[1418 East 63d St., Seattle]
[Pike’s Farm, Crowhurst,
near Lingfield, Surrey]
To-day the weather has turned very cold and windy for the first time, and it will be unfit for me to have my tea in the garden. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1933 Faber summer holiday;b1TSE buys summer outfits for;a4 hope that the heat returns, for I have just bought a bathing costume – dark red, and rather immodest, I think; but then I am not used to modern bathing – and a rubber cap to keep my hair in order; as well as an apricot tennis shirt 4s.9d. and a new pair of flannel bags 8s.6d. all to take down to Wales. If this weather holds I shall have to get a tweed jacket. I have otherwise no movements to report. ThisStead, William Forceresigns chaplainship for Rome;a6 weekend my friend William Stead is coming to stay with the Morleys. He has resigned his chaplainship of Worcester, I hear, to join the Roman Church; why, I don’t know, because it won’t help him at all to get an annulment; but I suppose they will get some sort of dispensation so that his wife can stop in the nunnery, which is the only place where she is happy. And Morley has secured a bottle of old Kentucky whisky for the occasion.
LivingPike's Farmdaily life at;a5 in the country in this way has suited me very well; and I find that I do not really like going up to town, and return with relief. In the winter, of course, it would be different; one would want more luxury, such as electric light. Being able to sit out of doors makes a great difference. But this regular and uneventful routine, without the strain of constant adaptation to people, to say nothing of keeping appointments etc. has, especially as my vigour begins to revive, been very helpful. The processes of nature, the movement of the seasons, and the changes of weather, the activity of vegetation, bird and animals, prevents one from looking too much before or after,1 or exaggerating one’s own activities; itbirdsthrush;d3inspires humility in TSE;a1 is enough to carry on one’s activities as unpretentiously as the thrush looking for worms, or the rosebush yonder, and without competing with them. I am not working at all hard – but I could do with a little less work; I should like to have just enough to fill the morning, and read or walk in the afternoon; thisCharles Eliot Norton Lectures (afterwards The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism)being revised for publication;c6 revision of lectures for publication is a horrid business, for they seem to me such thin stuff on re-reading. And no wonder, considering how little time I was able to give to them in the first place. The ache of having no news of you does not diminish; the result is that you are diffused throughout my waking thoughts, and become rather a nuisance. HaveHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7TSE inquires after;c4 you any new dresses, I wonder? and any new friends? Please, of your charity,2 give me a thought now and then.
1.Burnt Norton:
Quick now, here, now, always –
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.—
2.This formula is normally employed to invite prayers for the dead.
2.WilliamStead, William Force Force Stead (1884–1967), poet, critic, diplomat, clergyman: see Biographical Register.