[No surviving envelope]
ThisHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7'the Beautiful one';b5 note will probably be as short (relatively) as yours enclosing the films, which reached me yesterday. I have taken them to be developed; thereappearance (TSE's)of a Chicago magnate;a5 seem to be a few of me which I had not seen before; I fear they look as disgusting as the other, which suggests a Chicago magnate of Neopolitan [sic] extraction. I will admit, now that I have the film safely, that I am having enlargements made – one for Mrs. Perkins and one for myself – of the Beautiful one, and mean to have mine in a frame in my bedroom (I have none other here). I like it all the better, because it suggests to me that the sitter may be not unaware of being under admiring observation – though of course I leave that an open question.
This is a short note, because this is one of my worst weeks. On Monday prepared lecture – ohBrown Universityfor which TSE receives encore;a2 I forget, on Sunday I went down to Providence, lunched at the Hope Club with Professor Lindsay Todd Damon,1 gave a poetry reading at the University – audience about 900 – went off well, they gave me an encore2 – thenanti-Semitism;a5 a reception: usual mixture of chattering old ladies, inarticulate young ones, and two or three pestiferous young Jews wanting to engross my attention and get all they could in the time – thenRoelker, Anna Rossiter;a1 a Dinner; Mrs. Roelker, one of the nobs of Providence, a very pleasant little creature about my age, and a mixture of Society and University.3 Also one strange woman whom I could not make out – I thought at first that she had been drinking – not sure yet – plump – said she was 45 – flirtatious – askedBankhead, TallulahTSE invited to meet;a1 me to stay over till the next evening to meet Tallulah Bankhead4 – I dodged her as politely as I could, and whenever I looked round I saw her damp round eye goggling at me. Got home at midnight, quite done up. Monday worked, had my head massaged, dinedBandler, Bernard;a1 with the Bernard Bandlers5 in Boston. They are cultivated American Jews – but I have not met any American Jews whom I like so well as the English Jews I know, and among the European Jews I can only feel towards the Spanish Jews on terms of equality – I have often mentioned Menasce and Cattaui. It would be malicious to speak of the Bandlers as the Banderlog,6 so I shall not. TuesdayHarvard UniversityEnglish 26 (Modern English Literature);a7on Hardy;a5 lectured about Thos. Hardy at 9, thenChristianityAnglo-Catholicism;a8discussed at Boston Theological School;a5 prepared a speech for the Episcopal Theological School where I was to lunch: was all primed to talk to them about Disestablishment and Ecclesiastical Politics in England, but found they just wanted me to read poetry, so I had myself motored back here and got my books. and contented them. Morning wasted. They were an odd lot in an odd place; and did not encourage me. All in ordinary clothes – no cassocks or collars – no atmosphere of piety whatever – no grace before meat, no deans or officials present. Seemed mostly like graduates of western colleges; very different from the Cowley place. JimClement, JamesWayland weekends with;a3 Clement called for me at 5:30 and took me out to Wayland for the night, as it was his birthday. That was pleasant, but [I] slept badly. This morning took a walk with Jim, a beautiful crisp day; thenHinkley, Barbara (TSE's first cousin);b3 Barbara came to lunch – she is tiring – in fact a crashing bore – she has so little to talk about – only gossip about people I don’t know and don’t want to – a good heart as far as it goes. NowSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister)and TSE to discuss Yale lecture and VHE;c5 going to supper at Ada’s, to discuss my Yale lecture and a letter from Alida; tomorrowYale Universityand 'English Poets as Letter Writers';a2 early to New Haven, FridaySmith CollegeTSE's speaking engagement at;a1 to Smith College; SaturdayMount Holyoke Collegelecture promised pro bono to;a1 to Mt. Holyoke, Sunday return. On Monday I must talk to the Modern Lang[u]age Conference in the evening; and I must give three undergraduate lectures that week, andCharles Eliot Norton Lectures (afterwards The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism)'Arnold and the Academic Mind' (afterwards 'Matthew Arnold');c2unprepared with less than two weeks;a1 a Norton lecture (still unprepared). It is just a question of hanging on by my teeth until May.
I was grateful for note – but all the more anxious about your overworking.
ITimes Literary Supplement, TheTSE arranges EH's subscription to;a3 have(Manchester) GuardianTSE subscribes EH to;a1 written to arrange for Times Litt Supp. & Manchester Guardian for you & have a Remington instruction book to send you. I will write either Sun. or Monday. ton tout dévoué Tom
1.Lindsay Todd Damon (1871–1940); Head of English at Brown University, 1927–36; editor (with Robert Herrick) of Composition and Rhetoric for Schools (1902).
2.Loucks, ‘The Exile’s Return’, 24: ‘February 19. TSE participated in Brown University’s second annual series of modern poetry readings … TSE said he would comment between poems, as he had not written enough verse for an hour of continuous reading; indeed, he added, “I feel ignominious in reading it at all” (Mitchell; “TSE’s Poems” 1).’
3.AnnaRoelker, Anna Rossiter Rossiter Roelker (1887–1974), wife of William Greene Roelker, historian, of Providence, R.I.
4.TallulahBankhead, Tallulah Bankhead (1902–68), celebrated actor of stage and screen; had appeared to date in Tarnished Lady (1931), dir. George Cukor; Devil and the Deep (1932), with Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton and Cary Grant; and Faithless (1932), with Robert Montgomery.
5.BernardBandler, Bernard Bandler II (1905–93), co-editor of Hound & Horn. Born in New York, he gained an MA in philosophy from Harvard University, where he taught for two years before enrolling in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University: he was in practice for many years as psychiatrist and was a Professor at Boston University. His wife was Doris Kate Ransohoff (1911–96).
6.Banderlog refers to vacuous chatterers: monkeys from Kipling’s Jungle Book.
5.BernardBandler, Bernard Bandler II (1905–93), co-editor of Hound & Horn. Born in New York, he gained an MA in philosophy from Harvard University, where he taught for two years before enrolling in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University: he was in practice for many years as psychiatrist and was a Professor at Boston University. His wife was Doris Kate Ransohoff (1911–96).
4.TallulahBankhead, Tallulah Bankhead (1902–68), celebrated actor of stage and screen; had appeared to date in Tarnished Lady (1931), dir. George Cukor; Devil and the Deep (1932), with Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton and Cary Grant; and Faithless (1932), with Robert Montgomery.
2.JamesClement, James Clement (1889–1973), Harvard Class of 1911, marriedClement, Margot Marguerite C. Burrel (who was Swiss by birth) in 1913. In later years, TSE liked visiting them at their home in Geneva.
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.
3.AnnaRoelker, Anna Rossiter Rossiter Roelker (1887–1974), wife of William Greene Roelker, historian, of Providence, R.I.
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.