[Grace Toll Hall, Scripps College, Claremont]
Your dear letter arrived on Monday (somebodyMorley, Donald;a2 had picked off the Air Mail stamp but perhaps it was Donald) most fortunately just as I was leaving for York, and made me very happy and relieved to be sure. I am afraid that I am apt to forget in my (largely selfish) anxieties and apprehensions, that my dear girl has her own anxieties about others. I hope you will forgive my restiveness. IHale, Emily Jose Milliken (EH's mother)in the hands of physicians;b5 am distressed to hear about your mother, and I hope that your mind is now set at rest; but if you have not complete confidence in the physicians, it will not be. WhatAmericaCalifornia;d3TSE dreads its effect on EH;a8 you say about the deadening effect of California I understand very well; I was, as you know, worried for you as soon as I made the acquaintance of the place. It is a soul-killing environment, in my opinion; and the sense of remoteness is not essentially due to space. IAmericaSeattle, Washington State;h1TSE prefers to California;a6 am sure that you do not feel it to anything like the same extent in Seattle – even apart from your aunt and uncle being there. It is something to do with the unnatural climate and its appalling effect upon those who live there. IAmericaCalifornia;d3as inferno;b1 was reading an American book (of the usual ‘debunking’ kind) about Los Angeles, and the nightmare sickened me. You already know very well what I think of California, and I am sure you are inclined to think my feelings exaggerated. To some extent you must, in order to exist there at all; but yet I believe it would be well for you to share them a little, in order to keep your soul alive in that enervating spiritual atmosphere. IScripps College, Claremontits effect on EH despaired of;d6 cannot regard with any equanimity the prospect of your renewing your engagement at the end of this year; though I understand very well that engagements are not easy to get at present. Even if you did not have your mother on your mind to turn your thoughts eastwards, I hope you would never resign yourself or deaden the knowledge that your real home is elsewhere.
ThereAmericaand the Great Depression;a5 have been alarming reports and photographs of labour rioting in America.1 IHale, EmilyTSE fears accident befalling;b5 hope that the unrest has not taken a violent form in the far West, and that if it does you will be prudent in keeping away from large crowds of people in the towns. I worry about your driving about alone.
You have a very heavy programme this year, for which I hope that you are better paid. I should like you to have enough leisure time to be able to take part in theatricals, but I fear that if you did in these circumstances you would be risking a breakdown, especially as I doubt whether that malady is yet out of your system. I am quite convinced that this sort of life is beyond your physical and nervous strength; and if you are still having this anxiety about your mother, you must recognise that that is an inevitable drain, and that you must husband your strength in order to get through the year at all.
IGalitzi, Dr Christinesends TSE photographs;a8 had a charming letter last night from Christine Galitzi, which I shall answer, apparently written on the birthday occasion (by the way, ma’am, my birthday is NOT the 27th but the 26th – I remember very well, if you don’t, that I am a month and a Day, as well as Some Years, older than You – but it will be best not to undeceive Miss G. on this point). She encloses, without explanation, two photographs – one of a theatre audience in which I observe herself, another of what appear to be the graduation ceremonies at Scripps – anyway, there she is in a cap and gown, and you just discernable [sic] but nevertheless better than not there at all, also apparently in cap and gown in the background. I wish you would buy one of those little gadgets which you put on a camera in order to take pictures of yourself, and anyway I think it is time you had another photograph taken for a Christmas Present. She also refers to some ‘succès éclatant’ which you had in Seattle, but of which I am totally ignorant. I was under the impression that you had seen through her ‘Esmot’ game immediately.
NoMcPherrin, Jeanettefirst mentioned;a1, I am sure you have not mentioned your other friend – her name looks like ‘Dean McPherrin’, can that be right?2 By the way, I am glad that you have recovered the use of your hand sufficiently to be able to write as well as ever; but you know it would always be a help if you would Print proper names especially when introducing them for the first time. How is it that I did not meet her. Has Marie completely got over her affair with the Faun (whose name I cannot remember)? and did Betty Lou ever get that book which you did not tell me where to send it? IAmericaCalifornia;d3and Californians;b2 like what you suggest about Miss McPherrin, in spite of my prejudice against Californians.
