[41 Brimmer St.; forwarded to Ware Farm, West Rindge]
I am only attempting to begin a letter to-day, to send off Tuesday, probably even then unfinished – but then I never finish a letter to you, I just stop when I have to stop – as I have only ten minutes left this morning, and a committee this afternoon; but simply to cheer myself up on a Monday morning, I must begin. Andwritingto EH;a2 writingHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3the only writing TSE enjoys;a4 to you is the only form of literary composition that I really enjoy. But one thought is in my mind: it is the 18th of May, and how soon are you leaving for Seattle? I hope that you will have let me know your dates exactly, because I want to be prepared for the change, and I should have fancied timing my correspondence so as to have a letter waiting for you there. I feel a little jealous of Seattle, because I have never been there; it is easier to think of you in an environment which I do know; and I confess I look forward already to September when you will I hope be back, or at least not quite so far away – it will be almost like a meeting – well, no, not in the least: but coast to coast is enough distance, without a continent as well. And now it is one o’clock and I must put this sheet away, wondering if I may have the luck to type a few more lines this afternoon or not.
4:50 p.m. Now I shall write for just five minutes more before leaving. I was saying, last week, that IUnderhill, Evelynwho feels easy in her company;a4 enjoyed Mrs. Stuart-Moore (Evelyn Underhill). Partly I think, because I so seldom have the opportunity of meeting Anglican Catholics socially, and particularly cultivated women of that belief. MyEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)marriage to;e6its morbidity;a4 private atmosphere is indifferent when not hostile, andStephens, the myStracheys, the general social surroundings, the BloomsburyWoolfs, thecompany compared to that of Christians;a4 Stephen–Strachey ramifications into the social world, are alien to all this; and the pleasures of social intercourse depend so largely upon the things unspoken and taken for granted: that not fitting completely into any one circle of people I have to cultivate as I can taken-for-grantedness in different worlds. The Underhills are very wellbred people and in the best sense worldly. Discussion at their tables would turn largely on references which would be unintelligible, say, at Virginia’s, and, for that matter, vice versa; but you cannot imagine what a pleasure it is to me sometimes to mix with people who take Christianity for granted! I see plenty of ecclesiastics from time to time, and also laymen of ecclesiastical interests; but there is always a purpose, something almost professional about all that.
Tuesday 19 May: I found your dear, but if I may say so, a little curt, letter of the 9th when I got here just before lunch – no, I do not say that because the envelope is addressed to ‘Thomas S. Eliot’ tout court – no doubt you are very tired; and I can imagine more or less the letting-down feeling of a play being over – having been someone else for so many days so intensely, and then being oneself again; and I imagine that you are depressed. I should be, I know. I know something of the after effects of substitute living – the momentary glow and the dead embers. ICriterion, TheJuly 1931;b9'Commentary';a1 have just finished a Commentary for my June number1 – I get a certain satisfaction out of irony and sarcasm and tearing things to pieces, and I am tempted often to go in more for political invective; perhaps it is a dangerous temptation. IHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7costumed in a 'Titian wig';a7 am sure I should loathe to see you in a Titian wig! I hate that colour <but I dislike very blonde hair still more.> hair, and should hate to see you in any, but your own. And I don’t believe for a moment that it was your best part, because it is not a good enough part to be that; whenCoward, Noëlcompared to Shakespeare and Racine;a2 you play Bérénice or Phèdre or Cleopatra I may believe that is your best part – or Medea or Clytemnestra or Antigone; but not, please, Judith of Noel Coward. But I have no doubt you made all of it that can be made. And I still hope to see your photograph in the new Judith gown – here it is May 19th and I don’t even know that you have had it taken, and you going off to Seattle.
Your little letter saddened me, but perhaps I was sad already; muchHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9provokes sorrow and fury in TSE;b1 of the time I am furious rather than sad. I confess that there are times too when I am sorry for myself – and it is only a nuisance to remind myself that no one living has less right to be sorry for himself than I –
Qu’as-tuVerlaine, Paulquoted;a1 fait, ô toi que voilà –
—Pleurant sans cesse;
Dis, qu’as-tu fait, toi que voilà,
—De ta jeunesse?2
Or
IsRossetti, Christinaquoted by a maudlin TSE;a1 the eye waxen dim, is the brown hair changing to grey
—That was won neither laurel nor bay?3
There, you see how maudlin I can be, and there is no need to reprove me, for I know all that already.
