[c/o Mrs Perkins, 1418 East 63d St., Seattle]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
Faber & Faber Ltd
11 August 1932
Dearest Lady,

After telegraphing it finally appeared that the key had been caught among some papers in a drawer, so to-day I have access to the cupboard, and had to go through a many [sic] letters to find your Seattle address. You gave me so much trouble, as none of your letters from Seattle was dated anything but simply ‘Seattle’, and I had to find the letter of May 1931 (before you went to Princeton) in which you announced the full address. You really are careless about addresses sometimes; and you ought to PRINT each new address in BLOCK letters. However 1418 East 63d Street sounds right. So now I am hastening to write to that address, in the hope, as I said, that the letter may get there ahead of you.

ThisNorton, Elizabeth ('Lily') Gaskell;a3 weekEliots, the T. S.;e9 Miss Norton to tea on Tuesday – I continue to like her – in the evening SimonBussy, Simondines chez Eliot;a1 BussyBussy, Janeand father dine chez Eliot;a1 and his daughter Janey to dinner (MadameBussy, Dorothy (née Strachey);a1 Bussy, who was née Dorothy Strachey, being away on a visit).1 BussyBussy, Simondescribed for EH;a2 is a usual, voluble, pleasing & modest little Frenchman who is a painter – spends his time trotting about Europe, except when at home near Menton, sketching the animals and birds in Zoos; at present he is hard at work on the birds of paradise in Regents Park. JaneyBussy, Janehas the Strachey accent;a2 is a very nice little girl of twenty or so, I imagine, with charming manners, andStracheys, thehave their own accent;a3Strachey, JohnStracheys, theStrachey, LyttonStracheys, theStrachey, PernelStracheys, theStrachey, Philippa ('Pippa')Stracheys, theStrachey, Sir CharlesStracheys, the a complete Strachey accent (the Strachey accent is so infectious that even a housemaid, after a few months in the family, acquires it, and a whole generation from King’s College, Cambridge, employ it). TiringFranceFrench language;b3tires TSE to speak;a1, because I have had to talk so little French in the last few years – but it is always good for me to talk French; it either exercises a part of myself not enough used, or rests a part too much used, or both. OnEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)declares desire to make confession;c5 Wednesday I took V. to Liddon House toUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells;a9 tea for a final call upon Canon Underhill before he goes to become Dean of Rochester: a great success. To my astonishment V. declared in the evening that she felt she must make an appointment with him to make a Confession. I never thought she would get to that point (if you had been brought up in an English Low Church family you would realise how strong a feeling of no-Popery is handed down in many families). So she wrote to ask him. I dare say she will funk it when it comes to the point – itChristianityconfession;b3more dreaded than dentist;a2 is a good deal more painful than the dentist! – but it is a great deal that she should come as far as this. (ConfessionChristianityasceticism, discipline, rigour;a9confession and communion;a7 regularlyChristianitysacraments;d3Holy Communion;a1 is to my mind of capital importance in the practice of Christianity; and I believe that very few of those who do not confess can appreciate the full seriousness and responsibility of the Sacrament of the Altar (Communion)). ItEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)mental state;e8TSE's influence on;a7 made me reflect also how blindly one gropes about in one’s relations with other people. I mean, how little sure one is of the effect one has upon any other person, or what effect they have on each other. How much does this motion mean in her life; and how much part have I in influencing her, and how much Underhill? It is such a tangle: yet I feel permanently that my total effect upon her cannot be good, for I am sure that one cannot long or deeply be good for anyone who is not good for oneself. If I could feel convinced that my company was really, on the balance, good for her and helpful spiritually and morally, then I think I could come to reconcile myself: for it does so much increase one’s own strength to know that one is strengthening someone else. AnywayEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)and TSE's departure for America;e9possibly beneficial to VHE;b2, it is providential, from every point of view, that I must be absent for eight months, for that will I hope show whether she is better without me or not. If not … then I shall have a problem for myself when I return.

ISt. Cyprian's Church, Clarence Gatedescribed for EH;a1 wish you might have visited the68 Clarence Gate Gardens, Londonand St. Cyprian's Church;a3 little church of St. Cyprian’s in Clarence Gate, just at the end of the block of flats which you remember: it is very beautifully done; the only criticism to make is that it is perhaps too much a period piece of reconstruction of what the outside and inside of an English church was like in the fifteenth century: I like a little ‘untidiness’ about a church, a sense of its being very much lived in. ThisChristianitydeath and afterlife;b4Requiem Mass;a4 morning I went to Mass at 7:30 (that is the only daily Mass during August) and found the candles lighted in the All Souls’ Chapel, which means a Requiem Mass, so I prayed specially for those dead who are constantly in my mind. I hope that some day they may say a Requiem there for me.

