[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
Your last letter was that of the 25 April; and I hope that another may come to-day; but I am obliged to write early for a slow route, the Montreal boat now being the only one for some days. IEvans, Mauriceas Hamlet;a2 am glad that you saw the Hamlet: I expect that Evans has developed a good deal since I last saw him at the Old Vic. ThereMayne, RutherfordThe Bridgehead;a1 areMauriac, FrançoisAsmodée;a1 two plays here worth seeing, or which I want to see: The Bridgehead, by an Irishman named Mayne (said to be quite an old man, though I never heard of him before)1 which has a good press, and Mauriac’s Asmodée2 (‘The Intruder’) of which I hear varied opinion. I have not been thinking very much about politics during the last week. DuringSociety of Retreat Conductors, Queen's GateTSE makes retreat with;a1 the weekend I was in retreat – a good, but rather arduous retreat, with four hours meditation daily, but a walk in Battersea Park, in lovely weather (the last two days have been cool again); andHutchinsons, the;b8Hutchinson, Barbara
IBoutwood Lectures (afterwards The Idea of a Christian Society)being rewritten for publication;a9 am trying to do the final re-writing of my lectures, so that they may be published in the autumn: that is my main job at present. MyBickersteth, Revd Julian;a1 onlyFelsted School, Essexfledgling literary society addressed;a1 speaking engagement between now and December is to go to Felsted School in Essex and talk informally to fifteen boys who are starting a literary society there – this at the request of the Headmaster Bickersteth, a son of Canon Bickersteth of Canterbury8 – Iddings Bell thinks quite well of him. That I rather look forward to: it is so much pleasanter to talk to fifteen than to a hundred.
ISeaverns, Helenseeks advice from TSE on transatlantic tourism;c8 had a note from Mrs. Seaverns – I am to dine with her again on the 24th – to consult me about the opinion she should give to Mrs. Perkins about the advisability of coming this summer. ISecond World Warand transatlantic tourism;a7 told her (it was her opinion anyway) that I did not see any immediate cause for anxiety, and that I was not discouraging my sister from coming. NotGermanyunder Nazism;b4 that I yet see any way out of the eventual conflict: if Germany is prevented from expanding to the East, and gets no colonies, and is checked in South America, I do not see what the solution can be. IHitler, Adolfhis Reichstag speech on Poland;b1 cannot blame Hitler for distrusting conferences, and I fear that the interests against him are too powerful to let him get anything except by menaces. I wish that the Germans were not so unpleasant, and did not do everything in such an unpleasant way! Hitler’s speech was very able.9
Telltravels, trips and plansEH's 1939 England visit;d5;a4 me again what boat your reservation is on; I know you said the 14th June, but I don’t remember in what letter you said it: and, if I may say so, reading through an indefinite number of your back letters in the search for a particular piece of information not taking up much room, is rather a long job! We have been promised a warm summer, by the people who write in the newspapers about sun-spots. It would be very welcome – though catching cold in Wales last summer had its compensation in being nursed at Campden! But I should like you for once to have a summer primarily dedicated to your own health.
TheFamily Reunion, TheF&F's sales;h1 Family Reunion has sold so far about 2600 copies here; I don’t know how many of the American edition, but I hear that it has gone into a second printing.10 NoFamily Reunion, Theand Orson Welles;g9 further news, of course, of Housman and Wells.
