[1418 East 63d St., Seattle]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
The Criterion
[Pike’s Farm, Crowhurst,
near Lingfield, Surrey]
16 July 1933
Dearest Emily,

TheMorleys, thego on holiday to Norway;a5 Morleys departed yesterday, with rucksacks, for three weeks on a farm in Norway, leaving two servants, and two of the three babies.1 I may be fidgety, but the notion of leaving two inarticulate babies alone for three weeks with young servants has rather worried me. IPike's Farmdaily life at;a5 am as alone now, twentythree miles from London, as one can well be except at the price of doing one’s own cooking etc.; the Eames’s sometimes talk, but not much; there are of course wireless sets in perpetual activity in both houses. Except for the rare passage of a train, a few cars, and the express-planes flying over from Paris and Cologne, this is very rural. I shall not be able to take any more photographs until the Morleys return, as I have lent them my Kodak. I have the run of their house, and supper there. Tomorrow I must spend the day in London, as I have appointments. I find the London days very tiring; there are various reasons for that; but I do not think that I could stay here for a very long period. (I have to clear out for the Eames’s holiday anyway). MorleyMorley, Frank Vigoras châtelain;b7 seems to thrive on it, and when he returns at the end of the day spends all the evening daylight in building chicken houses, brick walls and pavements, dams in the pond, and other pieces of masonry. HisMorley, Christina (née Innes)and country life;a1 wife seems a hardy girl too; I should think, even with three children, she would find this life lonely; and a rough out of doors life is, I fear, conducive to wrinkles, and unfavourable to those finer points of toilette which I like to see women attend to. LifeFabers, thecompared to the Morleys;a9 at the Fabers will be rather different; as Geoffrey’s tastes are rather for shooting, fishing, and the usual activities of a country squire, than for the pioneering activities of Frank. But it is pleasant to be with the Morleys for they seem devoted to each other: one cannot be constantly with a married couple without perceiving whether they get on each others’ nerves or not.

I am still rather torpid, and at the same time (for it is quite compatible) haunted by the demon of restlessness who visits me from time to time. There are several urgent things to do, at the moment, but none to absorb the whole mind; and I dare say that it will be a year before I have established a regularly running life for myself. Adaptation is difficult even when anything is better than the old life. I'Catholicism and the International Order'dreaded;a1 have to prepare aAnglo-Catholic Summer School of SociologyTSE addresses;a1 lecture for the opening meeting of the Anglo-Catholic Summer School at Oxford next week; and the subject of the session is Catholicism and International Order; I don’t know anything about International Order; and to get one more lecture out of me now is flogging a dead donkey.2

I shall feel better when I may hear from you again with some regularity. Writing to a correspondent who cannot respond tends to become merely a chronicle, or a record of the sort of thing one says to oneself, rather than to another: in either case to become rather self-centred. Besides, we both continue to develop and change; and I can register and examine the changes in myself as well as you much better in regular interchange of letters. Not that I have any fear that we shall find it difficult to resume again where we left off! but I like to be aware of your fluctuations of mood – for which reason short frequent letters are more informative than longer ones at longer intervals; the latter tend to represent, more often, an amalgam, or even a suppression of mood altogether. I crave still more to know, from week to week, what you are feeling, what terms you are on with life, that what [sic] you are doing – though I never can get enough of that. Both your letters to me at Randolph I treasure; and I value and appreciate always more all that you have done for me in the last three years (and unconsciously, always, before that).

ThisSt. George's Church, CrowhurstTSE on;a1 morning I went to the little church near by at Crowhurst (of which I hope to take a picture – one of the most humble and charming little churches, beautiful outside without any potential distinction, and sweet inside in spite of their meanness, of which there are so many. No service early; at 11 the church although small was quite full. ServiceChristianityliturgy;b9in country parish church;b2 low, but decent; I should prefer however to be where there are daily Masses. My musical knowledge is not sufficient to inform me whether the vagaries of the small organ were due to its own internal maladies or to the unpractised hand of the organistess. ItChristianitydeath and afterlife;b4and what makes a desirable burial place;a6 is the sort of church with a churchyard one would rather like to be buried in; no one seems to have been buried there for a good fifty years.

Oh my dear, I do long for you here.

