[No surviving envelope]
Dearest Lady Emilie,
Now I can thank you properly for your letter. It was good of you to write to me from the boat, and at length. IHinkley, Susan Heywood (TSE's aunt, née Stearns);b4 had heard from Aunt Susie (who said nothing else about having seen you) that you were sailing on the 15th – even then I started a letter and realising that it would not reach you burnt it.2 I had of course been counting the days and hoping that I might hear about now; and I thought, in the circumstances, that you would go straight to Chipping Campden. (WhichEnglandChipping Campden, Gloucestershire;e1shockingly remote;a2 seems to be a devil of a place to get to – no railway station – not mentioned in the local bus routes – I finally tracked it down in an A.A. guide and it seems to be two miles from any road to anywhere). I hope you got there comfortably last night. And I don’t suppose that you will be visiting London for some time to come; but I hope that you spend some days here before you leave for the South. Anyway, it is a great relief to have you here, because I feared that the visit to Massachusetts might have much more strain than rest about it.
I am somewhat reassured by what you say about your health. You were not looking very well when I saw you; so I naturally thought, if three months of California means no better health than this, what will two years mean? I hope that you have a good appetite, and can sleep, and that the climate does not seem intolerable. The voyage sounded rather dismal. I hate having to share a cabin with strangers – indeed with anybody; and there are single berth cabins (tourist) on the Montreal boats.
I am sorry if my perhaps importunate letter forced you to write of things that you would rather take for granted; please forgive the flutter and nervousness of expecting you in England. You could not have said more, or said it better; and I do thank you. YouHinkleys, theEH explains relationship with TSE to;d4 surely know (underneath) that I should believe in your judgement implicitly, in speaking to the Hinkleys or indeed to anybody else – for so far as I am concerned I have no objection to the whole world knowing about me! But in this case I think it was probably high time. And I have always a very warm affection for them, in spite of making, at times, rather severe criticisms of Aunt Susie’s worldliness (and I assure you that other members of the family have been much more offended by them than I – and with reason – but now I am rambling). Indeed, I feel flattered that you should have discussed me at all openly.
As for dissimulation, I agree with you. No one knows better than I, who have practised so much in the past. Apart from feeling exasperated and choaked by it – it becomes a terrible strain. And I think, as time goes on, it becomes and will become gradually less necessary. AsHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as perpetual progress and revelation;c1 for understanding, my dear, I suppose that is always an approximation, between any two people, and the best is for it to approximate closer and closer with time; I think indeed that to believe confidently that one understands another person, so that there is nothing more to find out, is a fatal delusion which prevents understanding – which must always be something moving and developing; for as a person lives and experiences, there is always more about them to understand. One never knows either how far one understands another person, or how far that person understands you. I think we have done pretty well, considering the circumstances! If I could say to you everything that I write, and watch your expression and hear the tone of your voice, of course I should learn a lot more, and a good deal more quickly and easily, than I do. But there.
I have often grieved, that there are actions in my past which I cannot make intelligible to anyone. I don’t mean that I want to make them seem excusable or justifiable, because one doesn’t want to justify oneself to the people one cares for, but just to make them see how certain causes and motives can produce such apparently illogical results.
I know I am very slow too and very inexperienced in some ways.
Astravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4attempts to coordinate with TSE's 1934 summer plans;a3 for my plans. IfEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)1934 summer in England with Dodo;c5arrangements for;a5 DodoSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)and Marion's 1934 visit to England;b1;a5 can make up her mind where she wants to go (as it is indifferent to Marion and me) we shall go away to the country somewhere for a week or so, as I don’t want Marion to spend her whole holiday in London. It may be to somewhere near Salisbury, I don’t know. That should be within the next fortnight. Then I may go away with them once or twice for a night at a time – to Canterbury, perhaps, or Cambridge. I should be here pretty steadily in August. OnFabers, the1934 summer holiday with;c1 September 8th Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1934 Faber summer holiday;b5;a2 go to the Faber’s in Wales for a week or ten days. Later in the month I might run up to Scotland for a few days, inPound, Ezraand TSE's possible visit to Rapallo;b6 October (as I have mentioned) I might spend a week in Rapallo. But the only fixtures are going away with Marian & Dodo for a week, and the visit to the Fabers: everything else is moveable. So, ma’am, I am at your service. And I hope your life is not going to be strange in any miserable way; but I can see its limitations. Bonne nuit. It is delightful to know that you are in the same longitude – that your dawn and dark now coincide with mine!
1.ValerieBurnt Nortonits Kensington origins;a2n EliotEast Cokerits Kensington origins;a1n, ‘“Owls9 Grenville Place, Londonand Burnt Norton;a6n and Artificers”’ (letterFlat 3, 11 Emperor's Gateand East Coker;a1n), TLS, 16 July 1971, 835: ‘“Burnt Norton” and “East Coker” were written in the Royal Borough [of Kensington], in Grenville Place and Emperor’s Gate respectively, and contain local allusions – for example, “a place of disaffection” is Gloucester Road Underground Station. And in “Little Gidding” the line “We trod the pavement … ” is a reference to the surface of the Cromwell Road.' Valerie Eliot told Helen Gardner, 24 July 1973, that the building at 9 Grenville Place (by the railway cutting) – ‘recently pulled down’ – was ‘where he wrote Burnt Norton’. Valerie Eliot to the Vice-Chancellor, University of London, 9 July 1985: ‘he wrote the first two of Four Quartets in Grenville Place and Emperor’s Gate’.
2.EHHale, Emilyarrives in England;d3 reached Liverpool on 23 July 1934.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
2.TheodoraSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece) Eliot Smith (1904–92) – ‘Dodo’ – daughter of George Lawrence and Charlotte E. Smith: see Biographical Register. Theodora’sSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece) sister was Charlotte Stearns Smith (b. 1911), known as ‘Chardy’.