[Villa Pestillini, 32 via della Piazzola, Firenze]
Yourtravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE coordinating with EH's return;c8 letter of the 24th this morning was a very pleasant surprise, as I have not expected to hear until you were more settled. You say you sail from Villefranche on April 2nd, but don’t say how long you are to be in Florence; so I hope you will give me warning in due time to stop writing there. You say several things which need a reply. FirstMurder in the Cathedraluncertainties over title;a6, yourPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle)suggests title for Murder;b4 uncle’s title is a good one, without the ‘Becket’1 – I want to get quite away from Tennyson’s title. AtMurder in the Cathedralcurrently 'Fear in the Way';a7 the moment, however, I am trying out on people ‘Fear In The Way’. What do you think of that? It suggests a thriller, and the sentence in Ecclesiastes
They shall be afraid of that which is high,
and fears shall be in the way—[Ecc. 12: 5]
does represent the attitude of my chorus. IMurder in the CathedralTSE on writing;a4 am having a great effort to start actual writing of Act II; once started I hope it will move. WellMilne, Alan Alexander ('A. A.')controversy with TSE over pacifism;a1, I find I have left my last (and I hope final) letter to Mr. Milne at the office, and will send it separately; I think you will be able to consider that moderate enough! By the time I had got to the flypaper (like a cat in flypaper, was the words) I had come to feel that any understanding was impossible.2 NowRay, Manwhich are damned by EH;a3 for the photographs, there were two I knew you would not like, but one I considered rather good; and I am rather taken aback to find them all so utterly damned! It is indeed alarming, as perhaps they are good likenesses, and perhaps you will find on your return that your confidential adjectives will be destined for the sitter, not for the photograph. Yes, it is more than disconcerting.
I am relieved to have better news about the sleeping. Certainly you should spend a day in bed now and again, and don’t forget it. ICaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin)and EH's trip to Rome;b2 am glad you have seen Marguerite again, and like her; butCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin)saga of unsettled debts;a8 it has made all the more painful having to write to her. It really has upset me a good deal, this unhappy business: but when a person has written three times to a bookseller promising to pay in small instalments – £5 a month would have contented him – and each time has broken the promise after a month, without a word of apology, what is one to do?
I have not much to report of myself. TomorrowPivot ClubTSE gives poetry reading for;a1 nightFogerty, ElsieTSE gives poetry-reading to oblige;a5 I have to give a poetry reading to the Pivot Club, which is composed of graduates of Miss Fogerty’s school3 – you see the obligation, I have refused all other speaking engagements. YesterdayManning, Frederichis funeral;a3 I had to spend the morning at Fred Manning’s funeral. I had not known he was ill until the day before, whenDavies, Peter Llewelynat Fred Manning's funeral;a3 Peter Davies (‘Peter Pan’) rang me up. The funeral was at the Jesuit Church at Farm Street. Manning had hardly any close friends, and they were people who did not know each other, so some probably did not know in time: There were besides the mother and sisters, hardlyShakespear, Oliviaat Fred Manning's funeral;a3 anyoneRothenstein, Sir Williamat Fred Manning's funeral;a7 except Mrs. Shakespeare, Will & Lady Rothenstein, and Peter Davies. Manning was an Australian, a pathetic brilliant fellow, whose life was largely wasted.4 Afterwards I squeezed into a car with the Rothenstein’s and Davies, and went out to Kensal Green Cemetary [sic], one of the most hideous graveyards imaginable. The scene at the grave was very painful, as old Lady Manning (she is 87) broke down completely and several times I thought she was going to jump into the grave.5
IFaber, GeoffreyTimes articles on Newman;d3 enclose two articles from the Times by Geoffrey Faber, which might interest your uncle if he has not seen them.6
IScripps College, Claremontrefuses EH's return;e6 am sorry, but I cannot help being upset and indignant about the Scripps business. What is Jaqua’s motive, or rather whose motives are behind him? Who is Mr. Lange? And I suppose that it is now too late to get anything for next year elsewhere? I did not want you to have to accustom yourself to a new place, next year; althoughAmericaCalifornia;d3land of earthquakes;a7 the fear of earthquakes alone was enough for me to want you out of California. Oh dear Oh dear. I am not going to try to say anything to comfort you, because at the moment I don’t feel any comfort. I won’t say any more about it, therefore, at the moment.