[Postscript on separate page]
IMorley, Frank Vigoraccepts Harcourt Brace position;i3 forgot, by some blindness that occasionally overcomes me, a rather important piece of news: whichHarcourt, Brace & Co.poach Frank Morley;a2 is that Frank Morley has decided to accept a very attractive offer to join the firm of Harcourt Brace & Co. in New York.11 His prospects there are better than anywhere else; because I think he will certainly become head of the business in time. I should not have advised him to accept it on the grounds of financial advantage and future importance alone, because those could never be the primary considerations with a man of his type: the chief reason for which we felt that he ought to accept was the certainty of being able to bring up his children outside of the war area of the future. His greatest responsibility is to them. ItMorley, Christina (née Innes)faced with departure for America;c2 will be difficult for Christina, of course. Again, if the children had been older, I should not have advised transplanting them, but they are all young enough to be able to flourish in America. IPike's Farmthe Morleys mean to leave;b4 think they are very regretful at being taken away from Pike’s Farm. I hope you may see them before they go (the date is not definite yet, but they may be here into July) but if you cared to write Christina a note about it, I am sure it would be appreciated.
OfFaber and Faber (F&F)lose Morley to America;e1 course it is a blow for me, and for all of his friends here, I do not like to think yet how great. The business is being rearranged, I think as satisfactorily as possible – of course such a man cannot be replaced.
1.RutherfordMayne, Rutherford Mayne – pen name of Samuel John Waddell (1878–1967) – playwright and actor; co-founder of the Ulster Literary Theatre, 1904; author of The Bridgehead (1939).
2.FrançoisMauriac, François Mauriac, Asmodée (1937).
3.KarlMannheim, Karl Mannheim (1893–1947), Hungarian–Jewish sociologist: see Biographical Register.
4.WalterOakeshott, Walter F. F. Oakeshott (1903–87), a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford (first class honours in Greats), he was a school and university administrator, and scholar of medieval art. Assistant Master, Winchester College, 1931–8. High Master of St Paul’s School, London, 1939–46. Headmaster of Winchester, 1946–54. Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, 1954–72. Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, 1962–4. President of the Bibliographical Society, 1966–8. Fellow of the British Academy, 1971. Knighted, 1980. He became famous in June 1934 for his discovery, in the Fellows’ Library at Winchester, of a manuscript copy of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (now British Library: Add MS 59678). The ‘Winchester Manuscript’ was to be published in The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugène Vinaver (1947); see Oakeshott, ‘The Finding of the Manuscript’, Essays on Malory, ed. J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford, 1963), 1–3.
5.H. A. HodgesHodges, H. A. (1905–76), Professor of Philosophy, University of Reading, 1936–69.
6.GilbertShaw, Gilbert Shaw (1886–1967), Anglican clergyman and spiritual director; from 1940, influential vicar of St Anne’s, Soho, London. See Rod Hacking, ‘Gilbert Shaw (1886–1967)’, Fairacres Chronicle 19: 2 (Summer 1986), 6–10.
7.OliverTomkins, Oliver Tomkins (1908–92), Anglican priest; from 1945, Secretary of the World Council of Churches; Bishop of Bristol, 1959–72.
8.RevdBickersteth, Revd Julian Julian Bickersteth, MC (1885–1962) – Anglican priest, military chaplain, teacher, Headmaster of Felsted School, Essex (later Archdeacon of Maidstone, Kent, 1942–58) – wrote on 11 Mar. to invite TSE to address a new literary society for the senior boys: TSE was to visit the school on 16 May 1939.
