[No surviving envelope]
Thank you for your letter of the 28th which came this morning. I did prefer to hear something from you before I came – even though there seems to me to be a slight dampness in the atmosphere – weHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as perpetual progress and revelation;c1 do know each other better in a way, but every advance in knowledge should be an opening of vistas (if you will accept such a worn phrase) of what there is still to know – I have progressed in knowledge by becoming more clearly aware of the depths of my own ignorance. But every moment of time makes some difference, and nothing can be predicted. I remain fearful of misunderstanding on both sides. PerhapsEnglandthe English;c1;b4 I am more aware of this than most people, having led such a split life – I understand English people much better in some ways than Americans in others, butEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)accuses TSE of wrath;c1 I was rather dumbfounded when my brother wrote to say that I was a ‘vessel of wrath’ because I had referred to Sir John Eliot as a scoundrel.1 Let us believe that there is greater understanding, without thinking too much about it, so as to be prepared for more still. I think I am coming to distinguish more sharply between what I want absolutely, and what I want in the circumstances.
I will be a good guest. ButMorleys, theand certain 'bathers' photographs';c7 please, unless you have done so already, DESTROY INSTANTLY the bathers’ photographs. Me and my friends are respectable people and not hikers & sunbathers, and not be treated with contumely. Besides, Christina was not pleased with her picture, because it looked as if she was coming a flop, and she is a very good diver. Speakingsmokingcigarettes versus gaspers;a8 of respectability, I have sent you some respectable cigarettes, because I don’t like the smell of gaspers.2
Understanding, and belief in one’s own understanding, may alter; but please believe that my feelings never alter.
I shall not bring my shorts, although they have just come back from the wash. And if you object to tennisshirts, will you say so? I shall be provided with others.
1.TSEEliot, Sir John (TSE's ancestor)his legacy contested;a1 to Henry Eliot, 20 June 1934 (Letters 7, 242–4): ‘I think there are a few omissions [in the family tree] – there were two Rev. Andrew Eliots in succession, one during the Revolution – and wasn’t Uncle Oliver Stearns, Dean of the Divinity School, a parson? […] The relationship with Sir John Eliot (who was a scoundrel) is shown in a Genealogy of the Eliot Family by Walter Graeme Eliot of New York.’ Henry responded, 7 July: ‘As for poor old Sir John Eliot, I should judge him sufficiently punished by his imprisonment and consequent death (of t.b., wasn’t it?) at the hand of Charles I. What a vessel of wrath you must be to conserve all this anger against your scoundrels and your damned!’ Romans 9: 22–4: ‘What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his on the vessels of mercy, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?’ See too W. Somerset Maugham’s short story ‘The Vessel of Wrath’ (Apr. 1931).
2.Gaspers: cheap, high-tar cigarettes. P. G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters (1938): ‘A thought struck me, so revolting that I nearly dropped my gasper.’
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.