[No surviving envelope]
I am beginning to be rather worried, having heard from you from Rome only once; and as I have said again and again, I don’t expect letters especially when anyone is travelling BUT a postcard as from Swanage would occasionally relieve my anxiety (even without any words on it, better than none). I wonder whether you are at the same hotel, and what you are doing in Rome, and how you feel about things, and whether you have seen Marguerite, and primarily whether you have got malaria or something. Not that it’s any good worrying. But it is difficult to be in the mood to write long rambling letters when one doesn’t know. AndHale, Emilybirthdays, presents and love-tokens;w2EH's present to TSE goes amiss;b6 the present has never turned up: I find in one of your letters you speak as if you had left it at the door yourself: if so, to whom did you give it? Meanwhile9 Grenville Place, Londontea-party for Perkinses at;a7 I languish, and the pleasure of playing practical jokes on the curates has worn off. ITime & TideTSE's contributions prove controversial;a4 have been very busy fortunately – myMilne, Alan Alexander ('A. A.')controversy with TSE over pacifism;a1 Notes in ‘Time and Tide’ seem to be a success, because in this week’s issue there are two and a half pages of abusive letters about them1 – all quite simple to deal with, but it takes time – andShakespeare Association CouncilTSE lectures to;a2 I must write on Shakespeare and the Modern Stage over the weekend;2 andOrage, A. R.speech at dinner honouring;a5 I have to attend the Orage Society dinner next week and they want me to speak afterwards, andChurch Literature AssociationTSE reports on Book Committee to;a2 the following week talk about the work of the Book Committee at the General Meeting of the Church Literature Association. I have just finished with the dentist, that’s one good thing have had my frayed front tooth repaired at last – and the dentist says my teeth have deteriorated less than in any similar period in his memory, which indicates that my general health has been better, andappearance (TSE's)baldness;b6in retreat;b1 my hairdresser says my bald spot is now smaller than a shilling and the shilling, he says, has hair on it. HairdresserJoyce, JamesTSE's hairdresser asks after;c2 interested in James Joyce and wants news of Joyce’s health. IMurder in the CathedralTSE on writing;a4 have written five pages of my play. I suspect that the choruses will be better than the dialogue; I have just got to a sort of Herald announcing the return of Becket to Canterbury after seven years absence; and by day after tomorrow Becket will have arrived and I shall have to think of something for him to say; but my dialogue seems depressingly pedestrian. MyShakespeare, Williamwriting Murder increases TSE's admiration for;a3 admiration for Shakespeare increases, but that doesn’t help. TheDobrées, the;a4 Dobrées have been in town until yesterday and I dined with them; amongDobrées, the;a5 those of my friends whom you have not met I think I should like you to meet them especially. IDobrée, ValentineTSE now easier with;a2 feel much more at ease with Valentine than I did; they both belong to one’s own class, which not everyone does; and they are so earnestly public-spirited. I CANT write at any great length, or more seriously until I have a POSTCARD from you.
1.TSE, ‘Notes on the Way’, Time & Tide 16: 1 (5 Jan. 1935), 6–7; ‘Notes on the Way’, 16: 2 (12 Jan. 1935), 33–4; ‘Notes on the Way’, 16: 3 (19 Jan. 1935), 88–90. TSE’s criticism of A. A. Milne’s anti-war tract Peace with Honour provoked much correspondence: see Letters 7.
2.TSE to Virginia Woolf, 6 Jan. 1935: ‘I wish you would tell me what to say to the Shakespeare Association on Jan. 27th about Shakespeare and the Modern Stage: it seemed to me a catchy sort of title when I was asked what I would talk about, but I can’t think of anything to say.’
3.ValentineDobrée, Valentine Dobrée (1894–1974) – née Gladys May Mabel Brooke-Pechell, daughter of Sir Augustus Brooke-Pechell, 7th Baronet – was a well-regarded artist, novelist and short story writer. In addition to Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind (Knopf, 1927), she published one further novel, The Emperor’s Tigers (F&F, 1929); a collection of stories, To Blush Unseen (1935); and a volume of verse, This Green Tide (F&F, 1965). She married Bonamy Dobrée in 1913. See further Valentine Dobrée 1894–1974 (University Gallery Leeds, 2000); and Fifty Works by Fifty British Women Artists 1900– 1950, ed. Sacha Llewellyn (2018), 85.
1.JamesJoyce, James Joyce (1882–1941), Irish novelist, playwright, poet; author of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegans Wake (1939).
7.A. R. OrageOrage, A. R. (1873–1934), owner-editor of the socialist and literary paper New Age, 1907–24; founder of the New English Weekly, 1932; disciple of G. I. Gurdjieff; proponent of C. H. Douglas’s Social Credit. See further Mairet, A. R. Orage: A Memoir (1936).