[240 Crescent St., Northampton, Mass.]
ItMorleys, the;i1 is just a week since I landed at Plymouth. You may have wondered why I did not write at once (I cabled to thank you for your first letter received on this side) but I seemed to need a few days to get myself readjusted again. I was met at Plymouth by the Morleys, who seemed very glad to see me, and they motored me back over Dartmoor – which I had never seen before – toEnglandLyme Regis, Dorset;h4with the Morleys;a1 Lyme Regis, where Christina had been staying with the two younger children. We motored up to Lingfield on Monday – through Dorchester, which was also new to me, and Winchester – and I came up to town from there on Monday evening. Elizabeth seemed glad to see me, andCheetham, Revd Eric;c3 the Vicar (who enquired at once after Miss Hale) had put some flowers [out] for me; but it was sad to come back with Mary gone: there was a Requiem for her on Wednesday morning, and I should have liked to have you there with me. On Tuesday I made my start at work, and spent the day reading accumulated letters. WednesdayHayward, John;f4 evening I spent with Hayward (by arrangement before I left) andPound, Dorothy Shakespear;a4 onShakespear, Olivia;a8 Thursday I had to go to Mrs. Shakespear’s to see Dorothy Pound who was leaving for Italy the next day; and last night (Friday) I found myself very tired and went to bed. However well one feels – and I do feel well and am told by everyone that I look well – the first few days of return to work, with the many arrears, are particularly tiring: after a week one becomes accustomed to it. Though I suppose, my dear, that the first weeks at Smith for you have been much more tiring, and I am anxious for more news of exactly how you feel and how the work is going. But also a return to the old environment is at first emotionally fatiguing, and that is more important still. One9 Grenville Place, Londonevokes memories of childhood homecomings;b7 feelsAmericaSt. Louis, Missouri;h4TSE's childhood in;a1 aAmericaNew England;f9TSE remembers returning from childhood holidays in;b1 curious2635 Locust Street, St. Louisremembered;a2 and painful recrudescence of childhood: walking into my old room revived the feelings of a child on returning to the St. Louis house after the summer in Massachusetts – I almost smelt the grapes which were always on the table there when we returned; and returning to the office was curiously like the first day at school. One feels a peculiar shyness, wanting to slip in unobserved and not be greeted, and pretend that one has been there all the time. Well, I am beginning to get control of myself, and shall now be writing as garrulously as ever; but at first one’s courage towards life is deficient.
Anywaytravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4TSE reflects on;b6, I am very happy in retrospect of my visit. I mean that it was only painful in ways in which it had to be painful, and it contained no unexpected or unnecessary chagrins. Considering the various demands, we were together as much as I had any right to expect; the other things I did were all the things that I had to do; andElsmiths, theseminal Woods Hole stay with;a1 IAmericaWoods Hole, Falmouth, Massachusetts;i2TSE and EH's holiday in recalled;a2 am very grateful for the Elsmiths’ kindness. We could not have had a more satisfactory week as guests of people to whom I came as a complete stranger. ThatDry Salvages, Theand Woods Hole;a1 bell-buoy is still tolling in my ears1 and calls up the long beaches, the sea-gulls, the pine grove, and the room where we sat on two afternoons. And I am very happy to have seen you at Smith, and to be able to walk with you in imagination down Crescent Street and Elm Street, and look over at Williamsburgh from Petticoat Hill.
HowAmericaNew England;f9its countryside distinguished;b2 beautiful thatEnglandEnglish countryside;c2compared to New England's;a4 New England country is, and some of its villages such as Williamsburgh, and how much ours. But there is an acute sadness and desolation about it, a sense of decay and walking among ghosts, that no English countryside gives me; and I am glad to think that our next country walk will be in Gloucestershire again. AmericaEuropeseems more alive than America;a6 seems (to me) more peaceful yet more sorrowful, and Europe much more alive. SmithcheeseOld Cheshire;a2 atOxford and Cambridge Clubcurrently stocking Old Cheshire Cheese;b9 the club greets me with news of a good lot of Old Cheshire Cheeses, and Morgan tells me that he has got a new chef who does the roast beef the way I like it (and indeed he does) andIsherwood, Henry Bradshaw;a1 Old Mr. Isherwood2 says where have you been? haven’t seen you for a long time . . . three dots and I settle down to the smoky winter and the soft damp air and the coal fire.
Howtravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4TSE's birthday during;b5 good you were to me. I have the memory of the loveliest birthday that ever was for me.
SoonSmith College;b3 I want you tell me all about your classes, and what you do in them, and – when you have sized them up – the girls you have. You will soon have a few particular admirers too. I know that the work you are doing is not exactly what you like; yet I think it is work for which you are exceptionally qualified, and by doing a good job of it, as I am sure you will, you may be able to extend your province into dramatic work. At any rate, by doing this work at Smith, you will be in a much better position for commanding the work you want somewhere else, if you find that you want to change: it is not as if doing this work was putting you out of the running for dramatic training and production.
AtDukes, Ashleyfull of grand desgins;c2 this point a parenthesis to say that I had Ashley Dukes to lunch yesterday. HeMercury Theatre, LondonDukes proposes new Mercury Theatre;b4 is full of optimism in every way, and has bought a piece of ground which has immediately risen in value, and is going to build a new Mercury Theatre. MeanwhileMurder in the Cathedral1937 Duchess Theatre West End transfer;e8date fixed for;a1 Murder has started and is doing moderately well, and he is going to transfer it at the end of the month to the West End, the Duchess Theatre, where he hopes to get a new audience. ThereShakespeare, WilliamAntony and Cleopatra;b2 haveLeontovich, Eugenieas Cleopatra;a1 been several crashing failures lately – EugenieNew Theatre, St. Martin's LaneLeontovich's Antony and Cleopatra;a2 Leontovich3 has come a cropper at Cleopatra; I have never read a more thorough condemnation in The Times,4 I will send it to you: and this makes him think the chances better. SoMurder in the Cathedral1938 American tour;f6said date seconded by Dukes;a2 he Still [sic] hopes to bring the Company over to New York (and possibly for a tour, including Boston) at the end of January. HeMurder in the Cathedralunsolicited 1936 New York production;e2may predispose immigration authorities favourably in future;b3 thinks that having allowed the WPA to do it last year, at a nominal fee, will put the Immigration authorities in a much better humour for letting him come, and make everyone more favourable. (Though of course, if Roosevelt is not re-elected, everything may be different).
I can’t get to work on a new plot until I have got this Revelation essay done, and cleared up a couple of speaking arrangements at Cambridge; after November I expect to be pretty free. NextOldham, Joseph;b5 weekMorrell, Lady Ottoline;g1 is full; I have Oldham to lunch on Monday, tea with Ottoline, dinnerAll Souls Club, The;a5 with the All Souls Club. TuesdayCouncil of Church, Community & State;a1 a meeting of the Council of Church, Community & State – Wednesday after the committee I must go to hear the Public Prosecutor deliver a lecture about Indecent Literature; ThursdayChurch Literature Associationresignation from Book Committee intended;a7 a C.L.A. Book Committee Meeting at Oxford, at which I mean to tender my resignation as Secretary; Fridayde Margerie, Henriette 'Jenny' Jacquin (née Fabre-Luce)keen for Murder in Paris;a2 goHayward, Johnhosts discussion about Parisian Murder;f5 tode La Rochefoucauld, Edmée, Duchessekeen on Murder in Paris;a1 John Hayward’s to meet Jenny de Margerie and the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld who want to discuss getting the Murder company to give performances in Paris.
Ireading (TSE's)A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life;f1 haveLaw, WilliamA Serious Call;a1 been looking at Law’s ‘Serious Call’ again, and I don’t care so much for it as I thought I did. It is good, but there is something rather shallow and 18th Century about Law’s attitude.5 I might call it almost a handbook of ‘inner behaviour’ than of profound devotion. It is remarkable for its time, which was a bad one spiritually; but I think I can find something better. ThereBell, Bernard Iddingsrecommended to EH;a3 is aBell, Bernard IddingsPreface to Religion;b8 recent book – of quite a different kind: rather an intellectual introduction to Christianity for modern people – by my friend Iddings Bell of Providence, which you might find useful:6 I shall have some trouble in getting it, because I don’t remember the name or the publisher, and it is published only in America – but I will try to get it for you.
