[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
Thank you for your letter. And thank you particularly for coming to teaHale, Emilyvisits the Eliots for tea;a1. You were triumphant all round, but particularly I was happy in Vivienne’sEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)takes a liking to EH;a1 liking you so much1 – to the point of infatuation! And although it was a great strain to me at the time, I am happy in every way that it took place. Far better, in the circumstances, than seeing you alone.
Three parcels of books have gone to 41, Brimmer Street. I hope they will be of some use. I shall send you a little more information later. If I could be of use in any further lectures I should be happy.
Now that there is more communication between us, I feel that I must be frank on one point, and then never mention it again. You may remember a conversationHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2and their conversation in Eccleston Square;a1 years ago when I saw you for the last time one evening in Eccleston Square.2 You asked me a question which I did not answer. Well, I shall not exactly answer it, because it involves unnecessary and painful detail. I am heartily sorry – every day & every night of my life – for my mistake & fault, and for the ruin it has made: but I am not sorry for loving and adoring you, for it has given me the very best that I have had in my life. ItChristianityAnglo-Catholicism;a8TSE's conversion to;a1 has, in the end, helped me to the Church and to the struggles of the spiritual life, andChristianityresignation, reconciliation, peace;c8TSE's love allows for;a1 in the midst of agony a deep peace & resignation springs – ‘not as the world giveth’3 – but the peace of God. Of course there were many concurrent paths leading me to the Altar – but I doubt whether I should have arrived but for you. <It has become to me a part of the Love which ‘overcomes the world’.>4 And now there is no need to explain ‘Ash Wednesday’ to you. No one else will ever understand it.
I hope I need not sacrifice all communication with you because of what I have said. For indeed, I have meditated this letter through half a night, and I felt it would not be fair to you to cultivate your acquaintance & friendship under false pretences. It only depends on whether you believe you can trust me. And if you know what pages and pages of tenderness I am not writing now, I think you would trust me.
I have no really intimate friends, though a vast acquaintance.
WellHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2declared;a2, if this is a love letter, it is the last I shall ever write in my life: & I will sign it, for the first and last time, praying that I have given no offence, for I see nothing in this confession to be ashamed of – my love is as pure and unseeking as any love can be.
1.Vivien (often spelled Vivienne) Eliot, née Haigh-Wood (1888–1947), TSE's first wife: see Biographical Register.
2.Frances Dickey, ‘May the Record Speak: The Correspondence of T. S. Eliot and Emily Hale’, Twentieth-Century Literature 66: 4 (Dec. 2020) [431–62], 458 n. 6: ‘He doesn’t specify a date in this letter, but in his letter of September 18, 1931, he writes that this meeting took place six years before the beginning of their correspondence (which would be 1924). In her narrative, Hale dates the Eccleston Square meeting to 1922. However, she was in London in 1923 with her aunt and uncle, afterward receiving an inscribed copy of AraAra Vos Precinscribed to EH in 1923;a1n Vos Prec and a subscription to the Criterion from Eliot in September 1923. So, 1923 seems to be the most likely year, in between the dates given by each of them.’
TSE'Journey of the Magi'inscribed to EH in 1927;a1n inscribed a copy of The Journey of the Magi ‘for Emily Hale from T. S. Eliot. 16.viii.27’. HeShakespeare and the Stoicism of Senecainscribed to EH in 1927;a1 also gave her a copy of Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca, inscribed ‘E. H. from T.S.E. 1927’. (William Baker, ‘T. S. Eliot and Emily Hale: Some Fresh Evidence’, English Studies 66 (1985), 432–6): ‘Does Aug. 1927 give us the date of their meeting?’
3.‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you’ (John 14: 27).
4.‘For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?’ (1 John 5:1).