[240 Crescent St., Northampton, Mass.]
Your little letter of April 6th from Boston reached me this morning – that is to say, I found it on going to my office; because after writing to you last I had two days in bed with a cold. IFlat 3, 11 Emperor's Gatemakes TSE ill;a6 think it must have been due to sleeping in this new flat (Address: Flat 3, 11 Emperor’s Gate, S.W.7.) before the wall paper had been properly dried – becauseAll Souls Club, Thediscusses adult baptism;a7 I went to bed feeling perfectly well, after my old buffers’ dinner discussing adult baptism, and woke up the next morning with a stuffy head cold. AsHoskyns, Edwyn Clementtalks cheese, cricket, theology;a5 usual, I went through the day, dined as I said with Sir Edwyn Hoskyns, and came home and wrote to you, not mentioning my cold because I was not sure it would get me down – and the next morning my temperature told me I must stay in bed. It was awkward, because the moving was still going on. I managed to get Elizabeth to get a message through to my secretary somehow, though the telephone was out of order, and no messages were receivable: and she put off my engagements for that day. After that Elizabeth collapsed from overwork; and the plumbers camped in the bathroom and cut off the water and the gas and fiddled about with their tools; and from time to time strange parochial women whom I had never seen before poked in cups of tea and Bovril at me and said ‘Are you sure that’s all you want?’ and disappeared; and I cowered under the bedclothes; and I could not get to the lavatory till the evening came and the plumbers vanished, and for two whole days I did not wash; andTandy, Geoffreybrings TSE sherry in bed;b7 onlyalcoholdry sherry to convalescence;b9 the good Tandy found me out, by going to Grenville Place and seeing a milk bottle with a message on it ‘Deliver to 11 Emperor’s Gate, flat 3’, and brought a half bottle of dry sherry; and only this morning I shaved off a stiff three days beard and went to my office. ThisFlat 3, 11 Emperor's Gatecompared to Grenville Place;a7 place is not so bad: it is much quieter, and much warmer, than Grenville Place. But the rooms are less spacious, and I am doubtful whether they are so favourable to composition. And my rooms are not self-contained: that is, I have no outer door, and my bedroom does not open into my sitting room, but I have to pass through the outer hall; and even though I share this floor only with Elizabeth, it does not seem so private. But, whatever other considerations enter into it, I do not intend to move at least until I have finished ‘The Family Re-union [sic]’.
AsEdinburgh Universityconfers honorary degree on TSE;a1 fortravels, trips and plansEH's 1937 summer in England;c7EH accompanies TSE to Edinburgh;a7 Edinburgh – I am very much pleased that you should even want to be there!1 You know, it never occurred to me that you would think importantly enough of it to want to come! Well, if you do, and if the Perkins’s care to journey that far too, I will make enquiries – I don’t see why my friends shouldn’t witness the ceremony, such as it is – myColumbia Universitydegree ceremony witnessed by TSE's family;a2 family, Henry and Theresa, sat and watched me being made a Litt.D. at Columbia: only I can’t stay long there, and I imagine that the candidates for degrees have their time laid out for them (it was so at Columbia) and I couldn’t be sure of getting any time in your company – and I would rather have the time with you at Campden or anywhere private – London especially. And it seems to me that unless you want to go to Edinburgh anyway, it is spending a lot of money which I had rather spend with you when we can be together: so I shall not enquire about seats for the ceremony until I hear from you again. But of course, I should love to feel that you were there. Yet I had rather the cost of going to Edinburgh and staying there were spent otherwise.
IHale, Emily Jose Milliken (EH's mother)her health;b9 do hope that your mother’s health will not be a cause of new anxiety – I think that you know my sympathy and I hope understanding – and I think you know my feelings, as I think that I know yours – and you know that this is always in my bedtime prayers.
IMorleys, the;i6 go tomorrow to the Morleys’ for the weekend – I have not been for a long time; and now the cuckoos will be about – I hardly hope for the nightingales yet, especially as the weather is still cold. MyGeorge VIhis coronation;a1 plansMorleys, theand TSE's Salzburg expedition;i7 for Coronationtravels, trips and plansthe Morley–Eliot 1937 trip to Salzburg;c6contemplated;a1 Week are not settled, becauseFaber, Geoffreyhas mumps;f6 of Geoffrey Faber’s MUMPS in Wales – but I shall either go with the Morleys to Salzburg for the week; or if Faber is still away, then I shall try to persuade Tandy to come to some village in Normandy (Tandy being quite as definitely a Norman name as Eliot) at my expense (because he can’t afford it and his daughter q.v. has just had to have all of her milk teeth out at home). London is getting more and more intolerable, with coronation decorations and seats.
IFamily Reunion, TheTSE on writing;b4 have finished Act I: and I find that starting Act II is just as difficult – I mean more difficult than starting a new play. But I aim at getting the rest drafted before you arrive – because, my darling, it is very difficult to keep my mind on such things when you are about – and by ‘about’ I do not mean merely in London, but within railway distance, within overnight letter distance. To write a good play seems important for your sake, and yet when you are about it seems trivial.
1.2 July: conferment of the hon. degree of D.Litt.
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: 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.GeoffreyTandy, Geoffrey Tandy (1900–69), marine biologist; Assistant Keeper of Botany at the Natural History Museum, London, 1926–47; did broadcast readings for the BBC (including the first reading of TSE’s Practical Cats on Christmas Day 1937): see Biographical Register.