9.AdolfHitler, Adolfhis Reichstag speech on Poland;b1 Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag, 28 Apr. 1939, included these remarks:
ITreaty of VersaillesHitler inveighs against;a6n considered it […] necessary to make it clear to the Government in Warsaw that just as they desire access to the sea, so Germany needs access to her province in the east. Now these are all difficult problems. It is not Germany who is responsible for them, however, but rather the jugglers of Versailles, who either in their maliciousness or their thoughtlessness placed 100 powder barrels round about in Europe, all equipped with hardly extinguishable lighted fuses. […] Poland’s access to the sea by way of the Corridor, and, on the other hand, a German route through the Corridor have, for example, no kind of military importance whatsoever. Their importance is exclusively psychological and economic … [N]ow Poland, like Czecho-Slovakia a year ago, believes, under the pressure of a lying international campaign, that it must call up troops, although Germany on her part has not called up a single man and had not thought of proceeding in any way against Poland. As I have said, this is in itself very regrettable and posterity will one day decide whether it was really right to refuse this suggestion made this once by me […] According to my conviction Poland was not a giving party in this solution at all but only a receiving party, because it should be beyond all doubt that Danzig will never become Polish. The intention to attack on the part of Germany, which was merely invented by the international press, led as you know to the so-called guarantee offer and to an obligation on the part of the Polish Government for mutual assistance, which would also, under certain circumstances, compel Poland to take military action against Germany in the event of a conflict between Germany and any other Power and in which England, in her turn, would be involved. This obligation is contradictory to the agreement which I made with Marshal Pilsudski some time ago, seeing that in this agreement reference is made exclusively to existing obligations, that is at that time, namely, to the obligations of Poland towards France of which we were aware. To extend these obligations subsequently is contrary to the terms of the German–Polish non-aggression pact. Under these circumstances I should not have entered into this pact at that time, because what sense can non-aggression pacts have if in practice they leave open an enormous number of one partner exceptions […]
I have sent a communication to this effect to the Polish Government. However, I can only repeat at this point that my decision does not constitute a modification of my attitude in principle with regard to the problems mentioned above. Should the Polish Government wish to come to fresh contractual arrangements governing its relations with Germany, I can but welcome such an idea, provided, of course, that these arrangements are based on an absolutely clear obligation binding both parties in equal measure. Germany is perfectly willing at any time to undertake such obligations and also to fulfil them.
10.U.S. sales of The Family Reunion ran to 2,349 by 30 June 1939.
11.FVMHarcourt, Brace & Co.poach Frank Morley;a2 had accepted an offer – with a salary of $12,500 plus expenses, as a minimum – to become editor-in-chief of the publisher Harcourt Brace, New York.
8.RevdBickersteth, Revd Julian Julian Bickersteth, MC (1885–1962) – Anglican priest, military chaplain, teacher, Headmaster of Felsted School, Essex (later Archdeacon of Maidstone, Kent, 1942–58) – wrote on 11 Mar. to invite TSE to address a new literary society for the senior boys: TSE was to visit the school on 16 May 1939.
2.ChristopherDawson, Christopher Dawson (1889–1970), cultural historian: see Biographical Register.
2.MauriceEvans, Maurice Evans (1901–89): British-born American actor of West End and Broadway; movie and TV. He was the homicidal husband in the stage production of Dial M for Murder (1952); and he later featured in Planet of the Apes (1968) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970).
5.H. A. HodgesHodges, H. A. (1905–76), Professor of Philosophy, University of Reading, 1936–69.
3.KarlMannheim, Karl Mannheim (1893–1947), Hungarian–Jewish sociologist: see Biographical Register.
5.JacquesMaritain, Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), philosopher and littérateur, was at first a disciple of Bergson, but revoked that allegiance (L’Evolutionnisme de M. Bergson, 1911; La Philosophie bergsonienne, 1914) and became a Roman Catholic and foremost exponent of Neo-Thomism. For a while in the 1920s he was associated with Action Française, but the connection ended in 1926. Works include Art et scolastique (1920); Saint Thomas d’Aquin apôtre des temps modernes (1923); Réflexions sur l’intelligence (1924); Trois Réformateurs (1925); Primauté du spirituel (1927), Humanisme intégral (1936), Scholasticism and Politics (1940), Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953). TSE told Ranjee Shahani (John O’London’s Weekly, 19 Aug. 1949, 497–8) that Maritain ‘filled an important role in our generation by uniting philosophy and theology, and also by enlarging the circle of readers who regard Christian philosophy seriously’. See Walter Raubicheck, ‘Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, and the Romantics’, Renascence 46:1 (Fall 1993), 71–9; Shun’ichi Takayanagi, ‘T. S. Eliot, Jacques Maritain, and Neo-Thomism’, The Modern Schoolman 73: 1 (Nov. 1995), 71–90; Jason Harding, ‘“The Just Impartiality of a Christian Philosopher”: Jacques Maritain and T. S. Eliot’, in The Maritain Factor: Taking Religion into Interwar Modernism, ed. J. Heynickx and J. De Maeyer (Leuven, 2010), 180–91; James Matthew Wilson, ‘“I bought and praised but did not read Aquinas”: T. S. Eliot, Jacques Maritain, and the Ontology of the Sign’, Yeats Eliot Review 27: 1–2 (Spring–Summer 2010), 21; and Carter Wood, This Is Your Hour: Christian Intellectuals in Britain and the Crisis of Europe, 1937–40 (Manchester, 2019), 69–72.
