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Your letter of March 10th by the ‘Aquitania’ (which has now left with a letter for you) arrived this morning (Thursday). I also was disappointed of a letter on Monday, a usual day at this end too. I am sorry that my letter of the 26th sounded so ‘tired’ and I fear it may have been a disappointing one; but I shan’t worry over that happening if you don’t; I like to write to you in all moods; and we are not ever to take the tone of any particular letter too seriously, when either of us sounds (reads) depressed or languid. If I only wanted to write to you when I felt at my best, I should be a poor sort of lover indeed, and even a poor sort of friend: and naturally I don’t only want to hear from you when you feel at your best! HaveHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as perpetual progress and revelation;c1 we not to improve our knowledge and understanding of each other all the time; and is not mutual understanding of two people something that has to go on developing and deepening right through life to the end?
DearBurnt Nortonobscurity of;b2 me, you do make a fuss about the possibility of my being hurt or annoyed by your criticism of my work! Do you think I want to be treated with ‘proper respect’, and served with nothing but applause? ‘Burnt Norton’ is no doubt obscure. Partly it will be obscure to other people in a way in which it is not obscure to you; and it will also be obscure to them in the same way in which it is obscure to you. Of the obscure parts, some are obscure because they are trying to convey a personal feeling for which I cannot find rational expression (‘Garlic and sapphires in the mud’ etc.) and others because they are based on a very difficult mystical writer: the latter will be clear enough to anyone familiar with mystical literature. InHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2as expressed in Burnt Norton;e2 general, I was trying to convey the sense of certain very rare instants in my life – an instantaneous feeling of being out of time, of being relieved for a moment of the burden of living in time, a sense of love which is not a craving, but something perfectly still and ecstatic. TheBurnt Norton'Garlic and sapphires' explained;b3 passage to which I have just referred (‘Garlic’ etc.) is an attempt to convey a sense of two beings together in an almost disembodied state in which the world appears as a pattern in sunlight full of beauty, although the abominations, such as war (the boarhound and the boar) are there nevertheless. The first lines of that passage are intended to convey a momentary sense of triumph and glory, after pain and mutilation (inveterate scars). One of the best lines in the poem occurs near the end: ‘The crying shadow in the funeral dance’. The passage refers to the Temptation of Our Lord in the wilderness, and by extension to the temptations besetting hermits in the desert of the Thebaid in Egypt in early Christian times; and principally the Temptation of Despair. Thus ‘the crying shadow in the funeral dance’ is intended to evoke some image of a barbaric or savage funeral ceremony (non-Christian of course): savage, because the funeral ceremony is described as a ‘dance’; and the ‘crying shadow’ may be thought of as some person appointed to make lamentation, in some ritual costume in which the body is covered with a black robe and the face hooded or masked (hence ‘shadow’). TheFlaubert, Gustave'Tentation de S. Antoine' and Burnt Norton;a1 Chimera (with the more general French meaning of chimère) appears in Flaubert’s ‘Temptation of St. Anthony’. There! does that shed a little light, even if the poem remains unsatisfactory? I shan’t always be as obscure as that; and I may be able, in the right mood, to write love poems as clear as the Landscapes which I think you liked. When I say ‘right mood’, I don’t mean that one is in the ‘right mood’ when writing: the mood of writing is always more or less the same for me, a mood of dogged and almost desperate exasperation, in cold blood in the morning alone in my room. ‘The right mood’ is something which has come at some previous moment, and is then, it may be weeks or months afterwards, doggedly put into words.
Didwritingand obscurity;c1 I say ‘naughty’ in being obscure? Or ‘mischievous’? I thought I used the latter word about some of my prose statements; but whatever I said, it was a somewhat flippant statement of something more serious. No, I don’t think I have ever been obscure in verse except for the reason that it was a case of either saying the thing in that way or being unable to say it at all.
IMurder in the Cathedralrumoured Australian and American productions;e4 had heard some rumour, from some one who had seen Dukes, of a brief production of ‘Murder’ in New York. I don’t believe it is without his knowledge and agreement. I will find out more about it; I have another matter to write to him about, a question of a production in Sydney Australia – that girl who was in the chorus and insisted on stopping to talk while we were sitting under a tree in the precincts – she is a friend of the Tandys’ and wrote to them about wanting to do it.1
TheAll Souls Club, Thefirst dinner with;a2 dinner of the All Souls Club was pleasant and successful, and I shall go to the next. The membership is limited to 14, which means 10 or 11 each time, and it is informal and leisurely enough for good discussion. TheDuncan-Jones, Revd Arthur Stuart, Dean of Chichestermember of All Souls Club;a3 DeanRoberts, Richard Ellismember of All Souls Club;a5 of Chichester is a member, and several prominent non-conformists, Methodist, Baptist and Congregationalist. Ellis Roberts and myself represent the more Romanising Anglicans, Duncan-Jones the High Church, andPalmer, Roundell Cecil, Viscount Wolmermember of All Souls Club;a1 Wolmer, 2 I think, the Moderate or middle party. ItBarnes, Ernest, Bishop of Birminghamtoo liberal for All Souls Club;a1 would hardly do to have modernists (such as the Bishop of Birmingham3 or the Liverpool school) as the divergences would there be only irritating – the aim is to assemble opinion of the orthodox members of the several denominations. I am glad of any opportunity to meet the best dissenters, as I never have any contact with such people in the ordinary social way.
