[No surviving envelope]
[letterhead]
Caister Hotel, Durban
I was very glad to get your letter, forwarded from London, yesterday; because I was firmly under the impression that I had given you the hotel address in Durban. I am very sorry I did not. I hope I gave you the Cape address: Queen’s Hotel, Sea Point, Cape Town, from February 12th; but I expect to stay from the 19th until the 25th (the day of sailing for Southampton on the ‘Pretoria Castle’) c/o MissMirrlees, Hopein Stellenbosch;d5 H. H. Mirrlees, Molenvliet, Stellenbosch, Cape Province.
The date of sailing was advanced about a week before we sailed, which is why I did not advise you or anyone of the change; but I am sorry indeed to have missed your cable message. It was sweet of you to think of it. But I should have thanked you for your Christmas Card – serious, individual and suitable as ever.1 All my other Christmas cards go to the Childrens Hospital after Twelfth Night. IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);n1 had always been under the impression that etiquette required that the cable should be addressed to your Aunt – next time I must remember to send two cables, as I imagine that she would complain if she did not get one.
TheFabers, theon 1953–4 South Africa trip;i8 greater part of the voyage was cold and cloudy; and as Enid Faber had started with a cold, which her husband caught, and eventually I got it, I am only gradually reducing the consequent catarrh. I have felt much better since the weather became warmer – that is to say, it has been very comfortable from Cape Town on. The great disappointment of the voyage was not being allowed to land at St. Helena – I had been eager to visit Longwood, where Napoleon lived, and the island itself is said to be very beautiful in the interior; but we came on deck in the early morning to find the vessel flying the quarantine flag. A little girl, who had been observed to be rather ailing, was suspected of poliomyelitis (she was removed at Cape Town, and it is said that the supposed polio is, for the child herself, something very much worse – the poor little thing has a tumour on the brain). So, as we had only reached Las Palmas late in the evening, and as no one is ever allowed ashore at Ascension Island anyway, unless there on business, as landing is too risky, we did not set foot on shore until Cape Town. There, we were in dock two days. WeBarry, Geoffrey;a1 were met by one of the partners of our S. African agents, who have been very useful indeed, and lunched with Mr. Barry, the Manager of Foyle’s bookshop.2 At Cape Town, and at the two other ports at which we touched, Port Elizabeth and East London, we were interviewed by the Press:3 GeoffreyFaber, Geoffreyreceives knighthood;l5 was more in the public Eye than usual, as his knighthood had been announced in the New Year Honours List, andFaber, Enid Eleanornow Lady Faber;c9 his Letters Patent have come so they are Sir Geoffrey and Lady Faber – which I think gives them much pleasure.4 PortFogarty, Basil;a1 Elizabeth is rather a pleasant town: there we were given lunch by a bookseller Mr. Basil Fogarty.5 East London is a smaller place, looking rather like a lower Mississippi river town. Here a Lady Teacher of Voice Culture telephoned to me as the boat lay at the dock, and brought two of her pupils (young women of about 22) who had ‘majored’ in my work. This was just before we sailed; meanwhile we had visited the aquariam [sic] and bathed in a salt water swimming pool.6
This hotel is very comfortable indeed; and the food is superior to that of most African hotels.7 The superior servants are Indian; the lower servants mostly Basuto. The hotel is well situated on a hill overlooking the city and harbour, which is the mouth of a river. We arrived on Friday. OnCoker, Margaret Rosalys ('Margot', née Mirrlees);a9 Saturday we were driven out to the estate of some people to whom I had an introduction from Margot Coker: itMirrleeses, thetheir family estate in South Africa;b9Mirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff)
We have also visited an experimental agricultural station, and lunched with the professors. Fortunately, the other partner of our agents (Hardingham & Donaldson) is here to look after us, and is invaluable – he is now out getting my return ticket.9 For one cannot be in Durban without doing a little social work. This afternoon I have to go to the Library to inspect an exhibition of my work; later, we give a cocktail party at another hotel. Tomorrow morning we have to be received by the Mayor and Corporation. ILewis, WyndhamTSE views first portrait in Durban;c4 shall have to visit the Art Gallery to see my portrait by Wyndham Lewis which is there. On Friday there is a reception by the local press. I have excused myself from a luncheon of the American–Canadian Club at which I should have had to make a speech.
We shall have from Monday Feb. 1st to Feb. 12th, freedom I hope from publicity and public events; but of course there will be one or two such affairs in Cape Town. Another cocktail party, and'On Poetry and Drama';a1 a luncheon at Foyle’s Bookshop at which I must speak for 10 minutes on ‘Poetry and Drama’.10
IConfidential Clerk, The1954 American production;b4reception;a4 return your two cuttings herewith with thanks. I have them, together with several others, forwarded with your letter from London andSherek, Henry;b4 sent by Sherek (who is in London, so perhaps he never went to Boston). The Monitor is unfavourable.11 While not exactly enthusiastic, these notices seem on the whole to augur well for New York. I hope for news of New York on my arrival at Cape Town, whence my next letter will come.
1.Christmas card not found.
2.GeoffreyBarry, Geoffrey Barry.
