[No surviving envelope]
Dear Ladybird
I want to know, How You Are? I mean, frankly and uncircumspectly, as if I were a doctor or a priest. Becausetravels, trips and plansTSE's 1933 westward tour to Scripps;a8TSE reflects on;a9 I have not been very well, of course. Of course, I expected exactly the slump or depression that I have had since returning; but not the feelings in the palms of the hands soles of the feet back of the neck and forehead that I have been having. There is no reason for Anyone to Worry: ISheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister);c4 haveEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)vigilant on TSE's health;c1 been with Ada <Ada and Marian watch my health anxiously!> this evening and shall consult a doctor; and if I am really below par I shall cancel some of my engagements. OutsideHinkley, Barbara (TSE's first cousin);b1 lectures; dinner at Barbara’s tomorrow (Ada wonders whether I am not a draw for people B. wants to get?) andLamb, Annie Lawrence (TSE's cousin);a2 on Thursday Cousin Annie Lamb’s; another grand lot, but better, I expect, than Barbara’s choice. (I saw Cousin Annie last week, and she is improved by adversity – the adversity has not apparently been financial as well). OnPerkinses, the;c4 Wednesday to the Perkins’s – they couldn’t have me tonight after all. But I have already had a long talk with them yesterday after church – withBaillie, Very Revd John;a2 an interruption by Dr. John Baillie, who wants me to ‘lead’ a theological discussion in N.Y. in April. I have given them an unvarnished impression of your surroundings, and mean to tell them what I think: they will be grateful, if you are not. OnSargent, Daniel;a2 Saturday dined at one of the two houses I like the best: people named Daniel Sargent, 30 Fenway. Rich, Roman Catholic converts; friendsMaritain, Jacques;a5 of my friend Jacques Maritain. IPickmans, theTSE spiritually at home with;a5 feel some spiritual reality in their house, as in the Pickmans’; and to both I have been invited merely to the family, not to grand parties like Barbara’s and Cousin Annie’s. ThisMerriman, Dorothea (née Foote);a1 afternoon tea with Mrs. Merriman who had some Chapins, uncle & auntCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin);a4 of my Marguerite de Bassiano – remote cousins. SundayFurness sisters, the;a1Furness, Laura
I knew that I should feel a depression after the holidays, and I knew why. Before – I had the excitement and the relief of being here, the change – the excitement of lecturing under new conditions – the prospect of California. NowEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)separation from;f1plotted;a7, all that is behind – I look forward to more work than I think I can competently do – and to my plans for my return – which I have been discussing with Ada tonight. AndEnglandLondon;h1affords solitude and anonymity;a3 theAmericaBoston, Massachusetts;d1TSE's celebrity in;b7 weariness of being a celebrity for the remaining time; I shall be thankful (so far as it goes) to return to London where I am only a celebrity to a small number of persons whom I can avoid. Of course, it goes deeper than that. ForHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2in light of California stay;b9 months, I knew that I should see you in January. Now, that is past. Of course it has made life harder – I mean to have seen you, and really talked to you and been in your company andHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9teaches TSE true companionship;b8 know what companionship means (as well as other feelings) for the first time in my life. But it would have been still worse – much worse – for me if I had not come to California. For now I have Proof that I am happier in your company than in that of any one else; and that I know all about you that I Need <Not that I mean I couldn’t know you better: to ‘know’ anyone must be a continuous progress> to know; that nothing else is vital; and am happy in the confirmation that Nothing you can now ever do, or say, or feel or think, can alter this Conviction. WillBurnt Norton;a1 you not congratulate me on having one Fixed Point in this world? Buttravels, trips and plansTSE's 1933 westward tour to Scripps;a8TSE wonders at after-effect on EH;b2 what I want to know is, whether life is any worse for You in any respect, as a result of my visit.
IYale Universityand 'English Poets as Letter Writers';a2 am'English Poets as Letter Writers'lecture to be given at Yale;a1 to lecture to Yale on the 23d ($225) on Letters of English Poets!1
Stephen’sSpender, Stephenpoems published by F&F;a2 (Spender) poems are out but I have not yet my copies.
ImportantHale, EmilyTSE fears accident befalling;b5 But I object to your doing foolish things. Please promise never to motor alone outside of Claremont at night.2
1.TSEYale Universityand 'English Poets as Letter Writers';a2 spoke on ‘English Poets as Letter Writers’, under the auspices of the Lamont Memorial Foundation, to an audience of 500 in Sprague Memorial Hall, Yale University, on 23 Feb. 1933. See further letter of 26 Feb. 1933, below.
