[No surviving envelope]
I did indeed sit down and write another letter when I returned from the post last night, and I would have done better to go straight to bed and write my letter in the morning. Because what happened was what always happened when I write you a letter after post time at night. I re-read the letter in the morning, and am always dissatisfied and have to write a fresh one. Anything meant to be at all humorous always sounds flat, anything meant to be serious always sounds badly worded etc. so this is a new letter in the afternoon. You see, if you give me the treat of such a long letter, you have to put up with two from me: but don’t let the answering of them be on your conscience, – though of course I shall be discontented on Sunday if I have nothing from you by then¼ (that was meant to be a !).
IThorp, Margaret (née Farrand);b2 havetravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4Thorp theatre outing;e6 written to Margaret Thorpe [sic] at the Horseferry Address, and asked her to choose an evening, or arrange it with you, and asked them to dine somewhere. I hope this will come off.
I'Rannoch, by Glencoe'whose comments are welcomed;a4 will abbreviate remarks in the letter which is not to be posted: thank you for your comment on my verses. IGough, Revd E. P.which TSE dreams of answering;a3 might write a play for Tewkesbury, because that tower will be on my conscience if I don’t1 – if it fell a few years later I should feel the stain of guilt:2 but I had rather not be limited in subjectmatter to etc. thankShaw, George BernardEH comments on;a7 you for your comments on Shaw’s play. I am far behind even in reading his recent plays. I do not think that I should particularly like him in pure fantasy; IShaw, George BernardMethusaleh;b2 did not care for the more fantastic parts of Methusaleh.3 If Mrs. Perkins asked me before Sept. 27th, I shall probably be free: I have no weekend engagements fixed.
Perhaps ‘self-conscious, shy’ were not the right adjectives. You will have to allow me something – a rather tremulous awe might better describe the sensation. Otherwise, I quite agree with you all the way. ButHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9EH rests head on TSE's shoulder;e1 simply to have you lay your head on my shoulder was something that meant so much more to me than I could express, wasWaste Land, TheTSE relives 'Hyacinth girl' episode;a9 so lovely and dazzling – ‘my eyes failed’4 again – that it is perfectly simple, and not ‘analytic’ for me to feel humble and abashed. Please believe that I can be quite simply happy with you and in all that you give me – and I want to give all I can in return without weighing it against what I receive,5 or asking myself whether it is adequate, so long as it is everything that (in the circumstances) I have to give. AndHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as perpetual progress and revelation;c1 in spite of and apart from the darkness and uncertainty of the future, I look forward with hope and joy towards a gradual great assimilation between us. That I should feel that you bring out my best side, and that you should feel the converse, is some guarantee that this will be so. (But I don’t want you to try to be at your best with me! and I like to expose to you my sillinesses and vanities etc. quite freely – more and more freely – and so for my really serious faults, I am ashamed of having them, but not, I think, of your seeing them).
Well my dear, my dear Emily, you have not ‘Hurt or offended’ me – I feel only a happy gratefulness.
1.Tewkesbury Abbey has the finest Romanesque tower in England, and the largest by area.
2.‘For though you wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord’ (Jeremiah 2: 20).
3.George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological Pentateuch) (1921).
4.‘—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, / Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not / Speak, and my eyes failed’ (The Waste Land, 37–9).
5.Cf. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Dejection: An Ode’, IV: ‘O Lady! We receive but what we give, / And in our life alone does Nature live’.
3.TheGough, Revd E. P. Revd E. P. Gough, vicar and Rural Dean of Tewkesbury Abbey.
16.MargaretThorp, Margaret (née Farrand) Farrand (1891–1970), author and journalist – see Margaret Thorp in Biographical Register.