to Eleanor Hinkley
London W.8
I ought to have thanked you for your letter of November 11th, but I had secretly been hoping that you might be writing again and looking forward to your reaction to what I told you about Father Merchant. I’mEliot, Esmé Valerie (née Fletcher, TSE's second wife)TSE collecting photographs for;c4 thankful you were canny enough not to surrender the photograph which Valerie is anxious to see and get copied!*
What you say about Emily is distressing but conformed very closely to my suspicions. I’mHale, Emilyfinances;w5;b7 afraid that she must have wasted a good deal of money on this recherche du temps perdu, and I am deeply sorry for her. I don’t know whether I should write to her just to say how sorry I am that we could not see her, and that her attempt miscarried – what do you think? I assume that she is still at the Vendôme. I had thought, long enough ago, that Emily was inclined to complain of her old friends for neglecting her; andPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt)relations with EH;p5 althoughHale, Emilyfamily;w4EH's relations with aunt and uncle;a6 I know that Mrs. Perkins must have been a sore trial to her, this became almost an obsession with her. I wonder too whether she has the mental resources or interests necessary in retirement – she had lived so long in recurring periods of great effort and intensity in her theatrical productions – what will replace them?1
We are hoping to hear that you received the Benjamin Haydon, and are longing to know what you think of that fascinating megalomaniac.
DoHinkley, Barbara (TSE's first cousin);b9 give my love and sympathy to Barbara. I can’t find her address, though I have her letter filed away somewhere, and I sent her Christmas Card in your care. I am now apologising to all my nearest relatives in the U.S.A. to whom I sent cards under the impression that the postage had only been increased to 3d. Then after posting I found that it is now 6d. for surface mail, the same as for an air letter like this. I fear that you and Barbara are among the sufferers who will have to pay surcharge.
With much love from both of us
WeElizabeth II, Queen (formerly Princess Elizabeth of York)discusses TSE and EVE's wedding;a7 have no particular news < – except that the Queen discussed our early morning wedding with us at a recent reception. You shall have details in my next letter. V.>2 We had Valerie’s mother down to stay with us for a few days, as we felt that she ought to get away from home for a bit. It was fortunate for us that she came, as Valerie had taken a chill – I think from the fatigue and delayed shock – and her mother managed to keep her in bed for two days, which is more than I could have done!
* Don’t be bullied if you don’t want to part with it! Your note about Daddy was a masterpiece of sensitivity, and I did appreciate it. Bless you. Valerie.3
1.EHScripps College, Claremontbequeathed EH's TSE book collection;f9, 35 School Street, Andover, Mass., to Dorothy Drake (Scripps College Librarian, 1938–70), 17 July 1957: ‘I have reached retirement age, rather to my surprise (!) and am leaving Abbot as of this next September. I am also leaving Andover. My own dear apartment is owned by the school, and my successor will move in, the first of the school year. So, these summer months I am spending disposing of as much as I can, since I have no new position or home […]
‘For some time I have planned to send out to Scripps, the larger remainder of my T. S. Eliot books, mostly first editions and/or inscribed. A few especially significant to me, I should keep’ (Scripps).
TSE wrote again to Eleanor Hinkley on 2 Feb. 1958: ‘I am writing to Emily, as soon as I finish this letter. I hope that she is better, and has enough to interest her. The one activity she loved, next to acting, was producing. I know all the feverish excitement and stimulation of production myself; and I should fear that without this periodic recurring stimulant she might feel very depressed. I don’t think she was ever a great reader’ (TS Houghton).
2.Marginal insertion in Valerie Eliot’s handwriting.
3.Postscript paragraph by Valerie Eliot, in her hand.
ValerieEliot, Esmé Valerie (née Fletcher, TSE's second wife)her father's death;c6n Eliot’s father had died on 30 Oct. 1957. TSE to Eleanor Hinkley, 3 Nov. 1957: ‘I am writing briefly (as I am writing to Theresa and Marian also) to let you know that Valerie’s father died very suddenly – at his office desk – and instantaneously it seems, of a coronary thrombosis, on Wednesday morning. This was totally unexpected (though Valerie had remarked that she didn’t quite like his colour when at Scarborough, he had seemed in excellent health and spirits) and a great shock. My doctor forbade me to travel so soon after the bronchitis I had following Asian flu; so she had to go up all alone yesterday – I saw her off at King’s Cross, looking very wan and beautiful in the mourning dress and hat she had bought the day before. It is very strange and restless being here without her – the first time we have been apart.’
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.
6.BarbaraHinkley, Barbara (TSE's first cousin) Hinkley (1889–1958) was married in July 1928 to Roger Wolcott (1877–1965), an attorney; they lived at 125 Beacon Hill, Boston, and at 1733 Canton Avenue, Milton, Mass.
4.RevdMerchant, Revd W. Moelwyn W. Moelwyn Merchant (1913–97): Welsh academic, Anglican priest, poet, critic and sculptor, who undertook research in the autumn of 1957 at the Folger Library in Washington, DC, and visited Ezra Pound at St Elizabeth’s Hospital. Merchant was to become Professor of English at the University of Exeter, 1961–74; later, Willett Professor at the University of Chicago and Chancellor of Salisbury Cathedral, 1967–71. In Aug. 1957 he had sent TSE, whom he had met, a copy of Wordsworth’s A Guide through the District of the Lakes, illus. by John Piper and with an introduction by Merchant. See further Merchant, Fragments of a Life (1990): ‘Despite [Pound’s] tragic circumstances, the omens were good for my visits to him in Washington, for T. S. Eliot had briefed me carefully on the personal issues and the pattern of friendships which surrounded Pound in face of official animosity’ (147).