[c/o Messrs Thomas Cook & Son Ltd., Rome, Italy]
ThisFaber, Geoffrey;d2 afternoontravels, trips and plansTSE's invitation to Finland;b7palmed off on Robert Nichols;a1 was largely taken with (1) conversations with Geoffrey and between Geoffrey and the Foreign Office on the telephone. ItKalevala, Theanniversary celebrations for;a1 appears that the Finns are about to celebrate, week after next, the something-hundredth anniversary of the composition of their national epic, the Kalavala;1 that some man of letters has to be sent over to represent Britain at the expense of the Finnish Government; thatMasefield, Johndeclines role in Kalevala celebrations;a2 MasefieldBinyon, Laurenceliving TSE's dream in Cairo;a1 had declined and Binyon is filling the job which was offered me in Cairo; and that the Foreign Office people had thought of me. IMorley, Frank Vigorencourages TSE to go to Finland;d7 said I was much too busy, but Geoffrey and Frank were very anxious that I should accept: but finally it appeared that the Superior at the Foreign Office – IVansittart, Sir Robertand TSE's invitation to Finland;a1 suppose Vansittart2 or Wellesley3 – had decided that it was necessary to send a British-born person, else the Morning Post would make trouble; soNichols, Robertsubstituted for TSE in Finland;a1 they are asking Robert Nichols. Well I suppose it is all for the best; because I really have not the time – but it would have been fun to have a twelve days holiday at the expense of Finland and be royally entertained in Helsinki: If I had accepted I should have been worrying all the time about my play, and if I had declined I should have been very peevish at not going. (2) DooneMurder in the CathedralTSE on writing;a4 came in and I read him the second version of Act I, which on the whole he agrees to, but there are a number of minor improvements to be made, and I see Act II is going to be more of a problem than I anticipated: it has got to move, as Act I doesn’t. Still, I am within sight of completing Act I.
I have no expectation of its being a good play; I don’t want it to be a flat failure. I shall be depressed if the audience doesn’t like it; but not very much exalted if it does. I only want it to be successful enough to make it possible for me to go on and write another; if I can keep afloat I may learn enough to write a fairly good play in ten years time. Butwritingand the necessity for reinvention;b3 I do think that it is good for a writer to chuck everything overboard every so often and start afresh on something which may fail completely, instead of going on doing the sort of thing which he knows people will take from him. AtChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1theatre a lesson in;c6 any rate, to start on the theatre now is a good and painful lesson in humility; because one knows that dramatic skill will put over a very poor text, whereas the most beautiful poetry will do nothing for a play which is dramatically dull. The things that I know I can do are all secondary for the present purpose.
StillMurder in the Cathedraluncertainties over title;a6 completely without ideas for a TITLE. The one to which you so rightly object was partly a legpull (not your leg, but legs immediately at hand), but it does indicate what I need: a title which shall have no smack of the conventional Church Drama, and which should suggest a murder-play thrill, and appeal to all classes of theatre goer and reader.
I have had three nights out: FridayMorleys, thetake TSE to Evelyn Prentice and Laurel & Hardy;d7 dined and went to the pictures with the Morleys – a Myrna Loy murder film, very disappointing,4 but a moderately good Laurel & Hardy after it; SaturdayBelgion, Montgomeryand Charles Williams dine with TSE;a6 gaveWilliams, Charles;a1 a return dinner to Belgion and Charles Williams;5 onHayward, Johnand TSE play a prank on guests;c6 SundayRead, Herbertand his old ladies object of TSE and JDH's practical jokes;b2 night went to help John Hayward entertain Herbert Read and his ladies – Ludo, Ludo’s sister Mamie (German Jewesses from Aberdeen) and their very German Nordic fat ladies’ help Munze, a suet pudding blonde in spectacles.6 We did not make a striking success of it. The demon sugar lumps, each containing a small rubber fish which rises to the surface of the coffee, causing much amusement, passed off pleasantly enough; but the chocolate sweets which I had bought on the supposition that they contained sawdust, proved to contain soap; so that the ladies retired for ten minutes to the bathroom, and sewed up the sleeve of my overcoat. And then we both forgot all about the Indoor Fireworks that I had provided, until the last moment, and Ludo (whose real name is Margaret Ludwig) was much offended by a remark which I had made quite innocently; and we felt that an exhausting evening had been wasted.7
This is the last letter I shall write to Rome. Hereafter to the Pestilent Villa;8 andCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin)saga of unsettled debts;a8 as soon as you have left Rome I shall write an ultimatum to Marguerite, saying that I have advised the tradesman in question to put the matter in the hands of his lawyers, and breaking off relations until satisfaction is given etc. but not in quite the same style as to Rebecca (by the way, I have just come across a book, it has in inscription
———————To T. S. Eliot
I shall hope for better news of your health. Whendogswish to buy EH dog reaffirmed;a8 you get back I want to pursue conversations with you about a Dog. I wish I could think that this year was doing great things for your constitution. Dotravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE coordinating with EH's return;c8 you come to London, or to Campden, and then back to France; or don’t you return until after your Easter tour?
