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FirstEnglandChipping Campden, Gloucestershire;e1TSE's first weekend at;a3 oftravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE's initial weekend at Chipping Campden;a6 all, I have been wondering and shall continue to wonder, to what degree my visit was fatiguing for you. Both in going without sleep by getting up early, and in taking walks, and getting wet, and nervously. I don’t expect you to tell me, first because I don’t believe you can – you would probably pretend to yourself that it was not fatiguing at all.
SecondPerkinses, theas Chipping Campden hosts;e6 I should like to put into words if I could, my appreciation of the tact and gentleness of everyone towards me. (As a minor point, I am not unaware of the trouble given by a guest into a recently established household, and the delicacy with which it was concealed). I felt a very lovely atmosphere, and a rare one.
As for myself (antiphonally to paragraph one), there was very great strain, and very great pain, and delight, and also a gentle quiet happiness in it – and a memorable experience – and something which marks a stage. Does the sum of all that convey the impression that it did me a world of good? It should. Of course I slept very badly, but that didn’t matter.
ToHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2a pain of sorts;b2 tryHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2clarified and strengthened by Chipping Campden reunion;c7 to analyse the difference from anything before: I was better able to see you, objectively, and to see my own feelings objectively. Such a sentence would ordinarily be taken to mean that one felt nothing so acutely, but it was quite the contrary. To separate ones feelings and the object in that way means rather a new assurance that neither is illusory. I am daring to say that you seemed to me more beautiful than ever before – just as somebody who would be that, whether I felt it or not. (AsHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7her Praxitelean nose;b4 a minor point, I hope I may be forgiven for remarking what a very perfect nose you have, with the wide base which is hardly found except in some Greek heads, and so beautifully moulded to the shape of the eyes that one does not know whether to admire more the shape when half closed under the eyelid or the colour and expression when open). But especially I was aware of a strong and positive, I might even say dominating personality – of which you are I am sure quite aware, for the really dominating people (to the sensitive observer) are those who dominate while they are being self-effacing and thinking only of others.
As for my own feelings, it seemed as if they were stronger and more intense than ever before – which in a way made matters easier – because when they reach that point nothing can express them, and therefore there is no having to control oneself, on that plane. They are merely so keen that one wonders that one goes on living, that there is anything in one so obtuse and stout as to be able to survive.
There. Quite likely I have said things I should not have said, and the kindest thing you can do is to ignore them. But I did suddenly see myself, more clearly than before, as something that you had made – not by any means consciously or deliberately, of course. I may be wrong – but yours is the only personality of which I have been conscious as more powerful than my own.
To come down again! so far I have been, here as in California, your debtor and beggar, always a guest – one reason why I hope you will be spending at least a little time in London, where I may try to be, in a small way, the host. My plans for October will be contingent upon whether you stay on at Campden, or come to town. In any case I hope you will not be departing abruptly from Gloucestershire to Portugal.
Itravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE books rooms in Lechlade;a7 have engaged the rooms at Lechlade from the 9th for a week. So I may be writing to propose three pilgrims to Campden (Chipping), I warn you.
I was aware of my selfconsciousness by being haunted by the feeling that I was recounting anecdotes for the second time. Were there many you had heard before?
9, Grenville Place, Sou’ Ken’, S.W.7 is really the best address, esp. as the club closes for September, & letters might go astray between the United Universities and the Travellers’.