I hope that when you get to Seattle and are rested a bit della lunga via,2 you will tell me something about your feelings upon leaving the East – perhaps for two years on end – but I hope you may get back for next summer. It is good that you should begin in the West again with your dear relatives in Seattle, to break the change; yet I fear that you may feel very very lonely and chilly at first? And for two years I shall be posting letters in the Air Mail box. But this letter was meant to welcome you to Seattle, and it is beginning to sound like a lament. Soyons, au moins, tranquilles, et que le bon Dieu nous allege les fardeaux.3

ton
Tom

1.JaneBussy, Jane Bussy (1906–60), painter; her mother was Dorothy Bussy, née Strachey (1865–1960) – sister of Lytton and James Strachey – wife of the artist Simon Bussy (1870–1954).

2.‘E riposato de la lunga via’: ‘and rested from the long way’ (Dante, Purg. V, 131).

3.‘Let us at least be quiet, and may the good Lord lighten our burdens.’

68 Clarence Gate Gardens, London, potential swap for 51 Gordon Square, compared to Gordon Square, and St. Cyprian's Church, VHE leases for herself,
Bussy, Dorothy (née Strachey), TSE on,
see also Bussys, the

3.DorothyBussy, Dorothy (née Strachey) Bussy (1865–1960) – one of thirteen children of Sir Richard and Jane Strachey; sister of Lytton – was married to the French painter Simon Bussy. Chief translator of André Gide, and his intimate. Her novel, Olivia, was published anonymously by the Hogarth Press. See Barbara Caine, Bombay to Bloomsbury: A Biography of the Strachey Family (Oxford, 2005).

Bussy, Jane, and father dine chez Eliot, has the Strachey accent, during TSE's Charleston visit, potential reader of EH–TSE correspondence,
see also Bussys, the

1.JaneBussy, Jane Bussy (1906–60), painter; her mother was Dorothy Bussy, née Strachey (1865–1960) – sister of Lytton and James Strachey – wife of the artist Simon Bussy (1870–1954).