TheDane, Barbara (née Welch, later Sturtevant)horror story connected with;a2 lastHinkleys, thefamily drama of Dane babies;d5 that I heard of (I rarely hear from) the Hinkleys was that someone had been threatening to kidnap one of the Dane babies,7 and the house was guarded by private detectives.
ThankHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7among young people;c2 you for the little photograph – on which I have no unflattering remarks to make – it is good to see you sitting out of doors at table and apparently among youngish people; and a little glimpse now and then does give me a real thrill. Is that one of the new hats?
1.Dr Perkins suggested ‘The Canterbury Tragedy’, in a letter to TSE, 22 Feb. 1935.
2.See TSE to the editor, Time & Tide 16: 6 (9 February 1935), 191. ‘Mr Milne continues to involve himself, like a cat in fly paper, in comparisons or analogies which he cannot control.’
3.Pivot Club (Pres. Elsie Fogerty): Social Club of the Central School of Speech and Drama.
4.Cf. East Coker:
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years –
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres
5.Manning died in Hampstead on 22 Feb. 1935 and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery on 26 Feb.
6.Presumably ‘Fresh Light on Newman’, The Times, 25 and 26 Feb. 1935.
7.The children of Ernest B. Dane, Jr. and TSE’s cousin Barbara (Welch) Hinkley.
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.
1.PeterDavies, Peter Llewelyn Llewelyn Davies (1897–1960) felt plagued for life after being identified by J. M. Barrie as the original of Peter Pan. After dreadful and distinguished war service, for which he was awarded the Military Cross, in 1926 he founded the publishing house Peter Davies Ltd. – he published his cousin Daphne du Maurier’s volume about her renowned grandfather, The Young George du Maurier, letters 1860–1867 (1951). See Andrew Birkin, J. M. Barrie & the Lost Boys (1979); Finding Neverland (film, 2004); John Logan, Peter and Alice (play, 2013).
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
2.ElsieFogerty, Elsie Fogerty, CBE, LRAM (1865–1945), teacher of elocution and drama training; founder in 1906 of the Central School of Speech and Drama (Laurence Olivier and Peggy Ashcroft were favourite pupils). Fogerty was to train the chorus for the Canterbury premiere in 1935 of TSE’s Murder in the Cathedral.
5.FredericManning, Frederic Manning (1882–1935), Australian writer: see Biographical Register.
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
1.ManRay, Man Ray (1890–1976), pioneering photographer and artist; born Emmanuel Rodnitsky, the son of a Russian-Jewish tailor who had settled in Philadelphia. He grew up in New York, where even as a teenager he adopted his redolent pseudonym, and fell under the influence of Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291 on Fifth Avenue. He became one of the leaders of Dadaism and Surrealism. For most of his adult life he lived in Paris, where he built his reputation as an experimental photographer; he also made notable contributions to film.
5.SirRothenstein, Sir William William Rothenstein (1872–1945), artist and administrator: see Biographical Register.
6.OliviaShakespear, Olivia Shakespear (1863–1938), novelist and playwright; mother of Dorothy Pound, made an unhappy marriage in 1885 with Henry Hope Shakespear (1849–1923), a solicitor. She published novels including Love on a Mortal Lease (1894) and The Devotees (1904). Through a cousin, the poet Lionel Johnson (1867–1902), she arranged a meeting with W. B. Yeats, which resulted in a brief affair and a lifetime’s friendship. Yeats wrote at least two poems for her, and she was the ‘Diana Vernon’ of his Memoirs (ed. Denis Donoghue, 1972). See Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1909–1914, ed. Omar S. Pound and A. Walton Litz (1984), 356–7.