[No surviving envelope]
I wrote to you last on Thursday – to-day is Monday – which seems a long time ago – I am anxious to get this off in time to go on the Normandie, which sails again after a long time on the 6th. IMorleys, thelife at Pike's Farm among;a9 have been to the Morleys for the weekend – rather quiet and restful, becauseMorley, Donaldimproved by school;b2 Donald (whose holidays last until the 11th) is very much improved by having been away at school: polite, reasonable, and touchingly grateful for one’s attentions (my right hand is covered with scratches from retrieving his clockwork motor-boat from a corner of the pond where it had got caught in the briars). I sawed some matchboard for the wall of the new goat-house (they are about to acquire a new milch-goat and a sheepdog puppy) and saturated myself in creosote, painting the henhouses, andMorleys, theTSE reads Dr Johnson to;g8 readJohnson, Dr SamuelTSE reads aloud from the Rambler;a2 aloud to them from Johnson’s ‘Rambler’ in the evenings. SusannaMorley, Susanna;a6 was away in Cambridge being operated upon for adenoids. OliverMorley, Olivercalculates optimal length of TSE's stay;a5, the mathematician, said why didn’t Uncle Tom come to stay for 400 times 400 times 400 days, which I take as a great compliment. I slept very heavily on Friday night, as a result of the change from town to country air, but on Saturday night was more restless: dreamt a good deal of you (always rather distant) which I hate to do, because it always leaves me disturbed and unsettled for the next day, andbirdsnightingale;c8'clanging' at Pike's Farm;a2 woke in the middle of the night to hear a nightingale singing loudly in the thicket by the pond. The weather has been cold, though rather sunny, and the nightingales have not sung in the evening; but on Saturday night the temperature moderated before dawn. I went off to sleep again, and when I was waked by the alarum clock at 7 (to go to 8 o’clock church at Crowhurst) there was the nightingale still singing. I thought suddenly, ‘singing ’ is not the word for the nightingale: ‘clanging ’ I call it, there is something harsh and sepulchral about the nightingale, with a knowledge of good & evil: notbirdsthrush;d3more innocent singer than the nightingale;a2 likebirdsblackbird;a4more innocent singer than nightingale;a1 thebirdscuckoo;b4compared to nightingale;a1 innocent hearty thrush and blackbird, or the bawdy cookoo [sic] shouting, orbirdswren;d6more piping than the nightingale;a1 thebirdsfinches;b7more piping than the nightingale;a2 finchesbirdschiffchaff;b2more piping than the nightingale;a1 and wrens and chiffchaffs piping: the nightingale is ominous and tolling.1 Butbirdsmockingbird;c7and Walt Whitman;a2 birdsWhitman, Waltand the mocking-bird;a1 areSophoclesand the nightingale;a1 dependent upon poets; the mocking-bird (a finer singer than the nightingale) is so far no greater than Walt Whitman;2 andbirdsnightingale;c8and Sophocles;a3 the nightingale, with the myth of Procne and Philomela behind it, has the greater support of Sophocles, who set her to singing in the wood of the Furies through the day3 – and it still sings through the day in the thickets of Surrey and Worcestershire, though more impressive when alone at night. IDoyle, Sir Arthur ConanDr Roylott's safe and the nightingale;a5Holmes, Sherlock
KeepingTandy, Geoffrey;a8 in mind that Tandy needed looking after, I rang him up this afternoon, and appointed to have a glass of sherry with him at South Kensington tomorrow, beforeSeaverns, Helenfinally dines with TSE;a5 returning here to dress for dining with Mrs. Seaverns at last. HeConnolly, Cyrilreviews Collected Poems;a1 mentionedCollected Poems: 1909–1935reviewed;a4 thatEssays Ancient and Modernreception;a5 thereSunday Times;a2 was something in the Sunday Times about me, so I stopped at the club on my way home and demanded yesterday’s papers. TwoFeiling, Keithreviews TSE's essays;a1 favourable notices – one of my poems by Cyril Conolly [sic] in the Observer, the other of my essays by Keith Feiling in the Sunday Times:6 I will get copies and send them to you. IFamily Reunion, Theprogress stalled;a4 am eager to get to work on a new play, but time eludes me like a feu-follet7: nowCriterion, TheJuly 1936;c9possibilities for 'Commentary';a1 I must write a Commentary for the next Criterion.8 Shallfascismpossible subject for July 1936 'Commentary';a8 IHuxley, Aldousand the Christian attitude to war;b3 writeMaurice, Maj.-Gen. Sir Frederick;a1 itMartindale, Fr Cyril Charlie, SJ;a1 aboutHenson, Herbert Hensley, Bishop of Durham;a1 the Christian’s attitude towards War? a subject to which the Bishop of Durham, Aldous Huxley, Genl. Sir F. Maurice9 and Father Martindale S.J.10 have lately contributed letters to the Times? or about the fascist tendencies of the present government? orWeidlé, Wladimirconsidered for Criterion commentary;a1 about the decay of art, according to Wladimir Weidle?11 The commentary is always cooked up at the last moment before going to press, and there is not time to take your opinion: were you in London I should have discussed the problem with you before now. AlsoCriterion, TheOctober 1936;d1being made up;a1, I am trying to make up the October number, so as to be free to be in America in September and October: HenriMassis, Henrisubmits Criterion article;a3 MassisMaulnier, Thierrypromises TSE Criterion article;a1 has sent in a long article which I must read,12 and has promised another by Thierry Maulnier.13 Itravels, trips and plansTSE's spring/summer 1936 trip to Paris;c2date fixed;a2 can look into that when I go to Paris: that is now fixed for the 6th June.
