[No surviving envelope]
It was not exactly a surprise, nor had I been fidgeting because you had not written before; but if I had not heard from you before leaving for Sussex I should have been both upset and somewhat anxious. Totravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE's July 1935 Campden week;e1 arrive at Campden without having heard from you for a week would require a certain amount of courage. IMcPherrin, Jeanettenot to be mentioned at Campden;c9 am grieved to read your warning against mentioning Jean; I had hoped that things were better. But VAST experience supports self-control, and I think I may be depended upon.
IGeorge, Robert Esmonde Gordon ('Robert Sencourt')and Stead visit Campden;c4 enclose a rather irritatingly vague letter from Robert1 – his handwriting is also irritating – I presume he expects us to hold Tuesday open, but we need not. And certainly no other day, as they are so full: and especially the day that you have saved for me. IMorleys, the;e7 wrote to Mrs. Perkins mentioning my defeat by the Morleys – it is chiefly because they want to get away from Wales early. Am I not fortunate in having my visit docked at both ends? Whatever one arranges far in advance, unless it is the thing one particularly wants to do, manages to conflict with something one wants more.
IOld Possum’s Book of Practical Cats'The Naming of Cats';e4 enclose a letter which I received, with a lavender bag, after my visit to Hampton. So I shall have to try to compose a Poem.2 IHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7Diana Mannersesque;c4 do NOT admire your two snapshots, and I shall try to do better with my Kodak. They are like wooden portraits carved of you by someone with a certain native talent but no skill and little sensibility. Just the outline without expression, soul, or animation: they might be Diana Manners or half a dozen women. They are not good enough to enlarge, no. I want you to observe that I can feel quite as positively about portraits as you do: but this does not mean that you will get them back.
A busy week – the latter part of July always is, with having to see people just leaving London, and foreign and American visitors just arriving. DinnerMcKnight Kauffers, the;a4 withShakespear, Olivia;a5 thePound, Dorothy Shakespear;a3 Kauffers, thenBussys, the;a4 with the Bussys, then an evening call on Olivia Shakespear and Dorothy Pound. Tea at Otto’s3 yesterday. I am glad to get away. IFabers, thefor which the children are bought tent;c6 have bought a tent for the Faber children, and hope tomorrow or more likely Monday to buy a small present for You. OUnderhill, Evelynsherry-party chez;b4 yes, among others, a farewell sherry party at Evelyn Underhill’s before their annual holiday in Norway.
With impatience, until the 4.45 on Monday
The all-day walk is very exacting, W.P.& D.V.
1.Robert Sencourt wrote from Prinknash Priory, Gloucester, where he had gone in a hurry, having failed to respond to Mrs Perkins’s invitation – and not knowing her address at Chipping Campden – to request TSE to tell Mrs P. that he would be ‘delighted’ to visit her.
2.TheTandy, Alisonthanks TSE;a1n ‘letter’, written by Alison Tandy, read simply: ‘FROM THE LAVENDER FAIRY TO BRER POSSUM.’
InOld Possum’s Book of Practical Cats'The Naming of Cats';e4 JanTandy, Alisonand 'The Naming of Cats';a2n. 1936 TSE was to send Alison a copy of ‘The Naming of Cats’, with these additional lines:
Now that’s what my friend, the Man in White Spats,
Has asked me to tell you, about names of Cats.
I don’t know myself, so I will not endorse it,
For what [sic] true in Yorks may be falsehood in Dorset.
He may be quite right and he may be quite wrong,
But for what it is worth, I will pass it along.
And about Cats I says, if you knows ’em you knows ’em:
With the humble respects of the
—————————————LAVENDER POSSUM
AFaber, Thomas Erle ('Tom', TSE's godson)and 'The Naming of Cats';a5b variant, signed ‘Uncle Tom’, was posted at the same date to his godson Tom Faber: see Poems II, 55–6.
3.Ottoline Morrell’s.
4.ThomasFaber, Thomas Erle ('Tom', TSE's godson) Erle Faber (1927–2004), TSE’s godson and principal dedicatee of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, was to become a physicist, teaching at Cambridge, first at Trinity, then for fifty years at Corpus Christi. He served too as chairman of the Geoffrey Faber holding company.
3.RobertGeorge, Robert Esmonde Gordon ('Robert Sencourt') Esmonde Gordon George – Robert Sencourt (1890–1969) – critic, historian, biographer: see Biographical Register.
2.JeanetteMcPherrin, Jeanette McPherrin (1911–92), postgraduate student at Scripps College; friend of EH: see Biographical Register.
4.DorothyPound, Dorothy Shakespear Shakespear Pound (1886–1973), artist and book illustrator, married Ezra Pound (whom she met in 1908) in 1914: 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.
1.EvelynUnderhill, Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941), spiritual director and writer on mysticism and the spiritual life: see Biographical Register.