[No surviving envelope]
First of all I must mention what I forgot to put in to my last two letters, thatSeaverns, Helenteaches TSE card games;a8 I dined alone and pleasantly with Mrs. Seaverns last week, upon her return from Kent. During the latter part of the evening we played Patience, and she taught me two quite good new games. She is a lonely old lady (thoughShakespear, Olivialoneliest of old ladies;a7 not as lonely I think as Mrs. Shakespear is now) and I think it gave her pleasure. She seems to occupy herself a good deal with American Women’s Clubs: is going off to Copenhagen before long to some convention; said she would ask me in again when she returned. She spoke wistfully of not having heard from the Perkins’s or you since you left, and asked for news. Spoke very appreciatively of you also.
Well, I am grateful to you for writing so fully as in your letter of the 28th which I acknowledged very briefly. What is it you put in your nose – if it is Endrine, you must be careful not to make a habit of it, as it is excessively drying or something, and has bad effects after a time. And I hope you will not have any operation on your sinus. Of course it is provoking to have this ailment, and be threatened with arthritis, at the end of a hard winter gone through so successfully. INoyes, Penelope BarkerEH's Cataumet summer holiday with;d3 certainly raise no objection to your decision not to go to Cataumet: it would seem that you know both from a little experience what it would be like, and from the advice of friends. And I had not thought of the visit’s meaning that you would take Penelope’s place while she went away – that is quite another thing from visiting while she is there too. And now WHAT are you to do? IPerkinses, theTSE encourages EH's independence from;f4 think you will be wise not to spend any more of the summer than you can help, at Riverway with the Perkins’s. I am sure you need very much to get away by yourself, or at least on any longish visits in the country or at the seaside with any friends you have who are not tiring to be with – and I have very few if any myself who are not tiring after a few days of incessant companionship. IAmericaWhite Mountains, New Hampshire;i1possible TSE and EH excursion to;a1 amSheffields, the;b8 writing to Ada to ask her when they would be going to the White Mountains; and if I could contribute a bit towards the expenses in September, wouldn’t it make the problem of August a little easier? But where is there to go, by oneself, in America? or have you any single friend, who would go away with you, and share expenses? I know well the need one has to be alone, andOxford and Cambridge Clubresort of TSE's free weekends;b8 I treasure my evenings alone here at Grenville Place (when I am apt to be writing to you) and my solitary weekends in London at the club.
Yes indeed, friends can be very careless of one’s needs. Not that I have grounds for complaint, who have had as useful friends as anybody, but I can think of occasions in which I have failed people, through having many other things to think about. And it is curious how often one gives, not to people to whom one owes anything, but rather just to hungry birds who go on holding their mouths open.
ITrouncer, Margareton warpath with second book;a7 am amused by the report that the publishers are eager for another book from Mrs. Trouncer! That is an echo of my having her to tea, to explain to me the book she wants to write next, on Madame de Pompadour; and I told her guardedly that we were interested, but of course must wait to see how the present book was received, before we could offer terms. HoweverTrouncer, MargaretA Courtesan of Paradise;b3, the Louise de la Valliere has been pretty well received, and I think we shall make a little money on it, and will take another book from her. I have heard nothing of them, or of their domestic affairs, for a long time.
IRoberts, Michaelreviews Collected Poems;a2 encloseCollected Poems: 1909–1935reviewed;a4 an article by Michael Roberts from the ‘London Mercury’,1 andSpencer, Theodorehails Burnt Norton;c1 two letters from Theodore Spencer, because they testify to the success of your poem, ‘Burnt Norton’.2 ThatBurnt Norton'about' EH;b4 poem is about you, of course, but also, incidentally, about time. Certainly, it could never have been written but for you, and it is much more about you than about that moment in that garden which serves as the pretext.
Astravels, trips and plansTSE's spring/summer 1936 trip to Paris;c2TSE's itinerary;a5 I think I told you, I shall be in Paris on the 6th June – andMorleys, the;h3 probably for two days before and two days after. Itdu Bos, Charleson TSE's Paris itinerary;a1 isValéry, Paulon TSE's Paris agenda;a2 goingGide, Andréport of call in Paris;a1 to be a little complicated, if I am to see the Paris folk – probablyMaritain, Jacquesand TSE's Paris itinerary;b7 Charles de Bos,3 Paul Valery,4 perhaps Gide,5 perhaps Jacques Maritain, and combine them with the Morleys – becauseMorley, Frank Vigorhis French;f7 Christina is very shy really, and Frank speaks the most preposterous French you can imagine: on the other hand they will be useful in dealing with James Joyce. AsPound, Ezrarecommended to NEW editorial committee;b7 for Rappalo [sic], NO, I won’t go among them wops with Ezra talking about the British as ‘enemies of his country’; andAbyssinia Crisis;a9 I am glad to think that the Emperor of Abyssinia has cached £1,000,000 in the Jerusalem Branch of Barclay’s [sic] Bank Limited. IfHuxleys, thetempt TSE to visit Provence;b1Huxley, Aldous
Iflowers and florasweet peas;c9delivered to EH;a5 hope, my darling, that the sweet peas ordered were delivered to you on Saturday, per Greene’s under the Ritz Arcade who undertook to do the cabling for me. That’s to help cure your beautiful Nose.
