[1418 East 63d St., Seattle]
[Pike’s Farm, Crowhurst,
near Lingfield, Surrey]
I'Last Will and Testament'composed for EH;a1 was so happy to receive your dear letter, upon my return from Oxford that IHale, EmilyTSE composes squib for;c6 was forthwith inspired, smote my skull, and produced the following LAST WILL & TESTAMENT:
The Description.
He had friends, both Hale and Tubercular;
Rumpuscat was the name of his Cat;
His waistline was perfectly Circular
—And he sported a wopsical Hat.
The Message.
He had Teeth, which were False and Quite Beautiful;
—His aspect was Pious & Pale;
And he asked to have sent his most Dutiful
—Respects to Miss Emily Hale,
The Bequests.
And bequeathed her a nice Indian Basket
—In which grew a sweet-smelling Fern;
And his Ashes, not boxed in a Casket
—But contained in a Portable Urn;
And a neat Mourning Broach, silver-plated
—And designed like a small Teddy Bear,
Inside which, as he wished should be stated,
—Reposed the last Lock of his Hair.
There. But you cannot imagine what a blessed relief it was and how Radiant I became, and Sweet-tempered too. I had had no American mail, & I had conjectured that if a letter was coming at all, it was quite due; so when I went to Oxford on Monday I breathed the Hope that I might find it upon my return; so I guessed, not only from the envelope, the postmark, and the stamp, but from the typing, that it was from You. (Bravo! but please, you need not bother to Type to me until you can type so easily that I shall get a longer letter than if you wrote it). You should however learn to type by touch by practising the exercises which should be given in the booklet; I never learnt, but you could. Do you know that it was just over a month since I had had any news of you all? As usual, you don’t answer my Questions; but I shall assume that you do read my letters until I have further proof to the contrary. (IbirdsPied Wagtail;c9on lawn at Pike's Farm;a1 just stopped to look up in a book I bought in Oxford a bird on the lawn: it is a Pied Wagtail or Dishwasher).1 I suppose that posting a letter from Belfast is not the quickest route, and I hope that my subsequent letters arrive more quickly: yours took I surmise 10 days.
AsAnglo-Catholic Summer School of SociologyTSE addresses;a1 for me, since I wrote last I have been to Oxford. Monday night I addressed the Anglo-Catholic Summer School of Sociology, and slept at Keble. About 100 persons, I imagine: they have a week of group discussion. A very feeble looking lot too, both sexes. I have had better audiences (I mean better quality, not numbers) in America; but here, of course, you do not feel that they have the personal curiosity or get the thrill of just having you there that American audiences feel; and I dare say many of them had only a faint idea of who I was; but I think I prefer this – I hope however that I shan’t have to speak in public at all for ages. My'Catholicism and the International Order'outlined to EH;a3 idea was a very simple one: that if they were serious about ‘Catholic Sociology’ they could not just combine a study of the League of Nations etc. with vague Christian sentiment, but that [sic] must find the hard definite theological foundations for their views, and correct their views by their theology. IDemant, Revd Vigo Augustedrinks and smokes in holy company;a4 think it went off well; anyway Paul More thought well of it. AfterwardsReckitt, Mauricedrinks and smokes in godly company;a1 he and I, and Victor Demant and Maurice Reckitt,2 spentRosenthal, Fr George Davidproduces whisky and cigars;a1 the evening in the rooms occupied by the Revd. G. D. ‘Rosey’ Rosenthal, son of a Rabbi and Vicar of St. Agatha’s, Birmingham,3 who produced a bottle of whisky and cigars. KebleKeble College, OxfordTSE on;a1 is a dismal college to stay in – the baths so remote that I did not find out where they were. High Mass at 7:30 the next morning; thenMore, Paul ElmerTSE's two days in Oxford with;a8 I went over to the Isis Hotel, a small private hotel across Magdalen Bridge, and stayed there with More for two nights. We spent most of the time in talk, on all subjects but always returning to two: IrvingBabbitt, IrvingMore and TSE elegise;a6 Babbitt (whose death is of course a very great blow to More) andMore, Paul Elmerdiscusses Anglicanism with TSE;a9 the anthology of seventeenth century theology (Anglican) which More is bringing out and the preparation of which is the occasion of his being in Oxford.4 We had lunch one day with a Young don of Magdalen and his wife, in his rooms in New Buildings, andSt. Mary the Virgin, IffleyTSE and Paul More visit;a1 night before last went out to Iffley to revisit that lovely little Norman church (do you remember it) and walked back. IEnglandOxford, Oxfordshire;i2past and present;a2 hadOxford UniversityTSE's time at;a1 not been in Oxford for five or six years, and have hardly seen anything of it since I was up. Iffley and the road are very much built up since I remember it. Indeed, I did not remember my way about the streets very well. IUniversity of Cambridgeless painful than Oxford;a6 think however, that if I had to be a don I shd. prefer to be in Cambridge, because it has less in the way of painful associations. I wish that I had gone to study in Oxford several years earlier, or not at all; I cannot yet look back on all that period of my life without great pain; and perhaps I never shall. Well I thought as we sat in the church at Iffley at twilight, here are two queer old birds from St. Louis, and what a world it is to be sure.