IHinkleys, the;e2 was interested by your report of dinner at the Hinkleys’ (andNoyes, Penelope Barkerhosts party;d4 glad to hear of Penelope’s party). ISheffield, Alfred Dwight ('Shef' or 'Sheff')seems sympathetic to EH;a5 am so glad you find Sheff sympathetic. I should be curious to know on what subject Eleanor was so dogmatic (perhaps she is something of an oracle in her circle?) andSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister)at Hinkley dinner;f7 I suspect that Ada held her peace because she thought it most prudent. (Was that your reason too?) FrostFrost, Robertin TSE's opinion;a3 is a very likeable person, a great causeur, but I should have imagined that he would be ill at ease before a large audience, and fear that his lectures will be rambling and diffuse. HowWare, Mary Leevisited at Rindge;b8 delightfulHale, Emilypays winter visit to Rindge;h9 youAmericaWest Rindge, New Hampshire;h9EH holidays at;a1 make the winter scene at Rindge! I envy those who have in their families anything in the way of an old family mansion, with long associations. WeEliot family, theits former family mansions;a8 have been such wild geese – never any family house, never long in one place, the house where I was born destroyed, the others sold and changed, and the only old houses with which we have any connexion – theAmericaBedford, Massachusetts;c9its Stearns connections;a2 Quincy house, the Stearns and Blood and Cushing houses at Bedford and Lunenburgh – too remote in time to have any personal meaning for anyone living. And I am always glad when you can get into the country, which is where you ought to live, with a house and horses and dogs always about you.
Well, my dearest girl, (I try to sit bolt and upright as I type) I must stop chatting now. Happily I find a Dutch boat sailing in two days. Good night my Love.
1.Diana Reeve. See letter of 19 Jan. 1936, above.
2.RoundellPalmer, Roundell Cecil, Viscount Wolmer Cecil Palmer (1887–1971), Viscount Wolmer, 1895–41; Conservative politician (MP for Aldershot, 1918–40); Minister for Economic Warfare (running the Special Operations Executive), 1942–5. In 1940, on the death of his father, he became 3rd Earl of Selborne.
3.ErnestBarnes, Ernest, Bishop of Birmingham Barnes (1874–1953), controversially liberal Bishop of Birmingham, 1924–53. An extreme modernist, he was later criticised for doubting the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection.
3.ErnestBarnes, Ernest, Bishop of Birmingham Barnes (1874–1953), controversially liberal Bishop of Birmingham, 1924–53. An extreme modernist, he was later criticised for doubting the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection.
7.RevdDuncan-Jones, Revd Arthur Stuart, Dean of Chichester Arthur Stuart Duncan-Jones (1879–1955) held various incumbencies, including St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, London, before becoming Dean of Chichester, 1929–55.
2.RobertFrost, Robert Frost (1874–1963), celebrated American poet and critic, spent three years (1912–15) with his wife in England, where he was influenced by friendships with Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves and Ezra Pound. His poetry – rooted in the vernacular of rural life in New England, and with a deep sensitivity to marital and domestic strain and conflict – won immediate critical and popular success. Noted publications included A Boy’s Will (1913), North of Boston (1914), Mountain Interval (1916) and New Hampshire (1923). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times; and in 1962 he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. See The Letters of Robert Frost, vols 1–3, ed. Donald Sheehy et al. (2014–21); Jeffrey Meyers, Robert Frost: A Biography (1996); Jay Parini, Robert Frost: A Life (2000).
12.PenelopeNoyes, Penelope Barker Barker Noyes (1891–1977), who was descended from settlers of the Plymouth Colony, lived in a historic colonial house (built in 1894 for her father James Atkins Noyes) at 1 Highland Street, Cambridge, MA. Unitarian. She was a close friend of EH.
2.RoundellPalmer, Roundell Cecil, Viscount Wolmer Cecil Palmer (1887–1971), Viscount Wolmer, 1895–41; Conservative politician (MP for Aldershot, 1918–40); Minister for Economic Warfare (running the Special Operations Executive), 1942–5. In 1940, on the death of his father, he became 3rd Earl of Selborne.
1.RichardRoberts, Richard Ellis Ellis Roberts (1879–1953), author and critic; literary editor of the New Statesman & Nation, 1932–4; Life and Letters Today, 1934; biographer of Stella Benson (1939).
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.
8.AlfredSheffield, Alfred Dwight ('Shef' or 'Sheff') Dwight Sheffield (1871–1961) – ‘Shef’ or ‘Sheff’ – husband of TSE’s eldest sister, taught English at University School, Cleveland, Ohio, and was an English instructor, later Professor, of Group Work at Wellesley College. His publications include Lectures on the Harvard Classics: Confucianism (1909) and Grammar and Thinking: a study of the working conceptions in syntax (1912).
3.MaryWare, Mary Lee Lee Ware (1858–1937), independently wealthy Bostonian, friend and landlady of EH at 41 Brimmer Street: see Biographical Register.