[Apt 6, 154 Riverway, Boston; forwardedHale, Emilyliving at 5 Clement Circle;i4 to 5 Clement Circle, Cambridge, Mass.]
I have been a very poor correspondence to my darling lately. After I came back from Paris, beginning business on a Wednesday, I had three very busy days making up arrears – and only wrote to you once – thenRichmonds, theTSE's Netherhampton weekends with;a7 on Saturday I went to Salisbury to stay with the Bruce Richmonds. They have taken a very delightful, straggling, big (but they think it is small) manor house at Netherhampton, nearby: where several rivers meet, under the downs. TheBalfour, Lady Rhoda;a1 onlyBalfour, Sir Graham;a1 other guest was an old Lady Balfour, the widow of a Sir Graham Balfour, who had something to do with the Education Acts at the beginning of the century,1 andStevenson, Robert Louis;a1 was a friend of R. L. Stevenson, so that part of the conversation was guardedly literary. She was a very nice old lady, though, and insisted upon my coming to tea with her on the next occasion of my visiting Oxford – whereCatholic Literature AssociationBook Committee meeting;a1 I go tomorrow, for a meeting of the Book Committee of the Catholic Literature Association, but I doubt whether I shall finish in time at Pusey House to go to see her. IEnglandSalisbury, Wiltshire;i6in the Richmonds' company;a1 had not been in Salisbury since 1914, so it was almost new to me. We motored to Stonehenge, and to Old Sarum, neither of which I had seen before: Stonehenge (on a lowering grey day) looked especially grand with Sir Bruce Richmond inside it, busily explaining the sacrificial stone, and the altar stone, and the Sarsen stones and the foreign stones, and the orientation towards the Friar’s Heel, all of which he had read up in a handbook. AndMyers, Charles;a1 weSalisbury Cathedralevensong at;a1 went to evensong in the cathedral (Richmond has made friends with the organist) and to tea with an old Canon Myers2 with a beautiful garden extending down to one of the rivers (the Avon, or the Nadder, or one other – there are four rivers about). And the Canon had a curious military cousin with a monocle, a Major who lives at Bexhill! who when Oxford was mentioned said ‘ah-uh, I was at the other place. Trinity, you know. Ah-uh, in my time we used to be rather boisterous. If we didn’t like a man, we’d chuck his furniture out into the court and burn it. Undergraduates don’t seem to be what they used to be etc’ – What? AndHerbert, Georgeshortly followed by Bemerton expedition;a4 weSt. Andrew's Church, Bemertoncompared to Little Gidding;a1 wentEnglandBemerton, Wiltshire;c9visited on Herbert pilgrimage;a1 to look at George Herbert’s church and vicarage at Bemerton:3 but I was rather disappointed – there isn’t the aura of holiness about Bemerton that there ought to be, and that there is about Little Gidding (see enclosed photographs, but I didn’t get any of Bemerton or Salisbury, because the weather was too bad and the sky overcast).
ThenEast Cokerwhich he does;a4 onEnglandEast Coker, Somerset;e9described;a4 Monday I took the day off to go on to Yeovil in Somerset, which is only an hour away. YouEliot family, thein East Coker;a9 see, my family, my branch of it, lived at a village near Yeovil called East Coker, from the latter part of the 15th century to 1663 when they cleared out and went to Beverley Mass. It is a most charming village, with a very nice church, only disfigured by a loathesome [sic] stained glass window put up by a distant American cousin in honour of the family, one of the ugliest stained glass windows that I have ever seen. But I like the country, and I feel at home in it; and the landlady of the New Inn (who identified me with the dreadful glass window, and then asked me what relation I was to Colonel Heneage, who I gather is the local magnate nowadays)4 gave me home made rhubarb jam for tea, and has a bedroom which I think will make a very good country refuge for me from time to time.
Tomorrow, as I said, I go to Oxford for a meeting; andWilliams, CharlesCranmer;b4 the next day, Saturday, I go down to Canterbury to see Charles Williams’s festival play (‘Cranmer of Canterbury’ – I have only glanced at the text so far, but it looks rather good) and back the same night.5
OnKrauss, Sophie M.TSE pays London call on;a5 Wednesday afternoon, after the committee, I dashed over to the Mostyn Hotel, Portman Square, and saw Mrs. Krauss – her husband unfortunately was out – but the little girl, Miss Somers, to whom you gave such a guarded introduction – was there too. I liked Mrs. Krauss and had a pleasant though rather superficial three quarters of an hour; I hope to see something more of the Krauss’s, and more satisfactorily, when they return to London in October. I didn’t make much of Miss Somers. But then I don’t like people with brown eyes. I did indeed like Mrs. Krauss.
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4passage on Alaunia booked;a9 have made a reservation on the Alaunia, sailing for Montreal on August 22nd, and bringing me to Boston about the last day in August. And I ought to return as soon as possible after my birthday (remember it if you can[)]. And how, and where, and how much of, shall I see my darling?
