[No surviving envelope]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
Faber & Faber Ltd
9 June 1936
My dear Girl,

I am only writing to you tonight this little note, because I see that the ‘Normandie’ is sailing tomorrow: this is merely a salutation, and you will receive a long letter, a journal of my visit to Paris (amongst other things) by the ‘Bremen’ on Saturday. But I want to tell you at once that your letter which Sylvia Beach handed me on Friday, whenBeach, SylviaTSE's 'lecture de poésies' for;a1 after my arrival I looked in at 12, rue de l’Odéon, was a very great and welcome surprise, which helped me very much through the efforts of my ‘reading’ – which went off, I think, very successfully. And tonight on coming back to Grenville place, I found your second letter (of the 26th May), a rather sad letter to be sure – why do you say you feel ‘out of touch with me’ when I feel every night, whether at Grenville Place, or in the train, or at the Hotel de Beaujolais, almost as if I had my arm around you – with some pleasant things in it <(the letter)> and some knotty ones, and much to answer and to talk about and much which makes me want merely to kiss you silently. But you see you have timed your letters most intuitively, and I have nothing to offer in return but my cable from Victoria this evening on arrival. Andflowers and florasweet peas;c9;a8 when I got to Gloucester Road, I looked at the flower barrows and stalls but they had no sweet peas; and I will not decorate my room with anything else. Then I rushed out to the club to dine (the only fitting antithesis to dinner last night on the Ile St. Louis, afterMaritains, thevisited in Paris;a3 returning from a visit to the Maritains in Meudon, andPaulhan, Jeancalled on in Paris;a1 then to Jean Paulhan1 at the N.R.F. andJoyce, Jamesin Paris;d1 then to see Joyce again in the rue Edmond-Valentin beforeGilbert, Stuartin Paris;a4 going to the Gilberts to dinner: got to bed at 3 and up again at 7 – slept a bit on the boat, but am ‘dog-tired’.) [sic] A successful visit. But when I am among distinguished people I want my Emily to be there with me, and then I should enjoy it; and when I am among simple nice people whom I like (like the Maritains) then I want my Emily to be there with me still more. Now it is nearly 11 and I must post this: but I will write again more fully for the German boat on Saturday.

to my Emilie
from her Tom.

1.JeanPaulhan, Jean Paulhan (1884–1968), editor of Nouvelle Revue Française, 1925–40, 1946–68. He was active in the French Resistance during WW2. His works include Entretiens sur des fait-divers (1930); Les Fleurs de Tarbes, ou, La Terreur dans les lettres (1936); and On Poetry and Politics, ed. Jennifer Bajorek et al. (2010). See William Marx, ‘Two Modernisms: T. S. Eliot and La Nouvelle Revue Française’, in The International Reception of T. S. Eliot, ed. Elisabeth Däumer and Shyamal Bagchee (2007), 25–33.

Beach, Sylvia, TSE's 'lecture de poésies' for, dinner in Paris with Gide and, thanks TSE,

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.

flowers and flora, aconite, at Shamley, imagined in Cambridge, azaleas, summon memories of EH, bamboo, imagined by TSE in California, bluebells, in Shamley Wood, bourgainvillea, imagined by TSE in California, cactus, imagined by TSE in California, carnations, from Chipping Campden, catkins, at Shamley, celandine, spotted at Shamley, chrysanthemums, TSE prefers to roses, cowslips, at Shamley, crocuses, at Shamley, imagined in Cambridge, gladioli, sent to EH in TSE's name, hawthorn ('may'), summons memories of EH, heliotrope, enclosed in letter from Christine Galitzi, hibiscus, imagined by TSE in California, laburnum, summons memories of EH, lilacs, in Russell and Woburn Squares, summon memories of EH, lilies-of-the-valley, delivered to EH on the Samaria, Michaelmas daisies, around Pike's Farm, palms, imagined by TSE in California, primroses, and the English spring, at Shamley, pussy-willow, at Shamley, rhododendrons, summon memories of EH, roses, in autumn, sent to EH on birthday, from Chipping Campden, left by EH in TSE's Grenville rooms, their emotionally disturbing scent, given to TSE as EH's parting gift, for EH's birthday, snowdrops, at Shamley, sweet peas, and EH's performance in Hay Fever, effect of their scent on TSE, no longer painful to TSE, delivered to EH, TSE buys himself at Gloucester Road, cheer TSE up, the essence of summer, sent to Aunt Edith, violets, EH gives TSE as buttonhole, emotionally disturbing, left by departing EH, wisteria, summons memories of EH, Wood anemone, at Shamley, yew, sprig picked for TSE by EH, zinnias, TSE prefers over roses,
Gilbert, Stuart, port of call in Paris, in Paris,