I am glad to know that I impress you as improved – somehow I read between the lines that I must have struck you in the past as a very crabbed and distorted person! and it occurs to me to wonder if you have not thought things about me which you have kept to yourself, and which would astonish me if I knew them!
TheTemple, William, Archbishop of York (later of Canterbury)invites TSE to unemployment conference;a3 meeting at York (list of participants enclosed)3 went off well, largely owing to the efficiency of the Archbishop himself, who is also a charming host. OfEnglandYork;k7TSE's glimpse of;a1 York itself I saw little – I rambled about it on the last morning, and looked at the Minster, a vast one, and very fine of its kind – because the Archbishop’s Palace is four miles out of town. TheGreat Depression in the United Kingdom ('Great Slump')unemployment conference at York;a3 interestcommunismand unemployment;a6 infascismand the unemployment crisis;a1 Unemployment concerns me not as a matter of ‘relief’ and I am not personally concerned with immediate palliative measures, but because any thoroughgoing consideration of the problem brings one up against the whole problem of the present, and other possible social systems – communism, fascism etc. The outcome of this conference will be a pamphlet, to be composed by the Archbp. and criticised and revised by the rest of us – our names will not appear, I think. WhatChristianitypolitics;c5the Church and social change;a1 beyond that will happen is uncertain; but it is obvious that everyone who is in a position to do anything must work for an alteration of the social system to a very radical degree; andChristianityChristendom;b2TSE ponders the decline of;a1 it is certainly up to Christians and Church people to do what they can – otherwise it may follow that the Church itself will, for a whole period of civilisation (if you call it civilisation) merely be kept alive by a small number of faithful and will play no part in the social and moral organisation of society – which would probably mean a long Dark Age ahead. Amongst Church folk of the sort I have just been with, however, and I think it is true of the higher clergy generally, who are mostly not Catholic minded, though friendly in these days, I recognise a very high level of intelligence, good will, and real goodness and public spirit; but, compared to my more Catholic groups, a lack of intense spirituality – which is a hard thing to define further, but which is either there or not. On the other hand the Catholics, especially parish priests, tend often to a fussiness over details of ceremonial which delights unoccupied women and is a waste of energy. But you can’t expect everything of everybody, or much of anybody. TheTemple, William, Archbishop of York (later of Canterbury)as administrator;a4 Archbp. is almost too efficient, but is open to reason; and several plans for commissions, enrolling adherents on payment of a shilling, etc. wereOldham, Josephat the Unemployment Conference;a6 vetoed by the tact and wisdom of Joe Oldham, who is very experienced in matters of organisation. I cannot see the way very far ahead yet.
IOxford and Cambridge Clubits indispensability;a8 spent a night at my club on the way back – which is rather expensive, but they do look after you well – I don’t know what the homeless middleclass Englishman would do without a club – andHutchinsons, the;a7Hutchinson, Barbara
This has been a fairly long letter – even if not very interesting – anyway it shows how I can ramble on when I have recently heard from you. NotHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as perpetual progress and revelation;c1 hearing does not merely mean worry – or that one side of my life – half of my life is in abeyance – it means also that our relationship seems to be standing still – which is losing time; I can’t bear to think of it without an idea of progression. Not that I think of each letter, in each direction, as producing noticeable change; what seems to me is that after a time of exchange of letters something happens that makes me understand you a little better in some way – perhaps just some casual remark does it – and I think that one’s moods make a good deal of difference, in correspondence: sometimes one is distracted or worried or only half alive – and the oftener one writes the more chance of the informality of self revelation. Certainly I am, and should always be in any circumstances, ambitious to understand you always better and better – I do not like to think of any two people just taking for granted at any point that they understand each other and losing all further curiosity. I should like to be able to think that I understood you better than anyone else in the world did, and there is always more to learn about anyone; at any rate, I want to know you as thoroughly as the limitations of the correspondence permit. And it is so much more satisfactory to be able to admire what one is in a position to be quite sure is the real person, than a pleasant fiction: I feel sure incidentally that to be admired and loved without understanding must in the end be very fatiguing and leave one very lonely.
