[240 Crescent St., Northampton, Mass.]
I had a very unlucky week: I was engaged every evening until Friday and then discovered that there was no boat until tomorrow. It is the Queen Mary, so I trust you will get this by to-day week, and meanwhile I shall send you a wire to account for the vacancy. And I shall try to get in another note later in the week to catch the Bremen on Saturday, butCambridge Literary Society'The Idiom of Modern Verse';a2 I have got to be in Cambridge on Friday night to talk to the English Club there (as I spoke to the English Club at Oxford a year ago – you were still here a year ago).
IMorleys, the;i3 went to the Morleys for a short weekend, as I had to take office duty on Saturday morning, and even that was broken by another labour of love – on both our parts – wheels within wheels – weTandys, themove to new Hampton home;a6 had to motor over to Hampton on Sunday evening for a small house warming party of the Tandys’, who have moved into a much nicer house, an old one, the previous was rather squalid, not very far from where they were before. The Tandys are people whose pathos can be borne when they are by themselves, because they are very nice and intelligent and sensitive, but when they are multiplied by their few odd and end pathetic friends their pathos is almost unendurable. We have [sc. had] to leave Lingfield too early for supper, and supped standing up in a small crowded dining room at the Tandys off mutton pies and sausages on toothpicks, bread and cheese and draught beer, and it did not agree with us; especially as we lost our way coming and were both ways in rain and fog: and got back to Pikes Farm at about 1.30. I had rather a disturbed night and bilious attacks for several days later; andMorley, Christina (née Innes)falls asleep at wheel;b2 on Monday Christina was so tired that she fell asleep driving the car (I only know this from them, of course) and smashed it in a ditch. OnBurns, Tombrings David Jones to dinner;a5 Monday I had to dine with Tom Burns (the head of the R. C. book department of Longmans’) andJones, DavidTSE's first impressions of;a1 a friend of his, a little Welsh painter named David Jones, whoJones, DavidIn Parenthesis;a5 has written a rather remarkable book, in a sort of prose that is nearly verse, about his regiment in the War, and a good deal of the Mabinogeon [sc. Mabinogion] and Morte D’Arthur too, which we are going to publish, and of which I have just written the advertisement: that was pleasant.1 OnCattaui, Georgestranslates Murder badly;a7 TuesdayHayward, Johninspects French translation of Murder;f6 Id'Erlanger, Émile Beaumonttranslates Murder badly;a1 dined with John and spent most of the evening going through with him a very bad translation of ‘Murder’ into French by Georges Cattaui (Egyptian Jew)2 and Emile d’Erlanger (English Jew and Portuguese baron)3 which appears to be a very bad translation into very bad French (I have written to both about it to-day, saying that it will not do). OnMorley, Frank Vigor;g2 WednesdayBrace, Idaa 'red hot momma';a1, when I hoped to have a free evening, and would have written to you, I was summoned by Morley to dine with them and Ida Brace. Now as her husband Donald Brace is my New York publisher, and as also Frank is his London agent (this is confidential) I felt that I owed it to Brace and also to Morley. It was rather painful. Ida Brace is a blonde of decidedly over fifty, of the type which I believe was known as the red hot momma: at any rate she suddenly calls one Darling and begins to stroke one’s face. This is, however, merely a social convention and has no further significance: she seems a good honest soul, if expensive and with a great capacity for alcohol. ButLittle Theatre, London;a1 youBax, CliffordThe King and Mistress Shore;a1 will understand that it was fatiguing, and as she had to leave us to go to a dress rehearsal of The King and Mistress Shore (by Clifford Bax, I understand from the Times review a failure)4 I was glad (after an hour in the news-reel with the Morleys) to get to bed. OnTandys, thehost TSE for Guy Fawkes night;a7 Thursday something still more fatiguing: a bus journey out to Hampton to have the fireworks of Guy Fawkes Day with the Tandy family. I had cried off going for that walking tour in Suffolk with him this last weekend (though I should like to have done, and the weather was favourable, but I had too much work on hand) so I could not avoid the Guy Fawkes childrens’ party. I brought some fireworks, but Richard said ‘have you got any rockets?’ and of course I had no rockets, because they were supposed to be dangerous, and so I had not thought of them. However, there are all sorts of cheap and harmless fireworks for children which did not exist in my time, and we had any amount of Catharine [sic] wheels, and somebody produced a set piece called Devil-among-the-tailors,5 which would have been magnificent if it had not tipped over and shot off into the grass, and the party went off without tears, and no child was damaged. Then on Friday I came home with relief and was going to write to you, but the Times appointed no boat until tomorrow: so I didn’t write, but went to bed early and slept late. And on Saturday I worked all the morning on my paper for the Cambridge English Club; andreading (TSE's)MS of German gunman in Chicago;f2 in the afternoon read a manuscript, described as urgent, in German by a German who had been a gunman in Chicago, about his subsequent career, and wrote a report on it, andDawson, Christopherencouraged to expand Christianity and Sex;a4 had Christopher Dawson to tea at the Club, and discussed with him the possibility of a book based on his pamphlet Christianity and Sex.6 AndSt. Stephen's Church, Gloucester Roadchurchwarding at;a5 Sunday as usual, taken up with services and counting coins; butMacNeice, LouisGroup Theatre production of Agamemnon;a1 afterMacNeice, LouisAgamemnon;a9 the evening service I hurried off to see a performance of Louis McNeice’s [sic] translation of the Agamemnon by the Group Theatre.7 A good translation (published by Faber and Faber)8 butGroup Theatreits clichés;b2 a mixed production: asShakespeare, WilliamTimon of Athens;d1 youMurdocks, thetaken to Timon of Athens;a5Murdock, Kenneth B.