As you ask me to tell you something of my affairs I will – I had intended to let this phase be a gap. All my near relatives now know what I am doing, and they unanimously approve, as have the few friends to whose ears it has come. I have a very good lawyer, Ernest Bird. V.’s attitudeEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)separation from;f1VHE's response before and after meeting at solicitors;b4 up to now has been that I have been entrapped and practically kidnapped by enemies who wish to extort money from me by means unknown: apparently she plies her friends with this story; and as yet refuses to admit in public that it is simply that I decline to live with her. I got the impression, however, at our sole interview at the lawyers’, that she really knows quite well the true situation; and it has been put before her as clearly as words can make it. IEliot, Abigail Adams (TSE's cousin)tries to disabuse VHE;a4 lunched yesterday with Abigail Eliot, who is a very sensible person and of some strength of character. I had not told that family, and Abigail came over about the same time that I did; she had written to V. in ignorance and had been to lunch with her and been given this tale of my abduction and formed her own conclusions. SheFaber, Geoffrey;c3 had had some communication with Faber in consequence – LeslieHotson, Leslie;a1 Hotson, apparently, was sent to see him – and so got in touch with me. She entirely approved of my action. SheEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)mental state;e8post-separation;a8 said she found V. more unbalanced than on any previous occasion on which she had seen her. Our conclusion was that Abigail shd. go to see V. this morning and tell her that she now was convinced that there was no plot and that it was entirely my own decision to live with her no more.5 I expect to hear from A. in a few days; she leaves to-day for Switzerland. IEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)separation from;f1impasse over financial settlement;b5 have, at my solicitor’s instance, written again to V. to say that this procrastination must end, because I cannot continue the present financial arrangement indefinitely, and must make definitive terms through the lawyers as quickly as possible.6
Such are the bare facts. All the nausea of it I cannot express, nor the exasperation of having to keep out of the way and not let my address be known. I must get things to a further point before I can go back to my office, though I am sure that I shall be molested there at first, no matter how long I postpone it. But at the moment both Morley and Faber, the only people with a full knowledge of the facts, are away on holiday; so I should not contemplate starting work there until after the 7th, when Morley returns, at the very earliest. It is strange to think that all this time only three people in England have any notion where I am living. I have taken no steps to inform friends. AHutchinsons, thequestioned by VHE as to TSE's whereabouts;a4 fewHutchinson, St. Johnurged by VHE to approach police;a2 have found out: V. had consulted the Hutchinsons because he is a barrister and she wanted him to take it up with Scotland Yard; I had a letter in consequence from his wife (Mary) to say that they both were glad that I was taking this step.7 I regret very much, by the way, that V. has so few friends of her own; andHaigh-Wood, Mauriceblamed by VHE during separation;a7 now apparently she has quarrelled with her family, and considers her brother one of the greatest villains in the piece. I wish it were not quite so one-sided.
