[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
1. BusinessMacNeice, Louistouted to Smith College;a4. Would Smith like to have a lecture or a reading from Louis McNeice? [sic] He is quite a good poet, and what is more important, fashionable (what they say now is ‘Auden – Spender – McNeice’ omitting Day Lewis). Did I tell you that he was taking his Easter Vacation from Bedford College, Regents Park, where he teaches Greek to young ladies, by a visit to the States, and that, to help with expenses, IHarvard Universityengages MacNeice at TSE's instance;b4English 26 (Modern English Literature)
2. Under separate cover. Don’t be alarmed by the photograph: it is only one of the rejects. IRay, Man'best portraits' now considered 'villainous';a5 got so tired of having the villainous Man Ray portrait shown about that I went to Elliott and Fry, the Faber photographers,2 and had some new ones taken. The only one that is not unpleasant is a simple profile, of which I shall order a copy to be sent to you. – AlsoCriterion, Theletters of condolence;b7 four more letters about the Criterion: one from a German, one from a Frenchman, one from an Englishman, and one from an American Jew.3
3. Enclosed'Liberal Manifesto: The Place of Reason in the Thought of the Church, A';a2. MatterChurch Timesleads on 'A Liberal Manifesto';a8 in the Church Times about the Manifesto of which I showed you earlier drafts.4 (I have a final version to send to you, but it has got buried on my sofa amongst other papers and I can’t find it at the moment). ItSpens, Willand 'A Liberal Manifesto';a9 didSelwyn, Revd Edward Gordon, Dean of Winchester;a5 not have a very good press; and it was a pity that Spens, the prime mover, had left for a rest in South Africa, and Selwyn, the Dean of Winchester, was away and didn’t write; soKnox, Wilfred;a1 that the burden of replying to the Church Times leader devolved upon Wilfred Knox,5 who I think is a pretty light weight, and upon myself, who have no weight at all. I was not altogether satisfied with the manifesto, as I thought it was framed in terms of ten or fifteen years ago, and not in a way to bring out its real significance: as my letter will perhaps insinuate.6
I was glad to hear that you had finally had several letters from me, as I now have yours of the 2th [sic], 7th and 9th February.
AsWestminster Theatre, The, Londonand The Family Reunion;a7 forFamily Reunion, TheMarch 1939 Westminster Theatre production;g3waits on terms;a1 the play, the text has finally been passed for press. NowBrowne, Elliott Martin1939 production of The Family Reunion;c1secures Westminster Theatre production;b7 Martin is in high excitement, as he thinks (he rang me up this evening, a little later Ashley also) that heRedgrave, Michaelagrees to play Harry;a2 has nailed down a production towards the end of March at the Westminster Theatre, with Michael Redgrave (whom we both wanted) as Harry – andAshcroft, Peggyin line to play Mary;a1 possibly Peggy Ashcroft as Mary, etc. AnywayMercury Theatre, London;c2, I am to go to see Ashley and Martin at the Mercury tomorrow at 5, toHall, Anmer;a1 discuss the terms of contract with Anmer Hall,7 who runs the Westminster. The scheme sounded very promising.