Tom

1.FrankMorley, Frank Vigoron TSE at Pike's Farm;b6n MorleyPike's FarmMorley on TSE at;a6n, ‘A Few Recollections of Eliot’, 108–9: ‘When he had been installed in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and knew the running of the whole caboodle … my wife and I just left him (nominally in charge) and went for three weeks to Norway … Whether this is the right treatment for a man who is climbing his private mountain of Purgatory, I don’t know – you never know … We were back from Norway … on 7 August. The estate was in good heart, and so was Tom. He was sunburnt, but, more important, he had been in touch with people he had thought of, and was planning to write The Rock … Correspondence had been flowing; now people began to come down for days and nights. Geoffrey Faber, Donald Brace from New York, to see what he was doing. He was keeping up with business … He was also learning to bake bread. We did our own baking, and Tom was very proud of the first loaf he made – insisted on a photograph with him holding it well forward to make it appear bigger. In odd moments we invented various kinds of crossword games, in different languages.’

In an interview for a BBC TV Omnibus programme (8 June 1970), Morley said: ‘The intellectual activities [at Pikes Farm] were very considerable; we spent a great deal of time doing crosswords – I mean making them up in most languages. Hebrew we had some difficulty in completing but Greek and Latin and French and German and Italian we passed these things’ (Berg).

2.‘Catholicism and International Order’, Christendom: A Journal of Christian Sociology 3: 11 (Oxford, Sept. 1933), 171–84 – the text of TSE’s address at the Summer School held at Keble College – collected in Essays Ancient and Modern; CProse 4, 534–46.