ISelwyn, Revd Edward Gordon, Dean of Winchesteron TSE's 1933 homecoming itinerary;a2 must stop now and I may not have time to write again until Monday or Tuesday, as I go to stop with the Dean of Winchester for the weekend.8 WinchesterEnglandWinchester;k3TSE on;a1 is a lovely place, I believe, and the Deanery the finest in England. God Bless You, my dear; there is much more that I crave to write you, as you surely know, than just information.
1.‘The Pied Wagtail (Motacilla lugubris): “Peggy Dishwasher” is conspicuous among our small birds by her black-and-white plumage and long tail, which vibrates up-and-down constantly as she runs about after insects, not hopping like most small birds. There is but little sex difference, but the male has the back all black, while in the female it is slate-colour with a mixture of black.’ (Frank Finn, Birds of the Countryside: A Handbook of Familiar British Birds, 5th edn, n.d., 93: in TSE Library).
2.MauriceReckitt, Maurice Reckitt (1888–1980), Anglo-Catholic and Christian socialist writer; editor of Christendom: A Quarterly Journal of Christian Sociology: see Biographical Register.
3.FrRosenthal, Fr George David George David Rosenthal (1881–1938) – ‘Rosie’ – a graduate of Keble College, Oxford, was from 1918 Vicar of St Agatha’s, Sparkbrook, Birmingham. His family was Jewish, but his father had converted to Christianity and became a priest in the Church of England.
4.Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England (1935), ed. Paul Elmer More and F. L. Cross.
5.TSE’sEliot, Abigail Adams (TSE's cousin)tries to disabuse VHE;a4 cousin Abigail Adams Eliot (1892–1992) wrote in her memoirs: ‘Once when Anna [Holman] and I went to England in the summer, after he had been here for lectures and I had understood that he had gone back to England, I went to visit him and his wife in their apartment. I found only his wife, and she said to me, “Where is Tom?” I said that I did not know but that I would find out. I knew that I could do so through his publishers, Faber and Faber. They gave him the message that I wanted to see him, and we met at a restaurant, and he told me that he was separated from his wife. He had become an Anglo-Catholic and therefore would not consider divorce. When I told him that I had promised her to go back and see her to tell her where Tom was, he said I must not go because it was dangerous. However, I did go, and Anna stood outside and waited until after about ten or fifteen minutes, I reappeared at the front door. I had confirmed to her that Tom would not come back to live with her. She made no aggressive move toward me but accepted what I said. We had always been good friends’ (A Heart of Grateful Trust: Memoirs of Abigail Adams Eliot, transcribed and ed. Marjorie Gott Manning [n.d.], 61). See further Cynthia Grant Tucker, No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Unitarian World (New York, 2010), 225–9.
6.This letter has not been traced.
7.Mary Hutchinson’s letter not found. St John Hutchinson gossiped to Virginia Woolf, who noted in her diary on 10 July: ‘It seems possible that Tom has finally deserted Vivienne. Jack Hutch. … told us how V. has heard by cable that Tom sailed on 26th & he has not arrived. She has by today worked herself into frenzy – in bed, with a nurse; & then Jack telephoned to Faber – L’s idea – & they say mysteriously that they cannot discuss the matter on the telephone, but if V. will pull herself together she will realise that there is no reason for anxiety. This we interpret to mean that Tom is back; has told Faber that he is parting from her; but it is kept secret, until he gives leave – which he may do today. Anyhow, V. is clearly concealing something. J[ack] read one of Tom’s last letters, & describes it as a very cold & brutal document, saying that he has made no money. I should expect that after his 6 months thought & absence he has decided to make the break here: has warned V. & provided for her. But she shuts the letters in the cupboard with the sealed string. L. is made her executor. So I go up to lunch with her’ (Diary 4, 167). By 20 July Woolf knew much more: ‘This was quite a correct statement of the Eliot position. He has left her “irrevocably”; & she sits meanwhile in a flat decorated with pictures of him, & altars, & flowers. Sometimes she prevails on a stranger – like E. Bowen to believe her story, at others lapses into sense. We dine with the Hutchinsons tonight, & shall I expect found some sort of Vivienne fund’ (ibid., 167–8). Following dinner with the Hutchinsons, Woolf noted: ‘Vivi. E[liot] said of the scene with Tom at the solicitors: he sat near me & I held his hand, but he never looked at me’ (ibid., 169).
