[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
Your letter of April 1st is a great delight to me – but each one that comes renders my happiness more substantial. For this letter, however, I can give three incidental reasons. First, I am happy to think that you have faults, or at least that you think you have faults – it would make me rather lonely to think that you were quite flawless, though the faults you indicate sound very vague and inchoate contrasted with my own. I should almost like to think that you occasionally Bust Out, and scratched people’s faces, my Lamb, and threw objects about the room – I am not, however, aiming to lead you into temptation, as I couldn’t anyway; and if you have Ill Humours to vent, then vent them on me, who am the worthiest object. But I think that your troubles with yourself are just those of any person of exceptional sensibility, emotional power, and intelligence, confined in too narrow an environment for their powers.
And secondly, IHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9and TSE's desire for intimacies;a9 am always happy to have you let me enter a little farther into the intimacies of any and all of your sorrows. I have always known you to be a proud and reserved person, who would never ask for or even tolerate pity from the outside world, and would keep your troubles to yourself. I don’t accuse you of adopting exactly that attitude towards me, lately; but I have felt that in your anxiety to spare me, and in your always putting the troubles of others before your own, you have been rather reticent. In the very fundamentals, my situation is at worst not a bit more unhappy or strained than your own, and in some ways is better – however, it will be a greater help to me if we may consider ourselves, in future, on a parity in these respects. And you will come to realise, I hope, that it is strengthening and steadying to me, to have you, if you will, even figuratively, have a good Cry on my shoulder. I have always wanted to be depended upon for things like that, which no one has ever depended upon me for, and it is something that I need and crave for my own sake.
HereSayers, Michael;a1 I must break off for half an hour to interview a young man who can’t get on with his family and wants in desperation to emigrate to South Africa …1
… He is not going to South Africa at present, as his father is putting him into a solicitor’s office; but the trouble is that he doesn’t want to live at home and can’t afford not to. He says his father plays the wireless set all the evening, and he can’t begin to think till eleven, and admitted that he read in bed (The Confessions of St. Augustine was the book) until three in the morning – he looked it. I sometimes wonder with some of these young people whether it is really a kindness or not to encourage them.
NowHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7Edith Sitwellesque photograph;a2, madam: I was thrilled to have even a snapshot of you, and that was another reason why this letter made me happy. The portrait is of course a LIBEL – I can say this firmly as by your own admission it was taken the day after I saw you, so I cannot be deceived – but I should like to have a copy of every photograph that has ever been taken of you in your life. TheSitwell, EdithTSE likens EH's portrait to;a1 odd thing is that though it does you much injustice it is the Image of Edith Sitwell2 – anyone would think it was she – some would consider it not unflattering a comparison, as Edith is considered one of the handsomest women in London, and is, and was pourtrayed [sic] not long ago in ‘The Book of British Beauty’;3 but I do not consider it flattering to you to compare you with anyone. It is more like you if I look at it out of the corner of my eye, and just catch a particular aristocratic distinction that I identify. But I Hope the proper portrait will come soon.
Thank you for telling me about Richards’ talk.4 EvidentlyUniversity of Cambridgeand I. A. Richards;a1 he has not got the swing of things yet, for the manner which holds the undergraduates of Cambridge (Eng.) spellbound didn’t seem to come off ! HeRichards, Ivor Armstrong ('I. A.')in TSE's assessment;a3 is very much the Don, though he would hate to be told so; and very much the Don of Cambridge (Eng.) though he would hate still more to be told that. There is something a little desiccated and overintellectualised [sic] about him but he is a good fellow, though his theorising becomes too technical for its own good. Remember that he does not know so much about me as you do, and don’t be too hard on his opinions. IHinkley, Susan Heywood (TSE's aunt, née Stearns)reports on I. A. Richards;a2 heard from Aunt Susie that he was to meet the Wolcotts – which seemed to me perfectly incongruous – no one cares less about Fashion – if they are Fashion – than he does however, [sic] it will help to document him about Boston. I await your comments on the teaparty with anticipations of amusement. ByHinkleys, the;a2 the way, I understand that the Hinkleys are coming here in the autumn.
Now I must stop for lunch at the club – and will write again before the end of the week and include a short chronicle of this week and the last.
Je te prie d’agréer l’expression de ma vive reconnaissance, et je t’envoie ci-inclus un bon baiser respectueux.5
1.MichaelSayers, Michael Sayers (1911–2010), Dublin-born writer of Jewish Lithuanian ancestry, had been taught French at Trinity College, Dublin, by Samuel Beckett. In the 1930s he was drama critic of the New English Weekly and, for a time, shared a flat in Kilburn, London, with George Orwell and Rayner Heppenstall. Some of his stories were included in Best British Short Stories, ed. Edward O’Brien; but in 1936 he left London for New York, where he worked as dramaturge for the designer and producer Norman Bel Geddes. During WW2 his interests pursued a pro-communist direction, for which he was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (having until that time enjoyed success as a writer for NBC Television). In later years he wrote plays for the BBC, and contributed episodes to TV series including Robin Hood and Ivanhoe. He worked too on the screenplay of Casino Royale (1967).
2.EdithSitwell, Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), poet, biographer, anthologist, novelist: see Biographical Register.
3.Cecil Beaton, The Book of Beauty (1930).
4.Richards had recently published Practical Criticism (1929), and at Harvard in 1931 pursued further experiments by putting unseen, undated passages before his lecture audiences. Perhaps EH had attended such a lecture and found it less than inspiring: Richards was otherwise widely thought – as by his sometime pupil William Empson – to be a spellbinding lecturer. See John Paul Russo, I. A. Richards: His Life and Work (1989), 296.
5.‘Please accept my deep gratitude, and I send herewith a good, respectful kiss.’
4.I. A. RichardsRichards, Ivor Armstrong ('I. A.') (1893–1979), theorist of literature, education and communication studies: see Biographical Register.
1.MichaelSayers, Michael Sayers (1911–2010), Dublin-born writer of Jewish Lithuanian ancestry, had been taught French at Trinity College, Dublin, by Samuel Beckett. In the 1930s he was drama critic of the New English Weekly and, for a time, shared a flat in Kilburn, London, with George Orwell and Rayner Heppenstall. Some of his stories were included in Best British Short Stories, ed. Edward O’Brien; but in 1936 he left London for New York, where he worked as dramaturge for the designer and producer Norman Bel Geddes. During WW2 his interests pursued a pro-communist direction, for which he was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (having until that time enjoyed success as a writer for NBC Television). In later years he wrote plays for the BBC, and contributed episodes to TV series including Robin Hood and Ivanhoe. He worked too on the screenplay of Casino Royale (1967).
2.EdithSitwell, Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), poet, biographer, anthologist, novelist: see Biographical Register.