[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
I have missed one mail, but fortunately have the Queen Mary tomorrow. I have had another short period in bed, from Friday to Monday, and am not allowed to go to Russell Square until tomorrow. Probably I got up too soon after my previous slight laryngitis, but that was not the doctor’s fault: ISouthwark CathedralTSE makes appeal for;a1 had to keep my engagement to speak at the Mansion House. So he is keeping me quiet a little longer. It was only a cold in the head, with temperature – no trouble with the throat and chest; and again I slept peacefully for most of two days, and feel much refreshed. After Lent I think I may go away for a week. But my general health remains quite sound. With my crooked nose and catarrh I am liable to catch a cold when a bit tired.
Your letter of the 21st (Queen Mary) arrived this morning, and I thank you for such a long one. ISmith Collegereappoints EH again for two years;b7 amHale, Emilyas teacher;w1reappointed again for two years;c5 delighted that you should have been re-appointed, and for two years – even with a slight rise after the first year. YouNeilson, William Allanas President of Smith;a5 will indeed be sorry when Neilson goes: he seems to me to be an admirable Head, with the sympathy and understanding encouragement necessary to get the best out of his staff. But by that time you will be well entrenched, and will be on equal footing with the rest of the staff with the new President, whoever he will be.
IHale, Emilyas teacher;w1her work at Smith;c6 should think that your speech instruction might very well be developed in the direction of drilling the girls in the recitation of poetry, and to some extent in choral work: I say to some extent, because there is so little verse in existence which lends itself properly to choral work. It is ridiculous of course, that the Speech Training and the Dramatic work should be completely divorced. What I think is that the Dramatic department ought to be merged with the Speech department, and not vice versa. I am rather sceptical anyway of the advisability, in a college course, of attempting to train people to be either actors or playwrights or producers: I think it is specialising too soon. I think that all to some extent, and those who hope to get into theatrical work to a greater extent, should be thoroughly drilled in the use of their voices and in an appreciation of the best spoken English – almost as necessary for those who are going to write plays as for those who are going to act them; and they ought to be trained in movement and control of their bodies. ButScripps College, ClaremontEH's extra-curricular work at;f5 I think that the dramatic work ought to be extra-curricular – such as what you did at Scripps. That is excellent for them: but it ought to be partly a diversion, and certainly not a qualification for an A.B. IFlanagan, Hallieas director;a9 wondered whether theVassar Collegeand Hallie Flanagan's role at;a6 work of Hallie Flanagan’s pupils at Vassar – some of it of course first rate, for she is an admirable producer and trainer – was not taken so seriously as to interfere with their more academic studies. IEliot, Samuel Atkins, Jr. (TSE's cousin)apparently disliked;a2 know nothing of Sam Eliot, except that he is said to be rather cross-grained and opinionated.1 I imagined that he was not very popular.
I rejoice to hear that competent critics consider that you look so much better than last summer: you must keep that in mind as next summer approaches. Thank you for more information about your schedule. Evidently you have very little time to yourself; but I applaud your getting to bed early (I think I should be rather hungry at 10.30 if I dined at 6, so I hope you have hot milk or something before you go to bed) and it is a great satisfaction to learn that you have been sleeping so well.
No'Development of Shakespeare's Verse, The'who seeks permission to recite;a8, I don’t mind your reading from the two Shakespeare lectures to friends – so long as you make clear to them that they are only drafts, and that I consider that there is much to be amended and to be qualified, as well as much that needs expanding. I only prefer that, in their present provisional form, they should not be quoted from or referred to publicly by anybody.
IGrierson, Sir Herbert;a4 hope you will mention me to Sir Herbert and to his daughter also, if she is the one who has a Dutch husband who is a professor in New York2 – I met them in June. (Incidentally, I enclose some very bad snaps taken in Edinburgh in June by an unknown young lady who sent them to me not long ago together with a book which she asked me to sign for her). Grierson is rather a grand old man, I think, a great scholar and humanist. I hope you will hear him read aloud, from Burns or Milton or Donne. He is an Orcadian by origin, but his accent is Aberdeen.
ItRoberts, MichaelEH interests herself in;a5 is good of you to persist on behalf of Michael Roberts. Did I send you a copy of his book ‘The Modern Mind’ and if not shall I do so? It might be useful to show people as an indication of the quality of his own mind.
