[c/o Sylvia Knowles, 47 Morelands Terrace, New Bedford]
I am writing this afternoon (Thursday) instead of Tomorrow, because we had our committee meeting yesterday and so I am free, and because I may be rather rushed in the morning tomorrow, and do not know about the afternoon. WeUnderhill, Evelyn;a8 haveEliots, the T. S.Evelyn Underhill and Force Stead to lunch with;e4 Mrs. Stuart Moore andStead, William Force;a5 Force Stead (the chaplain of Worcester, from Virginia, whom I think I have mentioned before) to lunch. It was a great and happy surprise to get your dear letter of July 4th, from Castine, this morning; one would think that the mails are quicker from Castine than from Boston; for no letter has ever reached me from Boston in less than ten days.
ThankPhilippe, Charles-LouisBubu de Montparnasse;a1 you for atoning about ‘Bubu’: it is now my turn to apologise. IHale, Emilyreading;w8Bubu de Montparnasse;a4 doChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1in Bubu;a4 not in the least mind your having been disgusted by the book (perhaps I am rather glad) though I feel that there is a kind of Christian charity shining through it which makes the subject matter possible; but I have read books which disgusted me, and I know what it feels like; and I am sorry to have inflicted disgust upon you, especially at the wrong time. As well as our personal struggles with ourselves, I suppose that all sensitive persons from time to time have nightmares; and occasionally I feel life as essentially so horrible and disgusting that it is nearly madness. That is wrong of course; but there is only one remedy, prayer and meditation.
But on a more superficial plane than that, there are great differences between people in what, in the way of literature etc., does disgust them. SomeWycherley, WilliamThe Country Wifedoes not disgust TSE;a3 people are disgusted by Restoration Comedy, while Wycherley’s ‘Country Wife’ seems to me most delightful and innocent fun – and rather sombre too.1 RabelaisRabelais, FrançoisTSE finds nothing offensive in;a1, and ‘UlyssesJoyce, JamesUlysses;e6its true perversity;a3’ seem to me perfectly clean – what does disturb me in the latter work is a kind of perverted Christian faith which horrifies and profoundly saddens me. But the majority in the present world has so far lost any Christian sensibility that it is simply incapable of noticing these things in ‘Ulysses’: it can only see a few ‘obscene words’. ‘UlyssesJoyce, JamesUlysses;e6likened to Gulliver's Travels;a4’ seems to me on a level with theSwift, JonathanGulliver's Travels;a1 last book of Gulliver’s Travels, which is I think the saddest book I have ever read. What does disgust me is the prurient: much of contemporary fiction and drama, which no one seems to question; a great deal that appears in the cheaper daily press; and many films – especially, I fear, the salacious ones are apt to be American; but as they appear to be as popular here as in America, that is no reason for the English to feel superior. SoChristianityorthodoxy;c4only remedy for contemporary culture;a1 IChristianityasceticism, discipline, rigour;a9only remedy for a prurient culture;a6 am not very happy about things, for I believe that nothing but orthodox, and ascetic, Christianity can counteract such tendencies; and the orthodox and ascetic Christians are not likely to be more than a small and peculiar people.
AsHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7EH refuses TSE lock of hair;b6 to the other matter on which I have been ‘snubbed’, I can hardly complain of missing what I did not expect! I was merely expressing myself, so to speak. I am glad the new coiffure is a success, but don’t leave it too long before the next wave; everybody knows that! Iappearance (TSE's)TSE remembers wearing make-up;a2 used even, in my salad days, when I was still young, very foolish, and very unhappy, to make up myself for evening parties: I had a peculiar green powder I got in Paris, which under artificial light gave a corpselike effect which had a great success.2 ButCunard, Nancygave parties to which TSE wore make-up;a2 that was in theRothermere, Mary Lilian (née Share)TSE recalls wearing make-up to the parties of;a2 days when I used to go to Lady Rothermere’s and Lady Cunard’s parties, and such like: and all that is much less real to me now than my childhood and youth are.
IAmericaCalifornia;d3EH suggests trip to Yosemite;a3 had not forgotten, madam, that there is a Yosemite Park: I could not remember whether it was a preserve for Bears, like the Yellowstone or a Beauty Spot in the Grand Canyon; but I am afraid I did think that it was somewhere down in Arizona or New Mexico instead of Southern California. Anyway, I should very much like to see it if you were there to be seen in it. As I have said, I should like to reach the Far West in the first week in January: in February I must be back in Cambridge (shall I be going to the more middle-aged dances I wonder – I haven’t danced for ten years – and to Skating Club carnivals?)
