[No surviving envelope]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
MS
B-11 Eliot House
17.i.33
MyAmericaSt. Louis, Missouri;h4TSE on his return to;a8 dear Dove

There is so much to say and I am so very rushed in St. Louis which has been very kind to its prodigal, that it is useless to try to say anything until I get back to my typewriter & some privacy. This is only to thank you for your dear unexpected letter which awaited me here. I would go round the world for such a letter – and I am prouder to be the recipient of it than of anything I have ever done or can do. It is lovely to feel so humble toward anyone as I do toward you. I shan’t attempt to answer now. ISmith, Rose Greenleaf Eliot (TSE's aunt)hosts TSE in St. Louis;a2 am staying with Aunt Rose & herSmith, Holmes (TSE's uncle)as TSE's St. Louis host;a1 husband (Professor Holmes Smith of Fine Arts at Washington University) 1 andSmith, Abigail Eliot (TSE's cousin)hosts TSE in St. Louis;a1 my cousin Dr Abigail Adams Smith 2 of the Medical School. ItEliot, Charlotte Champe Stearns (TSE's mother)her grave visited;a7 hasEliot, Henry Ware (TSE's father)his grave visited;a5 been very sad too – I went out at once to Bellefontaine Cemetary [sic] to my father & mother’s grave – my grand-parents are near them. It is not at all an unattractive Cemetary [sic]. IWashington University, St. Louishonours TSE with reception;a1 was much moved by the kind reception given me at the university, and by being remembered by old friends who I thought would have forgotten me. For all you say of my stay, from the point of view of others in Claremont, I am very truly grateful. The pain comes through in violent twinges – the first 36 hours or so were crushing, but I got back my capacity for activity in Berkeley – and on the long journey I just felt utterly numb.

I will write as soon as I can – Uncle Holmes is calling me to come down town & see to my ticket to St Paul. May I sign this simply

Emily’s Tom

1.RoseSmith, Rose Greenleaf Eliot (TSE's aunt) Greenleaf Eliot (1862–1936), andSmith, Holmes (TSE's uncle) Holmes Smith (1863–1937), Professor of Drawing and the History of Art, Washington University; first President of the College Art Association.

2.Abigail Adams Smith (1900–84).