4.StuartGilbert, Stuart Gilbert (1883–1969), English literary scholar and translator, was educated at Hertford College, Oxford (1st class in Classics), and worked in the Indian Civil Service; and then, following military service, as a judge on the Court of Assizes in Burma. It was only after his retirement in 1925 that he undertook work on Joyce, having admired Ulysses while in Burma. After befriending Joyce and others in his Paris circle (including Sylvia Beach and Valery Larbaud), he wrote James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’: A Study (F&F, 1930). He helped Joyce with the French translation of Ulysses; and in 1957 edited Letters of James Joyce (with advice from TSE). In addition, he translated works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Roger Martin du Gard, Paul Valéry, André Malraux, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Georges Simenon.

Joyce, James, appears suddenly in London, admired and esteemed by TSE, takes flat in Kensington, lunches with TSE at fish shop, gets on with Osbert Sitwell, GCF on, consumes TSE's morning, dines in company chez Eliot, obstinately unbusinesslike, bank-draft ordered for, indebted to Harriet Weaver, writes to TSE about daughter, his place in history, evening with Lewis, Vanderpyl and, TSE appreciates loneliness of, TSE's excuse for visiting Paris, insists on lavish Parisian dinner, on the phone to the F&F receptionist, TSE's hairdresser asks after, defended by TSE at UCD, for which TSE is attacked, qua poet, his Miltonic ear, requires two F&F directors' attention, anecdotalised by Jane Heap, part of TSE's Paris itinerary, in Paris, strolls with TSE, and David Jones, and EP's gift of shoes, his death lamented, insufficiently commemorated, esteemed by Hugh Walpole, TSE's prose selection of, Indian audience addressed on, TSE opens exhibition dedicated to, TSE on the Joyce corpus, TSE on his letters to, Anna Livia Plurabelle, Joyce's recording of, Dubliners, taught in English 26, Ulysses, modern literature undiscussable without, Harold Monro's funeral calls to mind, its true perversity, likened to Gulliver's Travels, F&F negotiating for, 'Work in Progress' (afterwards Finnegans Wake), negotiations over, conveyed to London by Jolas, 'very troublesome', new MS delivered by Madame Léon,
see also Joyces, the

1.JamesJoyce, James Joyce (1882–1941), Irish novelist, playwright, poet; author of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegans Wake (1939).

Maritains, the, dine with EH and TSE, visited in Paris, dine with TSE in Princeton,
Paulhan, Jean, called on in Paris,

1.JeanPaulhan, Jean Paulhan (1884–1968), editor of Nouvelle Revue Française, 1925–40, 1946–68. He was active in the French Resistance during WW2. His works include Entretiens sur des fait-divers (1930); Les Fleurs de Tarbes, ou, La Terreur dans les lettres (1936); and On Poetry and Politics, ed. Jennifer Bajorek et al. (2010). See William Marx, ‘Two Modernisms: T. S. Eliot and La Nouvelle Revue Française’, in The International Reception of T. S. Eliot, ed. Elisabeth Däumer and Shyamal Bagchee (2007), 25–33.