1.RutherfordMayne, Rutherford Mayne – pen name of Samuel John Waddell (1878–1967) – playwright and actor; co-founder of the Ulster Literary Theatre, 1904; author of The Bridgehead (1939).
2.SirMoberley, Sir Walter Walter Moberley (1881–1974), Professor of Philosophy, University of Birmingham, 1921–4; Principal of the University College of the South West of England, 1925–6; Vice-Chancellor, University of Manchester, 1926–34; Chairman of the University Grants Committee, 1935–49. Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier, 367: ‘Combining the academic and man of affairs, (Sir) Walter Moberley was perhaps the nearest anyone ever attained to Oldham’s ideal of the theologically aware and responsible Christian layperson … Since 1935 he had been chairman of the University Grants Committee, the most powerful and politically influential position in higher education in England. His close association with Oldham already long-standing …’
4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.
1.JohnMurry, John Middleton Middleton Murry (1889–1957), English writer and critic; editor of the Athenaeum, 1919–21; The Adelphi, 1923–48. In 1918, he married Katherine Mansfield. He was friend and biographer of D. H. Lawrence. His first notable critical work was Dostoevsky (1916); his most influential study, The Problem of Style (1922). Though as a Romanticist he was an intellectual opponent of the avowedly ‘Classicist’ Eliot, Murry offered Eliot in 1919 the post of assistant editor on the Athenaeum (which Eliot had to decline); in addition, he recommended him to be Clark Lecturer at Cambridge in 1926, and was a steadfast friend to both TSE and his wife Vivien. See F. A. Lea, The Life of John Middleton Murry (1959); David Goldie, A Critical Difference: T. S. Eliot and John Middleton Murry in English Literary Criticism, 1919–1928 (1998).
4.WalterOakeshott, Walter F. F. Oakeshott (1903–87), a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford (first class honours in Greats), he was a school and university administrator, and scholar of medieval art. Assistant Master, Winchester College, 1931–8. High Master of St Paul’s School, London, 1939–46. Headmaster of Winchester, 1946–54. Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, 1954–72. Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, 1962–4. President of the Bibliographical Society, 1966–8. Fellow of the British Academy, 1971. Knighted, 1980. He became famous in June 1934 for his discovery, in the Fellows’ Library at Winchester, of a manuscript copy of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (now British Library: Add MS 59678). The ‘Winchester Manuscript’ was to be published in The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugène Vinaver (1947); see Oakeshott, ‘The Finding of the Manuscript’, Essays on Malory, ed. J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford, 1963), 1–3.
3.HelenSeaverns, Helen Seaverns, widow of the American-born businessman and Liberal MP, Joel Herbert Seaverns: see Biographical Register.
6.GilbertShaw, Gilbert Shaw (1886–1967), Anglican clergyman and spiritual director; from 1940, influential vicar of St Anne’s, Soho, London. See Rod Hacking, ‘Gilbert Shaw (1886–1967)’, Fairacres Chronicle 19: 2 (Summer 1986), 6–10.
7.OliverTomkins, Oliver Tomkins (1908–92), Anglican priest; from 1945, Secretary of the World Council of Churches; Bishop of Bristol, 1959–72.