[No surviving envelope]
OnMorleys, the;f6 returning from the Morleys this morning I found on my table your letter of Christmas Day. I have thought how lovely it would be to find a letter then, but still it was another surprise, as I did not dare hope that you would have time to write again so soon. My darling, if my letters can give you anything like the delight and satisfaction and sense of life that your letters have been giving me, then indeed I shall feel that I have brought you a blessing and not a curse. The letters you have written from Liverpool and at the start of the voyage I can just bear to put away; but the Four, and now this one, I want to carry about with me in my inside pocket, so that I can take them out and peek at particular words and sentences when I am alone. JustHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as perpetual progress and revelation;c1 as I look back on every incident of November and December, not only for the beauty of its memory, but because I see each as a state in our developing union, so I feel that your letters now mean that it goes on growing even while we are apart. Dearest girl, speaking of your letters from the steamer as ‘frivolous and childish’! Everybody is more or less childish – and it is one of the blessings of this intimacy that we can be childish openly with each other and together; and our being childish helps towards the developing and maturing of ourselves. Part of the delight is being so unabashed with each other. One never comes to the end of the wonder of loving and being loved. One of the joys of recalling all the past moments together, is the gradual seeing of greater and greater depths of meaning in them, and meaning more realised in the present than in the moment. Each was external and complete, yet each goes on growing inside; and memory of the moment is needed to develop consciousness of the moment. Each, combined with each other, and with the memory of it, becomes more beautiful, and each needs the other. Just as there were so many times when you seemed ‘most beautiful’, and I want to look into your eyes and also to see them with the lovely lids over them when you relax in my arms; and I like to be close and breathe your breath and also want to be far enough to be able to look at you; and as I want you to be sitting on my knees with my lips on your neck and also both standing up with you fitting so perfectly into my shoulder. Whenever you look at yourself, in the mirror, or looking at your hands, I want you to see yourself as if I was there looking through your eyes.
It is still hard to descend to talk of practical things, much as I want to tell and to hear. IWare, Mary Lee;b7 am glad of what you say about your room and about Miss Ware. I am sorry you are overdrawn, but I want you to tell me of financial as well as other affairs; and you are not to be deterred by the knowledge that I chafe to find and deliver the money that you need. I think at the moment that you need rest and quiet, and to be with people who do not suck your vitality – as I gather that, essentially, Miss Ware does not. ForHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9exhausting;e8 I believe that you are very tired, more perhaps than you realise. For one thing, I know that the intense experiences that we have been through, partly because of their incompleteness, are very exhausting; and that though they are life-giving, they are also, for the moment, exhausting. I know that you were very tired when you got on to the boat.
IHale, Emily Jose Milliken (EH's mother)TSE (un-falsely) consoles EH over;b8 knew that you would go at once to see your mother. I know also that perhaps it is difficult for you to talk of it, even to me; but you must always do so, because you must know that this is something into which I can enter with you and suffer with you fully. It is because I realise it so keenly that I do not attempt to give you any ordinary consolation. There is none – as the world gives.1 To say that your mother does not suffer so much as she appears to, is ‘ordinary’ consolation of a sort: and I do not even know that it is true. The first and best thing I can do is to suffer with you, as you suffer. The only real consolation is in a faith which represents the accumulated wisdom and accumulated suffering of many generations; which puts an emphasis upon suffering in its re-enacting of the crucifixion every morning; and which offers also joy, but not in the things of this world.2 IChristianityUnitarianism;d9over-dependent on preachers' personality;b1 can imagine that the Christmas morning service was of little comfort; because even at a place like King’s Chapel, the effect of the service is partly dependent upon a personality, andPerkins, Palfreylacking in charisma;a2 you were aware of that being Mr. Palfrey Perkins, an excellent but rather insignificant little man, who may or may not have the experience necessary. The Unitarian service, at its best, would be effective if conducted by a Saint: if it is not a Saint it is merely a Personality; and I wonder whether even all that my grandfather did was not building houses upon sand, because I suspect that he was a Personality rather than a Saint. ‘Not me, but Christ in me’:3 not many people besides St. Paul can say that. It is rather awful to think that one may be influencing others merely by the me. But I am getting rather far from the point. All that my me can do you at such moments perhaps is simply to enfold you in my arms and be still – either present or absent: but I should like to give you something from beyond the me, through me, also; to be simply a conductor for something better than belongs to me.
And I should like you to realise (I do not mean merely that I want to say it, or that I want you to have the pleasure of knowing that I feel it) how dependent upon you I am for life – at present through your letters – and for strength; how much you have given and are giving me.
NewsMurder in the Cathedral1936 BBC radio version;d9TSE on;a5, veryBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)Barbara Burnham production of Murder;a6 briefly: a very good performance of ‘Murder’ on the wireless last night, which I heard at the Morleys – I send you the Radio Times.4 A pleasant weekend, though the weather cold, and I covered the strawberry bed with manure. I was very careful, you may be sure, in manual labour, not to knock the present ring which I especially do not want to take off from the same finger between now and seeing you again. IfAmericaWhite Mountains, New Hampshire;i1possible TSE and EH excursion to;a1 Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4possible excursions;a4 come in the autumn, I wonder if perhaps an excursion to the White Mountains might be possible – ifSheffields, the;b6 so, I would come earlier enough for warm weather to sit out in – with Ada and Sheff as chaperones? If nothing better suggests itself. I believe that Ada would enjoy that better than having me with Henry and Theresa and Marion as in 1933. H. & T. areEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)his immaturity;b8 such children. When I say ‘if I come in the autumn’ I mean of course that I shall come either in the spring or the autumn; and except for being more distant, the autumn would be pleasure. And when and how we meet depends on your own affairs more than on mine.
Dear girl, dear Raspberrymouth, I am arranging you now to sleep with your head in my lap on the train to Southern France.
1.‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you’ (John 14: 27).
2.I John 2: 15: ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’ Cf. I Corinthians 7: 32–3: ‘He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.’
3.Galatians 2: 20: ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’
4.Murder in the Cathedral was produced by Barbara Burnham in an abbreviated version on Sun. 5 Jan. (9.15–10.45 pm). (The Chorus of Women included ‘Lettice Haffinden’ [sc. Haffenden], who had played in the premiere at Canterbury.) Browne contributed a full-page article on p. 7 of the Radio Times. On Mon. 7 Dec. 1936, there was a TV production (3.30–4.00 p.m.) of ‘scenes from E. Martin Browne’s production’ of the play, with Robert Speaight as the Archbishop. See further Val Gielgud, ‘Radio Play: In the Age of Television’ (which includes discussion of the BBC adaptation of Murder in the Cathedral), Theatre Arts Monthly 21: 2 (Feb. 1937), 108–12.
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
18.PalfreyPerkins, Palfrey Perkins (1883–1976), who graduated from the Harvard Divinity School, was Unitarian Minister in Buffalo, New York, 1926–33; later of King’s Chapel, Boston, 1933–53.
3.MaryWare, Mary Lee Lee Ware (1858–1937), independently wealthy Bostonian, friend and landlady of EH at 41 Brimmer Street: see Biographical Register.