TheAbyssinia Crisisand the League of Nations;a8 Italians seem to have got what they want in Abyssinia. DoesLeague of Nationsresponsible for the Abyssinia Crisis;a4 anyone now believe in the League of Nations? I am not sorry for what I said about the League in my essay.14 The consequences in Africa may be very queer.
I wonder how real I am to you, now? In reply to my own question, I can say that five months have passed and my feeling is just the same as it was in November when I was first trying to adjust myself to it: untilHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as consubstantial union;e3 then I thought I had a fairly clear notion of ‘myself’, something distinct from all the rest of the world: now and still since then I cannot say that anything of me is ‘mine ’, because so much (and perhaps all) of me seems to be ‘yours ’. Certainly, I am no longer, and never shall be, the ‘same person’ that I was before November the 18th. It is queer that this should be a perpetual daily surrender of ‘myself’:15 and it is a double surrender: it is always to you, and yet at the same time it is to something bigger than either ‘me ’ or ‘you ’ – to something that only you and I together can look at. Now I am tired, and I can’t talk about it any more, but I think there is a good deal more that could be said; and I will talk of this again.
1.The Waste Land, 99–103:
… there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears
See too ‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’ (1918):
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud
And let their liquid siftings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
2.Walt Whitman, ‘Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking’:
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle …
3.Sophocles’ lost tragedy Tereus; Ovid, Metamorphoses VI, 424–674. The Waste Land, 98–104; see further Poems I, 627–9.
4.See Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. ‘The metallic clang heard by Miss Stonor was obviously caused by her stepfather hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant [a venomous snake].’
5.See The Waste Land, 356–8:
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water
6.Cyril Connolly, ‘Major Poet: The Influence of Mr Eliot’, Sunday Times, 3 May 1936, 8; Keith Feiling, ‘Set in Authority: Mr T. S. Eliot’s Essays’ – on Essays Ancient and Modern – Observer, 3 May 1936, 9: TSE’s misattribution.
CyrilConnolly, Cyril Connolly (1903–74): English literary critic and author; editor of the literary magazine Horizon, 1940–9; joint chief book reviewer for the Sunday Times, 1952–74. Works include The Rock Pool (novel, 1935), Enemies of Promise (1938), The Unquiet Grave (1944). See Connolly, ‘Revolutionary out of Missouri’, Sunday Times, 10 Jan. 1956, 38.
7.Feu follet (Fr.): ‘will-o’-the-wisp’.
8.‘A Commentary’, Criterion 15 (July 1936), 663–8.
9.Maj-GenMaurice, Maj.-Gen. Sir Frederick. Sir Frederick Maurice (1871–1951), British Army officer; military correspondent and author: Director of Military Operations, Imperial General Staff, 1915–18. In May 1918 he was obliged to resign after sending a letter to the press which criticised the government of David Lloyd George for issuing misleading statements about the strength of the British Army. He was Principal of the Working Men’s College, London, 1922–33; Professor of Military Studies, London University, 1927; President of the British Legion (which he had helped to found in 1920), 1932–47; Principal of Queen Mary College, University of London, 1933–44.
10.CyrilMartindale, Fr Cyril Charlie, SJ Charlie Martindale, SJ (1879–1963), scholar, preacher, lecturer and broadcaster, became a Catholic convert in 1897 and entered the Jesuit noviciate. A prize-winning essayist at Pope’s Hall (later Campion Hall), Oxford, he was ordained in 1911 and taught classics at Oxford, 1916–27. He then joined the staff of the Farm Street Church in Mayfair, London, where he was energetic in social causes. Celebrated for his lucid, forceful sermons and broadcasts, he gained world-wide renown for his involvement in the Roman Catholic international university movement and as a member of the central committee for the planning of the Eucharistic Congresses. A prolific author, he was to publish over 80 books including Faith of the Roman Church; What are Saints?; Broadcast Sermons; The Message of Fatima; 60 pamphlets and numerous articles. See Philip Caraman, C. C. Martindale (1967).
