[41 Brimmer St., Boston]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
The Criterion
19 March 1932
Dear Lady,

I'Mr Harold Monro: A Poet and His Ideal';a1 have time only for a little line this morning: only time to explain why I cannot write at greater length. TheMonro, HaroldTSE on the death of;b2 enclosed obituary (which I wrote myself ) tells what happened.1 I was quite prepared for it, but not for his dying quite so suddenly. I spent the whole of Wednesday getting the material and writing this in time for Thursday’s Times, and in various telephone calls in connexion with the whole matter. He had very few intimate friends, but we were all very fond of him. Yesterday'Modern Dilemma, The'being composed;a3 I was rushed by having to finish the B.B.C. talk which I should have finished the day before; now I have got to go and see about flowers, and tomorrow morning the funeral. Harold’s absence will leave a great gap in life; butMonro, Alida (née Klementaski)TSE worries for;a4 at the moment I am chiefly concerned to know how his wife, Alida, is left. I will tell you more about them another time.

I was so surprised and intoxicated by the picture that the letter I wrote on Tuesday was not a letter I should otherwise have written: I meant I left out much. IChristianitydeath and afterlife;b4consoles TSE in life;a2 had wanted to send you an Easter letter in time for Easter. I hope that sometimes, at this season, you may mention me in your prayers; that you will have a quiet and serene Holy Week, and that Easter will bring as it should, some gift of hope and content. ItChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1hope, a duty;b4 is very hard, I know as well as anyone; but I do feel that hope and content are a duty that we must study; and there is a kind of serenity, which, if it does not give much ‘happiness’ to the possessor (for nothing is a substitute for anything else, that must be faced) constitutes something of the highest value to those about one. I believe that I shall be glad when the end comes – you will say that I have the thought of death too much with me at the moment – but meanwhile I hope to be able to wait and work usefully, and to deserve some of the satisfaction which comes from having been able to help others, even if they are not those whom one would most crave to help.

And now, my dear, good bye until Tuesday. Then I will write on Maundy Thursday, and again the following Easter Tuesday.

Tom

1.Harold Monro had died on 16 Mar. 1932. TSE, ‘Mr Harold Monro: A Poet and His Ideal’, The Times, 17 Mar. 1932, 16: CProse 4, 432–5.