Thank you for your information about Penelope; at one moment I thought she might think more than that I had heard from Eleanor (from whom, indeed, I hear very rarely); but I am sure you are right. IHinkleys, theEH yet to confide in;b8 am glad that so far you have not yet confided in the Hinkleys, though I realise how difficult and strained that must often make your conversation with them, and some day or other the reserve may be relaxed. ButHinkleys, themore conventional than moral;b9 I feel that [for] all their worldliness – it is a kind of innocent worldliness – their experience of life is very restricted, and their standards conventional: moreHinkley, Barbara (TSE's first cousin)her irreligion;a4 conventional than Moral, I am tempted to say when thinking of Barbara – that may sound unkind and harsh; if so, please forgive me: I know that to most people Barbara’s history would appear perfectly correct. (IChristianityorthodoxy;c4and pagans;a2 know that the world being as it is, one must not apply orthodox rules of conduct to pagan people, beyond a point: andhomosexualityversus Christian orthodoxy;a5 indeed, among my acquaintances are some of utterly different codes than mine – among my young men, I know even one or two who are frankly inverted – but I try to consider them dispassionately and sympathise with them in spite of that). How parenthetic this paragraph has become. After I have been in Cambridge for some time, however, I shall know my way about better both with the Hinkleys and with my nearer relatives. AdaSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister)TSE's most likely family confidant;a3 I remember as the most understanding of all my family; but I should not dream of making her the recipient of any confidences, after eighteen years separation, unless and until I found, after seeing a good deal of her again, that she was a suitable person. That is one thing I wonder about: how easy or difficult I shall find it to resume the other contacts. FromPeters, Haroldless estranged from TSE than expected;a7 some of my men friends I shall no doubt feel very distant; though with Harold Peters, whom I saw last summer, the estrangement was happily much less than I anticipated. I think it was clever of you, however, to suggest to them that you wanted to arrange a Western tour for me. I hope I may manage my rôle as well as you do yours!
Itravels, trips and plansEH's 1932 summer holidays;a3;a6 am happy to think, my dear, that the visit to Castine has been a success, and that the visit to New Bedford is likely to be so. (OfSpencer, Katherine;a1 course, Miss Katie Spencer is a snob and a chatterbox, and I do not take her too seriously; but she does amuse me in moderate quantities, and I think she is kindhearted although so gossipy). (HereBiddulph, Geoffrey;a1 I was interrupted by Mr. Geoffrey Biddulph on the telephone).3 I think you will be very wise not to cut your vacation up into little bits, even if it means sacrificing an old friend like Penelope. You must be a little selfish furthermore, and consider first, not which are your oldest friends or those who have the most claim upon you, or even those you like the best: but first of all which are the most restful to stay with. Some of the nicest people are the most tiring hosts, fussing and wanting to occupy you all the time. And then you need a little time, please, to write to me, because I am not to expect any letters from you after September 1st, and that means your stopping writing from the moment you leave for the West.
OhScripps College, Claremont;b5, I can understand your apprehension of the long isolated winter among strangers in a strange land and climate: andtravels, trips and plansTSE's 1933 westward tour to Scripps;a8a shameful source of happiness;a6 I am almost ashamed of my feeling of happiness in anticipation: but after I have been to California and returned to the East shall I have anything to look forward to in life? But I do not imagine as far ahead as that.
1.WilliamWycherley, WilliamThe Country WifeTSE on;a4n Wycherley’s sexually frank Restoration comedy The Country Wife (1675) had been revived by the Phoenix Society at the Regent Theatre, London, in Feb. 1924. Prompted by the production, TSE gave a snappy verdict. Compared to the theatre of the best Elizabethans, he ruled, the Restoration drama is feeble and timid; it purveys a ‘harmless and childlike morality’, inducing ‘weariness and ennui’ (Criterion 2 [July 1924], 374). So too, in After Strange Gods (1934), 55–6, he reckoned that ‘the indecent that is funny may be the legitimate source of innocent merriment, while the absence of humour reveals it as purely disgusting.’
2.AccordingBunting, Basilremembers TSE in make-up;a1n to Carroll F. Terrell, in ‘Basil Bunting: An Eccentric Biography’, Bunting recalled that he had first met TSE in 1925. ‘Bunting saw Eliot at a party wearing an enormous cape lined with red and eyebrows painted green. He responded to Bunting’s expression of amazement with these words: “thought the party needed hotting up”’ (Basil Bunting: Man and Poet, ed. Carroll F. Terrell [University of Maine at Orono: The National Poetry Foundation, 1981], 45).
3.GeoffreyBiddulph, Geoffrey Biddulph: young economist who contributed to the Criterion and the Economic Review.
3.GeoffreyBiddulph, Geoffrey Biddulph: young economist who contributed to the Criterion and the Economic Review.
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.
1.JamesJoyce, James Joyce (1882–1941), Irish novelist, playwright, poet; author of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegans Wake (1939).
6.HaroldPeters, Harold Peters (1888–1943), close friend of TSE at Harvard, 1906–9. After graduation, he worked in real estate, and saw active service in the Massachusetts Naval Militia during WW1, and on leaving the navy he spent most of the rest of his life at sea. Leon M. Little, ‘Eliot: A Reminiscence’, Harvard Advocate, 100: 3.4 (Fall 1966), 33: ‘[TSE’sPeters, Haroldas TSE's quondam sailing companion;a2n] really closest friend was Harold Peters, and they were an odd but a very interesting pair. Peters and Eliot spent happy hours sailing together, sometimes in thick fog, off the Dry Salvages. In 1932 Peters sailed round the world for two years as skipper of an 85-foot auxiliary schooner, Pilgrim, having previously participated in the transatlantic race from Newport to Plymouth, and in the Fastnet Race. In 1943 he died after falling from a motor-boat that was in process of being hoisted into a dry dock at Marblehead.
2.AdaSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister) Eliot Sheffield (1869–1943), eldest of the seven Eliot children; author of The Social Case History: Its Construction and Content (1920) and Social Insight in Case Situations (1937): see Biographical Register.
2.WilliamStead, William Force Force Stead (1884–1967), poet, critic, diplomat, clergyman: see Biographical Register.
1.EvelynUnderhill, Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941), spiritual director and writer on mysticism and the spiritual life: see Biographical Register.