th, 14th and 15th editions – until 1975.
2.SamuelMorison, Samuel Eliot Eliot Morison (1887–1976), American historian and a cousin of TSE, was for thirty years from 1925 Professor of History at Harvard. In 1922 he became the first Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford. His works include The Maritime History of Massachusetts (1921), the history of Harvard University (5 vols, 1930–6), History of United States Naval Operations (15 vols), the Oxford History of the American People (1965), and The European Discovery of America (1972). A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the American Philosophical Association, he served too as President of the American Historical Association; and his awards included the Bancroft Prize (twice), the Pulitzer Prize (twice), the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award of the Navy League, the Gold Medal for History, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. See also ‘The Dry Salvages and the Thacher Shipwreck’, American Neptune 25: 4 (1965), 233–47.
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
1.AudreyRichards, Audrey Richards (1899–1984): social anthropologist and author, who had taught and undertaken research at the London School of Economics, at the University of Witwatersrand, and at the University of London, was the first Director of the East African Institute of Social Research at Makerere College, Kampala, Uganda, 1950–6. She was later to hold the post of Smuts Reader in Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 1961–7. Appointed CBE in 1955, she was elected FBA in 1967. See further Adam Kuper, ‘Audrey Richards 1899–1984’, in Cambridge Women: Twelve Portraits, ed. Edward Shils and Carmen Blacker (1996), 221–44.
1.EarlWilbur, Earl Morse Morse Wilbur (1866–1956), Unitarian minister, educator and historian, studied at the University of Vermont and at Harvard Divinity School, and succeeded TSE’s cousin Thomas Lamb Eliot as minister of the Portland Oregon Unitarian Church in 1893. In 1898 he married Eliot’s daughter, Dorothea Dix Eliot (1871–1957); they had two children. He was Dean, President, 1911–31, and Professor of Homiletics and Practical Theology, 1931–4, of the Pacific Unitarian School for Ministry, in Berkeley, Caifornia. A dedicated scholar, he studied languages including Latin, Hungarian and Polish, and did research in countries including Poland, Italy, Spain, France and England, as well as in American archives. His crowning achievement was the publication of his two volumes: A History of Unitarianism: Socinianism and Its Antecedents (1945), and A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England, and America to 1900 (1952). In 1953, the American Unitarian Association awarded him the Annual Unitarian Award in Recognition of Distinguished Service to the Cause of Liberal Religion.