Christianity, and human isolation, and modern economics, Ada on TSE's personal piety, scheme for 'Pro Fide' bookshop, among the Eliot family, and beauty, its sects like different clubs, Anglo-Catholicism, TSE's conversion to, which he dates to Eccleston Square meeting, Anglican Missal sought for EH, but unfortunately out of print, discussed at Boston Theological School, and the Petrine Claims, apostolic succession, over Roman Catholicism, as refuge from VHE, and the Reformation, asceticism, discipline, rigour, the necessity for, and TSE's daily exhortation, making and breaking habits, mastering emotions and passions, as salubrious, only remedy for a prurient culture, confession and communion, more possible during Harvard year, the case for unattainable ideals, in time of war, gets TSE up before 7 o'clock, hereditary with TSE, belief, and good poetry, faced with Second World War, and conversion, antidote to TSE's skepticism, Christendom, TSE ponders the decline of, TSE on his prominence within, its ruin, the Church Visible and Invisible, and TSE's war work, the Malabar Church, prospect of total reunion within, confession, helps to objectify sin, more dreaded than dentist, harder in the morning, death and afterlife, the struggle to prepare for, consoles TSE in life, and cremation, Requiem Mass, gives meaning to life, and what makes a desirable burial place, the nature of eternal life, divorce, unrecognised by Anglo-Catholic Church, which TSE regrets, in church law, would separate TSE from Church, evil, TSE's belief in, and moral percipience, guilt, and the New England conscience, hell, TSE's 1910 vision of, and damnation, according to TSE, liturgy, TSE's weekly minimum, Mass of the Pre-sanctified, Requiem Mass versus Mass of Good Friday, and whether to serve at Mass, Imposition of Ashes, at Christmas, High Mass over Mattins, aversion to Low Church Mattins, Roman service in Wayland, Tenebrae, in country parish church, as guest at Kelham, remarkable sermon, over Christmas, Tenebrae and Family Reunion, during Holy Week, Mass of Charles King and Martyr, love, loving one's neighbour, marriage, TSE's need for privacy within, mysticism and transcendence, interpenetration of souls, intimations of life's 'pattern', 'doubleness', arrived at through reconciliation, orthodoxy, only remedy for contemporary culture, and pagans, sets TSE at odds with modernity, necessarily trinitarian, 'Christian' defined, iniquities of liberal theology, and creed, authority, Transubstantiation, TSE disclaims 'self-centredness' in maintaining, politics, the Church and social change, how denomination maps onto, need for working-class priests, church leaders against totalitarianism and Nazism, Christianity versus Fascism and Communism, Papal Encyclical against Nazi Germany, the 'Dividend morality', Presbyterianism, TSE quips on the meanness of, Quakerism, resignation, reconciliation, peace, TSE's love allows for, 'peace that passeth all understanding', the struggle to maintain, following separation from VHE, retreat and solitude, EH at Senexet, the need for, a need increasing with age, and TSE's mother, Roman Catholicism, TSE's counter-factual denomination, Rome, sacraments, Holy Communion, marriage, sainthood, TSE's idea of, the paradoxes of, susceptible of different sins, sins, vices, faults, how to invigilate, the sense of sin, the sinner's condition, bound up with the virtues, as a way to virtue, TSE's self-appraisal, when humility shades into, when unselfishness shades into, among saints, proportionate to spiritual progress, daydreaming, despair, lust, pride, perfection-seeking pride, spiritual progress and direction, TSE's crisis of 1910–11, EH's crisis, versus automatism, TSE's sense of, towards self-knowledge, in EH's case, as personal regeneration, temptation, to action/busyness, the Church Year, Advent, Christmas, dreaded, happily over, TSE rebuked for bah-humbugging, church trumps family during, season of irreligion, thoughts of EH during, unsettling, fatiguing, in wartime, Easter preferred to, Ash Wednesday, Lent, season for meditation and reading, prompts thoughts of EH, Lady Day, Holy Week, its intensity, arduous, preserved from public engagements, exhausting but refreshing, excitingly austere, Easter, better observed than Christmas, missed through illness, Unitarianism, the Eliots' as against EH's, the prospect of spiritual revival within, as personified by TSE's grandfather, regards the Bible as literature, as against Catholicism, divides EH from TSE, and whether Jesus believed himself divine, according to Dr Perkins, in England as against America, over-dependent on preachers' personality, TSE's wish that EH convert from, outside TSE's definition of 'Christian', the issue of communion, baptism, impossibly various, virtues heavenly and capital, bound up with the vices, better reached by way of sin, charity, towards others, in Bubu, TSE's intentness on, delusions of, as against tolerance, chastity, celibacy, beneath humility, TSE lacks vocation for, faith, and doubt, hope, a duty, TSE's struggle for, humility, distinguished from humiliation, comes as relief, greatest of the virtues, propinquitous to humour, not an Eliot virtue, opposed to timidity, danger of pride in, is endless, TSE criticised for overdoing, theatre a lesson in, most difficult of the virtues, possessed by EH, possessed by EH to a fault, TSE compares himself to EH in, the paradox of, distinguished from inferiority, self-discovery teaches, possessed by Dr Perkins, patience, recommended to EH, its foundations, possessed by Uncle John, purity, distinguished from purification, temperance, with alcohol, beneath humility,
'Modern Dilemma, The', and educational broadcasting generally, being composed, receives unlikely praise, TSE against turning into book, approved by EH, earns TSE 60 guineas,
Monro, Alida (née Klementaski), deputises for husband at Poetry Bookshop, reads at the Eliots' party, TSE worries for, and the Poetry Bookshop's future, TSE loses bet with, reports on VHE, coincidentally recommends that the Eliots separate, antipathetic to VHE, considers closing Poetry Bookshop, detects life in Willard Thorp, goes on about dead husband's ex-wife, regales TSE with Irish escapades, reports from Selsey, in straitened circumstances, breeding poodles,

3.AlidaMonro, Alida (née Klementaski) Klementaski (1892–1969) married Harold Monro on 27 Mar. 1920: see Alida Monro in Biographical Register.

Monro, Harold, part of Hulme's circle, comes with Flint to supper, described for EH, visited in nursing home, obliged with Poetry Bookshop reading, now in hospital, still in nursing home, from which he returns, inveighs against Aldington, needs another operation, TSE on the death of, his funeral,

6.Harold MonroMonro, Harold (1879–1932), poet, editor, publisher, bookseller: see Biographical Register.

'Mr Harold Monro: A Poet and His Ideal',