11.Wladimir WeidléWeidlé, Wladimir (1895–1979), Russian art critic and man of letters; emigrated to France in 1924; author of Les Abeilles d’Aristée: Essai sur le destin actuel des lettres et des arts (1936).
12.Henri Massis, ‘Proust: The Twenty Years’ Silence’ – an extract from a study entitled Le Cas Marcel Proust – trans. Montgomery Belgion, Criterion 16 (Jan. 1937), 269–86.
13.ThierryMaulnier, Thierry Maulnier (1909–88), journalist, essayist, literary critic and dramatist. The article promised by Maulnier was to have discussed the subject of surrealism.
14.‘Notes on the Way [1]’, Time & Tide 16 (Jan. 1935), 6–7. ‘One instance of theological muddleheadedness and the refusal to think things out was provided not very long ago on the occasion of the admission of Russia into the League of Nations.The question raised was whether it was or was not compatible with the Christian principles of the League of Nations to admit Russia; the unexamined assumption was the Christian foundation of the League of Nations. It should have been obvious that the League of Nations never had had any closer relation to the Christian Faith than any other piece of temporal machinery of government; that it was to be judged by Christians like any other such machine, according to its works; and that to reveal its true nature by such an act as the admission of Russia ought to be all to the good … We support it simply because we hope that it may, most of the time, prove itself to be an obstacle to war. But it is not an obstacle to war because it fortifies Christian sentiment …’ (CProse 5, 155–6).
15.The Waste Land, 402–4:
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
CyrilConnolly, Cyril Connolly (1903–74): English literary critic and author; editor of the literary magazine Horizon, 1940–9; joint chief book reviewer for the Sunday Times, 1952–74. Works include The Rock Pool (novel, 1935), Enemies of Promise (1938), The Unquiet Grave (1944). See Connolly, ‘Revolutionary out of Missouri’, Sunday Times, 10 Jan. 1956, 38.
10.AldousHuxley, Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), novelist, poet, essayist: see Biographical Register.
10.CyrilMartindale, Fr Cyril Charlie, SJ Charlie Martindale, SJ (1879–1963), scholar, preacher, lecturer and broadcaster, became a Catholic convert in 1897 and entered the Jesuit noviciate. A prize-winning essayist at Pope’s Hall (later Campion Hall), Oxford, he was ordained in 1911 and taught classics at Oxford, 1916–27. He then joined the staff of the Farm Street Church in Mayfair, London, where he was energetic in social causes. Celebrated for his lucid, forceful sermons and broadcasts, he gained world-wide renown for his involvement in the Roman Catholic international university movement and as a member of the central committee for the planning of the Eucharistic Congresses. A prolific author, he was to publish over 80 books including Faith of the Roman Church; What are Saints?; Broadcast Sermons; The Message of Fatima; 60 pamphlets and numerous articles. See Philip Caraman, C. C. Martindale (1967).
5.Henri MassisMassis, Henri (1886–1970), right-wing Roman Catholic critic; contributor to L’ Action Française; co-founder and editor of La Revue Universelle: see Biographical Register.
13.ThierryMaulnier, Thierry Maulnier (1909–88), journalist, essayist, literary critic and dramatist. The article promised by Maulnier was to have discussed the subject of surrealism.
9.Maj-GenMaurice, Maj.-Gen. Sir Frederick. Sir Frederick Maurice (1871–1951), British Army officer; military correspondent and author: Director of Military Operations, Imperial General Staff, 1915–18. In May 1918 he was obliged to resign after sending a letter to the press which criticised the government of David Lloyd George for issuing misleading statements about the strength of the British Army. He was Principal of the Working Men’s College, London, 1922–33; Professor of Military Studies, London University, 1927; President of the British Legion (which he had helped to found in 1920), 1932–47; Principal of Queen Mary College, University of London, 1933–44.
2.JohnMorley, Donald Donald Innes Morley (b. 15 Mar. 1926).
1.HughMorley, Oliver Oliver Morley (b. 4 Dec. 1928).
3.HelenSeaverns, Helen Seaverns, widow of the American-born businessman and Liberal MP, Joel Herbert Seaverns: see Biographical Register.
2.GeoffreyTandy, Geoffrey Tandy (1900–69), marine biologist; Assistant Keeper of Botany at the Natural History Museum, London, 1926–47; did broadcast readings for the BBC (including the first reading of TSE’s Practical Cats on Christmas Day 1937): see Biographical Register.
11.Wladimir WeidléWeidlé, Wladimir (1895–1979), Russian art critic and man of letters; emigrated to France in 1924; author of Les Abeilles d’Aristée: Essai sur le destin actuel des lettres et des arts (1936).