[No surviving envelope]
I thank you for your NOTE received this morning and I hope that I may also find a LETTER on Monday or so. It was good of you to think of writing so that I should get it before going away for the weekend, because I should have been not impatient, but discontented – I should simply have been thinking that you were being kept so busy entertaining visitors that you had no time – and I should prefer to think of you, as you know, SITTING in the garden after Breakfast. This is not to be a LETTER. I will only remark.
1. whatanti-Semitism;b5 filthy photographs of me. I think the one more turned toward the camera is the less repulsive, because it looks less Jewish. But I don’t want to see either of them again.
2. I have exchanged for a more Practical scent-spray, more bulky and less portable, but with a stopper so you can pack it, only it is not suitable for travelling really. This will keep until I come again unless you come to London first. But is that likely?
3. asHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7are mnemonic aids to TSE;c5 for the pictures of you, I take these only for my own benefit. I should like of course, to take something worthy to be exhibited, and I hope I still may – but primarily they help to fix moments, and you may be sure that they are all perfectly lovely to me, because I have an accurate enough memory to be able to replace the photograph by the original in my mind – and no photograph of you can really be bad. And please realise that I am still more acutely aware than you are, of how far the portraits fall short of the original.
4. BrownesBrownes, the Martin;a5 atGate Theatre, Dublin;a2 Gate theatre Dublin I suppose.
5, IMurder in the Cathedral1936 BBC radio version;d9BBC bid to produce;a1 haveBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)Barbara Burnham production of Murder;a6 beat the B.B.C. up to £30 and I understand from an agent that that is better terms than usual. But nothing may come of it even at that, as I say I must know more about how they propose to do it before I close.
6. SomethingHale, Emilywritings;x4account of communion at Beaulieu;a3 that has been in my mind again and again, yet never when there was an opportunity to speak or write about it. You asked me whether I thought anything could be done with that sketch of yours about the communion at Beaulieu.1 I thought about it and I don’t see what can be done. As it stands, it is an excellently written account of an odd small event – as a record it needs no improvement. But to give it dramatic value or an intensity of tone, it would have to be changed considerably from the truth. The spilling of the wine would have to be made to have an emotional effect on someone – and I don’t see how that could be done without having it be the consecrated wine, or having someone think it was the consecrated wine – and in either case I don’t see how it could be managed with good taste, and without any touch of nastiness or horror. Of course, there must have been an emotional intensity about it of some kind – else you would not have been moved to write about it at some length – I don’t know what this effect upon you was, and I think it is more than likely that you do not know yourself. Of course this odd fact gives the piece a great interest – but an interest unfortunately only for someone who knows the writer – I do not mean someone who wants to please the writer, or who is inclined to think that anything the writer does is something remarkable – but for someone who might know, quite dispassionately, what sort of person the writer is. For me it [is] all something very curious indeed, apart from the fact that it seemed to me well-written.
So that’s all for the moment.
1.See Appendix.