I have been to another play – quite exceptional for me; I like the theatre so much that I am almost uncritical, and when I have been, am haunted for weeks by the emotions of the play. ThisSmith, DodieAutumn Crocus;a1 was not a good one, it is called ‘Autumn Crocus’, by an author I had never heard of, and was the usual mixture of the farcical, the scabreux and the tearful that goes down, but there was a good part in it for Fay Compton, who is rather a good actress, and made me sentimental.4 It is a play which requires several actors who can talk fluent German, as the scene is laid in an hotel in the Tyrol.
By the way, forgive my egotism, but do you get the Criterion regularly? you are supposed to, but numbers may go astray. I ask because my recent ‘commentaries’ (since the December number) are considered better than before!
To-dayBottrall, Ronald;a2 I had Mr. Bottrill [sic] (a Cornishman) from Helsingfors to lunch; hePrinceton Universityand Ronald Bottrall;a4 is going to Princeton and Harvard for two years. AndMore, Paul Elmerthe prospect of Madeira and theology with;a2 Paul Elmer More is coming to dinner; we shall probably be drinking Madeira and talking theology all the evening, and I shall probably be thinking of Emily going to Seattle – and possibly to San Francisco. I wish I could settle the mystery of why some people deserve everything and have nothing; and the second class of people who have everything put into their hands and throw it away, and the third class who have everything and take it all for granted.
I am often tempted to send you books, but hesitate first because I don’t want merely to litter your shelves and second because you are so busy that you ought not to be distracted from real reading by this and that. Books come and pass through my hands so easily; I can have any I want. But I don’t want to read, I have too much to do with books. But what about your reading? now what are you going to read this summer? And are you going simply to ignore politely my humble suggestion that I should like to be reading with you, at any time, some one book worth reading that neither you nor I have read before?
I suppose that I shall be sitting in London right through the summer. AtEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)unbearable to holiday with;a4 present, I am sure that I cannot go away anywhere with Vivienne, because I could not stand it, and she does not want to go away without me, and does not want me to go away alone, so it is a deadlock.
What I always find difficult not to be enraged by is the mental dishonesty and self-deception of human beings; andChristianityand human isolation;a1 what I find it still difficult to accept is the terrible isolation of one human being from any other: but the latter is one of those unpalatable truths – and there are many – which Christianity has to teach us to face.
Please remember that the merest scrap of a letter from you is something lifegiving to me; I only wish that mine might mean to you a fraction of that. I sometimes have a fear lest I may be, or become, to you, merely the author of letters, and that if [you] saw me again, you might not be able to identify absolutely the man you saw before you with the author of the letters. CyranoHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3TSE as Cyrano to EH's Roxane;a5 was a good letter-writer. It would not be so on my part, but I identify you and your letters almost too well.
I lit a little candle, praying for you, before the Virgin this morning. Does all that seem fantastic make believe to you?
IHale, EmilyTSE's names, nicknames and terms of endearment for;x3'My Lady';a7 don’t know how to address you this week – you seem to have withdrawn – to contemplation? But always ‘my Lady’.
IHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7;a3 wanted also to say that, in the absence of the other, your little photograph is more and more a comfort to me.5
1.‘A Commentary’, Criterion 10: 41 (July 1931), 709–16.
2.Fourth and final stanza of Paul Verlaine, ‘Le Ciel est, par-dessus’, Sagesse (1881).
3.Christina Rossetti, ‘Old and New Year Ditties’ (1862).
4.Autumn Crocus, by Dodie Smith (writing as C. L. Anthony), dir. Basil Dean, opened at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 6 Apr.: it starred Fay Compton, Francis Lederer and Martita Hunt.
5.Postscripts added by hand.
2.RonaldBottrall, Ronald Bottrall (1906–89), poet, critic, teacher and administrator, studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge and became Lektor in English, University of Helsingfors (Helsinki), Finland, 1929–31, before spending two years at Princeton. He was Johore Professor of English at Raffles University, Singapore, 1933–7, and taught for a year at the English Institute, Florence, before serving as British Council Representative in Sweden, 1941–5; Rome, 1945–54; Brazil, 1954–7; Greece, 1957–9; Japan, 1959–61. At the close of his career he was Head of the Fellowships and Training Branch of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in Rome. His poetry includes The Loosening (1931) and Festivals of Fire (1934).
4.PaulMore, Paul Elmer Elmer More (1864–1937), critic, scholar, philosopher: see Biographical Register.
1.EvelynUnderhill, Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941), spiritual director and writer on mysticism and the spiritual life: see Biographical Register.