[No surviving envelope]
No man could ask for a lovelier letter! whichHayward, John;d7 I found last night on returning from John’s – Oxford is nearer than Campden. Andtravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE's Campden birthday weekend;e4 you know probably that after such an occasion as Sunday evening, or those very few minutes of it in the windy garden, I have to write to you immediately, and I need then your confirmation, which I await with tremulousness, to surrender my memory to its perfection. As for relative values of letters – I feel that even the same words written now – were they quite the same words – have somehow more value and deeper meaning than if written a year ago even. They gain always richness and depth from our accumulating experience together. Just as I have an intoxicating pleasure in using the pronoun ‘we’ instead of ‘you and I’. I have stored away in envelopes the various flowers you have given me at Campden for buttonholes, becauseflowers and florayew;d4sprig picked for TSE by EH;a1 of their meaning for ‘me’; but I shall treasure still more this bit of austere yew, because it is a part of what you picked for ‘us’.1
AsChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1the paradox of;d2 for whether you are humble or not, I am not going to argue that with you: but of course if you yourself thought you were humble, it wouldn’t be real humility! But I am not going to say that you are altogether wrong either, because you see from inside and I see from outside, and both aspects may be perfectly right. Only I cannot help thinking that I am more right. And I am glad indeed to have a ‘companion on that journey’. As for its being a pity that I do not ‘know others who really have a lovely spirit’, that is neither here nor there. I will, if you will, from time to time speak (or write which is easier) of earlier memories, even though they still gnaw like acid – I have hardly mentioned them for four years: IHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7the famous apricot dress;d3 remember very well the apricot dress because it was a favourite of mine too, it had fur edging and was very graceful. How hopelessly remote from me you seemed then. I pray that the place I may have in your life in the future will be a good and useful one, only.
Do you realise that your birthday falls on a Sunday this year, so that our resources in the way of places of entertainment will be limited? I must try to find a Sunday evening concert or something; because I should like to have a few moments alone with you on that occasion, even if we cannot have such a suitable surrounding as that wild and windy rain in the garden. AHale, Emilybirthdays, presents and love-tokens;w2EH bought sapphire bracelet;c3 bracelet is more difficult to choose than a ring, but I will see what I can do: though a bracelet to wear with any costume is more difficult still. Of course the number of dresses that a star-sapphire will go with is limited, and I wanted you (I still want you) to have enough variety of rings to have one suitable for every costume. But let it be a bracelet for a change.
ISweeney Agonistesrevival compared to Group Theatre premiere;c2 saw the Performance as well as I could from the wings. The setting was effective, the masks better than last year, but the production substantially the same, with the same actors. What I thought of it then I think now, and they play it much too slowly for my liking, to make it last as long as possible. Enclosed two cuttings which you may not have seen. AudenAuden, Wystan Hugh ('W. H.')talks films at JDH's;b2 came to dinner with John last night; I think he was pleased for his part. He is a loveable fellow: at the moment full of the details of his new cinema work; I am to go with him tomorrow week to see a performance of some of their Post Office films.2 MeanwhileDukes, Ashleylines up Mercury Murder revival;a4 IMercury Theatre, Londonto stage Murder revival;a7 hearSpeaight, Robertcommitted to Mercury Murder revival;a9 fromBrowne, Elliott Martin1935–6 Mercury Theatre Murder revival;a7engaged as producer by Dukes;a1 AshleyFogerty, Elsiecommitted to Mercury Murder revival;a9 Dukes this morning that he has got Bobby Speaight and Martin Browne and Elsie Fogerty, and proposes to do the Murder at his Mercury Theatre, so with those people I shall let him. He wants to put it on October 29th, which means very intensive work for the chorus.3
IHale, Irene (née Baumgras);b1 had to my astonishment a very cheerful letter from Mrs. Hale, which reached me before yours, speaking well of Oxford and of the lodgings and even of the beds! So I hope that your period with her will not have been too tiring. YouOxford Universityin TSE's memory;a7 MUST try to get away later. IEnglandOxford, Oxfordshire;i2haunted for TSE;a4 wish that my memories of Oxford were not covered with a pall of gloom, for otherwise I might love the place dearly; asEnglandCambridge, Cambridgeshire;d6less oppressive than Oxford;a1 it is, I feel happier, or rather less oppressed, in Cambridge.