AlsoWhitworth, Phyllisfundraising for the Group Theatre;a1, onGroup TheatreTSE speaks at fundraiser for;b1 MondayGuthrie, Tyronefellow-speaker at Group Theatre fundraising event;a3 weekWhitworth, Geoffreyhosts Group Theatre fundraiser;a2 I had to go to a sherry party at Geoffrey Whitworth’s and make a little speech on behalf of the Group Theatre – followed by Tyrone Guthrie.10 I only did it because I knew that if I didn’t my absence would be construed as my surrender to the commercial theatre: thatMurder in the Cathedral1937 Duchess Theatre West End transfer;e8reviewed;a4n is, the production of ‘Murder’ at the Duchess Theatre. (IDaily Telegraphreviews Murder;a2 enclose three reviews: I agree with the censures, about the chorus, and the electric candles – there are too many candles. ThereCarroll, Sydney W.reviews Murder;a1 has been a much more ‘selling’ article in the Telegraph since by one Sydney Carroll, who I believe is a producer himself.11 I have not yet heard the results of the first week. ButMurder in the CathedralItalian and Hungarian rights sold;c5 Dukes had just written to say that the play is to be performed in Budapesth, in that language, before long, and we have been paid for it. He has also sold the Italian rights, but it is uncertain whether the play will be done in that country. It would seem especially queer if it was).
Now the time is getting short. I must post this letter in fifteen minutes. I was glad to hear from you after you had had one letter from me, but until there is a more regular exchange – for evidently we both have had very little time – I shall not feel really in communication with you. But I keep having pictures of you arriving at PLYMOUTH, and of me coming out on the tender to meet you (I have bought a new black soft hat – did I tell you – which you will have to accept because it is exactly like what all correct people wear in London at present – and perhaps I shall have a new suit and will have it to go with the BLUE tie) in July – or preferably June: IWorld Conference of Churches, 1937TSE's address to;a1 hope it will not be while I have to be (from the middle of July) at Oxford for the Conference on Church Community and State, but I hope you will have me down to Campden for the weekends between the conference. And my Dear, you are close to me when I go to sleep and when I wake; and I think of you every day going through your day in Northampton as I go through mine in London, and I long for you and need you always. So
1.DavidJones, David Jones (1895–1974), poet and painter. Thomas Dilworth, David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet (2017), 191: ‘Jones and Eliot were seeing more of each other. In the summer of 1936, at dinner with Eliot and others, Jones had liked him “a great lot”.’
In Parenthesis, by David Jones, was to be published on 10 June 1937.