ThankMurder in the Cathedral1938 American tour;f6EH sends New York cuttings;e6 you for the N.Y. cuttings about Murder, which I am very glad to have, because I have still heard nothing at all from any of them since they arrived, and I do not know yet why they changed their plans and went to New York.
Yes, I shall now fight for ‘The Family Re-union’ (or Reunion) as a title. I went last week – I think it was after I last wrote – againSaint-Denis, Michelhis Three Sisters;a5 toChekhov, Antonsupreme modern playwright;a4 St Denis’ production of ‘Three Sisters’ and was more impressed and moved than the first time. I did regret that you could not see it: as nearly perfect a production as I ever hope to see. AndFamily Reunion, Theaspires to be Chekhovian;d5 I admire Tchehov as a dramatist more than any other modern playwright – I flatter myself that I have been influenced by him in ‘The Family Reunion’.
Letterwritingcorrespondence;a7 writing – I mean letters like ours – is indeed something that one has to learn to develop. I said ‘something’ so as to avoid using the term ‘an art’ because that sounds too deliberate, and what one has to cultivate is the letter as a particular form of conversation. Many ‘good’ letters often read as if they were written with an eye to a larger public – and that kills them. The only ‘literary’ letters that are worth reading are those which carry the conviction that the author intended them only for the eye of one person – or rather, that he or she had only that one person in mind in writing them. I am so often quite dissatisfied with my letters to you – though not on the ground of artificiality! It sometimes seems as if the things that are worth saying were the things that occur to one at moments when one cannot write them down; and that when I sit down to write only the daily trifles come to the top of my mind. What one has to do is to make letters (I mean to a particular person!) an integral part of one’s week, the most important of all one’s conversations.
IHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7her leopard-fur coat;d5 shall hope to hear more of the fur coat. If you are going to get one, don’t wait until Spring! But how much DOES mink cost?
[EnclosedOld Possum’s Book of Practical Cats'Bustopher Jones: The St. James's Street Cat';d8: ‘BustopherOld Possum’s Book of Practical Catsindividual poems sent to EH;a4 Jones: The St James’s Street Cat’ – ‘Private & unexpurgated edition’.]
1.Samuel Atkins Eliot, Jr (1893–1983), author, playwright and educator; grandson of Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard, he taught at Smith College. Works include compilations of plays, and translations of the works of Frank Wedekind.
2.Alice Clifford Grierson (b. 1901) was married to Frederick van Nouhoys (b. 1891).
2.SamuelEliot, Samuel Atkins, Jr. (TSE's cousin) Atkins Eliot, Jr. (1893–1984), author, translator of works by Frank Wedekind, Professor at Smith College, Northampton; son of the Unitarian clergyman Samuel Atkins Eliot (1862–1950) and grandson of Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard. Works include Little Theatre Classics (3 vols, 1918–21); Erdgeist, by Wedekind (trans., 1914); and Tragedies of Sex, by Wedekind (trans., 1923).
5.The directorFlanagan, Hallie Hallie Flanagan (1890–1969), a Professor at Vassar College, was planning to produce Sweeney Agonistes at the Experimental Theater that she had founded at Vassar.
15.SirGrierson, Sir Herbert Herbert Grierson (1866–1960), Knight Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh University, was elected Rector in 1936; knighted in 1936; celebrated for his edition of The Poems of John Donne (2 vols., 1912) and Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century (1921) – which TSE reviewed in the TLS, 21 Oct. 1921. TSE’s address was delivered on Fri. 29 Oct.
8.WilliamNeilson, William Allan Allan Neilson (1869–1946), Scottish-American scholar, educator, lexicographer, author (works include studies of Shakespeare and Robert Burns; editions of Shakespeare): President of Smith College, 1917–39. See Margaret Farrand Thorp, Neilson of Smith (1956).
1.MichaelRoberts, Michael Roberts (1902–48), critic, editor, poet: see Biographical Register.
2.CompagnieSaint-Denis, Michel des Quinze: theatre production company organised by Michel Saint-Denis (nephew of Jacques Copeau), together with the playwright André Obey, at the Théatre du Vieux-Colombier, Paris, 1929–34.