Anglo-Catholic Summer School of Sociology, TSE addresses,
'Catholicism and the International Order', dreaded, composed without enthusiasm, outlined to EH,
Christianity, and human isolation, and modern economics, Ada on TSE's personal piety, scheme for 'Pro Fide' bookshop, among the Eliot family, and beauty, its sects like different clubs, Anglo-Catholicism, TSE's conversion to, which he dates to Eccleston Square meeting, Anglican Missal sought for EH, but unfortunately out of print, discussed at Boston Theological School, and the Petrine Claims, apostolic succession, over Roman Catholicism, as refuge from VHE, and the Reformation, asceticism, discipline, rigour, the necessity for, and TSE's daily exhortation, making and breaking habits, mastering emotions and passions, as salubrious, only remedy for a prurient culture, confession and communion, more possible during Harvard year, the case for unattainable ideals, in time of war, gets TSE up before 7 o'clock, hereditary with TSE, belief, and good poetry, faced with Second World War, and conversion, antidote to TSE's skepticism, Christendom, TSE ponders the decline of, TSE on his prominence within, its ruin, the Church Visible and Invisible, and TSE's war work, the Malabar Church, prospect of total reunion within, confession, helps to objectify sin, more dreaded than dentist, harder in the morning, death and afterlife, the struggle to prepare for, consoles TSE in life, and cremation, Requiem Mass, gives meaning to life, and what makes a desirable burial place, the nature of eternal life, divorce, unrecognised by Anglo-Catholic Church, which TSE regrets, in church law, would separate TSE from Church, evil, TSE's belief in, and moral percipience, guilt, and the New England conscience, hell, TSE's 1910 vision of, and damnation, according to TSE, liturgy, TSE's weekly minimum, Mass of the Pre-sanctified, Requiem Mass versus Mass of Good Friday, and whether to serve at Mass, Imposition of Ashes, at Christmas, High Mass over Mattins, aversion to Low Church Mattins, Roman service in Wayland, Tenebrae, in country parish church, as guest at Kelham, remarkable sermon, over Christmas, Tenebrae and Family Reunion, during Holy Week, Mass of Charles King and Martyr, love, loving one's neighbour, marriage, TSE's need for privacy within, mysticism and transcendence, interpenetration of souls, intimations of life's 'pattern', 'doubleness', arrived at through reconciliation, orthodoxy, only remedy for contemporary culture, and pagans, sets TSE at odds with modernity, necessarily trinitarian, 'Christian' defined, iniquities of liberal theology, and creed, authority, Transubstantiation, TSE disclaims 'self-centredness' in maintaining, politics, the Church and social change, how denomination maps onto, need for working-class priests, church leaders against totalitarianism and Nazism, Christianity versus Fascism and Communism, Papal Encyclical against Nazi Germany, the 'Dividend morality', Presbyterianism, TSE quips on the meanness of, Quakerism, resignation, reconciliation, peace, TSE's love allows for, 'peace that passeth all understanding', the struggle to maintain, following separation from VHE, retreat and solitude, EH at Senexet, the need for, a need increasing with age, and TSE's mother, Roman Catholicism, TSE's counter-factual denomination, Rome, sacraments, Holy Communion, marriage, sainthood, TSE's idea of, the paradoxes of, susceptible of different sins, sins, vices, faults, how to invigilate, the sense of sin, the sinner's condition, bound up with the virtues, as a way to virtue, TSE's self-appraisal, when humility shades into, when unselfishness shades into, among saints, proportionate to spiritual progress, daydreaming, despair, lust, pride, perfection-seeking pride, spiritual progress and direction, TSE's crisis of 1910–11, EH's crisis, versus automatism, TSE's sense of, towards self-knowledge, in EH's case, as personal regeneration, temptation, to action/busyness, the Church Year, Advent, Christmas, dreaded, happily over, TSE rebuked for bah-humbugging, church trumps family during, season of irreligion, thoughts of EH during, unsettling, fatiguing, in wartime, Easter preferred to, Ash Wednesday, Lent, season for meditation and reading, prompts thoughts of EH, Lady Day, Holy Week, its intensity, arduous, preserved from public engagements, exhausting but refreshing, excitingly austere, Easter, better observed than Christmas, missed through illness, Unitarianism, the Eliots' as against EH's, the prospect of spiritual revival within, as personified by TSE's grandfather, regards the Bible as literature, as against Catholicism, divides EH from TSE, and whether Jesus believed himself divine, according to Dr Perkins, in England as against America, over-dependent on preachers' personality, TSE's wish that EH convert from, outside TSE's definition of 'Christian', the issue of communion, baptism, impossibly various, virtues heavenly and capital, bound up with the vices, better reached by way of sin, charity, towards others, in Bubu, TSE's intentness on, delusions of, as against tolerance, chastity, celibacy, beneath humility, TSE lacks vocation for, faith, and doubt, hope, a duty, TSE's struggle for, humility, distinguished from humiliation, comes as relief, greatest of the virtues, propinquitous to humour, not an Eliot virtue, opposed to timidity, danger of pride in, is endless, TSE criticised for overdoing, theatre a lesson in, most difficult of the virtues, possessed by EH, possessed by EH to a fault, TSE compares himself to EH in, the paradox of, distinguished from inferiority, self-discovery teaches, possessed by Dr Perkins, patience, recommended to EH, its foundations, possessed by Uncle John, purity, distinguished from purification, temperance, with alcohol, beneath humility,
Fabers, the, model of happiness and respectability, their domestic situation, Faber children to tea chez Eliot, visit TSE at Pike's Farm, compared to the Morleys, closer to TSE than to VHE, 1933 summer holiday with, Ty Glyn Aeron described, request TSE to write play, too absorbed in their children, at the Morleys' party, give anti-Nazi party for author, host poker party, 1934 summer holiday with, take TSE to lunch in Oxford, 1935 summer holiday with, for which the children are bought tent, give party, 1936 summer holiday with, at Morleys' Thanksgiving Day party, sail model boats with TSE, and TSE's foggy adventure, cinema-going with TSE, take TSE to Witch of Edmonton, and Morleys take TSE to pantomime, and TSE attend opening of Ascent of F6, 1937 summer holiday with, and the Bradfield Greek play, School for Scandal with, take TSE to pantomime again, 1938 summer holiday with, 1939 summer holiday with, offer possible wartime refuge, 1940 summer holiday with, host TSE in Hampstead during war, TSE makes bread sauce for, brought vegetables from Shamley, move to Minsted, and TSE attend musical revue, 1941 summer holiday with, Minsted as substitute for nursing-home, trying to sell Welsh home, take TSE to International Squadron, invite TSE to Wales for Christmas, host TSE at Minsted, away fishing in Scotland, mourn TSE's post-war independence, 1947 Minsted summer stay, 1948 Minsted summer stay, host TSE for weekend, on 1950 South Africa trip, on TSE's 1951 Spain trip, 1951 Minsted summer stay, 1952 Minsted summer stay, 1953 Minsted summer stay, on 1953–4 South Africa trip, 35th wedding anniversary weekend,
Morley, Christina (née Innes), and country life, at Joyce dinner in Paris, taken to theatre in Morley's absence, again to Love for Love, knits TSE socks, her Celtic temperament, therefore special affinity with Donald, sleeping at Donald's school, as tennis-player, falls asleep at wheel, entertained at The Berkeley, accompanies TSE to Three Sisters, taken to meet JDH, accompanies TSE to Bulgakov's White Guard, brings Morley boys along to Shakespeare, faced with departure for America, America's effect on, sends Ada's New York Times obituary, TSE writes letter of condolence to, for which she thanks him, in Cambridge,
see also Morleys, the
Morley, Frank Vigor, TSE on sharing an office with, Criterion monthly meeting regular, returns from New York, indispensable in proofing Selected Essays, Criterion lunch in company with, joins farewell lunch for Hodgson, offers TSE post-separation refuge, acts for TSE during separation, spirits TSE away to Surrey, on TSE at Pike's Farm, as châtelain, acting as TSE's courier, on TSE's relationship to children, music-hall evening with, suggests tour of Scotland, which he plans out, suggests trip to Paris, thanks Joyce for hospitality, on TSE's 1933 tour of Scotland, negotiating for Ulysses, his absence means more work, treasured and missed, gets on famously with Ada, mercifully returned to F&F, produces birthday-cake, peacekeeper between Rowse and Smyth, in on Sherlock Holmes prank, encourages TSE to go to Finland, on TSE's 1935 tour of Scotland, and TSE drink GCF's whisky, takes TSE to Wimbledon, monopolises typewriter for joint story, as tennis-player, overawes GCF, TSE and EH's elected emergency go-between, good with thrusting young authors, backs publication of Nightwood, helps deal with Joyce, naturally projects strength, his French, escapes Criterion gathering to catch last train home, unusually subdued among the French, submits his Johnson Society paper, depends on TSE, on TSE's 1937 tour of Scotland, which Morley describes, two nights' sleep in a caravan with, potential reader for Family Reunion, his father dies, Spender discussed with, sends TSE corrected Anabasis, heads for New York and Baltimore, his energy, returns from America, visiting dying mother, shoulders burden of EP, insufficiently honours EP, Boutwood Lectures submitted to, accepts Harcourt Brace position, what his leaving F&F will mean, taken to tea with Woolfs, remembers EH taking priority, first wartime letter from, which reports on TSE's family, sounds depressed in America, sounds less depressed to GCF, among TSE's closest friends, his conversation missed, on Christian Society's American reception, suspected of indiscretion, EH explains 'Defence of the Islands' to, indifferent to Cats, entrusted with emergency Dry Salvages, America's effect on, gives Henry MS of 'Yeats', suggests 'Night Music' over 'Kensington Quartets', Ada too ill to see, his use of 'poised', puts TSE up in New York, on TSE's 1947 New York stay, presently unemployed, but inherits Graham Greene's job,
see also Morleys, the