TSE’sJones, DavidIn Parenthesis;a5 undated reader’s report (Sept. 1936) on In Parenthesis:
The Committee is not to think that it can escape the necessity for re-reading this book by relying on my opinion. That is to say that although I found this book quite fascinating, it is definitely not a one-man opinion book, whether mine or anyone else’s. I should certainly recommend it if I thought that it had any chance of paying for itself, but a book dealing with Flanders between December 1915 and July 1916 in a kind of prose which is frequently on the edge of verse is hardly likely to be popular at the present time. What makes the book interesting is not so much its documentation, which seems pretty good, subject to G.C.F.’s correction. The interest is rather in the refraction through a rather odd personality. ThereKipling, Rudyardset next to David Jones;a3n are things about the book which give it somewhat the same kick that you get from something by Kipling, and I almost think that Kipling himself might have liked it. I don’t mean that it is full of ordinary jingo or empire sentiment, but that the author has a kind of sense of history and a sort of sense of glory in the relation of races which is somewhat Kiplingesque. F.V.M. ought to be pleased by the constant recurrence to the Arthurian Cycle, and the author really succeeds in presenting a genuine poetic aspect of Welshness. But I haven’t the slightest notion whether what I see in the book is really there, or if it is there, whether it will reach more than a few people. But the references to Welsh literature are extremely effective. I recommend the book for serious consideration.
JonesJones, Davidthanks TSE for dinner;a2n to TSE, 19 Nov. 1936:
Thank you so much for my typescript returned.
I did so much enjoy yr coming to dinner that night at Tom Burns & I do hope we may meet again when I am in London.
I am glad to have the mss back for making final corrections – one feels one would like to work on a thing, not for four or five, but for 20 or 30 years, before its publication!
I was more pleased than I can say that you found something to like in it – there is much that I’m doubtful about.
I hope we meet again.
TSE’sJones, DavidIn Parenthesis;a5 blurb (first published in Faber Spring Books 1937, 28) reads:
David Jones is already well known as a painter and draughtsman: he will be known equally as a writer. This is the record of a period between December 1915 and July 1916; it is not a “war book” so much as a distillation of the essence of war books, and in particular it is the chanson de gestes of the Cockney and the Welsh and the Welsh Cockney in the Great War, men and ghosts, and behind them the shadows of all their ancestors who fought and toiled and died in the Britain of the Celt and of the Saxon. Having said this, we may describe the book as an early epic: one of the strangest, most sombre and most exciting books that we have published.
SeeJones, DavidIn Parenthesis;a5 too ‘A Note of Introduction’ (1961):
In Parenthesis was first published in London in 1937. I am proud to share the responsibility for that first publication. On reading the book in typescript I was deeply moved. I then regarded it, and I still regard it, as a work of genius …
WhenPound, Ezraof TSE and David Jones's generation;b9n In Parenthesis is widely enough known – as it will be in time – it will no doubt undergo the same sort of detective analysis and exegesis as the later work of James Joyce and the Cantos of Ezra Pound. It is true that In Parenthesis and David Jones’s later and equally remarkable work The Anathemata, are provided by the author with notes; but author’s notes (as is illustrated by The Waste Land) are no prophylactic against interpretation and dissection; they merely provide the serious researcher with more material to interpret and dissect. TheJoyce, Jamesand David Jones;d3n work of David Jones has some affinity with that of James Joyce (both men seem to me to have the Celtic ear for the music of words) and with the later work of Ezra Pound, and with my own. I stress the affinity, as any possible influence seems to me slight and of no importance. DavidJones, Davidas TSE and EP's contemporary;a3n Jones is a representative of the same literary generation as Joyce and Pound and myself, if four men born between 1882 and 1895 can be regarded as of the same literary generation. David Jones is the youngest, and the tardiest to publish. The lives of all of us were altered by that War, but David Jones is the only one to have fought in it.
2.Georges Cattaui (1896–1974), Egyptian-born (scion of aristocratic Alexandrian Jews, and a cousin of Jean de Menasce) French diplomat and writer; his works include T. S. Eliot (1958), Constantine Cavafy (1964), Proust and his metamorphoses (1973). TSE was to write to E. R. Curtius, 21 Nov. 1947: ‘I received the book by Cattaui [Trois poetes: Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot (1947)] and must say that I found what he had to say about myself slightly irritating. There are some personal details which are unnecessary and which don’t strike me as in the best taste.’
3.Emiled'Erlanger, Émile Beaumont B. (Beaumont) d’Erlanger (1866–1939), of the banking family.
4.‘Little Theatre: “The King and Mistress Shore”,’ The Times, 9 Nov. 1936, 14: ‘This is an episodic narrative of the life of Jane Shore from her first meeting King Edward IV until her ruin under the Protectorship of Richard. Though Mr Bax has carefully decorated the earlier passages of his tale with romantic incident […] the play has little genuine momentum until after Edward’s death, when misfortune gives to Miss Joan Maude [as Jane Shore] and to Mr Bax an opportunity to reveal Jane’s character.’