A really hot evening in London, the first of the year. IRussell, Francis, Baron Russell of Killowen;a1 returnedChambers, R. W.reads paper about Thomas More;a1 to London on Tuesday morning – on that evening had to attend a sort of party given to the St. Thomas More Society in Lincolns Inn by Lord Russell of Killowen6 – Professor R. W. Chambers reading a paper about More7 – thenPollock, Sir Frederick;a1 Sir Frederick Pollock (who is 92)8 proposed a vote of thanks at great length, and I had to second it more briefly – thenBurns, Tom;a4 tookBelgion, Montgomerydrink with Tom Burns and;b3 Belgion and Tom Burns to the club for a drink afterwards. LastCulpin, Johanna ('Aunt Johanna', née Staengel)and TSE watch Show Boat;c1 night had to take old Jan Culpin to supper and to the pictures (veryRobeson, Paulhis evocative 'Ol' Man River';a1 bad picture, ‘Show Boat’ with Paul Robson singing ‘Ole Man River’ delightfully, and some nice Mississippi scenes which made me quite homesick, but the latter part of the film deadly[)].9 JanCulpin, Johanna ('Aunt Johanna', née Staengel)returns again to Germany;c2 is going to Germany for four months in a week or so, so she will be off my hands (she is rather expensive because infirm and one has to take taxis at every point) butSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)1936 visit to England;b6;a1 ISmith, Abigail Eliot (TSE's cousin)appears in London;a3 shall have Dodo, and Abigail Smith from St. Louis to look after before long. This is merely to explain why I did not write earlier in the week.
1.Sir Graham Balfour (1858–1929), author and educationalist – cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson – was a key figure in the successful reform of the educational system of Staffordshire, and advised on government committees. His works include Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland (1898) and The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson (1901).
2.CharlesMyers, Charles Myers (1856–1948), Canon of Salisbury, from 1927.
3.George Herbert served as vicar of St Andrew’s Church, Bemerton, in the 1630s.
4.Col. and Mrs Walker Heneage lived at Coker Court, Yeovil, Somerset.
5.TSEWilliams, CharlesCranmer;b4 attended the opening performance, 20 June 1936, and wrote to Williams on 6 July: ‘I have been meaning to write to tell you how much I enjoyed and admired your play. I tried to express a little of my appreciation on the occasion, but for myself I never place much confidence in the verbal remarks of my friends at such moments, as they may possibly be no more than politeness. I do really think that you made a great success of it, and I hope that it will be revived in London.’
6.FrancisRussell, Francis, Baron Russell of Killowen Russell, Baron Russell of Killowen (1867–1946), Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
7.R. W. ChambersChambers, R. W. (1874–1942), Quain Professor of English at University College London, delivered an address on ‘The Place of St. Thomas More in English History and Literature’.
8.SirPollock, Sir Frederick Frederick Pollock, PC, FBA (1845–1937), distinguished jurist and academic: Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford, 1883–1903; Professor of Common Law at the Inns of Court, 1884–90. Authoritative works included The Law of Torts (1897) and History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (with F. W. Maitland, 1895). Editor of the Law Reports, 1895–1935; first editor of the Law Quarterly Review.
9.Show Boat: musical (based on the novel by Edna Ferber, 1926), with music by Jerome Kern; lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; filmed in 1936, with Paul Robeson singing ‘Ol’ Man River’. The musical follows the fortunes of a Mississippi show boat between 1887 and 1927.
4.MontgomeryBelgion, Montgomery (‘Monty’) Belgion (1892–1973), author and journalist: see Biographical Register.
3.TomBurns, Tom Burns (1906–95), publisher and journalist: see Biographical Register.
7.R. W. ChambersChambers, R. W. (1874–1942), Quain Professor of English at University College London, delivered an address on ‘The Place of St. Thomas More in English History and Literature’.
1.SophieKrauss, Sophie M. M. Krauss (b. 1891), wife of Arthur Jeffrey Krauss (1884–1947), Episcopalian, who had resided in Seattle since 1921. Arthur Krauss ran the Krauss Brothers Lumber Company and was to retire in 1938 when the business was wound up in the area. They lived at 128 40th Avenue N., Seattle, with Lillie Cook (49) and Lucy Williams (28) – presumably their servants. See too Lyndall Gordon, The Hyacinth Girl, 183.
8.SirPollock, Sir Frederick Frederick Pollock, PC, FBA (1845–1937), distinguished jurist and academic: Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford, 1883–1903; Professor of Common Law at the Inns of Court, 1884–90. Authoritative works included The Law of Torts (1897) and History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (with F. W. Maitland, 1895). Editor of the Law Reports, 1895–1935; first editor of the Law Quarterly Review.
6.FrancisRussell, Francis, Baron Russell of Killowen Russell, Baron Russell of Killowen (1867–1946), Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
3.AbigailSmith, Abigail Eliot (TSE's cousin) Eliot Smith (1900–84), daughter of Holmes and Rose Eliot Smith, graduated from Wellesley College in 1922, and took her MD at Washington University School of Medicine, 1927. She was Assistant Resident in Medicine, Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, 1930–2; Instructor in Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, 1932–4; Physician to out-patients, Washington University Dispensary, 1936–42; Cardiologist, Out-Patient Department, St. Louis County Hospital, 1942; and Assistant Physician, Wellesley College, from 1942.
2.TheodoraSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece) Eliot Smith (1904–92) – ‘Dodo’ – daughter of George Lawrence and Charlotte E. Smith: see Biographical Register. Theodora’sSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece) sister was Charlotte Stearns Smith (b. 1911), known as ‘Chardy’.
5.CharlesWilliams, Charles Williams (1886–1945), novelist, poet, playwright, writer on religion and theology; biographer; member of the Inklings: see Biographical Register.