4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.

Morleys, the, join the Eliots in Eastbourne, TSE fears overburdening, go on holiday to Norway, more TSE's friend than VHE's, return from Norway, life at Pike's Farm among, reading Dickens aloud to, their Thanksgiving parties, suitable companions to Varsity Cricket Match, and TSE to Laughton's Macbeth, TSE's June 1934 fortnight with, and certain 'bathers' photographs', and TSE play 'GO', attend Richard II with EH, TSE's New Years celebrated with, take TSE to Evelyn Prentice and Laurel & Hardy, TSE's return from Wales with, TSE's September 1935 week with, leave for New York, one of two regular ports-of-call, see EH in Boston, safely returned from New York, TSE reads Dr Johnson to, compared to the Tandys, add to their menagerie, reiterate gratitude for EH's peppermints, in Paris with TSE, give TSE copy of Don Quixote, and Fabers take TSE to pantomime, and TSE's Salzburg expedition, join Dorothy Pound dinner, visit Hamburg, have Labrador puppies, dinner at Much Hadham for, TSE to see them off at Kings Cross, seem unhappy in America, Thanksgiving without, in New Canaan, return to Lingfield, remember TSE's birthday, difficulties of renewing friendship with,
Pike's Farm, TSE installed at, daily life at, Morley on TSE at, TSE's situation at, TSE's stay with the Eameses extended, TSE missing, TSE's June 1934 fortnight at, village bells at New Year, September 1935 week at, the Morleys mean to leave, graced by nightingales,
see also Morleys, the
St. George's Church, Crowhurst, TSE on,