[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
Your little letter of June 2nd came welcomely yesterday, the first for 11 days; and after a fortnight’s silence I think that I should begin to become anxious. WhatHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3TSE hopes to telephone;b5 a relief it will be, for a few months, to know that if I don’t hear from you I shall be in a position to persecute you on the telephone! ISenexet, WoodstockEH interests TSE in;a1 was very much interested in Senexet (what an odd name) both in the leaflet and in what you said about it.1 DidHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1goes on retreat;a3 youChristianityretreat and solitude;c9EH at Senexet;a2 go for a Retreat, or did you have time only for a day’s visit? IChristianityUnitarianism;d9the prospect of spiritual revival within;a2 hope that such signs may be taken as marking a serious revival of the spiritual life in Unitarianism: I say ‘revival’, but heretofore it has never been more than existant in scattered individuals who felt more profoundly and seriously than others. MyEliot, William Greenleaf (TSE's grandfather)TSE's religious inheritance from;a1 own upbringing was under the shadow of that powerful personality, myChristianityUnitarianism;d9as personified by TSE's grandfather;a3 paternal grandfather the Revd. Dr. Wm. Greenleaf Eliot 2nd;2 although his piety was great, his interests and activities lay rather in the direction of philanthropy and public service, and not in that of abstract thought or the contemplative life (my mother wrote an excellent Life of him).3 He might just as well – or almost as well – have made a great administrator or statesman. IEliot, Charlotte Champe Stearns (TSE's mother)contrasted with TSE's grandfather's;a5 seem to have inherited something else from my mother and her clerical ancestors, though I always feel the attraction towards public activity and being a busybody too: I don’t believe I have ever quite reconciled the two tendencies in myself. And from what origins, near and remote, do you come by it, pray?
I doubt if it would be correct for me to make a Retreat there – I might incur, if not episcopal censure, which is unlikely, the disapproval of the faithful, and I doubt whether I should feel quite happy about it in any case; but I should like very much indeed to pay a visit to see the conditions and the beauty of the place.
ByKing's Chapel, Boston;a5 the way, how many minutes is one desired to talk at these King’s Chapel meetings?
But a Retreat seems to cost just about twice as much in America as it does here!
Your advice about rest, my dear, is very wise and good; I doubt whether I shall be able to act upon it. All I can hope to do is to slacken social activity a bit during July and August; and I pray that there will not be a crowd of American second and third cousins during those months. I know that one thing for which I famish here I am also unlikely to get in America: that is the opportunity for occasional periods of complete solitude; I don’t mean necessarily a hermitage; but at least away from anyone I know or to whom I should be compelled to talk. SometimesChristianityretreat and solitude;c9the need for;a3 one fears that one’s soul may perish of inanition simply from the lack of solitude; even self-examination, and the ability to face the unpleasant facts without fear and without illusion, seem to require solitude. AllFaber and Faber (F&F)refuge from home;a3 that I get is as now, whenRossetti, Christinaworshipper at Christ Church, Woburn Square;a4 IChrist Church, Woburn Squareand Christina Rossetti;a2 shut myself up in my little room looking out over the pleasant green of Woburn Square and the rather ugly church where Christina Rossetti used to worship.4 Sometimes I have no interruption for as long as an hour. AsEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)unbearable to holiday with;a4 I have said before, to go away with V. is more fatigue and worry than to stay in London, where at least I can come to this room. That has been the deadlock during the last five years.
I hope that you will have something better than short visits here and there, because, however delightful, they are often more tiring than restful; I hope that you may be able to spend at least a month in quiet country and seaside surroundings, among really congenial people. (This sounds like tit for tat, doesn’t it – but is not so meant: and I admit that I do not know any person, but one, with whom I could endure to be alone for any great length of time: except possibly a few members of my own family, and I am not even sure of that).
By the way, a serious young theological student from some New York seminary, a Methodist, who has been working in Oxford this year, came to see me to-day, and as I remarked that I should like to get out to California if I could get a few lectures to pay expenses, he replied that he came from the University of Southern California at Los Angeles, that he was seeing one of the authorities there shortly, and would suggest that I should be invited to give a lecture early in January. Doesn’t that sound like a good omen?
1.‘SenexetSenexet, Woodstockdescribed;a2n’, a large country home, or ‘cottage’, built in Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1886, and situated in 11 acres of pine forest, was converted in 1932 into a Unitarian retreat centre boasting 11 bedrooms and comfortable communal facilities; run by Mrs Velma Williams.
2.Washington University 1857–1932: Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Inauguration (Washington University Press, Apr. 1932) saluted WilliamEliot, William Greenleaf (TSE's grandfather) Greenleaf Eliot (1811–87), one of the founders and third Chancellor of the university. ‘He was graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1834, and one year later was ordained as a minister. Desiring to identify himself with the West, he accepted an invitation from a group in St Louis, and organized the First Congregational Society, which later became the Church of the Messiah (Unitarian) … In 1853 he became the first president of the Board of Directors of Eliot Seminary, a position which he continued to hold after the change of name to Washington University, until 1870, when he became also acting chancellor. In 1872 he was elevated to the chancellorship’ (6). In an address given on 22 Apr. 1957, the Revd Dr W. G. Eliot proclaimed, ‘The charter under which we act is unexceptionable, – broad and comprehensive, – containing no limitation nor condition, except one introduced by our own request, as an amendment to the original act, namely, the prohibition of all sectarian and party tests and uses, in all departments of the institution, forever’ (11).
3.See Charlotte C. Eliot, William Greenleaf Eliot: Minister, Educator, Philanthropist (Boston, 1904).
4.ChristChrist Church, Woburn Square Church, Woburn Square (demolished in the 1970s), housed a reredos by Edward Burne-Jones in memory of Christina Rossetti, who lived nearby at 30 Torrington Square.
6.CharlotteEliot, Charlotte Champe Stearns (TSE's mother) Champe Stearns Eliot (1843–1929): see Biographical Register.
2.Washington University 1857–1932: Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Inauguration (Washington University Press, Apr. 1932) saluted WilliamEliot, William Greenleaf (TSE's grandfather) Greenleaf Eliot (1811–87), one of the founders and third Chancellor of the university. ‘He was graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1834, and one year later was ordained as a minister. Desiring to identify himself with the West, he accepted an invitation from a group in St Louis, and organized the First Congregational Society, which later became the Church of the Messiah (Unitarian) … In 1853 he became the first president of the Board of Directors of Eliot Seminary, a position which he continued to hold after the change of name to Washington University, until 1870, when he became also acting chancellor. In 1872 he was elevated to the chancellorship’ (6). In an address given on 22 Apr. 1957, the Revd Dr W. G. Eliot proclaimed, ‘The charter under which we act is unexceptionable, – broad and comprehensive, – containing no limitation nor condition, except one introduced by our own request, as an amendment to the original act, namely, the prohibition of all sectarian and party tests and uses, in all departments of the institution, forever’ (11).