ISt. John's Episcopal Church, Northampton;a1 onlyHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1the issue of communion;a8 regretChristianityUnitarianism;d9the issue of communion;b4 that I did not see the inside of St. John’s in Northampton, as you have begun to go there: I should like to be able to call up a picture of you in it. If, my dear, you intend to make communions there, I suggest that you should get in touch with the Vicar or Rector and ascertain his views. He might, or he might not, want to know that you had had what we call a ‘valid baptism’, which means a baptism with the sign of the Cross in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; and he might or might not ask about Confirmation. The rule of England is similar to that of the Roman Church; but the Episcopal Church in America is independent and I dare say have freer regulations. I hope the Vicar is a good man: I should like to have met him.
I am not going to talk now about my missing you, because that will be easier for both of us in later letters, when we are more re-habituated to being apart. I had rather dwell again on the greater closeness to you that I feel always; and my gratitude that my visit has only brought us more closely and inextricably together. That is the blessing to come out of suffering together.
1.‘The Dry Salvages’ (with thanks to Frances Dickey for this allusion):
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell …
2.HenryIsherwood, Henry Bradshaw Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1940), uncle of Christopher Isherwood (his deceased father’s elder brother), inherited Marple Hall and family estates in Cheshire in 1924; he had no children. Christopher Isherwood was to succeed to the diminished residue of his estate.
3.EugenieLeontovich, Eugenie Leontovich (ca. 1900–93), Russian-born American stage and screen actor who emigrated to the USA in 1922, following the Bolshevik Revolution: she became a star of Broadway, where in 1930 she was acclaimed as Grusinskaia in the premiere of Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel. In 1936, at the New Theatre, London, she starred in Antony and Cleopatra.
4.Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Theodore Komisarjevksy and starring Eugenie Leontovich as Cleopatra, and Donald Wolfit as Antony, was a ‘travesty’: ‘Seldom has a play been so tormented and twisted and stifled or a work of genius so casually scorned.’ The star was ‘dull, pretentious, and for the most part incomprehensible’ (The Times, 15 Oct. 1936, 12).
5.WilliamLaw, William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729).
6.Bernard Iddings Bell, Preface to Religion (1935); or A Catholic Looks at His World: An Approach to Christian Sociology (1936).
3.BernardBell, Bernard Iddings Iddings Bell, DD (1886–1958), American Episcopal priest, author and cultural commentator; Warden of Bard College, 1919–33. In his last years he was made Canon of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Chicago, and a William Vaughn Lecturer at the University of Chicago.
4.RevdCheetham, Revd Eric Eric Cheetham (1892–1957): vicar of St Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, London, 1929–56 – ‘a fine ecclesiastical showman’, as E. W. F. Tomlin dubbed him. TSE’s landlord and friend at presbytery-houses in S. Kensington, 1934–9. See Letters 7, 34–8.
4.Henriettede Margerie, Henriette 'Jenny' Jacquin (née Fabre-Luce) ‘Jenny’ Jacquin de Margerie, née Fabre-Luce (1896–1991), wife of the French diplomat Roland de Margerie.
4.AshleyDukes, Ashley Dukes (1885–1959), theatre manager, playwright, critic, translator, adapter, author; from 1933, owner of the Mercury Theatre, London: see Biographical Register.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
2.HenryIsherwood, Henry Bradshaw Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1940), uncle of Christopher Isherwood (his deceased father’s elder brother), inherited Marple Hall and family estates in Cheshire in 1924; he had no children. Christopher Isherwood was to succeed to the diminished residue of his estate.
5.WilliamLaw, William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729).
3.EugenieLeontovich, Eugenie Leontovich (ca. 1900–93), Russian-born American stage and screen actor who emigrated to the USA in 1922, following the Bolshevik Revolution: she became a star of Broadway, where in 1930 she was acclaimed as Grusinskaia in the premiere of Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel. In 1936, at the New Theatre, London, she starred in Antony and Cleopatra.
4.LadyMorrell, Lady Ottoline Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), hostess and patron: see Biographical Register.
8.JosephOldham, Joseph (‘Joe’) Houldsworth Oldham (1874–1969), missionary, adviser, organiser: see Biographical Register.
4.DorothyPound, Dorothy Shakespear Shakespear Pound (1886–1973), artist and book illustrator, married Ezra Pound (whom she met in 1908) in 1914: 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.