[240 Crescent St., Northampton, Mass.]
It seems ever such a long time since I wrote last, and I hope the gap will not be tiresomely great. After the middle of the month – that'Church's Message to the World, The'revised in light of criticisms;a4 is'Introduction' (to Revelation);a7, after I have polished off my BBC speech and my Revelation contribution1 – I hope to have real leisure for work and letter writing. Somehow the work one doesn’t want to do, always takes more time and interferes more with other important things, than the work one does want to do. The last week has been full. OnHoskyns, Edwyn Clementand the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;a4 SaturdayFaber and Faber (F&F)and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;d5 I hadCorpus Christi College, Cambridgeand the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;b1 to go with the Fabers to Cambridge, to stay with the Master of Corpus, to discuss the possibility of a new translation of the best text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which belongs to Corpus). This time, we did arrive, in spite of a snowstorm the day before (London was covered in snow) and a melting fog on the Saturday – arrived in time for tea with the Revd. Sir Edwyn Hoskyns (Lady Hoskyns in bed with a cold, which was a little difficult as the Fabers were staying with them) and then a meeting at Corpus. Afterwards, a large mixed dinner party in our honour – very tiring – I could hear myself at the end of the evening talking like automatism to a young lady who had taken her degree in theology, but who did not have much conversation. Early chapel, a walk with the Master, discussing the project of publishing a series of Divinity Books for schools – lunch with the Master and his wife (a terribly efficient woman, like the wife of a headmaster of a school) and three undergraduates, one of whom from Princeton. Asked about the American floods. Neither I nor the undergraduate from Princeton knew the flood districts. ThenPickthorns, the;a2Pickthorn, Kenneth
That covers, sketchily, the small chat of the moment, of the past week. I was happy to get your letter of the 26th, and to know that you had just received two letters from me. (BySacred Wood, TheEH discovers inscribed copy of;a1 the way, my curiosity would love to know to whom that inscribed copy of The Sacred Wood was inscribed!) … Wetravels, trips and plansEH's 1937 summer in England;c7and Mrs Seaverns;a5 shall both, I hope, be dining with Mrs. Seaverns again if I can be asked to Camden [sc. Campden] when she is staying there – but I confess, as time is so precious, that I had rather be asked to Camden during the space when there are NO other visitors. (Buttravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4TSE reflects on;f5 do you think I don’t remember that afternoon when I waited craning my neck for you at the Albert Hall, and saw you arriving, and then we went out into the pouring rain (’eavens ’ard it was) and I found a taxi by luck, and we went on to tea with Mrs. Seaverns?).
ItSmith CollegeEH unhappy with work at;b5 is quite natural and right that you should feel dissatisfied with your teaching during the first term – for it is on the whole a new work for you, and one ought to feel dissatisfied with what one does at first – not that it is not galling to receive hints that one might do better. But I know that it is work that you can do almost better than anybody, when you master the technique of it. And it is not good to be depressed about it, and I hope you are really ceasing to be. Once you consider it really worth your while to do, you will do it as well as anyone could. And even if you would rather find a place elsewhere, I believe that two years at Smith will stand you in better stead than one. There are a good many people who can produce plays more or less, and there is no absolute criterion for it. But there are very few people in America who speak as good English as you do; and therefore – as you have a gift for teaching what you care about to the girls who care – very few who can teach it so well as you can. Not that I don’t want for you what you want for yourself!
I nowFamily Reunion, Theshould be artistically a stretch;a9 mean to throw myself in a fury at finishing this essay on Secularism for ‘Revelation’ – and get rid of it – so as to be free to try to do what I want to do – though not what I know I can do. That is part of the excitement, as it always has been: trying something in the direct line of what I know I can do, but possibly just a little beyond my powers.
Dear my Love, I don’t want you to give up wanting any of the things you do want, but I do want you to be able to do to your very high best the things that you can do that lie immediately before you.