It was lovely to see how many friends you had made in Campden, and how beloved you had made yourself.
TheAbyssinia Crisiseventuates in war;a6 war has come finally, and no one knows what it will lead to; in itself it is horrible enough.
IPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle);c2 encloseHinks, Roger;a2 a letter from Roger Hinks, which please give to Dr. Perkins. I will give him the line of introduction whenever he wants to have a word with Hinks. HaigFaber and Faber (F&F)and Duff Cooper's Haig;c8 badly reviewed in the Times4 and the T.L.S., IHart, Basil Henry ('B. H.') Liddellreviews Cooper's Haig spitefully;a1 understand [by] Liddell Hart, who wanted the commission to write the book himself and didn’t get it.5 ButChurchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencerreviews Cooper's Haig;a1 I hear that Winston Churchill has praised it highly in the Daily Mail.6 I shall be satisfied if the firm loses nothing by it – they will have to sell about 10,000 copies of each volume to make anything. But it has made a good start.
Your typewriter will be ready.
DidMcPherrin, Jeanette;d4 I tell you I found Jean’s birthday letter on my return – & a very nice one.
2.Auden, who worked at this time for the General Post Office Film Unit (dir. John Grierson), wrote some of the verse commentary for the documentary film Coal Face (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1935); he also composed the verse commentary for the acclaimed Night Mail (dir. Grierson), which was to receive its premiere at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, on 4 Feb. 1936.
3.In the event, the Mercury Theatre production of Murder in the Cathedral was to run from 1 Nov. 1935 to 16 May 1936 (the 108th performance), and would be seen by 20,000 people.
4.‘Haig: Mr. Duff Cooper’s Life’, by ‘Our Military Correspondent’, The Times, 3 Oct. 1935, 6. ‘The first volume of Mr Duff Cooper’s official biography of Lord Haig is disappointing. It is certainly written in a polished style. But the most prominent of its defects as historical biography is that it is too polished: its value as a contribution to history is the less because the important questions are glossed over; as the study of a man it is too uniform and superficial.’
5.[B. H. Liddell-Hart], ‘Lord Haig’, TLS, 3 Oct. 1935, 601–2.
6.‘Haig … the man they trusted’ – a review of Haig vol. 1 – by the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, CH, MP, Daily Mail, 3 Oct. 1935, 5; repr. in Great Contemporaries (1938).
10.W. H. AudenAuden, Wystan Hugh ('W. H.') (1907–73), poet, playwright, librettist, translator, essayist, editor: see Biographical Register.
4.E. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin Browne (1900–80), English director and producer, was to direct the first production of Murder in the Cathedral: see Biographical Register.
4.AshleyDukes, Ashley Dukes (1885–1959), theatre manager, playwright, critic, translator, adapter, author; from 1933, owner of the Mercury Theatre, London: 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.
3.IreneHale, Irene (née Baumgras) Hale, née Baumgras, widow of Philip Hale, celebrated as the prolific and influential music critic of the Boston Herald. Irene Hale, who was herself an accomplished pianist, had studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where she gained the Springer Gold Medal 1881, and continued with her studies in Europe under Raif and Moritz Mosckowski: she later wrote music under the name Victor Rene.
1.B. H. LiddellHart, Basil Henry ('B. H.') Liddell Hart (1895–1970), soldier, journalist and influential military historian.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
4.RogerHinks, Roger Hinks (1903–63), Assistant Keeper, 1926–39, in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, from which he resigned in consequence of a scandal caused by his arrangements for deep-cleaning the Elgin Marbles. He later worked at the Warburg Institute, at the British Legation in Stockholm (where he met TSE in 1942) and for the British Council (Rome, The Netherlands, Greece, Paris). His writings include Carolingian Art (1935) and Caravaggio: His Life – His Legend – His Works (1953). See also ‘Roger Hinks’, Burlington Magazine 105: 4738 (Sept. 1964), 423–34; and The Gymnasium of the Mind: The Journals of Roger Hinks, 1933–1963, ed. John Goldsmith (1984).
2.JeanetteMcPherrin, Jeanette McPherrin (1911–92), postgraduate student at Scripps College; friend of EH: 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.
2.RobertSpeaight, Robert Speaight (1904–77), actor, producer and author, was to create the role of Becket in Murder in the Cathedral in 1935: see Biographical Register.