3.Totravels, trips and plansTSE's 1953–4 trip to South Africa;i4arrival described to JDH;a5n John Hayward, 26 Jan. 1954: ‘At Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, and even at East London (which looks like a forgotten municipality on the lower Mississippi) we were interviewed by the Press. They all ask the same questions. They want to know, chiefly, whether I expect to find, in S. Africa, inspiration for a new Masterpiece. I have an evasive formula. In Durban we have all engaged in an “In Town Tonight” broadcast interview (jocose in tone – I was asked questions about cats) and have been filmed, for the local News Reel, walking across the lawn of the hotel.’
4.See ‘Verses to honour and magnify Sir Geoffrey Faber Kt.; presented by several of his faithful henchmen, satellites & feodaries to mark the occasion of his safe return together with his good lady from the Antipodes & the more tropic parts of Africa, etc.’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954; Poems I, 313). For distribution at a dinner to celebrate Geoffrey Faber’s knighthood.
5.BasilFogarty, Basil Fogarty set up ‘Fogarty’s Bookstore’ in a basement shop at 59 Main Street, Port Elizabeth, in the late 1940s; he was supported by his dominant Scottish wife, Eleanor. (GCF commented: ‘Met Mrs Fogarty, who wears most of the trousers and knows her onions.’)
6.Geoffreytravels, trips and plansTSE's 1953–4 trip to South Africa;i4GCF on;a6n Faber’s account of the trip – ‘Visit to South Africa etc. 1954’: ‘We (E.E.F and G.C.F.) with T.S.E. left King George V Dock on Wednesday December 30 1953 in the Rhodesia Castle, a new one-class “intermediate” boat, captained by Commander Cambridge, R.N.R., D.S.O. Nothing worth recording on the voyage, except that T.S.E. and I developed bad colds, that I had congratulatory telegrams; that we touched at Las Palmas after dark, but felt no wish to go ashore; that we anchored off Ascension Island for a day, where passengers are now [sc. not] allowed to land because of the risk that sudden storms may prevent them from re-embarking (but we saw turtles swimming in the sea); and that we were not allowed to land on St Helena, to our great disappointment, since there was a suspected case of polio on board. However, we put the new Governor (Mr Harford) on shore, cocked hat and all, and watched his reception through our glasses. As a consolation the Captain steamed round the island, which is a forbidding enough mass of volcanic rock as seen from the sea, though inland it is said to be very beautiful… The voyage, as a whole and in spite of a fair amount of sunlight, was colder and windier and less genial than we had expected.’ On arrival at Cape Town on 16 Jan., Faber noted: ‘Reporters and photographers after T.S.E. and self. Got ashore eventually .’ At Port Elizabeth, he recorded: ‘We … all went to see the attractive Aquarium (a big turtle is the pièce de resistance) and bathed in the large sea-water swimming pool (70˚ as against 66˚ in the open sea). Lunched on board, and sailed at 3 p.m.’
7.Faber, 31 Jan.: ‘we … were received after dinner, with most friendly condescension, by the redoubtable Mrs Hall, who owns the Caister Hotel and refuses to admit (and ruthlessly ejects) guests of whom she doesn’t approve. T.S.E. made so powerful an impression, that she telephoned to him the next morning, in order to wish him a personal goodbye.’
8.TSE to Hayward, 26 Jan. 1954: ‘We have spent a day at Tongaat (the Sugar Estate source of the Mirrlees income) entertained lavishly by the sugar tycoon of Natal, Mr. Douglas Saunders.’
9.To Hayward, 26 Jan. 1954: ‘We have had in attendance the whole time Mr. [John] Donaldson of Hardingham and Donaldson our S. African Agents, and very useful he has been.’
10.The Foyles Literary Luncheon in honour of TSE was held at the Vineyard Hotel, Newlands, Cape Town, on 19 Feb. 1954. TSE was seated with Geoffrey and Enid Faber, and Sir Herbert Stanley. TSE’s deft talk, ‘On Poetry and Drama’, is published in CProse 8, 14–19.
11.John Beaufort, ‘The Confidential Clerk on Broadway’, Christian Science Monitor, 20 Feb. 1954, 16.
5.MargaretCoker, Margaret Rosalys ('Margot', née Mirrlees) Rosalys Mirrlees – ‘Margot’ (b. 1898) – wasCoker, Lewis Aubrey ('Bolo') married in 1920 to Lewis Aubrey Coker, OBE (1883–1953), nicknamed ‘Bolo’, a major in the Royal Field Artillery. T. S. Matthews, Great Tom: Notes towards the definition of T. S. Eliot (1974), 126: ‘The married daughter, Margot Coker, had a large country house near Bicester …’
1.TSE was mistaken here. EnidFaber, Enid Eleanor Eleanor Faber (1901–95) was the daughter of Sir Henry Erle Richards (1861–1922), Fellow of All Souls College and Chichele Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at Oxford University, and Mary Isabel Butler (1868–1945).
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
5.BasilFogarty, Basil Fogarty set up ‘Fogarty’s Bookstore’ in a basement shop at 59 Main Street, Port Elizabeth, in the late 1940s; he was supported by his dominant Scottish wife, Eleanor. (GCF commented: ‘Met Mrs Fogarty, who wears most of the trousers and knows her onions.’)
7.WyndhamLewis, Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957), painter, novelist, philosopher, critic: see Biographical Register.
2.HopeMirrlees, Hope Mirrlees (1887–1978), British poet, novelist, translator and biographer, was to become a close friend of TSE: see Biographical Register.
4.HenrySherek, Henry Sherek (1900–1967), theatre producer: see Biographical Register.