Nowtravels, trips and plansEH's 1939 England visit;d5TSE's efforts to coordinate with;a1 about the summer. ISmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)and Marion's 1939 visit to England;c1;a1 expectEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)1939 summer in England with Dodo;d3;a2 Marian and Dodo to sail on the 10th; and you sail on the 14th. I suppose that they will want to stop in London for a bit, so that they will probably be here when you arrive. I shall expect to meet you, and my rooms will be at your disposal. But I ought to be in London for the first week or so after they come. It is all very puzzling, but I think the best thing will be for me to find some place for me to go with them for two weeks, in July or August; and another place for them to go by themselves for another fortnight. That must be fitted in, please, with a fortnight for me in Campden – I should like a fortnight on end – and another week there when it can be fitted, and odd visits of yourself to London. How difficult life is! The best thing for Marian is to be in quiet places in the country or at the seaside, as she gets tired easily in moving about; and maybe Dodo will buzz off elsewhere why [sc. while] I spend my fortnight with Marian. I shall be looking out for two places for them, one perhaps in Suffolk; and one or the other somewhere where I can hire a car to drive them about. Eventravels, trips and planspossible TSE 1939 visit to America;d4shifted to autumn;a3 if you didn’t come, – I mean even if you do – I might come over in the autumn; and have a little more time with you as before, if we can contrive it. I clearly understand the advantages, from your point of view, of a summer in America: I think it might even do your health more good than coming here. – It seems very odd, and exasperating, that I should have to plan three months like a jig-saw puzzle – just in the hope of getting as near as possible to four weeks of days in your company!
There are no Valentines to be bought any longer in England, worth the buying – the good custom lingers longer in America: but I did think of you in that connection – if I had known where to buy a valentine worth sending you, the old-fashioned kind!
1.MacNeice, Autumn Journal.
2.Elliott & Fry was a London photography studio, originally at 55 Baker Street, founded in 1863 by Joseph John Elliott (1835–1903) and Clarence Edmund Fry (1840–97).
3.TSEHawkins, A. Desmondmourns The Criterion;a2n postedCournos, Johnmourns The Criterion;a4 personal tributes on the demise of the Criterion from: E. R. CurtiusCurtius, Ernst Robert ('E. R.')mourns The Criterion;a1n (German), Henri FluchèreFluchère, Henrimourns The Criterion;a1 (Frenchman), A. Desmond Hawkins (Englishman), John Cournos (American Jew). He had earlier received, and sent on, letters from Philip Mairet, George Every, Charles Smyth, Janet Roberts, Roger Hinks, Henry G. Finlayson, Hugh Porteus, Kenneth Giddings.
4.‘A Liberal Manifesto: The Place of Reason in the Thought of the Church’, Church Times, 20 Jan., was signed by twenty ecclesiastical and lay figures, including S. C. Carpenter (Dean of Exeter), Leonard Hodgson (Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, Oxford), E. G. Selwyn (Dean of Winchester) and TSE: ‘it is urgently necessary at the present time to give due expression to the Liberal Catholic tradition within the Church of England … [I]f Anglo-Catholicism is to play the part [in resolving divisions] which it might, certain present tendencies must be counteracted in regard alike to worship and to teaching.’ The leading article, ‘A Liberal Manifesto’, questioned whether the declarations, ‘far from being inspired by the spirit of God, are in fact inspired rather by the spirit of unreason and confusion. Faith in spiritual inspiration without any provision for the discernment of spirits is as rash as faith in moral progress without allowance for the devil.’
5.WilfredKnox, Wilfred Knox (1886–1950), Anglican priest, theologian, ecclesiastical historian; brother of E. V. Knox, editor of Punch, and of the priest and author Ronald Knox. Influenced at Rugby School by his friend William Temple, later Archbishop of Canterbury, he worked for the poor in the East End of London and for the Workers’ Educational Association. Ordained in 1925, he was Warden of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, Cambridge, 1924–40; from 1941, Chaplain and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Works include The Development of Modern Catholicism (with Alec Vidler, 1933); St Paul and the Church of the Gentiles (1939).
6.See TSE’s letter, ‘Liberal Manifesto’, Church Times 121 (27 Jan. 1939), 78: CProse 5, 666–7.
7.AnmerHall, Anmer Hall – pseud. of Alderson Burrell Horne (1863–1953) – solicitor, actor-manager (stage name, Waldo Wright) and stage director. He was licensee of the Westminster Theatre, 1931–47. For the Group Theatre in Oct. 1935, he directed Auden’s The Dance of Death.
3.PeggyAshcroft, Peggy Ashcroft (1907–91), celebrated British stage actor, was at this time married to the barrister Jeremy Hutchinson (son of TSE’s old friends St John and Mary Hutchinson).