8.Revd Edward Gordon Selwyn.
2.IrvingBabbitt, Irving Babbitt (1865–1933), American academic and literary and cultural critic; Harvard University Professor of French Literature (TSE had taken his course on literary criticism in France); antagonist of Rousseau and romanticism; promulgator (with Paul Elmer More) of ‘New Humanism’. His publications include Literature and the American College (1908); Rousseau and Romanticism (1919); Democracy and Leadership (1924). See TSE, ‘The Humanism of Irving Babbitt’ (1928), in Selected Essays (1950); ‘XIII by T. S. Eliot’, in Irving Babbitt: Man and Teacher, ed. F. Manchester and Odell Shepard (1941): CProse 6, 186–9.
4.RevdDemant, Revd Vigo Auguste Vigo Auguste Demant (1893–1983), Anglican clergyman; leading exponent of ‘Christian Sociology’; vicar of St John-the-Divine, Richmond, Surrey, 1933–42: see Biographical Register.
2.RevdEliot, Revd Christopher Rhodes (TSE's uncle) Christopher Rhodes Eliot (1856–1945) andEliot, Abigail Adams (TSE's cousin) his daughter Abigail Adams Eliot (b. 1892). ‘After taking his A.B. at Washington University in 1856, [Christopher] taught for a year in the Academic Department. He later continued his studies at Washington University and at Harvard, and received two degrees in 1881, an A.M. from Washington University and an S.T.B. from the Harvard Divinity School. He was ordained in 1882, but thereafter associated himself with eastern pastorates, chiefly with the Bulfinch Place Church in Boston. His distinctions as churchman and teacher were officially recognized by Washington University in [its] granting him an honorary Doctorate of Laws in 1925’ (‘The Eliot Family and St Louis’: appendix prepared by the Department of English to TSE’s ‘American Literature and the American Language’ [Washington University Press, 1953].)
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
5.MauriceHaigh-Wood, Maurice Haigh-Wood was eight years younger than his sister Vivien. InHaigh-Wood, Emily ('Ahmé') Cleveland (TSE's sister-in-law, née Hoagland) 1930 he married a 25-year-old American dancer, Emily Cleveland Hoagland – known as known as ‘Ahmé’ (she was one of the Hoagland Sisters, who had danced at Monte Carlo) – and they were to have two children.
6.TSEHotson, Leslie stayed with Leslie andHotson, Mary Mary Hotson at Haverford College, where he lectured on ‘The Development of Shakespearean Criticism’ in Roberts Hall on 24 Mar.
4.PaulMore, Paul Elmer Elmer More (1864–1937), critic, scholar, philosopher: see Biographical Register.
2.MauriceReckitt, Maurice Reckitt (1888–1980), Anglo-Catholic and Christian socialist writer; editor of Christendom: A Quarterly Journal of Christian Sociology: see Biographical Register.
3.FrRosenthal, Fr George David George David Rosenthal (1881–1938) – ‘Rosie’ – a graduate of Keble College, Oxford, was from 1918 Vicar of St Agatha’s, Sparkbrook, Birmingham. His family was Jewish, but his father had converted to Christianity and became a priest in the Church of England.
9.RevdSelwyn, Revd Edward Gordon, Dean of Winchester Edward Gordon Selwyn (1885–1959), editor of Theology: A Monthly Journal of Historic Christianity, 1920–33. Educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge (Newcastle Scholar; Porson Scholar and Prizeman; Waddington Scholar; Browne’s Medallist; 2nd Chancellor’s Medallist), he was Rector of Redhill, Havant, 1919–30; Provost in Convocation, 1921–31; Dean of Winchester, 1931–58. Works include The Approach to Christianity (1925); Essays Catholic & Critical by Members of the Anglican Communion (ed., 1926). In 1910, he married Phyllis Eleanor Hoskyns, daughter of E. C. Hoskyns (then Bishop of Southwell).