[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
Your last letter is that of the 25th, by the Champlain. IPerkinses, thedescend on EH in Northampton;i5 wasAmericaNorthampton, Massachusetts;g3the Perkinses descend on;b1 glad to hear that the Perkins’s visit had passed successfully. Though I do not relish the idea of their settling in Northampton, I agree with you that it would now be better for Dr. Perkins to live out of Boston, where he could get country or semi-country walks, and where the rhythm of life is not so rapid as in a large town. IEnglandChipping Campden, Gloucestershire;e1its attractions to Dr Perkins;a7 suppose that a small college-town offers the nearest equivalent, in the way of congenial company and libraries and an even tenor of life midway between exhaustion and boredom, to what Campden, with the proximity of Oxford, has to give him in the summer. IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);e1 have a letter from Mrs. Perkins expressing satisfaction in their visit, and I gather that she did not think you had wholly recovered from your throat infection at Christmas. Your tea party seems to have been an enormous affair; Mrs. P. spoke of your looking very handsome at it. I hope that I shall see the gown. And now I suppose you are buried in class work again.
IFamily Reunion, Thefirst draft sent to EH;g1 amHale, Emilygiven Family Reunion draft with her comments;l3 sending off to you the ‘manuscript’ – the version of the Reunion for which you expressed a preference – together with the early comments on it in that form, which have some interest. IEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)given draft of Family Reunion;d9 have, I hope, satisfied Henry’s clamours with a rougher text. MartinFamily Reunion, TheMichael Redgrave interested in;g2 is still hopeful of getting it staged before the date of publication (March 30). MichaelRedgrave, Michaelinterested in Family Reunion;a1 Redgrave1 is very keen about it, andMitchelhill, J. P.;a2 with this interest Martin hopes to interest Mitchellhill (whoDuchess Theatre, London;a2 put on Murder at the Duchess). We spent Tuesday evening reading it aloud, so that Martin could be sure of the verse; but only got through the first half by midnight, so we shall take another evening next week. Incidentally, discovered several minor alterations to make in the proof.
MyBoutwood Lectures (afterwards The Idea of a Christian Society);a3 lectures begin on the 24th,2 andRichards, Ivor Armstrong ('I. A.')invites TSE to Pepys Dinner;b3 IMagdalene College, Cambridgeannual Pepys Dinner;a2 have promised to go down to Cambridge the afternoon before to be the guest of Ivor Richards at the annual Pepys Dinner at Magdalene – he has asked me to respond to the toast of the Guests, butWalpole, Hughqua toaster;a4 I think that Hugh Walpole will do it with more gusto. By that time it will be Lent, which makes Easter and the spring seem near at hand.
IMacNeice, LouisTSE rebuts his charge of 'defeatism';a3 have not seen McNeice’s [sic] book on Modern Poetry.3 Possibly the reason why he has not sent it to me is that I had advised him not to write it. OrCriterion, Theshut up against contributions;b5 it may have been sent for review to the Criterion and returned; because I gave orders that all books sent too late to be reviewed in the January number should be returned to the publishers without being opened. So I don’t know what he means by the defeatist attitude, or how it applies to me.4 I should have thought his own poetry more pessimistic about the future of society than mine. People sometimes confuse a general attitude toward life with a particular attitude about the way things are going in the present and the prospects for the future. The only attitude that I think should be called ‘defeatist’ is that which accepts surrender and refuses to go on struggling; which believes that nothing we can do will make any difference: I hope no one has ever got that impression from my writing. IfChristianityand beauty;a6 to be merely apprehensive about the future – to believe that things will get worse before they get better – is defeatist, then this is a charge to be laid against some of the Hebrew prophets. And I think whatever beauty one sees in this world one must recognise as coming from another.
MyCriterion, TheJanuary 1939;d8'Last Words';a2 motive in the Last Commentary was rather to call attention to the seriousness of the decay of culture, as a stimulus to those who care about it, and was certainly not intended to persuade readers of the uselessness of effort! AgainOldham, Josephbewails mankind;c5 IBoutwood Lectures (afterwards The Idea of a Christian Society)and Oldham's Times letter;a4 remind you of Oldham’s letter to The Times in October, which I sent you, and which might really be the text for the lectures I am working on.
OnSecond World Warprognostications as to its outbreak;a4 top of these anxieties, the fear of war, and any criticism of Government policy in any particular emergency, are only day to day troubles. I still have hope and confidence that next summer will be like the last, for us: and further than that one cannot look.
I HOPE YOUR NEXT LETTER WILL BE CORRECTLY ADDRESSED!
1.According to Browne (The Making of T. S. Eliot’s Plays,147), MichaelRedgrave, Michael Redgrave – aged 31 – ‘had already made a name for himself at the Old Vic, with John Gielgud in his season at the Queen’s, and with Michel Saint-Denis at the Phoenix’. TSE to James Forsyth, 16 July 1940 (tseliot.com), on Redgrave: ‘He is a most likeable person and very easy to work with. Unlike some actors he does not assume that he knows more about the play than the author does, and is always anxious to co-operate.’
2.The Boutwood Lectures, to be given at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in Mar. 1939: the primary material for The Idea of a Christian Society (26 Nov. 1939).
3.Louis MacNeice, Modern Poetry: A Personal Essay (Oxford, 1938).
4.In Modern Poetry MacNeice praises TSE for introducing into poetry ‘the modern industrial city … the background of European history [and] the boredom and the glory of the contemporary world’; but he criticises him for what he calls his bookish ‘defeatism’.
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
7.LouisMacNeice, Louis MacNeice (1907–63), poet, radio producer and playwright: see Biographical Register.
5.J. P. MitchelhillMitchelhill, J. P. (1879–1966), an estate agent who in 1930, at the age of fifty, purchased the Duchess Theatre as part of a big property deal, with two associates. Built in 1929, the little Duchess Theatre had a seating capacity of 494. On top of his presentation of Murder in the Cathedral – TSE’s first West End success – Mitchelhill had successes throughout the 1930s, notably with plays by J. B. Priestley (including Time and the Conways (1937). The Duchess’s production of Night Must Fall (1935), by the thirty-year-old Emlyn Williams, was another hit.
8.JosephOldham, Joseph (‘Joe’) Houldsworth Oldham (1874–1969), missionary, adviser, organiser: see Biographical Register.
1.According to Browne (The Making of T. S. Eliot’s Plays,147), MichaelRedgrave, Michael Redgrave – aged 31 – ‘had already made a name for himself at the Old Vic, with John Gielgud in his season at the Queen’s, and with Michel Saint-Denis at the Phoenix’. TSE to James Forsyth, 16 July 1940 (tseliot.com), on Redgrave: ‘He is a most likeable person and very easy to work with. Unlike some actors he does not assume that he knows more about the play than the author does, and is always anxious to co-operate.’
4.I. A. RichardsRichards, Ivor Armstrong ('I. A.') (1893–1979), theorist of literature, education and communication studies: see Biographical Register.
7.NovelistWalpole, Hugh, man of letters, bibliophile and generous patron, Sir Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) became first chairman of the selection committee of the Book Society and of the Society of Bookmen. His novels include The Cathedral (1922) and the Herries saga (1930–3).