[Grace Toll Hall, Scripps College, Claremont]
Your letter of March 27 greeted me at the club yesterday (Friday) when I went there for lunch. I had got there ten minutes before my appointment, so that if there was a letter I should be able to read it once before lunch; but unluckily my guest also arrived ahead of time, so I had to let it burn in my pocket, and had no privacy until I got back to Russell Square. I should have answered the same evening, in the hope of catching the steam packet. But after dinner I was suddenly as overcome by sleepiness as the people in mystery stories after that cup of coffee with a bitter taste, so I dozed off on the sofa hoping to be more wakeful in a little while – no use – so crept into bed by ten, only, of course, to lie awake for a couple of hours, though not awake enough to do anything. I might as well have been drunk – or better, because I should not have had the wakefulness. So I miss a mail.
Itravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4attempts to coordinate with TSE's 1934 summer plans;a3 have been almost feverishly excited about your approaching visit. I get too excited to feel that I can be a level-headed judge of propriety, and therefore tend to fly to the extreme of avoiding you altogether! Yet for two pins I would also fly to meet you at the dock. But, whatever be the correct via media, I should love you to meet some of my friends – partly, no doubt, for the pleasure of impressing them! – and partly simply to have you meet some of the people I mention frequently in letters. I don’t see, for instance, why I should not give a tea-party for you at the Ritz? Say half a dozen people. ItEnglandLondon;h1abandoned by society in August;c2 depends partly of course upon the time when you are in London – after the end of July it is not so easy to get the people one wants. I should like to know, as soon as you can tell me, when you expect to be in London. My own plans will depend upon it partly. I had intended – but had not committed myself – going to a conference at the Bishop of Chichester’s for about five days towards the end of July; but I am not awfully keen on conferences, and I should be glad to go just for a day or two instead of the whole time. Another suggestion has occurred to me, which I put forward timidly at once so that you may consider it at leisure; whileMorleys, the;b9 you are in London (or not too far away from it) would you care to go for a weekend (Friday night to Monday) to stay with my friends the Morleys in Surrey? I am sure that they would be delighted. I count them among my best and most trusted friends, you know; and they are very informal and easy to get acquainted with. They have a charming old fourteenth century farmhouse, and the country about there is very pretty. I would stay at Mrs. Eames’s near by – the Morleys have only room for one guest at a time anyway, but I would take meals, except breakfast, with them. There is a problem for you of propriety! also whether you want to. ButHale, Emilyfamily;w4EH encouraged to keep younger company;a4 as you are going to be with the [sic] Perkins’s for a whole year at least, I do think that it would be good for you to get away once in a while, when you can, to be for a little among younger people.
OfPerkinses, theoffered English introductions;d7 course I shall be delighted to give the Perkins’s any introductions I can. That again depends upon when they are going to be where. If they go to Oxford and Cambridge, I hope that it will be early. I will also try to think of any people whom they might enjoy meeting in London. So will you please provide me with their itinerary too, as soon as it is more or less fixed, with dates, and any other parts of the country they or they and you may be visiting, where I might possibly have acquaintances. (Incidentally, IWebb-Odell, Revd Rosslynbullish on ticket-sales;a3 may have to reserve seats for them for the pageant in advance, as Webb Odell hopes to sell all the reserved seats before the opening night).
I do hope you will make an effort to get here as early in July as possible, before the season is over, and while all the theatres are still open. TheEnglandEnglish traditions;c4Varsity Cricket Match;a4 important race-meetings will be over: but it would be rather fun to make up a small party for the Oxford & Cambridge Cricket Match – IMorleys, thesuitable companions to Varsity Cricket Match;c1 might get the Morleys for that, and it would give me a chance of introducing them first – and I could sport a top hat. I am really getting quite childish about it, but how pleasant it is to be childish.
I find it hard to write about anything else in this letter. I think I had better stop. And thank you, my dear, for such a lovely letter.
IWoolfs, the;b7 shouldMorrell, Lady Ottoline;d4 likeBowen, Elizabeth (Mrs Cameron);a5 to get the Woolfs for tea, and perhaps Ottoline (though perhaps not together) and Elizabeth Cameron, and several other people.
4.ElizabethBowen, Elizabeth (Mrs Cameron) Bowen (1899–1973) – Mrs Alan Cameron – Irish-born novelist; author of The Last September (1929), The Death of the Heart (1938), The Heat of the Day (1949). See Victoria Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait of a Writer (1977); Hermione Lee, Elizabeth Bowen: An Estimation (1981). TSE to Desmond Hawkins, 3 Feb. 1937: ‘She has a very definite place, and a pretty high one, amongst novelists of her kind.’
4.LadyMorrell, Lady Ottoline Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), hostess and patron: see Biographical Register.
1.RevdWebb-Odell, Revd Rosslyn Rosslyn Webb-Odell, MA (1879–1942), rector of St Anne’s, Soho; Organising Director of the Forty-five Churches Fund for the Diocese of London; editor of The Christian Faith: a series of essays … (1922) and Church Reform (1924).