[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
One little point first, because I would not have you think, madam, that I neglect a single word of any letter from you: theAra Vos Precinscription from Dante explained;a2 Italian quotation is from Canto XV of the Inferno (you can look it up, at the end of the canto, and you will find that I have quoted incorrectly at that). DanteDante AlighieriTSE explains inscription quoting;a1 meets in hell his old friend Brunetto Latini who is walking round forever without stopping on a hot plain, with other people, and who says to him on parting that he hopes Dante will read over the books he wrote (‘il Tesoro’) ‘in which I still live; and more I do not ask’. Then he turned away …1
NowHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9defended by TSE;a6 the main point. I have not found one single real doubt of its being ‘right’ and very right, except in my anxiety about you. I feel, you see, a far greater responsibility towards you than towards anybody in the world, an unlimited responsibility, and the one place where I am not sure, is whether I am of good or harm to you now, in this relation. ForHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2source of serenity to TSE;a5 myself, it is unmitigated good; and if it is anything like so good to you, then it is ‘good’ absolutely. IEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)marriage to;e6sexual relations;a3 can tell you, for instance, that sinceChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1chastity, celibacy;a8 October I have been suddenly and completely freed from the sexual strain of celibacy under the conditions under which I live: I don’t mean temptation, because any other woman would be repulsive to me; but nevertheless a strain on my mind and imagination; which neither devotions nor work had been able quite to exorcise, because I am not in the position to fling myself so completely, from lack of the full time for it, into either devotional exercises or work. I have a serenity I never had before, a control over my mind, and also I can open myself more freely, somehow, towards my friends and enjoy them more. And all this is not only wonderful in itself, but is eloquent testimony of what our relation means to me for good.
Another thing, still more difficult to speak of. EvenEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)marriage to;e6its morbidity;a4 had you never existed, my marriage would have been exactly the painful failure it is. In fact, it has nothing to do with you at all, and I speak of it to make clear to you that it has nothing to do with you at all. EvenEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)separation from;f1TSE, for and against;a1 in early days, there were not wanting a few observers to suggest that a separation was the only way out; later there were more, and sometimes it has been difficult to continue relations with certain friends on that account. My reasons for keeping on have no doubt varied in time. But during the last year, since about a year ago, I have been more troubled in conscience, because Vivienne’s physician, a devout Roman Catholic in Harley Street, has urged it strongly upon me, and even my confessorUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wellssuggests separation from VHE is TSE's duty;a3 has more than hinted that it might become my duty to separate, on the ground that my domestic obligations interfered too far with my public ones. ButEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)mental state;e8childlike;a1 you see, I believe she is attached to me, in a way like a child, and what is still more important, is very dependent; and when you feel that you are the only person standing between another person and a life in a sanatorium, or at least with a nurse-attendant, it becomes almost impossible to take such a step. Of course I can see now that it might have been best, if it could have been affected early, because I know that she would have been far happier and far stronger in physical and mental health, married to a very different sort of man; but now …
The reason why it is difficult to talk of these matters to you is only the same reason why it is difficult to talk to anyone, only it becomes greatly magnified in talking to you: I mean, that it seems impossible to speak at all without putting my own side of the matter; the last thing one would have is sympathy at some one else’s expense. Please do not give me that. SheEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)EH urged not to blame;a2 is not to blame. And it is dreadful to see that it is bad for another person to live with you, because of differences of temperament, and yet to feel that it might be worse for that person to be separated.
It has been very painful to say all these things, and I feel I can put no more into this letter. But I seem to speak more and more openly to you; take it as a sign of increasing dependence. It is beyond words to express how I cling to you, adore you, my debt to you is unlimited.
1.Dante, Inf. 15, 119–20: ‘Sieti raccommendato il mio Tesoro, / Nel quale io vivo ancor –’ (‘But let my Treasure, where I still live on, live in your memory –’). Said to Dante by Brunetto Latini, author of Il Tesore (The Treasure), by way of a fervent behest. TSE quoted the lines in a copy of Ara Vos Prec (1919) that he sent to EH in Sept. 1923. See Lyndall Gordon, ‘Eliot and Women’, in T. S. Eliot: The Modernist in History, ed. Ronald Bush [1991], 12–13; Schuchard, Eliot’s Dark Angel, 154; quoted also in a copy of The Waste Land (1923) given to Geoffrey Faber, 27 May 1925.
2.Revd Francis UnderhillUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, DD (1878–1943), TSE’s spiritual counsellor: see Biographical Register.