[No surviving envelope]
OurEliot, Esmé Valerie (née Fletcher, TSE's second wife)continues temporarily as secretary;b8 existence is unsettled and in a sense nomadic at the present, as we are staying at an hotel in Kensington; and as Valerie is having to continue work at Russell Square for me until the secretary engaged to replace her arrives and has had a little training. In this sort of life less can be accomplished in a day, than when one has one’s own home and settled routine; soEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister);i1 the first personal letter I have written was to Marian, finished five minutes ago, and this is the second. There are, of course, any number of letters from relatives and friends to be acknowledged as soon as possible. It19 Carlyle Mansions, LondonTSE's possessions remain at;b7 is true that I still have my possessions – except what I can get into a hotel bedroom, and this typewriter which I keep at Valerie’s old lodgings not far from our hotel – at Carlyle Mansions, but I only go there to fetch or return necessary articles.
Anyway, as this is my second letter, it means that I wanted to thank you before anyone else, for the very fine letter you wrote me, and which I found at Carlyle Mansions on my first call there; alsoEliot, Esmé Valerie (née Fletcher, TSE's second wife)writes to EH;b9, Valerie was much pleased by your writing to her, and will write to thank you1 – I have explained above why she can hardly cope with correspondence yet, her time being divided between secretarial work and house-agents. I do hope that you will be able to come to England to meet her: I should like to bring her over to America on a visit, but I don’t see how that can be managed until I can get some lecture engagement lucrative enough – such as the Norton lectureship is.
IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt)where TSE writes to her;p2 have since had your second letter, about Aunt Edith (quite rightly addressed to 24 Russell Square and marked ‘personal’ – that will be my address until we are settled in a flat, no19 Carlyle Mansions, Londonno longer TSE's address;b8 more letters should go to Carlyle Mansions. I am very glad that Aunt E. is finally and with so little difficulty settled in a home. (The address, have I got it right? Van der Klisch Home, 929 Beacon Street, Newton Centre, Mass.) I’ll write to her there as soon as I can. ButHale, Emilyfinances;w5;b6 on the other hand I read between the lines that this means further outgoings and that as a consequence you cannot afford to retire yet. Is that the reason? I am terribly sorry about this: I hate to think of you having to find a new post and together with it a new residence. I do pray that you may find a well paid post near enough for you not to have to move – though that seems too much to hope for.
[Emily Hale Deposit at Princeton Ends Here]
1.Michelle Taylor, ‘The Secret History of T. S. Eliot’s Muse’, New Yorker, 5 Dec. 2020: ‘A proper Bostonian to her core, Hale wrote separate letters of congratulation to both the bride and the groom.’
2.Gabrielle McIntyre, ‘Love’s Errors and Effacements: T. S. Eliot and Emily Hale’, Time Present: The Newsletter of the International T. S. Eliot Society, no. 101 (Summer 2020), 6: ‘Eliot’s type-written and hand-written effacements, doublings-back, and self-corrections will mark many of these letters, including the very last one held in the archive, dated 10 February 1957. This letter, which Eliot apparently did not believe would be his last (and which may well not have been his last, though the collection stops here) tragically closes by misspelling and altering the word “love” once again – this time through a prolonged typo of the very word “love” that causes him to retrace his steps, attempt to hide his error, and then correct by re-arranging and inserting letters. The end result is a muddle, and his final attempt to write the word “love” appears almost unreadable. Even typographically Eliot is rendering the brokenness of the love between them as something that can no longer be written, much less lived.’
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.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.