[Tourist PassengerHale, Emilyreturns to America;h6 S/S ‘Samaria’, Cunard Lines, Liverpool]
When I went into a florist’s to-day to order flowers to be sent to Liverpool for you, I found myself asking whether it was possible to get sweet peas at this season (which as you see was not possible). Youflowers and florasweet peas;c9no longer painful to TSE;a4 know that all these years I could hardly bear to look at, much less to smell, sweet peas; and the fact that I now want them again does indicate some very great change, doesn’t it? I shall try later in the winter, when Boston florists have forced sweet peas, to get some to you – if you will be as glad to have them as I to send them. Now I am writing to the ‘Samaria’ and tomorrow I shall write to Brimmer Street, in the hope of having it there for you within a day or two of your arrival, or one mail after. ISheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister);e3 did write last night to Ada, and I shall expect her to receive you with open arms. She is naturally a very reticent person, who does not express her feelings very readily, but they are there nevertheless, and you will not find her at all a forbidding person. I shall have to write to her again tomorrow too, as there is so much more to say – I only dealt with fundamental facts in the first letter!
I begin to feel already, and it is better that I should admit it, the oncoming of the period of depression and disorientation which I knew would be inevitable. And as I said and am sure, it is worse for you than for me. As you said, our being together did make your other troubles a bit easier to bear; and I myself, now that I know what the touch, the physical contact with a beloved can mean, how it can flood one with bliss and peace of being alone with the other person in a world from which the world is all shut out, know that there is no substitute for it, and that the vexations of the world and the imperfections of one’s relations with other people will weary us more when we cannot put our arms about each other. For that there is no cure; but as for our love itself, and the agony of being apart, of course the agony is inextricable from the glory and the beauty.1 YouHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2ideal when unreciprocated;d8 know that in a way I did not want you to love me, but now that you do, I can’t possibly wish that you should love me less in order that you should suffer less; and the suffering, while it lasts, is something that we ought to try to bear proudly. But you can make me happier by keeping going some of the effects of the glory in greater self-confidence and assurance, just as [I] shall try to let you see, in my letters, the pride and assurance that you have given me. To be loved by the only woman in the world whose love is a real prize is a proud thing indeed.
On the boat you will have no privacy, and that distresses me. When I go in to my bedroom at night I shall shut the world out, and think of myself as alone there with you, and will make your presence real, tonight and every night. But you are sharing with other women, I fear; when you do get to a room of your own think of me in the same way when you go to bed. And think now of us going through the same misery of separation together, and we must get through it together in spirit. Alwayspoetryrelieves TSE's longing for EH;b3, now, the claims of business and society will find me a little distrait, butHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2relieved only by poetry;d9 only in writing poetry can I find any relief, and shall be alone with you when I am doing that. Now what can I say to make you happy, or happier, except that my love for you comes over me in waves from which I emerge momentarily to do the things of the day? ‘More’ is not the word to use for it; but it has become so much more real than anything else lately, it becomes so all-claiming, as I realise more and more fully all your spiritual loveliness and height (tall girl).2 Good night: can you not feel my kiss on your lips and my breath on your cheek, soft smooth lovely cheek? Good night in the Mersey, good night till good morrow.3
1.‘And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty’ (Exodus 28: 2).
2.Compare the later verses written to Valerie Eliot: ‘How the Tall Girl and I Play Together’ and ‘How the Tall Girl’s Breasts Are’, Poems I, 316, 318.
3.John Donne, ‘The Good-Morrow’.
2.AdaSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister) Eliot Sheffield (1869–1943), eldest of the seven Eliot children; author of The Social Case History: Its Construction and Content (1920) and Social Insight in Case Situations (1937): see Biographical Register.