5.‘Devil-among-the-tailors’ is a firework consisting of four candles (tailors) that flare up and burn down to the point where they set off a mine (the devil) situated in their midst.
6.Christopher Dawson, Christianity and Sex (F&F, 1930).
7.LouisMacNeice, Louis MacNeice (1907–63), poet, radio producer and playwright: see Biographical Register.
8.TheMacNeice, LouisAgamemnon;a9 Agamemnon of Aeschylus, trans. MacNeice: published on 29 Oct. 1936 with this blurb: ‘Mr MacNeice is a classical scholar as well as a poet. He is also interested in the theatre, and has a play of his own in preparation. His translation of the Agamemnon is in verse, but, unlike most translations, is intended primarily for the stage. While keeping close to the original it employs a modern idiom. It is the first “contemporary” translation of this play to be made by a poet; and its first performance is announced by The Group Theatre for November 1936.’
9.‘The Man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo’: music hall song by Fred Gilbert (1891).
10.TyroneGuthrie, Tyrone Guthrie (1900–71), theatre and opera director; later instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
11.SydneyCarroll, Sydney W. W. Carroll, ‘A fine poetic play’, Daily Telegraph, 5 Nov. 1936. The Australian-born Carroll (1877–1958) was an actor, drama critic and theatre manager; theatre critic of the Sunday Times, 1918–23. Co-producer in 1932 of the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
3.TomBurns, Tom Burns (1906–95), publisher and journalist: see Biographical Register.
11.SydneyCarroll, Sydney W. W. Carroll, ‘A fine poetic play’, Daily Telegraph, 5 Nov. 1936. The Australian-born Carroll (1877–1958) was an actor, drama critic and theatre manager; theatre critic of the Sunday Times, 1918–23. Co-producer in 1932 of the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
3.GeorgesCattaui, Georges Cattaui (1896–1974), Egyptian-born (scion of aristocratic Alexandrian Jews: cousin of Jean de Menasce) French diplomat and writer; his works include T. S. Eliot (1958), Constantine Cavafy (1964), Proust and his metamorphoses (1973). TSE to E. R. Curtius, 21 Nov. 1947: ‘I received the book by Cattaui [Trois poètes: Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot (Paris, 1947)] and must say that I found what he had to say about myself slightly irritating. There are some personal details which are unnecessary and which don’t strike me as in the best taste.’
2.JeanCocteau, Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), playwright, poet, librettist, novelist, film-maker, artist and designer, was born near Paris and established an early reputation with two volumes of verse, La Lampe d’Aladin (Aladdin’s Lamp) and Prince Frivole (The Frivolous Prince). Becoming associated with many of the foremost practitioners of experimental modernism, such as Gide, Picasso, Stravinsky, Satie and Modigliani, he turned his energies to modes of artistic activity ranging from ballet-scenarios to opera-scenarios, as well as fiction and drama. ‘Astonish me!’ urged Sergei Diaghilev. A quick collaborator in all fields, his works embrace stage productions such as Parade (1917, prod. by Diaghilev, with music by Satie and designs by Picasso); Oedipus Rex (1927, with music by Stravinsky); and La Machine Infernale (produced at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées, 1934); novels including Les Enfants terribles (1929); and the screenplay Le Sang d’un poète (1930; The Blood of a Poet, 1949).
2.ChristopherDawson, Christopher Dawson (1889–1970), cultural historian: see Biographical Register.
3.Emiled'Erlanger, Émile Beaumont B. (Beaumont) d’Erlanger (1866–1939), of the banking family.
10.TyroneGuthrie, Tyrone Guthrie (1900–71), theatre and opera director; later instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
1.DavidJones, David Jones (1895–1974), poet and painter. Thomas Dilworth, David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet (2017), 191: ‘Jones and Eliot were seeing more of each other. In the summer of 1936, at dinner with Eliot and others, Jones had liked him “a great lot”.’
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).
7.LouisMacNeice, Louis MacNeice (1907–63), poet, radio producer and playwright: see Biographical Register.
4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.
3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
1.GeoffreyWhitworth, Geoffrey Whitworth (1883–1951), dramatist; founder of the British Drama League and editor of its periodical, Drama: A Monthly Record of the Theatre in Town and Country at Home & Abroad; Hon. Secretary of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Committee.
3.PhyllisWhitworth, Phyllis Whitworth, née Bell (1884–1964), theatrical producer and manager; married in 1910 to Geoffrey Whitworth (1883–1951), dramatist; founder of the British Drama League.