[‘MarchingOld Possum’s Book of Practical Cats'Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs';e1 SongOld Possum’s Book of Practical Catsindividual poems sent to EH;a4 of the Pollicle Dogs’ enclosed]
1.TSE, ‘Revelation I by T. S. Eliot’, in Revelation, by Hustaf Aulén, Karl Barth, T. S. Eliot et al., ed. John Baillie and Hugh Martin (F&F, 1937), 1–39: CProse 5, 472–96.
2.JulianTrevelyan, Julian Trevelyan (1910–88) – son of the classical scholar and poet Robert Calverley Trevelyan, grandson of the Liberal politician and writer Sir George Trevelyan, nephew of the historian George Macaulay Trevelyan – went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read English in 1928. After training under Stanley William Hayter at the printmaking workshop at the ‘Atelier Dix-Sept’ in Paris, where he worked with Max Ernst, Oskar Kokoshka, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso, he took to Surrealism and exhibited at the International Exhibition of Surrealism in 1936. Also in 1936 he participated, with Tom Harrisson, Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge, in the Mass-Observation project in Bolton, Lancashire. He was a founder-member of the Printmakers’ Council. In later years he specialised in etching and taught at the Chelsea College of Art and at the Royal College of Art (where he became Head of the Etching Department). In 1986 he was awarded a senior Fellowship of the Royal College of Art, and in 1987 he was elected an Academician of the Royal College of Art. He was married first to Ursula Darwin (divorced 1950), and then to the painter Mary Fedden. See further Julian Trevelyan: Catalogue raisonné of prints, ed. Silvie Turner (1999).
4.MontgomeryBelgion, Montgomery (‘Monty’) Belgion (1892–1973), author and journalist: see Biographical Register.
4.WilliamEmpson, William Empson (1906–84), poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
8.EdwynHoskyns, Edwyn Clement Clement Hoskyns, 13th Baronet (1884–1937), theologian; Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was successively Dean of Chapel, Librarian and President. His works in biblical theology include The Fourth Gospel (1940) and Crucifixion-Resurrection (1981); and he published an English translation of Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans (1933). See Gordon S. Wakefield, ‘Hoskyns and Raven: The Theological Issue’, Theology, Nov. 1975, 568–76; Wakefield, ‘Edwyn Clement Hoskyns’, in E. C. Hoskyns and F. N. Davey, Crucifixion-Resurrection (1981); and R. E. Parsons, Sir Edwyn Hoskyns as Biblical Theologian (1985).
2.JohnMorley, Donald Donald Innes Morley (b. 15 Mar. 1926).
4.I. A. RichardsRichards, Ivor Armstrong ('I. A.') (1893–1979), theorist of literature, education and communication studies: see Biographical Register.
2.RobertSpeaight, Robert Speaight (1904–77), actor, producer and author, was to create the role of Becket in Murder in the Cathedral in 1935: see Biographical Register.
7.WillSpens, Will Spens (1882–1962), educator and scientist; Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: see Biographical Register.
2.JulianTrevelyan, Julian Trevelyan (1910–88) – son of the classical scholar and poet Robert Calverley Trevelyan, grandson of the Liberal politician and writer Sir George Trevelyan, nephew of the historian George Macaulay Trevelyan – went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read English in 1928. After training under Stanley William Hayter at the printmaking workshop at the ‘Atelier Dix-Sept’ in Paris, where he worked with Max Ernst, Oskar Kokoshka, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso, he took to Surrealism and exhibited at the International Exhibition of Surrealism in 1936. Also in 1936 he participated, with Tom Harrisson, Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge, in the Mass-Observation project in Bolton, Lancashire. He was a founder-member of the Printmakers’ Council. In later years he specialised in etching and taught at the Chelsea College of Art and at the Royal College of Art (where he became Head of the Etching Department). In 1986 he was awarded a senior Fellowship of the Royal College of Art, and in 1987 he was elected an Academician of the Royal College of Art. He was married first to Ursula Darwin (divorced 1950), and then to the painter Mary Fedden. See further Julian Trevelyan: Catalogue raisonné of prints, ed. Silvie Turner (1999).