4.E. MartinBrowne, Elliott Martin Browne (1900–80), English director and producer, was to direct the first production of Murder in the Cathedral: see Biographical Register.
1.JohnCournos, John Cournos (1881–1966) – Johann Gregorievich Korshune – naturalised American writer of Russian birth (his Jewish parents fled Russia when he was 10), worked as a journalist on the Philadelphia Record and was first noted in Britain as an Imagist poet; he became better known as novelist, essayist and translator. After living in England in the 1910s and 1920s, he emigrated to the USA. An unhappy love affair in 1922–3 with Dorothy L. Sayers was fictionalised by her in Strong Poison (1930), and by him in The Devil is an English Gentleman (1932). His other publications include London Under the Bolsheviks (1919), In Exile (1923), Miranda Masters (a roman à clef about the imbroglio between himself, the poet HD and Richard Aldington, 1926), and Autobiography (1935). See too Alfred Satterthwaite, ‘John Cournos and “H.D.”’, Twentieth Century Literature 22: 4 (Dec. 1976), 394–410.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
7.AnmerHall, Anmer Hall – pseud. of Alderson Burrell Horne (1863–1953) – solicitor, actor-manager (stage name, Waldo Wright) and stage director. He was licensee of the Westminster Theatre, 1931–47. For the Group Theatre in Oct. 1935, he directed Auden’s The Dance of Death.
3.A. DesmondHawkins, A. Desmond Hawkins (1908–99), novelist, critic, broadcaster: see Biographical Register.
5.WilfredKnox, Wilfred Knox (1886–1950), Anglican priest, theologian, ecclesiastical historian; brother of E. V. Knox, editor of Punch, and of the priest and author Ronald Knox. Influenced at Rugby School by his friend William Temple, later Archbishop of Canterbury, he worked for the poor in the East End of London and for the Workers’ Educational Association. Ordained in 1925, he was Warden of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, Cambridge, 1924–40; from 1941, Chaplain and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Works include The Development of Modern Catholicism (with Alec Vidler, 1933); St Paul and the Church of the Gentiles (1939).
7.LouisMacNeice, Louis MacNeice (1907–63), poet, radio producer and playwright: see Biographical Register.
1.ManRay, Man Ray (1890–1976), pioneering photographer and artist; born Emmanuel Rodnitsky, the son of a Russian-Jewish tailor who had settled in Philadelphia. He grew up in New York, where even as a teenager he adopted his redolent pseudonym, and fell under the influence of Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291 on Fifth Avenue. He became one of the leaders of Dadaism and Surrealism. For most of his adult life he lived in Paris, where he built his reputation as an experimental photographer; he also made notable contributions to film.
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.’
9.RevdSelwyn, Revd Edward Gordon, Dean of Winchester Edward Gordon Selwyn (1885–1959), editor of Theology: A Monthly Journal of Historic Christianity, 1920–33. Educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge (Newcastle Scholar; Porson Scholar and Prizeman; Waddington Scholar; Browne’s Medallist; 2nd Chancellor’s Medallist), he was Rector of Redhill, Havant, 1919–30; Provost in Convocation, 1921–31; Dean of Winchester, 1931–58. Works include The Approach to Christianity (1925); Essays Catholic & Critical by Members of the Anglican Communion (ed., 1926). In 1910, he married Phyllis Eleanor Hoskyns, daughter of E. C. Hoskyns (then Bishop of Southwell).
2.TheodoraSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece) Eliot Smith (1904–92) – ‘Dodo’ – daughter of George Lawrence and Charlotte E. Smith: see Biographical Register. Theodora’sSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece) sister was Charlotte Stearns Smith (b. 1911), known as ‘Chardy’.
7.WillSpens, Will Spens (1882–1962), educator and scientist; Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: see Biographical Register.