America, TSE on not returning in 1915, and TSE as transatlantic cultural conduit, dependence on Europe, TSE's sense of deracination from, and the Great Depression, TSE a self-styled 'Missourian', as depicted in Henry Eliot's Rumble Murders, its national coherence questioned, its religious and educational future, versus Canadian and colonial society, where age is not antiquity, drinks Scotland's whisky, and FDR's example to England, underrates Europe's influence on England, redeemed by experience with G. I.'s, TSE nervous at readjusting to, and post-war cost of living, more alien to TSE post-war, its glories, landscape, cheap shoes, its horrors, Hollywood, climate, lack of tea, overheated trains, over-social clubs, overheating in general, perplexities of dress code, food, especially salad-dressing, New England Gothic, earthquakes, heat, the whistle of its locomotives, 'Easter holidays' not including Easter, the cut of American shirts, television, Andover, Massachusetts, EH moves to, Ann Arbor, Michigan, TSE on visiting, Augusta, Maine, EH stops in, Baltimore, Maryland, and TSE's niece, TSE engaged to lecture in, TSE on visiting, Bangor, Maine, EH visits, Bay of Fundy, EH sailing in, Bedford, Massachusetts, its Stearns connections, Boston, Massachusetts, TSE tries to recollect society there, its influence on TSE, its Museum collection remembered, inspires homesickness, TSE and EH's experience of contrasted, described by Maclagan, suspected of dissipating EH's energies, EH's loneliness in, Scripps as EH's release from, possibly conducive to TSE's spiritual development, restores TSE's health, its society, TSE's relations preponderate, TSE's happiness in, as a substitute for EH's company, TSE's celebrity in, if TSE were there in EH's company, its theatregoing public, The Times on, on Labour Day, Brunswick, Maine, TSE to lecture in, TSE on visiting, California, as imagined by TSE, TSE's wish to visit, EH suggests trip to Yosemite, swimming in the Pacific, horrifies TSE, TSE finds soulless, land of earthquakes, TSE dreads its effect on EH, Wales's resemblance to, as inferno, and Californians, surfeit of oranges and films in, TSE's delight at EH leaving, land of kidnappings, Aldous Huxley seconds TSE's horror, the lesser of two evils, Cannes reminiscent of, TSE masters dislike of, land of monstrous churches, TSE regrets EH leaving, winterless, its southern suburbs like Cape Town, land of fabricated antiquities, Cambridge, Massachusetts, TSE's student days in, socially similar to Bloomsbury, TSE lonely there but for Ada, TSE's happiness in, exhausting, EH's 'group' in, road safety in, Casco Bay, Maine, TSE remembers, Castine, Maine, EH holidays in, Cataumet, Massachusetts, EH holidays in, Chicago, Illinois, EH visits, reportedly bankrupt, TSE on, TSE takes up lectureship in, its climate, land of fabricated antiquities, Chocurua, New Hampshire, EH stays in, Concord, Massachusetts, EH's househunting in, EH moves from, Connecticut, its countryside, and Boerre, TSE's end-of-tour stay in, Dorset, Vermont, EH holidays in, and the Dorset Players, Elizabeth, New Jersey, TSE on visiting, Farmington, Connecticut, place of EH's schooling, which TSE passes by, EH holidays in, Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, EH recuperates in, Gerrish Island, Maine, TSE revisits, Hollywood, perceived debauchery of its movies, TSE's dream of walk-on part, condemned by TSE to destruction, TSE trusts Murder will be safe from, Iowa City, Iowa, TSE invited to, Jonesport, Maine, remembered, Kittery, Maine, described, Lexington, Massachusetts, and the Stearns family home, Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, visited by EH, Madison, Wisconsin, Aurelia Bolliger hails from, Ralph Hodgson sails for, EH summers in, as conceived by TSE, who eventually visits, Maine, its coast remembered by TSE, TSE recalls swimming off, Minneapolis, on EH's 1952 itinerary, TSE lectures in, New Bedford, Massachusetts, EH's holidays in, TSE's family ties to, New England, and Unitarianism, more real to TSE than England, TSE homesick for, in TSE's holiday plans, architecturally, compared to California, and the New England conscience, TSE and EH's common inheritance, springless, TSE remembers returning from childhood holidays in, its countryside distinguished, and The Dry Salvages, New York (N.Y.C.), TSE's visits to, TSE encouraged to write play for, prospect of visiting appals TSE, as cultural influence, New York theatres, Newburyport, Maine, delights TSE, Northampton, Massachusetts, TSE on, EH settles in, TSE's 1936 visit to, autumn weather in, its spiritual atmosphere, EH moves house within, its elms, the Perkinses descend on, Aunt Irene visits, Boerre's imagined life in, TSE on hypothetical residence in, EH returns to, Peterborough, New Hampshire, visited by EH, TSE's vision of life at, Petersham, Massachusetts, EH holidays in, TSE visits with the Perkinses, EH spends birthday in, Edith Perkins gives lecture at, the Perkinses cease to visit, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, TSE on, and TSE's private Barnes Foundation tour, Independence Hall, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, surrounding countryside, Portsmouth, Maine, delights TSE, Randolph, New Hampshire, 1933 Eliot family holiday in, the Eliot siblings return to, Seattle, Washington State, EH summers in, EH's situation at, TSE prefers to California, EH repairs to post-Christmas, EH visits on 1952 tour, EH returns to, Sebasco, Maine, EH visits, South, the, TSE's first taste of, TSE's prejudices concerning, St. Louis, Missouri, TSE's childhood in, TSE's homesickness for, TSE styling himself a 'Missourian', possible destination for TSE's ashes, resting-place of TSE's parents, TSE on his return to, the Mississippi, compared to TSE's memory, TSE again revisits, TSE takes EVE to, St. Paul, Minnesota, TSE on visiting, the Furness house in, Tryon, North Carolina, EH's interest in, EH staying in, Virginia, scene of David Garnett's escapade, and the Page-Barbour Lectures, TSE on visiting, and the South, Washington, Connecticut, EH recuperates in, West Rindge, New Hampshire, EH holidays at, White Mountains, New Hampshire, possible TSE and EH excursion to, Woods Hole, Falmouth, Massachusetts, TSE and EH arrange holiday at, TSE and EH's holiday in recalled, and The Dry Salvages, TSE invited to, EH and TSE's 1947 stay in, EH learns of TSE's death at,
see also American Presidential Election
Eliot, Charlotte Champe Stearns (TSE's mother), effect of her death on TSE, her religious beliefs, her pride in TSE, screened from TSE's domestic nightmare, her decline and death, was cremated, her grave visited, TSE visits her final address, her death and TSE's guilt, and TSE's poetic inheritance, as parent, and the Stearns family home,

6.CharlotteEliot, Charlotte Champe Stearns (TSE's mother) Champe Stearns Eliot (1843–1929): see Biographical Register.

Eliot, Henry Ware (TSE's father), death, a saying of his recalled, disapproved of son-in-law, was cremated, his grave visited, haunts TSE in St. Louis, religious beliefs, as person and parent, TSE accepts Washington University degree to propitiate,
Smith, Abigail Eliot (TSE's cousin), hosts TSE in St. Louis, appears in London, taken to dinner by TSE, visits London again,

3.AbigailSmith, Abigail Eliot (TSE's cousin) Eliot Smith (1900–84), daughter of Holmes and Rose Eliot Smith, graduated from Wellesley College in 1922, and took her MD at Washington University School of Medicine, 1927. She was Assistant Resident in Medicine, Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, 1930–2; Instructor in Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, 1932–4; Physician to out-patients, Washington University Dispensary, 1936–42; Cardiologist, Out-Patient Department, St. Louis County Hospital, 1942; and Assistant Physician, Wellesley College, from 1942.

Smith, Holmes (TSE's uncle), as TSE's St. Louis host, at TSE's Washington University reception,

1.RoseSmith, Rose Greenleaf Eliot (TSE's aunt) Greenleaf Eliot (1862–1936), andSmith, Holmes (TSE's uncle) Holmes Smith (1863–1937), Professor of Drawing and the History of Art, Washington University; first President of the College Art Association.

Smith, Rose Greenleaf Eliot (TSE's aunt), hosts TSE in St. Louis, dies,

1.RoseSmith, Rose Greenleaf Eliot (TSE's aunt) Greenleaf Eliot (1862–1936), andSmith, Holmes (TSE's uncle) Holmes Smith (1863–1937), Professor of Drawing and the History of Art, Washington University; first President of the College Art Association.

Washington University, St. Louis, honours TSE with reception, later invitation refused on medical grounds, TSE's address to, awards TSE honorary degree,