Bussy, Simon, dines chez Eliot, described for EH,
see also Bussys, the
Christianity, and human isolation, and modern economics, Ada on TSE's personal piety, scheme for 'Pro Fide' bookshop, among the Eliot family, and beauty, its sects like different clubs, Anglo-Catholicism, TSE's conversion to, which he dates to Eccleston Square meeting, Anglican Missal sought for EH, but unfortunately out of print, discussed at Boston Theological School, and the Petrine Claims, apostolic succession, over Roman Catholicism, as refuge from VHE, and the Reformation, asceticism, discipline, rigour, the necessity for, and TSE's daily exhortation, making and breaking habits, mastering emotions and passions, as salubrious, only remedy for a prurient culture, confession and communion, more possible during Harvard year, the case for unattainable ideals, in time of war, gets TSE up before 7 o'clock, hereditary with TSE, belief, and good poetry, faced with Second World War, and conversion, antidote to TSE's skepticism, Christendom, TSE ponders the decline of, TSE on his prominence within, its ruin, the Church Visible and Invisible, and TSE's war work, the Malabar Church, prospect of total reunion within, confession, helps to objectify sin, more dreaded than dentist, harder in the morning, death and afterlife, the struggle to prepare for, consoles TSE in life, and cremation, Requiem Mass, gives meaning to life, and what makes a desirable burial place, the nature of eternal life, divorce, unrecognised by Anglo-Catholic Church, which TSE regrets, in church law, would separate TSE from Church, evil, TSE's belief in, and moral percipience, guilt, and the New England conscience, hell, TSE's 1910 vision of, and damnation, according to TSE, liturgy, TSE's weekly minimum, Mass of the Pre-sanctified, Requiem Mass versus Mass of Good Friday, and whether to serve at Mass, Imposition of Ashes, at Christmas, High Mass over Mattins, aversion to Low Church Mattins, Roman service in Wayland, Tenebrae, in country parish church, as guest at Kelham, remarkable sermon, over Christmas, Tenebrae and Family Reunion, during Holy Week, Mass of Charles King and Martyr, love, loving one's neighbour, marriage, TSE's need for privacy within, mysticism and transcendence, interpenetration of souls, intimations of life's 'pattern', 'doubleness', arrived at through reconciliation, orthodoxy, only remedy for contemporary culture, and pagans, sets TSE at odds with modernity, necessarily trinitarian, 'Christian' defined, iniquities of liberal theology, and creed, authority, Transubstantiation, TSE disclaims 'self-centredness' in maintaining, politics, the Church and social change, how denomination maps onto, need for working-class priests, church leaders against totalitarianism and Nazism, Christianity versus Fascism and Communism, Papal Encyclical against Nazi Germany, the 'Dividend morality', Presbyterianism, TSE quips on the meanness of, Quakerism, resignation, reconciliation, peace, TSE's love allows for, 'peace that passeth all understanding', the struggle to maintain, following separation from VHE, retreat and solitude, EH at Senexet, the need for, a need increasing with age, and TSE's mother, Roman Catholicism, TSE's counter-factual denomination, Rome, sacraments, Holy Communion, marriage, sainthood, TSE's idea of, the paradoxes of, susceptible of different sins, sins, vices, faults, how to invigilate, the sense of sin, the sinner's condition, bound up with the virtues, as a way to virtue, TSE's self-appraisal, when humility shades into, when unselfishness shades into, among saints, proportionate to spiritual progress, daydreaming, despair, lust, pride, perfection-seeking pride, spiritual progress and direction, TSE's crisis of 1910–11, EH's crisis, versus automatism, TSE's sense of, towards self-knowledge, in EH's case, as personal regeneration, temptation, to action/busyness, the Church Year, Advent, Christmas, dreaded, happily over, TSE rebuked for bah-humbugging, church trumps family during, season of irreligion, thoughts of EH during, unsettling, fatiguing, in wartime, Easter preferred to, Ash Wednesday, Lent, season for meditation and reading, prompts thoughts of EH, Lady Day, Holy Week, its intensity, arduous, preserved from public engagements, exhausting but refreshing, excitingly austere, Easter, better observed than Christmas, missed through illness, Unitarianism, the Eliots' as against EH's, the prospect of spiritual revival within, as personified by TSE's grandfather, regards the Bible as literature, as against Catholicism, divides EH from TSE, and whether Jesus believed himself divine, according to Dr Perkins, in England as against America, over-dependent on preachers' personality, TSE's wish that EH convert from, outside TSE's definition of 'Christian', the issue of communion, baptism, impossibly various, virtues heavenly and capital, bound up with the vices, better reached by way of sin, charity, towards others, in Bubu, TSE's intentness on, delusions of, as against tolerance, chastity, celibacy, beneath humility, TSE lacks vocation for, faith, and doubt, hope, a duty, TSE's struggle for, humility, distinguished from humiliation, comes as relief, greatest of the virtues, propinquitous to humour, not an Eliot virtue, opposed to timidity, danger of pride in, is endless, TSE criticised for overdoing, theatre a lesson in, most difficult of the virtues, possessed by EH, possessed by EH to a fault, TSE compares himself to EH in, the paradox of, distinguished from inferiority, self-discovery teaches, possessed by Dr Perkins, patience, recommended to EH, its foundations, possessed by Uncle John, purity, distinguished from purification, temperance, with alcohol, beneath humility,
Eliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood), takes a liking to EH, EH urged not to blame, relations with Charles Buckle, unbearable to holiday with, takes to Margaret Thorp, accompanies TSE to Poetry Bookshop, and 57 Chester Terrace, on TSE's religion, TSE declines invitations excluding, her driving, hosts various writers to tea, considers flat in Gordon Square, arranges large tea-party, as theatregoer, declares desire to make confession, taken to Eastbourne, recalls the Eliots' visit to Rodmell, Alida Monro reports on, in Alida Monro's opinion, falls out with Lucy Thayer, meets TSE for last time at solicitors, seeks TSE's whereabouts, haunts TSE in London, such that he forgoes the theatre, news of, inquires after Man Ray portrait, harries F&F office, on Mosley Albert Hall rally, dies, her funeral, Requiem Mass for, Theresa remembers, marriage to, TSE on entering into, alleged affair with Bertrand Russell, sexual relations, its morbidity, TSE on his own incapacity, its torments providential on reflection, in OM's opinion, its lessons, humiliating, TSE's father's reaction, unrecognised by TSE, to outsiders, TSE reflects on, painful yet stimulating, as an act of self-rupture, drug habits, sleeping draughts, in TSE's absence, 1926 bromidia delusions, mental state, childlike, benefits from active social life, compared to EH's mother's, at the Malmaison sanatorium, and dining in public, TSE's influence on, post-separation, the prospect of institutionalising, prompts institutionalisation crisis-meeting, and TSE's departure for America, against TSE going, adjusting to the prospect, might coordinate with a return to Malmaison, in denial as to, threatens to come, from which TSE tries to dissuade her, aggrieved at being left, possible arrangements in TSE's absence, still in denial as to, TSE dreads scene of departure, possibly beneficial to VHE, TSE describes the moment of departure, separation from, TSE, for and against, out of the question, obstructed by self-deception and responsibility, reasons for not having happened, Dr Miller's opinion on, contemplated, plotted, would necessitate TSE's sequestration, TSE encouraged in his determination, Alida Monro independently suggests, communication with solicitors on, TSE describes going through with, VHE's response before and after meeting at solicitors, impasse over financial settlement, which VHE misrepresents to friends, VHE in denial over, separation deed drawn up, which is yet unsigned, delayed by death of lawyer, general impasse, financial settlement put into force, complicated by VHE renewing lease on flat, efforts to retrieve TSE's property, which is eventually recovered, financial consequences, the possibility of divorcing, TSE's objections to, against what TSE symbolises, likened to Newman's conversion, in common and canon law, in Ada's opinion, how TSE's attitude might seem, would involve permanent division from Church, inimical to future TSE's happiness, her death, and Theresa on TSE remarrying, TSE's shifting response to, formerly wished for, EH reflects on,
see also Eliots, the T. S.
Eliots, the T. S., receive Aldous Huxley, give tea to Nora Joyce, give dinner-party for Joyces, Fabers and Osbert Sitwell, described by Osbert Sitwell, give dinner for Philippa Whibley, host the Morleys, Joyces and Hutchinsons, take tea with OM, who describes their appearance, invite OM to meet Mrs Joyce, introduce TSE's nieces to Lucia Joyce and Barbara Hutchinson, host the Joyces, host the Thorps to tea, host Dorothy Pound to supper, again to OM's, have the Huxleys to tea, more harmonious for Gordon George's stay, host Maurice and Ahmé to dinner, host Ralph Hodgson, Aurelia Bolliger, Gordon George and Scott Moncrieff, to OM's tea-party for Yeats, host Ralph Hodgson despite his dog's behaviour, have the Hodgsons for the weekend, attend Derby Day with the Hodgsons, host the Faber children to tea, host OM and D'Arcy, host Mark Gertler and wife, at James Stephens's party, have fifteen to tea, Evelyn Underhill and Force Stead to lunch with, spend weekend with VHE's mother, join farewell dinner for the Hodgsons, in 1926, holiday in Eastbourne, where they dine with the Morleys, then visit the Woolfs at Rodmell,
France, TSE's Francophilia shared by Whibley, TSE dreams of travelling in, synonymous, for TSE, with civilisation, the Franco-Italian entente, over Portugal, TSE awarded Légion d’honneur, subsequently elevated from chevalier to officier, TSE describes a typical French reception, Switzerland now favoured over, French cuisine, French culture, Exhibition of French Art 1200–1900, French painting, compared to English culture, French language, tires TSE to speak, TSE hears himself speaking, TSE dreads speaking in public, and TSE's false teeth, French politics, French street protest, England's natural ally, post-Versailles, post-war Anglo-French relations, French theatre, the French, more blunt than Americans, as compared to various other races, Paris, TSE's 1910–11 year in, EH pictured in, its society larger than Boston's, TSE's guide to, Anglo-French society, strikes, TSE dreads visiting, post-war, the Riviera, TSE's guide to, the South, fond 1919 memories of walking in, Limoges in 1910, Bordeaux,
Norton, Elizabeth ('Lily') Gaskell, visits the Eliots, TSE takes liking to, at second Norton lecture, TSE on, TSE confides to over lunch,