2.Postscript added by hand.
3.VeryBaillie, Very Revd John Revd John Baillie (1886–1960), distinguished Scottish theologian; minister of the Church of Scotland; Roosevelt Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Seminary, New York, 1930–4; and was Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh University, 1934–59. In 1919 he married Florence Jewel Fowler (1893–1969), whom he met in service in France during WW1. Author of What is Christian Civilization? (lectures, 1945). See Keith Clements, ‘John Baillie and “the Moot”’, in Christ, Church and Society: Essays on John Baillie and Donald Baillie, ed. D. Fergusson (Edinburgh, 1993); Clements, ‘Oldham and Baillie: A Creative Relationship’, in God’s Will in a Time of Crisis: A Colloquium Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Baillie Commission, ed. A. R. Morton (Edinburgh, 1994).
4.MargueriteCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin) Caetani, née Chapin (1880–1963) – Princesse di Bassiano – literary patron and editor: see Biographical Register. LéliaCaetani, Lélia Caetani (1913–77), sole daughter, was to marry Hubert Howard (1908–87), a scion of the English Catholic House of Howard, who worked to preserve the Caetani heritage at Rome and at the castle of Sermoneta.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
6.BarbaraHinkley, Barbara (TSE's first cousin) Hinkley (1889–1958) was married in July 1928 to Roger Wolcott (1877–1965), an attorney; they lived at 125 Beacon Hill, Boston, and at 1733 Canton Avenue, Milton, Mass.
35.AnnieLamb, Annie Lawrence (TSE's cousin) Lawrence (Rotch) Lamb (1857–1950) was married to Horatio Appleton Lamb (1850–1926).
5.JacquesMaritain, Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), philosopher and littérateur, was at first a disciple of Bergson, but revoked that allegiance (L’Evolutionnisme de M. Bergson, 1911; La Philosophie bergsonienne, 1914) and became a Roman Catholic and foremost exponent of Neo-Thomism. For a while in the 1920s he was associated with Action Française, but the connection ended in 1926. Works include Art et scolastique (1920); Saint Thomas d’Aquin apôtre des temps modernes (1923); Réflexions sur l’intelligence (1924); Trois Réformateurs (1925); Primauté du spirituel (1927), Humanisme intégral (1936), Scholasticism and Politics (1940), Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953). TSE told Ranjee Shahani (John O’London’s Weekly, 19 Aug. 1949, 497–8) that Maritain ‘filled an important role in our generation by uniting philosophy and theology, and also by enlarging the circle of readers who regard Christian philosophy seriously’. See Walter Raubicheck, ‘Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, and the Romantics’, Renascence 46:1 (Fall 1993), 71–9; Shun’ichi Takayanagi, ‘T. S. Eliot, Jacques Maritain, and Neo-Thomism’, The Modern Schoolman 73: 1 (Nov. 1995), 71–90; Jason Harding, ‘“The Just Impartiality of a Christian Philosopher”: Jacques Maritain and T. S. Eliot’, in The Maritain Factor: Taking Religion into Interwar Modernism, ed. J. Heynickx and J. De Maeyer (Leuven, 2010), 180–91; James Matthew Wilson, ‘“I bought and praised but did not read Aquinas”: T. S. Eliot, Jacques Maritain, and the Ontology of the Sign’, Yeats Eliot Review 27: 1–2 (Spring–Summer 2010), 21; and Carter Wood, This Is Your Hour: Christian Intellectuals in Britain and the Crisis of Europe, 1937–40 (Manchester, 2019), 69–72.
34.DanielSargent, Daniel Sargent (1890–1987), historian, biographer, and poet, taught at Harvard, 1914–34, and was thereafter a full-time writer. Author of eleven books including Thomas More (1933). He lived at 30 The Fenway, Boston Mass., and was Secretary of the Boston Art Commission.
2.AdaSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister) Eliot Sheffield (1869–1943), eldest of the seven Eliot children; author of The Social Case History: Its Construction and Content (1920) and Social Insight in Case Situations (1937): see Biographical Register.
12.Stephen SpenderSpender, Stephen (1909–95), poet and critic: see Biographical Register.