[No surviving envelope]
Your letter of March 3d by the ‘Bremen’ arrived this morning, in good time; and I expect to find your letter by the ‘Scythia’ when I get to the office, becauseMorleys, thesafely returned from New York;g2 the Morleys arrived yesterday. I have not seen them yet – I expect to see him to-day – but spoke to them on the telephone yesterday afternoon: they sounded well and cheerful, and no harm had come to the children while they were away. It will be very pleasant for me to have them back. I have not time to write at any length this morning, and before writing at length I had rather read your other. By the way, my records don’t show that I wrote to you at all on the 24th Feb.: besides the letter of the 19th, which you acknowledge, I wrote on the 17th and the 18th and on the 21st. I ought to make a note of the boats as well as the dates. Your last previous letter to me is dated the 24th.
I return the two letters. ICailliet, Dr Emile;a3 will write to Professor Caillet [sc. Cailliet]; I would of course have done so long ago had I had any encouraging suggestions to make. Margaret Thorp’s letter is a good letter and very interesting.1 IHale, Emilypossible career-move into politics;h8 confess I had similar doubts about the desirability of being implicated in Republican politics, but reflected that I did not know enough about American politics of the moment, or about the Liberty league,2 to be able justly to make any criticism; and the work sounded interesting perhaps. Notcommunismpreferred to conservatism;b1 thatconservatismTSE would favour communism over;a2 I share Margaret’s enthusiasms either, though if I saw it merely as an issue between ‘communism’ and ‘conservatism’ I should probably be on the side of the former. There are also religious issues involved of which she does not appear to be aware, but I don’t suppose the Christian attitude would enter into her calculations anyway. ButWebb, Beatrice and SidneySoviet Communism;a2 don’t be misled into trying to read the Webbs’ book on Russia!3 It is a tremendous affair, no doubt one of the heaviest and most documented books in existence; I am told, and am quite ready to believe, that it is a masterly piece of work. Butanti-Semitism;b7 the Webbs love organisation for its own sake; and Webb is a Jew at that. It is a book full of information; but I don’t think it would be the best introduction for anyone who wanted to make up his mind, simply about the desirability of communism. The beginning is to clear up one’s mind as to why one objects to it, and whether one’s objections are the right ones. But I think it is all to the good that you should have some revolutionary friends!
YourBrackett, Louisa;a3 reportsScripps College, Claremontrefuses EH's return;e6 aboutSt. Catherine's School, Richmond, Va.ultimately disappoints her;a5 Scripps and about Richmond – for which I thank you for their explicit account – are perfectly exasperating. Mrs. B.4 seems indeed to have played fast and loose with you. I do pray that something may be settled, better than these, within the next two months, as the strain must be very wearing on you. I wish I could comfort you and give you perfect rest and relaxation and refreshment.
IHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9TSE again regrets misleading EH;f1 will not write now about the most worrying subject of all, until you have (as you say you will) thought the matter over and written again. Only what you say in this letter makes me feel with sharp pain that I have had your love rather under a misunderstanding. You will always always have mine, complete and completely; and if you should cease to care for me, or if you found that you could only exist by deadening your feelings towards me, I should feel still that my love was a very poor thing if it did not go on burning, as it will do, as ardently and adoringly as ever. I should never have any complaint or criticism; and the one thing that would make me utterly unhappy would be to feel that I had done you harm. AsHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1compared to TSE's;a5 for God and the Church – I will speak again about that. I confess that I feel sometimes about your religious views, somewhat as Margaret does about your political views.
My darling, I kiss you, and I feel something of your presence in the room as on the last occasion, which was so blissful and so agonising like death.
1.Letter not found.
2.Established in 1934, the Liberty League stood for ultra-conservative interests against the labour and social legislation of the New Deal. Following Roosevelt’s victory in Nov. 1936, its influence waned, and it was wound up in 1940.
3.Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? (1935).
4.Louisa Brackett.
2.EHBrackett, Louisa hoped for a position at St. Catherine’s School, Westhampton, Richmond, Virginia (a girls’ school, est. 1917). Louisa Brackett, wife of J. R. Brackett, was headmistress, 1924–47.
4.DrCailliet, Dr Emile Emile Cailliet (1894–1981), Professor of French Literature and Civilisation, Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School, 1931–41 – ‘dear Mons. Caillet [sic],’ as EH called him (letter to Ruth George, 6 Dec. 1935; Scripps).