[240 Crescent St., Northampton, Mass.]
I cabled the day after getting your postcard (marked ‘private’) and was astonished to get a reply the same afternoon – I sent my question off just before lunch, and received the reply just on six o’clock – rather a record considering the cables were LC. ‘Recovering’ leaves a good deal of vagueness, but it is better than nothing. It sounds to me like more than a cold, to have lasted so long: either you have had influenza, or else there was a great deal of fatigue and general debility about it, at best. It does not look as if I should receive a letter before I go away on Monday, and even if I did it would only be written at the beginning of your illness. Well, there is nothing I can do about it; but I hope that you will not have to plunge frantically into work to clear up the end of term.
ThisFamily Reunion, TheTSE on writing;b4 has been rather a broken week, and I have not got very far with Act II: I don’t know when I shall, because'Religious Drama: Mediæval and Modern';a2 the moment I get back from my holiday I shall have to compose my lecture for Rochester,1 andKingswood School, BathTSE's prize-day address to;a1 after that there is Kingswood andWorld Conference of Churches, 1937TSE's address to;a1 Oxford. But I aim at having finished and re-written to suit producers by Christmas, God Willing. WednesdayChandos Group;a4 night I dined with the Chandos Group, last night with the Morleys, but left them to go on to Laurel & Hardy and come home. Tomorrow and SundayHayward, John;g8 (besides chair-exercise with John tomorrow afternoon) I have some letters to write and some manuscripts to read: going away for as much as a fortnight means clearing up a good deal during the week before leaving, and having a great deal to clear up during the week after my return. ThisRidler, Anne (née Bradby)impresses TSE;a5 will be rather a test for Miss Bradby, whom I have been very well pleased with so far. TheFaber and Faber (F&F);d6 office is to be closed from Tuesday night (the day before the Coronation) to Tuesday morning (the day after Bank Holiday) so she will have her hands full week after next.
Itravels, trips and plansthe Morley–Eliot 1937 trip to Salzburg;c6itinerary;a3 goMorleys, theand TSE's Salzburg expedition;i7 down to the Morleys on Monday, at the end of the day, and stay until Thursday morning. Then we leave somehow for Dover, not returning to Victoria, and by Ostend proceed, in a sleeping car, to Wurzburg and Munich, where we have to change into a train for Salzburg, arriving in the evening of the 14th. The address (not that you would get this in time to write, of course, but in case there was anything to cable about[)] – I did not get it until last night – is: bei Stakhovich, Kleingmain 19, Salzburg, Austria. We expect to be back here on the 24th (Monday); and will you [sic] arrive in just under a month from then.
IGeorge VIhis coronation;a1 shallEnglandLondon;h1during 1937 Coronation;d1 be glad to leave London; andChristianitythe Church Year;d8unsettling;a8 the atmosphere is very unsettling for work, like Christmas. AllOxford and Cambridge Clubduring 1937 Coronation;c2 the houses along the route are faced with scaffoldings of seats and decorated, the front ground floor windows of my club are darkened, barricades have been erected in various places, the town is quite full of people, including orientals, black yellow and brown potentates and paramount chiefs flashing about, and the bus strike adds to the confusion. I am very much in favour of the strikers, and no one who knows what they are up against will blame them for striking now. The coal strike is another matter, it is one of the strikes which always occur on a rising market. ButLondon Passenger Transport Boardwhich TSE approves on spiritual grounds;a2 theLondon Omnibus strike, 1937;a1 bus strike is I think the first of its kind. It is not a fight for wages. They don’t want more wages. It is the first real strike of a human being against the machine. I dare say the London Transport Board are telling the truth when they say that they can’t afford to shorten the men’s hours. That is not the point. The point is that the strain of driving a bus through London traffic has now become so great the human body won’t stand it. The drivers get stomach trouble as a result of the nervous strain. Man is being eventually done in by the machines. And the human body has got to be respected even if it means changing the system. I think that in the end the whole transport system will have to be nationalised and run at a loss; but they will temporise over this for a long time to come. The only thing that I can see happening in the immediate future is that the Bus System will be subsidised by the Government, and the men will get the reduction of half an hour that they are at present asking for: but this is only a step – and a step taken like most steps, by people who don’t know where they are going or what the next step will be.
Well, if I don’t get a letter before I leave I must fidget silently until the 24th May, I suppose.
Dearest girl, good bye until I return. I will write p.c. & short note, but I shall be longing to get back to hear from you.
1.Francis Underhill had invited TSE, on 19 Oct. 1936, to give a lecture – ‘on any subject’ – for the Festival of the Friends of Rochester Cathedral in June 1937. TSE, ‘Religious Drama: Mediæval and Modern’, University of Edinburgh Journal 9: 1 (Aut. 1937), 9–17: CProse 5, 519–30.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
3.AnneRidler, Anne (née Bradby) (Bradby) Ridler (30 July 1912–2001), poet, playwright, editor; worked as TSE’s secretary, 1936–40: see Biographical Register.