[No surviving envelope]
It is half past twelve here – only nine-thirty where Emily is – IManwaring, Elizabethlays on Paderewski concert;a2 have just come back from dining with the good Miss Manwaring (which I insist upon pronouncing correctly as ‘Mannering’) at Wellesley, andPaderewski, Jan Ignacewhich he defends from detractors;a2 goingEwing, Mary Cross;a1 with her and the excellent Mrs. Ewing1 to hear Paderewski play – superbly, I thought, but I have never heard him before, they say he is not what he was – old and tired, ‘out of step with the decade’,2 playing Bach as if it was Chopin, and plays Chopin as nobody else can; I wondered all the time what he thought of it, a tired man trying to make money. I am grateful to Miss Manwaring and Mrs. Ewing. SheffSheffields, the;b1 & Ada brought me home. Since then I have had five telegrams to send: one to you which I hope you will take seriously, oneCapponi, Agnes Manucci;a1 to an intrusive Marchesa Capponi3 in New York, whom I never heard of before (Collect) oneMorley, Frank Vigor;b2 to Frank Morley in London, one to somebody who wants me to lecture in Charleston (but I can’t), oneEyre, Mary B.sent Sweeney Agonistes;a4 to Miss Mary Eyre in reply to one from her about a sister in Providence she wants me to see (so I knew of her plight before I got your letter). I have sent her Sweeney Agonistes; I hope she will like it; ISweeney Agonistesdefended as poetry;a3 have a letter from an admirer in Yorkshire who is troubled by it as it does not seem to him to be poetry; ofpoetryas redefined by Sweeney Agonistes;a5 course it isn’t poetry, but it will be when people get used to it. LastEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)Symphony concerts with TSE;a8 night I went with Marian to the Cambridge Symphony; theSibelius, JeanSymphony No. 2;a2 Sibelius symphony no. 2 is splendid; I wish I could have gone to all the Boston concerts where they have played five of his symphonies; if you get the chance to hear a Sibelius don’t miss it. I am glad that you are going to a concert. I hope that you are getting more society, and I hope that you may meet adult intelligent men (that is unselfish of me, isn’t it?) What the devil is ‘Evangeline Faith’, to which or whom you refer? That was over my head. If you think that you are getting old, you are at least getting ten years behind me; for I had that feeling about the young of both sexes at Oxford and Cambridge ten years ago; and Ivor Richards has it. ItHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7her voice;b7 was lovely to hear your voice – which means as much to me as your looks – and is just as painful; andHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7Guardsman dress;b8 to see you in your Guardsman dress was much more agony to me than you can know. WhenHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2and a particular journey back from Pasadena;b8 I think of the ride back from Pasadena with Mr. & Mrs. Lyman (and ‘I did but see her passing by’)4 – I have to try to think about something else. IPerkinses, the;c3 am to dine with the Perkins’s on Monday, and will try to obey your adjuration. Your letter arrived just before I had to go to read poetry to the Bookshop for Boys and Girls,5 and was a great help. ThatPound, EzraTSE recites for Boston audience;a8 went off well enough, I think; asAuden, Wystan Hugh ('W. H.')TSE recites 'To Gabriel Carritt';a3 well as my own things, IBookshop for Boys and Girls, BostonTSE gives reading at;a1 readHopkins, Gerard Manley'The Windhover';a8 themPound, Ezra'The Seafarer';e8 Hopkins’s ‘Windhover’ and the ‘Seafarer’ of Pound, and the Pindaric Football Ode of Auden.6 This is only an interim letter; and having outlined my itinerary in my last, I have other things to talk about.
Prie pour moi.
1.MaryEwing, Mary Cross Cross Ewing, Dean of Residence, supervised Wellesley’s twenty dormitories.
2.Ezra Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, Part I: ‘M. Verog, out of step with the decade …’
3.Agnes Manucci Capponi.
4.Thomas Ford (anonymous, 1607):
There is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.
5.The Bookshop for Boys and Girls, opened in 1916, was located on the second floor of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union Building, at 264 Boylston Street, Boston.
‘Chatter and Comment: Here and There Among Books and Authors Of the Day,’ Boston Herald, Sat., 14 Jan. 1933: ‘T. S. Eliot, William Rose Benet, Frances Frost, Archibald MacLeish and Theodore Morrison are the poets who will read and discuss their own verse in the Amy Lowell poetry series this year. Mrs Harold Russell will open the series on Jan. 27, reading from Amy Lowell’s verse and speaking of her life. Meetings will be held fortnightly on Fridays, at 4 o’clock, in Perkins hall, 264 Boylston street. This series, which is an annual event, was established by the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in 1931 to give boys and girls between the ages of 16 and 19 from the schools in the vicinity of Boston an opportunity to meet informally poets of established reputation.’
6.Ode II (‘To Gabriel Carritt, Captain of Sedbergh School XV, Spring, 1927’), The Orators, 89–92; repr. in The English Auden (1977), ed. Edward Mendelson (1977), 96–8.
10.W. H. AudenAuden, Wystan Hugh ('W. H.') (1907–73), poet, playwright, librettist, translator, essayist, editor: see Biographical Register.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
1.MaryEwing, Mary Cross Cross Ewing, Dean of Residence, supervised Wellesley’s twenty dormitories.
3.MaryEyre, Mary B. B. Eyre, Professor of Psychology, lived in a pretty frame house on College Avenue, Claremont, where TSE stayed during his visit to EH at Scripps College.
3.ElizabethManwaring, Elizabeth Manwaring (1879–1959), a Professor of English at Wellesley College, was author of a pioneering study, Italian Landscape in Eighteenth Century England: a study chiefly of the influence of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa on English Taste, 1700–1800 (New York, 1925). Good friend of TSE’s sister Marian.
4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.
3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.