APackard, Frederick C., Jr.;a1 letter has come from Mr Packard to explain about the gramophone records;5 so yours should reach you before very long.
Du fond de mon coeur, cher oiselet, je t’envoie les pensées les plus tendres.6
1.See ‘United States Strikes: Riot in New York: 60 Persons Arrested’, The Times, 14 Oct. 1933, 12.
2.JeanetteMcPherrin, Jeanette McPherrin (1911–92), postgraduate student at Scripps College; friend of EH: see Biographical Register.
3.The group gathered at York, 10–12 Oct.: The Archbishop of York; Bishop of Coventry; Dean of Canterbury; Archdeacon of Northumberland; Sir Wyndham Deedes; Professor John Macmurray; Dr J. H. Oldham; Dr Herbert Gray; TSE; Eleanor Iredale.
4.The Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, with Léonide Massine as principal choreographer, staged a successful season at the Alhambra Theatre, London, with a repertoire of nine ballets including Prince Igor and Petrouchka. Massine also arranged a work entitled Choreartium, set to Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, which premièred on 24 Oct. 1933.
5.FrederickPackard, Frederick C., Jr. C. Packard, Jr. (1899–1985), Instructor at Harvard University (who in due course became Professor of Speech and Dramatics), had recorded TSE reading ‘The Hollow Men’ and ‘Gerontion’ for the ‘Harvard Vocarium’.
6.‘From the bottom of my heart, dear birdie, I send you the most tender thoughts.’
1.DrGalitzi, Dr Christine Christine Galitzi (b. 1899), Assistant Professor of French and Sociology, Scripps College. Born in Greece and educated in Romania, and at the Sorbonne and Columbia University, New York, she was author of Romanians in the USA: A Study of Assimilation among the Romanians in the USA (New York, 1968), as well as authoritative articles in the journal Sociologie româneascu. In 1938–9 she was to be secretary of the committee for the 14th International Congress of Sociology due to be held in Bucharest. Her husband (date of marriage unknown) was to be a Romanian military officer named Constantin Bratescu (1892–1971).
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.
3.MaryHutchinson, Mary Hutchinson (1889–1977), literary hostess and author: see Biographical Register.
2.JeanetteMcPherrin, Jeanette McPherrin (1911–92), postgraduate student at Scripps College; friend of EH: see Biographical Register.
7.LéonideMassine, Léonide Massine, born Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (1896–1979), Russian baller dancer and choreographer; principal choreographer for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1915–21. The premiere of The Three Cornered Hat (El sombrero de tres picos, or Le Tricorne), prod. Sergei Diaghilev, with music by Manuel de Falla and sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso, took place at the Alhambra Theatre, London, in July 1919. TSE called Massine ‘the greatest mimetic dancer in the world’ (‘Commentary’, Criterion 3: 9 [Oct. 1924], 4); see too ‘Dramatis Personae’ (1923): CProse 2, 434.
2.JohnMorley, Donald Donald Innes Morley (b. 15 Mar. 1926).
8.JosephOldham, Joseph (‘Joe’) Houldsworth Oldham (1874–1969), missionary, adviser, organiser: see Biographical Register.
5.FrederickPackard, Frederick C., Jr. C. Packard, Jr. (1899–1985), Instructor at Harvard University (who in due course became Professor of Speech and Dramatics), had recorded TSE reading ‘The Hollow Men’ and ‘Gerontion’ for the ‘Harvard Vocarium’.
10.WilliamTemple, William, Archbishop of York (later of Canterbury) Temple (1881–1944), Anglican clergyman, Archbishop of York and later of Canterbury: see Biographical Register.