[Grace Toll Hall, Scripps College, Claremont]
IKing's Chapel, BostonTSE's address to;b2 had hoped for a letter on Thursday, to'Bible as Scripture and as Literature, The'finished;a6 support me for King’s Chapel – however, I think that went off pretty well, but by this time you should perhaps know better than I – but was more than recompensed by getting the letter of the 29th yesterday afternoon, late, in time to read and digest it before my Norton lecture. (I am glad that you snatched a brief holiday – at Palo Alto? – and in what company, pray?) AsCharles Eliot Norton Lectures (afterwards The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism)unsatisfactory;b5 for my lectures, I don’t think that I have any false modesty about them, but I am ambitious that they should be as good as lectures could be – which they won’t be; I am aware that everything I write this year will be in the nature of a tour de force; and I have to make up by glitter of wit and a few striking ideas for want of scholarship and meditation. It is a fearful handicap not having been able to prepare the lectures, and half a dozen odd ones, before I arrived, and to work under such pressure; justreading (TSE's)never deeply or widely enough;c1 as I feel it a handicap that I have not had the leisure and the privacy, during all these years, for either deep or wide reading. I am of course constantly in a state of conversation, here, and I think I can hold my end up, now, pretty well in that. I'Bible as Scripture and as Literature, The'and the prospect of Unitarian audience;a7 thought, as I said, that the King’s Chapel talk went off well. IChristianityUnitarianism;d9regards the Bible as literature;a4 was afraid at first that my pretty orthodox views might make some people feel uncomfortable – but with the subject, or any similar subject, given, what else can one do? and if I am to talk about ‘the Bible as Literature’ the only course I can take is to assert that the Bible is not Literature!1 but I think that they were very well pleased with it, and several ladies, who were under no obligation to be polite to me, as they did not know me, expressed much pleasure. ThereScott, Mary Derby (née Peabody);a1 wereFurness, Lauraat TSE's King's Chapel talk;a3 severalFurness, Rebekah ('Rebe');a3 relatives there: Cousin Sally Scott2 and Cousin Mary (Peabody) Scott,3 and Laura & Reby Furness; and other ladies I met and can’t remember. TomorrowMrs Hardingintroduces herself to TSE;a2, I am going to lunch with Mrs. Harding, and am rather excited to meet her, after your telling me that she was pretty fully in your confidence. How it happened was that she came up to me directly after the lecture and introduced herself as a friend of yours – it flashed into my head what you had written about her – we began to talk about you, but were constantly interrupted by other folk coming up to introduce themselves – so I was afraid that I should lose her altogether, and took the first opportunity of saying that it seemed impossible to talk then, and might I come to see her? So she asked me to lunch, and I am going. I'Bible as Scripture and as Literature, The'EH promised copy;a8 shall send you a copy of the lecture as soon as I can, butPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle)and TSE's King's Chapel address;a4 I have lent one to Dr. Perkins and do not want to trust the other to the post. He was very kind indeed about it. Mrs. Merriman lent me her car and chauffeur – she could not come herself.
TheCharles Eliot Norton Lectures (afterwards The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism)'The Classical Tradition: Dryden on Johnson' (afterwards 'The Age of Dryden');b8TSE on the lecture itself;a1 third lecture also went off well, I think, perhaps not quite as much enthusiasm as the second.4 There were a few dozen seats empty this time, as I expected, but the house would be called full. A very attentive and sympathetic audience. ICharles Eliot Norton Lectures (afterwards The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism)'The Theories of Coleridge and Wordsworth' (afterwards 'Wordsworth and Coleridge');b9TSE immersed in;a1 can hardly stop to think about it, as I am in the throes of the fourth – seldom have I worked under such pressure: it won’t be quite so bad again; I shall be glad when the week is over; after the 9th no more lectures until I come to Claremont. IAmericaBoston, Massachusetts;d1TSE's happiness in;b5 thinkAmericaCambridge, Massachusetts;d4TSE's happiness in;a4 that what keeps me going, and in pretty good health, is the fact that I am happy – of course there are always spectres at my back,5 but I am too busy to turn round – I really think that, so far as ‘happiness’ can be wholly disassociated from hope (hope in this world) that I am ‘happier’ than I have ever been in my life. There were once some delirious moments in this same village in Cambridge, but that, in itself, was not happiness. I feel that I am useful, I feel that I am liked, and I hope that this will last; andSheffields, thesource of TSE's happiness in Cambridge, Mass.;a9 it is a cause of happiness to have especially Ada & Sheff, and secondly so many relatives around me. Andtravels, trips and plansTSE's 1933 westward tour to Scripps;a8still a happy thought;a7 I am coming to California.
