[No surviving envelope]
IEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)1934 summer in England with Dodo;c5off to Salisbury;a7 sawSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)and Marion's 1934 visit to England;b1visit to Salisbury;a8 my family off on the Swindon bus this morning, en route for Salisbury, and then entrained for London. I must say that it is a relief to be back and to be alone tonight with my typewriter. My note was the barest acknowledgement, but my brain simply does not work properly when I have to spell every word out by hand; and as I gathered that you would be engaged with guests, and then away for a couple of days, I thought that a delayed reply to your letter of the 12th might even be better.
It was kind of you to suggest that my sister and niece might like a few days at Campden. But I felt that they had had enough of the country, in proportion to their length of visit. My chief object had been to give Marian a week of quiet country, as I feared that Dodo might be inclined to lead her to overdo; and this was accomplished. WeEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)1934 summer in England with Dodo;c5walks to Kelmscott;a8 hadSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)and Marion's 1934 visit to England;b1walk with TSE to Kelmscott;a9 walked to Kelmscot [sc. Kelmscott], which proved to be longer and hotter than it should have been; so yesterday I took Dodo off to Northleach and left Marian to sit in the garden.
IHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2TSE initially relieved to find unrequited;d1 don’t know quite where or how to begin. I might as well plunge in and say frankly that after I began writing, four years ago, I did imagine that you were in love with me. I came to a clearer realisation of the facts in the course of correspondence; and I can say that very long before I came to America I had a more correct impression. ButHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9its perceived inequalities;d4 I not only accepted, but welcomed this; so that I am sorry to hear that the ‘inequality’, as you call it, has troubled you. I have been glad of it; and I should have felt much more constrained, as well as much more guilty, if it were not so. Indeed, I can say honestly that I do not want you to love me – in the circumstances: it could only make matters worse for both of us. I am not pretending that my feelings are anything but mixed: I mean that on the balance I realise that I should be more unhappy than I have been. I am puzzled by your remark that you ‘have never known the slightest attention of a man in love’ with you, because it is naturally difficult for me to believe that you have not had many men in love with you – at least up to the point at which you seem not to have been in contact with men at all.
IHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2queered by inexperience;d2 know that I am myself very ‘inexperienced’, in that no one has ever been in love with me; mineEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)marriage to;e6its lessons;a8 is not so much lack of ‘experience’ in general, as of any but abnormal experience of abnormal women. My ‘experience’, such as it is, has only been such as to make matters more difficult for me, and such as not in the least to make it easier for me to understand you, or to express myself freely; for it has ingrained in me two deep feelings (1) that if you expose yourself to anyone you will be hurt and humiliated, and (2) that nobody ever loves one, but only some idea which one happens to represent.
Being happy, in an unhappy way, in this relation which you call unequal, I was the more disconcerted, I confess, by your letter of August 1st and 3d. PleaseChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1TSE criticised for overdoing;c5 do not be offended – but in your last letter you ask me not to be too humble in my attitude – so you cannot have it both ways; but I cannot help wondering whether your attitude has not been too generous and anxious for my benefit? I don’t mean at all any self-deception; IHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9pity and gratitude would corrupt;d5 mean quite literally that your attitude shows your own nobility and unselfishness – but that it verges very closely upon pity (e.g. can I not help him break through to this). In these matters unselfishness seems to me as out of place as selfishness: no one wants to be given anything unless the other person is getting as much in return! And when you say what I stand for – I don’t want you to ‘stand for’ anything but yourself, and I don’t want you to stand for anything to anybody – so long as two people merely ‘stand for’ something to each other they are not in contact, they are merely using each other – I have seen enough of that sort of symbolism. I want to go on worshipping you for what you are, for yourself, just that particular person with particular limitations and faults, and not for anything you ‘represent’ to me. I don’t like to be pitied and I don’t like gratitude. IChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1delusions of;a6 give a penny a day to the local pavement artist; but I don’t feel that I am doing a good deed, I am merely paying him for his job; and I loathe his whining pretense [sic] at gratitude which he has no business to feel.
As for my being too ‘humble’ in my attitude towards you, I am glad, even ‘humbly’ glad! – of any frank criticism from you of my behaviour towards you. I can see that excessive humility towards a person prevents one from giving that person whatever one had to give – which I think is what you mean. I don’t know, indeed, what I have to ‘teach’ you, but I should like to be able to talk freely to you about anything in which I am interested. If I have not fully done so in letters – it is only because (except when talking of intimate matters) I have no one to chatter to, and so have chattered. Please try to see my own limitations: I am not an intellectual, but an emotional.
I suppose this [is] enough for the moment; I am terrified as it is by the possibilities of misunderstanding in what I have already written. IHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9TSE conditionally promises marriage;d6 want to say this again: if I ever am free I shall ask you to marry me – not for your sake but for my own, and quite aware that I shall be asking more than I am offering. But if you then accepted, I should want to be quite sure that it was for your own sake, and not for mine – no generosity or self-sacrifice. Any taint of the latter could only lead to disappointment for both.
You see, I speak from realisation of having deceived myself in the past. IHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2TSE repents of over-prizing;d3 thought once that by giving a devotion which seemed to me rather out of the ordinary, and which (at least as I thought) asked nothing in return, I was making you a present worth having. I think I hoped that you would feel flattered, and the thought of you feeling flattered, flattered me. I now know that such a ‘gift’ is worth nothing, and that the only thing is to go on giving it, knowing that it is worth nothing.
Itravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4and again alone;a9 still don’t understand why it was ‘unworthy’ of me to be afraid to come on the Friday! But as you say it was, I shall come on the Friday the 31st. But is there anything strange about wanting to see a person and yet dreading it, or being terribly happy to see them and yet terribly exhausted by it?
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: 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’.