IHale, Emilywritings;x4'They flash upon the inward eye';b7 have meant to write you a word of greeting both in time for Easter and for Whitsun, but of course left it until too late on each occasion. But I am not so graceless as not to write to thank you for your last letter, enclosing the Story by Emily, which I shall prize among my most carefully preserved papers.2 Thank you ever so much for letting me have it.
I have thought of you and Dr. Perkins often as the spring and summer came in. It may be cheering to you to know that you have missed an especially bad season in this country; indeed, there have been very few occasions when you would have been able to enjoy sitting in the garden. It has been the most consistently cold and grey year that I remember, yet we are told that there has not been enough rain either, though yesterday it pelted cats and dogs. TheLittle GiddingTSE's pilgrimage to the eponymous;a3 onlyEnglandLittle Gidding, Cambridgeshire;g9TSE's long-intended expedition to;a1 really lovely day that I remember was a day at the end of May when I was motored over from Cambridge to Little Gidding. Thebirdsnightingale;c8;a4 nightingales were discouraged from singing; and now, in the middle of July, I am sitting huddled before the gasfire. At the same time you seem to have been perishing of heat in America.
I hope that there will be some warmth left for me, and I look forward very much to seeing you when I come to Cambridge in September.
1.Edith Carroll Perkins, née Burnside Milliken (1869–1958) – who married the Revd John Carroll Perkins in 1892 – was EH’s maternal aunt.
2.The story is almost certainly an undated piece by EH entitled ‘They flash upon the inward eye’ (Smith College); first published in Campden & District Historical & Archæological Society: Notes & Queries 5: 4 (Spr. 2007), 47–8. See story in Appendix.