NowScripps College, ClaremontTSE's lecture at;c8, please, I want the lecture arrangement to be just as best suits you and the department at Scripps. But perhaps the group arrangement is better; I should like the other people to be able to hear me (no false modesty there) and also I want all the money I can get (no false modesty there either; and it follows that if Scripps can’t pay more than that, the other institutions are not likely to be able to either. I hope that something will come of the bigger institutions: if you will figger out what it costs to ride in the train cars from St. Louis to Cal. & back, that is the ideal receipts I aim at. But remember that when I come to Scripps I want to have things as best pleases Scripps. As for subjects, I will write about that on Monday; I must get to the Co-op and the chemists and the postoffice for stamps before lunch.
IPound, Ezraepistolary style;a6 enclose a specimen letter just received from Pound, in his usual and otherwise unusual epistolary style.6 If you observe any blemishes, remember that it was intended for no other Eye but mine. I have a real affection for Pound.
IKeats, JohnTSE recants superior attitude to;a4 think that I once expressed contempt for Keats’s letters to Fanny. (Brawne). His other letters are so good that I am sure he would have written better letters than that if she had been a superior woman. Obviously, she couldn’t have understood it – pure infatuation on his part – perhaps lucky for him that he died. All of which only makes any inferiority in my own epistles the more damnable & damning.
1.‘The Bible as Scripture and as Literature’, 1 Dec. 1932: ‘As a matter of fact, from the point of view of literature there is no Bible … You will observe usually that those who talk about the Bible as literature choose most of their illustrations, unless they be merely a phrase or two, from the Old Testament. I suspect this to indicate, among other things, that it is easiest to enjoy as “literature” those parts of the Bible in which it is most easy to suspend definitely Christian belief … So far as actual borrowing and allusions go, my inclination is always to applaud those who have read the Bible as the Bible, and to frown at those who have read it as literature … But although I object to people talking about the Bible as literature, and although I object to their mining in the Bible for poetic material for purely secular purposes, I am still interested in the influence of the Bible upon English poetry.’ Of his own experience as a writer: ‘The influence of the Bible upon English literature in the future will be in direct ratio to the extent to which people read the Bible, and read it not as literature. I believe that I can defend any quotations and allusions that I have made, in this way … You cannot effectively “borrow” an image, unless you borrow also, or have spontaneously, something like the feeling which prompted the original image. An “image”, in itself, is like dream symbolism, is only vigorous in relation to the feelings out of which it issues, in the relation of word to flesh. You are entitled to take it for your own purposes in so far as your fundamental purposes are akin to those of the one who is, for you, the author of the phrase, the inventor of the image; or if you take it for other purposes then your purposes must be consciously and pointedly diverse from those of the author, and the contrast is very much to the point; you may not take it merely because it is a good phrase or a lovely image.’ CProse 4, 695–7, 701.
2.Not identified.
3.MaryScott, Mary Derby (née Peabody) Derby Scott, née Peabody (1881–1981), daughter of the prominent Boston architect Robert Swain Peabody.
4.Lecture 3: ‘The Age of Dryden’.
5.Andrew Marvell, ‘To His Coy Mistress’:
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near.
6.EzraLowell, Abbott LawrenceEP on;a3n Pound wrote from Rapallo on 23 Nov.; his epistle included these remarks:
DearPound, Ezraon President Lowell;a7n Possum
I see b’th’ pipers that Mr Lowell iza resignin’. I wish I cd. Believe that you were responsible. If you think that I can be of any use in obtaining for you the succession, I take it you wd. without further stimulous [sic] on my part have in nanny case felt free to call upon me.
Or perhaps if you wish to avoid the triple tiara, my intervention cd. Be even more effective …
P.S. haven’t the bastuds giv yuo a Lld, yet?
(A. Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943), President of Harvard since 1909, had resigned on 21 Nov.)
6.RebekahFurness, Rebekah ('Rebe') (‘Rebe’) Furness (1854–1937) andFurness, Laura Laura Furness (1857–1949) – born in Philadelphia, daughters of James Thwing Furness and Elizabeth Margaret Eliot (a descendant of Sheriff William Greenleaf, who had declaimed the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the State House in Boston in 1776) – had lived since 1920, with their brother Dawes Eliot Furness, in Boston’s Back Bay neighbourhood and in Petersham, New Hampshire. Rebekah, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, was an artist.
6.RebekahFurness, Rebekah ('Rebe') (‘Rebe’) Furness (1854–1937) andFurness, Laura Laura Furness (1857–1949) – born in Philadelphia, daughters of James Thwing Furness and Elizabeth Margaret Eliot (a descendant of Sheriff William Greenleaf, who had declaimed the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the State House in Boston in 1776) – had lived since 1920, with their brother Dawes Eliot Furness, in Boston’s Back Bay neighbourhood and in Petersham, New Hampshire. Rebekah, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, was an artist.
1.AbbottLowell, Abbott Lawrence Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943), educator and legal scholar; President of Harvard University, 1909–33.
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
3.MaryScott, Mary Derby (née Peabody) Derby Scott, née Peabody (1881–1981), daughter of the prominent Boston architect Robert Swain Peabody.