5.ElizabethNorton, Elizabeth ('Lily') Gaskell Gaskell Norton (1866–1958), second child of Prof. Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908); correspondent of Henry James, James Russell Lowell and Edith Wharton. Resident at 19 Chestnut Street, Boston, Mass.

St. Cyprian's Church, Clarence Gate, described for EH,
Stracheys, the, England's Bostonians, at the heart of Bloomsbury, have their own accent,
Underhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, receives TSE's confession of love for EH, consulted on 'Thoughts After Lambeth', suggests separation from VHE is TSE's duty, confession with, introduces TSE to his cousin Evelyn, TSE's only confidant as to EH, becomes Dean of Rochester, writes to TSE about separation, against TSE shirking Oxford Movement Centenary, and TSE's 1933 return, invites TSE to school prize-day, at King's School prize-day, consulted on question of divorce, supportive over TSE's separation, his books commended to EH, visited in Rochester, and wife as TSE's Rochester hosts, and Miss O'Donovan, becomes Bishop of Bath and Wells, his consecration attended, perhaps, as Bishop, above receiving TSE's confession, takes Evelyn Underhill's funeral, visited in Wells, adjudicates on limit to godchildren, hosts Gordon George for week, dies,

2.Revd Francis UnderhillUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, DD (1878–1943), TSE’s spiritual counsellor: see Biographical Register.