[No surviving envelope]
Did I tell you that your letter of March 3d on the ‘Bremen’ arrived several days earlier than your letter of the 29th on the ‘Scythia’ – as I think you expected: partly a faster boat, and partly I think a delay in dealing with the ‘Scythia’ post at this end. I hope that in a few weeks there will be more boats running for the spring and summer service: when I look at the Shipping List there seems to be a mail only practically once a week. TheManwaring, Elizabeth;a3 first swallow of summer arrived a couple of weeks ago, in the shape of Miss Elizabeth Manwaring, Professor at Wellesley, who is having a half-sabbatical to pursue some minor research or other. I gave her lunch – a good sort of woman, but I should think inadequate, both in experience and interests, as a guide for college girls.
There is much of your letter of the ‘Bremen’ that is important to answer, and the letter shall not go into the deed-box until I have answered it; but I intend to wait for another letter from you, at least, before I take the matter up. MeanwhileMorleys, the;g4 I have the usual kaleidoscope of minor news: a day and a night at the Morleys’, including a visit to Donald at his school in the afternoon – theySheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister);f6 madeEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother);c6 no comment either on you, or Ada, or Henry or on their visit (Frank had given me a rough sketch of course) and being only just back are completely absorbed in their regular life – their family, their house and garden – I suppose America will come back to them presently, but for the moment it is all Pike’s Farm. That is more apt to be the case, I dare say, with people living a local patriarchal life in the country, than with people who live in town. ThenGillet, Louis;a1 had lunch with M. Louis Gillet de l’Académie Francaise,1 whomWoolfs, the;c6 you may remember seeing at the Woolfs – he is here to write reports for the Paris Soir in connexion with the League Conference which is taking place here, but could not throw much light on that for me – thenBeach, SylviaTSE's 'lecture de poésies' for;a1 Miss Sylvia Beach, an American who runs the ‘Shakespeare & Co.’ bookshop in Paris and who published ‘Ulysses’,2 came intravels, trips and plansTSE's spring/summer 1936 trip to Paris;c2first contemplated;a1 to see me to ask me whether I would give a reading there if I came to Paris – I said I would – I have a desire to get over there for a few days holiday at the end of April, but I don’t want to spend much money on account of the voyage to America in the autumn. I have several evening engagements this week, but I keep the mornings to myself, have no further engagements for lunch, and get plenty of sleep – last night I was in bed at 10.30 and slept till I got up at 7.30. I don’t know whether to take your word or Penelope’s about your health – but I will assume that you look less robust than when she last saw you, and more robust than you were in the autumn. The one moment when you looked really strong and well to do my heart good was when you returned from Guernsey with Jean. Mypoetrynonsense poetry;b4 chiefOld Possum’s Book of Practical Catswritten occasionally;b6 piece of news at the moment is that I have decided to give up the attempt to fabricate a book of nonsense in cold blood, after producing the introductory verses and showing them to the Fabers. Iwritingpoetry three hours every morning;b8 can do serious verse that way, by sitting down for three hours every morning (at least, all my poems in the last three years have been written like that) but nonsense verse seems to demand the stimulus of particular inspirations and occasions. So I intend now to wait and see whether I produce enough such poems, in time, to make a book at last. AndFamily Reunion, Theplot sought for;a3 Iwritingplot;b9 have turned to the problem of finding a good plot for a play, something in the way of a thriller plot – that will keep an audience in a state of suspense. That’s the great difficulty. IMurder in the Cathedraldid not test TSE's plotting;c1 realise that ‘Murder’ gave me very little experience in plotting, and that is what I have to learn. And it has to be a pretty breathless one to make an audience swallow poetry. IRacine, Jeanquoted on plotting;a1 understand I think what Racine meant, when someone asked him how his play was getting on, and he replied that it was nearly finished, because, said he, ‘il n’y a que les vers à faire’.3 I shall feel like that if I can get my plot. AristotleAristotleon character versus plot;a1 was quite right about that: even character is quite subsidiary to plot.4 ‘MurderMurder in the Cathedral1935–6 Mercury Theatre revival;d8still running;a7’ will continue to run, I believe, until Easter, or until Holy Week.
I wish that I could see my Girl, and give her a good meal with oysters – for I did try to make you eat, as heartily and discriminatingly as I could – and be able to provide little presents from time to time and be able to look after you in a manner of speaking; and also because eating and drinking and theatre and music and pictures and everything nice is rather flavourless without you; and seeing people would be so much pleasanter in your company, because of being with you alone for a little before and after. But there – in default of which, it is not unreasonable of me to wish for more fast steamers twice a week instead of once. ThisHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3by day, by night;g3 is a morning letter – perhaps there is no difference, because when I am tired in the evening my letters seem as dull as morning ones – but I want it to carry enveloping devotion with it.
1.LouisGillet, Louis Gillet (1876–1943), art and literary historian; curator of the Abbaye de Chaalis; member of the Académie Française.
2.SylviaBeach, Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), American expatriate; proprietor (with Adrienne Monnier) of Shakespeare & Company, Paris, a bookshop and lending library. Her customers included James Joyce (she published Ulysses), André Gide and Ezra Pound: see Biographical Register.
3.‘Après Phèdre, il avait encore formé quelques projets de tragédies, don’t il n’est resté dans ses papiers aucun vestige, si ce n’est le plan du premier acte d’une Iphigénie en Tauride. Quoique ce plan n’ait rien de curieux, je le joindrai à ses lettres, pour faire connaître de quelle manière, quand il entreprenait une tragédie, il disposait chaque acte en prose. Quand it avait ainsi lié toutes les scenes entre ells, il disait: <Ma tragédie est faite>, comptant le reste pour rien’ (Mémoires sur la vie de Jean Racine by his son Louis, 1747). ‘After Phèdre, he had still formed a few projects of tragedies, of which no vestige remained in his papers, except the plan of the first act of an Iphigenia in Taurida. Although there is nothing curious about this plan, I will attach it to his letters, to let it be known how, when he undertook a tragedy, he arranged each act in prose. When he had thus linked all the scenes between them, he said: “My Tragedy is done”, counting the rest for nothing.’
4.Aristotle (384–322 BC) in the Poetics (ca. 335 BC) considered plot ‘the soul of tragedy’, character as secondary: ‘A tragedy is impossible without plot, but there may be one without character.’
2.SylviaBeach, Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), American expatriate; proprietor (with Adrienne Monnier) of Shakespeare & Company, Paris, a bookshop and lending library. Her customers included James Joyce (she published Ulysses), André Gide and Ezra Pound: see Biographical Register.
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
1.LouisGillet, Louis Gillet (1876–1943), art and literary historian; curator of the Abbaye de Chaalis; member of the Académie Française.
3.ElizabethManwaring, Elizabeth Manwaring (1879–1959), a Professor of English at Wellesley College, was author of a pioneering study, Italian Landscape in Eighteenth Century England: a study chiefly of the influence of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa on English Taste, 1700–1800 (New York, 1925). Good friend of TSE’s sister Marian.
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.