Photographs posted to you c/o Cooks, Rome, on Friday last. Any you really dislike please let me have back when you return, as they can be worked off on nieces etc.
1.The Kalevala (first published in 1835), by the physician, botanist and poet Elias Lönnrot, is regarded as the Finnish national epic.
2.SirVansittart, Sir Robert Robert Vansittart (1881–1957), diplomat and author: see Biographical Register.
3.Sir Victor Wellesley (1876–1954), diplomat; Deputy Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Office, 1925–36.
4.Evelyn Prentice (dir. William K. Howard, 1934), starring Myrna Loy and William Powell.
5.CharlesWilliams, Charles Williams (1886–1945), novelist, poet, playwright, writer on religion and theology; biographer; member of the Inklings: see Biographical Register.
6.‘Eliot threw a party for Herbert and Ludo, her sister Maymay and her old friend Munza’ (Caroline Maclean, Circles and Squares: The Lives and Art of the Hampstead Modernists [2020], 131).
7.TSEWoolf, Virginiarecounts TSE's practical jokes;b5n retailed the story for months. Virginia Woolf noted, 20 June 1915: ‘Tom last night: supple & subtle, simple & charming […] A story about a party to entertain the Reads, Ludo [Margaret Ludwig ‘Ludo’ Read (1905–96)] & her sister & German friend. Tom bought fireworks; sugar that dissolved & let out small fish; & chocolates that he thought were full of sawdust. “They[']re very greedy,” he said; “And by a mistake the chocolates were full of soap. They set on me … And it was not a success. So much so that I forgot the fireworks, until they were going. I then let them off on the doorstep. And poor Herbert had to pay for a cab from Bina Gardens to Hampstead.” This was very amusing, & not as stiff as usual’ (Diary 4, 324).
8.EH was staying at the Villa Pestillini, 32 via della Piazzola, Firenze, Italy.
9.Not identified: not in TSE Library.
4.MontgomeryBelgion, Montgomery (‘Monty’) Belgion (1892–1973), author and journalist: see Biographical Register.
4.LaurenceBinyon, Laurence Binyon, CH (1869–1943), Keeper of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 1932–3; translator of Dante. In 1933 he succeeded TSE as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard. John Hatcher, Laurence Binyon: Poet, Scholar of East and West (1995).
4.MargueriteCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin) Caetani, née Chapin (1880–1963) – Princesse di Bassiano – literary patron and editor: see Biographical Register. LéliaCaetani, Lélia Caetani (1913–77), sole daughter, was to marry Hubert Howard (1908–87), a scion of the English Catholic House of Howard, who worked to preserve the Caetani heritage at Rome and at the castle of Sermoneta.
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.
1.RobertNichols, Robert Nichols (1893–1944), writer; war poet; author of Wings Over Europe (play, 1928).
3.Herbert ReadRead, Herbert (1893–1968), English poet and literary critic: see Biographical Register.
2.SirVansittart, Sir Robert Robert Vansittart (1881–1957), diplomat and author: see Biographical Register.
5.CharlesWilliams, Charles Williams (1886–1945), novelist, poet, playwright, writer on religion and theology; biographer; member of the Inklings: see Biographical Register.
1.VirginiaWoolf, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), novelist, essayist and critic: see Biographical Register.