[No surviving envelope]
Now9 Grenville Place, Londonin winter;a9 my Darling I am writing to you just before going out for the first time, to lunch at the club, so as to be sure to catch the packet. I have a fine sunny day to begin with, and the weather is perceptibly milder, though still cold and dry. I shall pick up quickly now, because my rooms, although allright in this weather when one is ill enough to be in bed, are not so good for convalescence, as they cannot (the sitting room I mean) be kept very warm; furthermore, with the exception of breakfast, which is allright, the food is not too appetising, and I am beginning to feel possessed of a positive appetite. I have been rather worried about you in Boston during this cold weather; and I know that those houses giving on the river are not very easy to keep warm. How you can go through the winter in silk underwear is beyond me, though I know that women can stand the cold better than men can. BySheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister);f3 the way, Ada described you as wearing a very stylish green suit, but the description otherwise seemed to fit the blue suit (I don’t mean that that isn’t stylish, because it looks very smart). Have you a new one, or is it possible that Ada is colour-blind, and we have never known it?
IHale, Emilypossible career-move into politics;h8 am very anxious to hear more about the political job, which quite excited me. It would certainly bring you into contact with all sorts of people, I should think, which you would like and which is good for you, and for which you are naturally apt; and thereby make Boston more tolerable for you. You know I don’t think much of Boston as a regular abode for you, and I should rather see you in a college some distance away. Meanwhile I should like to know more about how you spend your time, now that you have presumably seen everyone and done all the things that have to be done at first. Do you have any time to yourself, and for reading, orHale, Emilycriticised for flower-arranging;g2 are you always occupied looking after other people and arranging flowers? IAmericaBoston, Massachusetts;d1if TSE were there in EH's company;b8 should like to be in Boston a little in your company just to see what it would seem like to both of us together; because being in any place with you makes me see it differently; and I should like to re-visit every place that I have ever been to, in your company. (We did pretty well with London, in the time, I think. JustEnglandLondon;h1affords solitude and anonymity;a3 how conspicuous shall we feel, I wonder, in Boston, compared to the blessed anonymity of London? Buttravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4possible excursions;a4 for the most part I should prefer to be with you in the country or by the sea, if there are any unfrequented enough places. I am eager, you see, to make plans for the autumn.
I have had a good deal of time for thinking about you, lately, and9 Grenville Place, Londonsanctified by EH's presence;b4 these rooms are blessed with your presence. I feel it to be my duty to you not to be ill, and when I am confined to bed I feel restless because I prefer to feel that I could always pack up and take the next boat (or Zeppelin perhaps?); but on the other hand I love the opportunity of shutting the rest of the world out, and think of you coming and sitting on the arm of my chair and slipping onto my knee where you belong so perfectly. IBowen, Elizabeth (Mrs Cameron)TSE on her fiction;a6 triedreading (TSE's)The House in Paris;e6 to read ElizabethBowen, Elizabeth (Mrs Cameron)The House in Paris;b1 Bowen’s novel, because she gave it to me;1 but, as every time I try to read any contemporary novel except detective stories, it all seems so insignificant. ThereTolstoy, LeoWar and Peace;a1 areDostoevsky, FyodorKaramazov among TSE's 'great' novels;a1 theFlaubert, GustaveÉducation sentimentale;a2 very few great novels – War and Peace, Karamazov, Education Sentimentale etc, but the ordinary brilliant novel seems so wholly lacking in general significance, and the people in them moved so little by interesting principles, or principles in conflict with passions. Andreading (TSE's)The Life of Charles Gore;e7 IGore, Charles, Bishop of Oxfordhis life too straight for biography;a4 read a good deal of the life of Bishop Gore – a fine man and a useful life:2 but as subjects for biography, IChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1better reached by way of sin;a2 find less interest in the lives which have moved straight forward, the men who have never had any great conflicts or struggles. A man like that, with all his ability and his beauty of character, falls short of the real saints in this way – thede Foucauld, Charlesinspires TSE by his example;a1 kind of biography that thrills me is such a book as Bazin’s Life of Charles de Foucauld – I read the English translation3 – I think you would find it interesting too – that was a real saint. AndHügel, Friedrich vonLetters from Baron Friedrich von Hügel to a Niece;a7 let me recommend once again, if you have never tried to read it, Baron von Huegel’s Letters to his Niece (Mrs. Plunket Greene, whom I have mentioned sometimes in the past).
The last letter you mentioned receiving from me was that of the 16th January <No 19th>, and I find I have written nine eight times since then (this is the 8th). I imagine that all mails have been delayed by the weather. IMorleys, the;f8 don’t suppose the Morleys will be turning up in Boston until nearly the end of this month.
Now I shall sally out. I wish I had your arm to hold, walking down the street!
1.The House in Paris (1935).
2.Revd G. L. Prestige, DD, The Life of Charles Gore – A Great Englishman (1935).
3.René Bazin, Charles de Foucauld, Hermit and Explorer (1921), trans. Peter Keelan (1923).
4.ElizabethBowen, Elizabeth (Mrs Cameron) Bowen (1899–1973) – Mrs Alan Cameron – Irish-born novelist; author of The Last September (1929), The Death of the Heart (1938), The Heat of the Day (1949). See Victoria Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait of a Writer (1977); Hermione Lee, Elizabeth Bowen: An Estimation (1981). TSE to Desmond Hawkins, 3 Feb. 1937: ‘She has a very definite place, and a pretty high one, amongst novelists of her kind.’
2.Renéreading (TSE's)René Bazin's Charles de Foucauld;d5 Bazin, Charles de Foucauld [1921], trans. Peter Keelan (La Vie de Charles de Foucauld explorateur en Maroc, eremite du Sahara). Charlesde Foucauld, Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916), explorer, monk and priest, a wealthy aristocrat who served in the early part of his life as an army officer in Algeria. In 1882 he resigned from the army and joined a perilous exploration to the Sahara, travelling in disguise through Algeria and Morocco; he also journeyed into South Algeria and Tunisia; and he would later visit the Holy Land. He subsequently took holy orders and chose to lead a life of penury and hardship: having been ordained a priest in 1901, he proceeded to live for the next fifteen years as a hermit missionary in the central Sahara near Morocco, ultimately in a Touareg village at Tamanghasset in southern Algeria. He was shot and killed by passing Muslim insurgents of the Senussi order.
2.CharlesGore, Charles, Bishop of Oxford Gore (1853–1932), influential Anglican theologian; founder and first Superior of the Community of the Resurrection; Bishop of Oxford, 1911–19.
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.