[No surviving envelope]
On Friday evening, on returning from posting my first letter to you to Boston, Elizabeth handed me two letters from you: one from Liverpool (which I expected) and one from Rosary Gardens, mostly in pencil (which was a surprise). I suppose that you left it with Ellen to post, as it was dated the 11th and posted the 13th: you said it was meant to be a surprise and it was a surprise – unlike the Haydn symphony. AndTandys, theTSE's Hampton weekends with;a1 on returning this morning from the Tandys I found the letter which I expected, dated the 13th in the Mersey, before you had read my letter (but you don’t say whether you received the flowers and the telegram) but postmarked ‘Belfast’. As your letter to follow has not reached me yet, I am wondering whether it missed the Belfast post, and may have to cross the Atlantic to reach me. But perhaps I shall find it at Russell Square tomorrow morning.
It is intoxicating to me to have you write as you do, and to have you use towards me so many little terms of endearment that I have tapped out and written many times, but never expected to get back. And re-reading your letters, your recent letters, I think in wonder, can I really be her dearest, her darling, her love, as she says? There it is in writing and signed with your name in your writing. After the last three weeks, I feel still so physically near to you and when I read your writing and when I write to you, I am so overpowered by the loveliness of love that I don’t want to write about things, in the ordinary way, because nothing that happens in your absence seems worth a mention. IEnglandLondon;h1so too Greenwich;c9 only want to write of our feelings, and now and then to recall some moment, astravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE and EH's final weeks in London;f3 when we walked on the river bank at Greenwich and met the two dogs and went through the turnstile and looked at the barges and the barques and the steamer, and the moments between stations in the train going back, and in the other trains. I am not ‘lonely’: I am full of loneliness I have never felt before, but also I am freed from the loneliness I have always felt before. I do not want to go to the theatre or to concerts, without you, and when I walk the street I miss holding your arm as I love to and feeling your shoulder as we walk side by side; indeed I don’t want to look at anything without you looking too. ItHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2and TSE's desire to be EH's spiritual possession;a4 is still dazzlingly wonderful to be able to give myself completely to someone, and be completely received and completely understood, to know that what I say and do will be taken as I meant it, and to know that you know that what you give will be taken as you mean it, and received and understood, and to feel that even when apart we are always alone together, and our arms are about each other, and our kiss is better speech than any words.
TheMurder in the Cathedralabortive 1936 New York transfer;e1Dukes visits America to arrange;a1 SundaySunday Timesannounces Murder production;a1 Times says that ‘Murder’ is to be produced in New York in the spring. Attravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4spring arrival dependent on New York Murder;a2 any rate, Dukes is going to New York in a couple of weeks to try to arrange it; if he does, I may come in the spring! But if not, in the autumn. Dowritingplays written chiefly for EH;b5 you know that my long desire to write plays is chiefly your doing, because I wanted your applause? I want to write a play with a role which I should imagine for you: yet I could not bear to have you play it, unless I took the opposite part – and if I did, I should feel too much to be able to act well.
When my letters are unsatisfactory, remember that I shall be writing again in a day or two.
I only stop to catch the post.
Your letters have been very lovely.