O your little photograph is such a comfort to me morning and night. But you must NOT say that you wish you looked like that now. You DO look exactly like it – that is, as exactly as I would wish: for if you were any more exactly, you wouldn’t be my Tall Girl grown up to fit exactly into my shoulder. I hold you now.
My Emilie, from her humble
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As stated above, I enclose article by Roberts and letter from T. Spencer about Burnt Norton.
1.Michael Roberts, ‘The Poetry of T. S. Eliot’, London Mercury 34 (May 1936), 38–44.
2.Letters not found.
3.Charlesdu Bos, Charles du Bos (1832–1939), French critic of French and English literature – his mother was English – wrote one review for the Criterion in 1935. He published Réflexions sur Mérimée (1920), and was later famous for his posthumously published journals (6 vols, 1946–55).
4.Paul ValéryValéry, Paul (1871–1945), poet, essayist and literary theorist: see Biographical Register.
5.AndréGide, André Gide (1869–1951), novelist, essayist, diarist, travel writer, translator, critic and anti-colonialist; co-founder of the Nouvelle Revue Française, 1908; author of numerous works in various genres including the novels L’Immoraliste (1902), La Porte étroite (1909), Les Caves du Vatican (1914), Corydon (1924) and Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925); and journals and autobiographies including Si Le Grain ne meurt (1924). Nobel Prize laureate, 1947.
6.The Richmonds were living at Netherhampton House, Salisbury.
3.Charlesdu Bos, Charles du Bos (1832–1939), French critic of French and English literature – his mother was English – wrote one review for the Criterion in 1935. He published Réflexions sur Mérimée (1920), and was later famous for his posthumously published journals (6 vols, 1946–55).
5.AndréGide, André Gide (1869–1951), novelist, essayist, diarist, travel writer, translator, critic and anti-colonialist; co-founder of the Nouvelle Revue Française, 1908; author of numerous works in various genres including the novels L’Immoraliste (1902), La Porte étroite (1909), Les Caves du Vatican (1914), Corydon (1924) and Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925); and journals and autobiographies including Si Le Grain ne meurt (1924). Nobel Prize laureate, 1947.
5.JacquesMaritain, Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), philosopher and littérateur, was at first a disciple of Bergson, but revoked that allegiance (L’Evolutionnisme de M. Bergson, 1911; La Philosophie bergsonienne, 1914) and became a Roman Catholic and foremost exponent of Neo-Thomism. For a while in the 1920s he was associated with Action Française, but the connection ended in 1926. Works include Art et scolastique (1920); Saint Thomas d’Aquin apôtre des temps modernes (1923); Réflexions sur l’intelligence (1924); Trois Réformateurs (1925); Primauté du spirituel (1927), Humanisme intégral (1936), Scholasticism and Politics (1940), Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953). TSE told Ranjee Shahani (John O’London’s Weekly, 19 Aug. 1949, 497–8) that Maritain ‘filled an important role in our generation by uniting philosophy and theology, and also by enlarging the circle of readers who regard Christian philosophy seriously’. See Walter Raubicheck, ‘Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, and the Romantics’, Renascence 46:1 (Fall 1993), 71–9; Shun’ichi Takayanagi, ‘T. S. Eliot, Jacques Maritain, and Neo-Thomism’, The Modern Schoolman 73: 1 (Nov. 1995), 71–90; Jason Harding, ‘“The Just Impartiality of a Christian Philosopher”: Jacques Maritain and T. S. Eliot’, in The Maritain Factor: Taking Religion into Interwar Modernism, ed. J. Heynickx and J. De Maeyer (Leuven, 2010), 180–91; James Matthew Wilson, ‘“I bought and praised but did not read Aquinas”: T. S. Eliot, Jacques Maritain, and the Ontology of the Sign’, Yeats Eliot Review 27: 1–2 (Spring–Summer 2010), 21; and Carter Wood, This Is Your Hour: Christian Intellectuals in Britain and the Crisis of Europe, 1937–40 (Manchester, 2019), 69–72.
4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.
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.
3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
1.MichaelRoberts, Michael Roberts (1902–48), critic, editor, poet: see Biographical Register.
3.HelenSeaverns, Helen Seaverns, widow of the American-born businessman and Liberal MP, Joel Herbert Seaverns: see Biographical Register.
6.OliviaShakespear, Olivia Shakespear (1863–1938), novelist and playwright; mother of Dorothy Pound, made an unhappy marriage in 1885 with Henry Hope Shakespear (1849–1923), a solicitor. She published novels including Love on a Mortal Lease (1894) and The Devotees (1904). Through a cousin, the poet Lionel Johnson (1867–1902), she arranged a meeting with W. B. Yeats, which resulted in a brief affair and a lifetime’s friendship. Yeats wrote at least two poems for her, and she was the ‘Diana Vernon’ of his Memoirs (ed. Denis Donoghue, 1972). See Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1909–1914, ed. Omar S. Pound and A. Walton Litz (1984), 356–7.
2.TheodoreSpencer, Theodore Spencer (1902–48), writer, poet and critic, taught at Harvard, 1927–49: see Biographical Register.
2.MargaretTrouncer, Margaret Trouncer (1903–82), author of A Courtesan of Paradise: The Romantic Story of Louise de la Vallière, Mistress of Louis XIV (F&F, 1936). See http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/18th-december-1982/23/obituary-margaret-trouncer
4.Paul ValéryValéry, Paul (1871–1945), poet, essayist and literary theorist: see Biographical Register.