[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
My typewriter has gone to be cleaned, curse it! But I did want to catch this mail, just to speak about your information for which I was deeply grateful. It was somehow more or less what I expected: but you know, I have never dared to ask any of those I might ask about you, for fear of showing too much concern. IHale, Emilyfamily;w4her father;a1 can understand how close you & your father1 were. And from my point of view, IHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1claims experience of 'vision';a1 see no reason why your ‘vision’ was not quite authentic. Of course I cannot believe that two souls can become identified (in a new single soul) but IChristianitymysticism and transcendence;c3interpenetration of souls;a1 do believe that though rare, there can be an interfusion, interpenetration, beyond understanding, which is the most wonderful & perhaps the only desirable human relationship possible.2 It may sound brutal, but I believe that from what you say it is best that you can consider your mother as having gone on.3 I can vividly imagine, dear, how gnawing the pain is nevertheless. But I know something of these things, not only from my own experience but the experiences of friends. It is worse to watch gradual decline, crashes [crises ?] temporarily relieved in homes, and always to wait, just wait. But I shall not speak of this further, and if there is much in my life on which I do not enlighten you, it is primarily out of honour and also consideration for you. I have told you which I am most ashamed of, & that is the most important.
You are very brave. You help me to be brave too. Ialcoholas temptation;a2 am trying to fight the craving for alcohol – for a person with much to do, easily distracted & disturbed, and for a person who sleeps very badly indeed, like myself, it is a great temptation.
I am very busy just now. I have let myself in for writing a pamphlet about the LambethSeventh Lambeth Conference;a1 Conference, & must go down to ChichesterBell, George, Bishop of Chichester (earlier Dean of Canterbury)invites TSE to Chichester;a1 next week to stay with the Bishop there4 – & to talk to him about it.
I hope you can read this!
I understand perfectly the struggle to ‘expect nothing and accept everything!’
1.EdwardHale, Edward Hale (1858–1918), Unitarian minister, father of Emily Hale: see Biographical Register.
2.Cf. John Donne, ‘The Ecstasy’, 41–4:
When love with one another so
—Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
—Defects of loneliness controls.
3.EH’s brother William Peabody (‘Billy’) Hale, born on 26 July 1895, died of a fever on 19 July 1897, just one week short of his second birthday – when EH was five. Probably in consequence of that trauma, EH’s mother, EmilyHale, Emily Jose Milliken (EH's mother)admission to McLean's Hospital;a1n Jose Milliken Hale (1868–1946), suffered a nervous breakdown from which she was never to recover: she was admitted to McLean’s Hospital for the Insane at Belmont, near Boston, where she was to be nursed for the remainder of her life.
The Revd Edward Hale to EH’s Aunt Edith Perkins, 2 Aug. 1895: ‘All goes well. I have not told you how gentle Emily is with her brother, and how hard she tries to do what is right – she is a comfort to us all; and the little son is a comfort, too, already’ (Princeton).
4.RtBell, George, Bishop of Chichester (earlier Dean of Canterbury) Revd George Bell, DD (1883–1958), Bishop of Chichester, 1929–58: see Biographical Register.
4.RtBell, George, Bishop of Chichester (earlier Dean of Canterbury) Revd George Bell, DD (1883–1958), Bishop of Chichester, 1929–58: see Biographical Register.
1.EdwardHale, Edward Hale (1858–1918), Unitarian minister, father of Emily Hale: see Biographical Register.