[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
I have your letter no. 10 of Oct. 29, and your letter no. 12 of November 6; I presume there is No. 11 on the way more slowly. O wait, I have got muddled: no. 11 of Oct 31 arrived before no. 10, so that’s all right. I am glad to hear that you are taking some care of yourself, but your programme sounds very heavy indeed, so I hope that you will be very prudent over the next four months, andHale, Irene (née Baumgras)in Northampton;c3 be very severe with yourself as regards I. H. who, it would seem, is likely to linger on in Northampton where she is apparently more snug than anywhere else. IPerkinses, the;j3 hope that the P.’s are well; IPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt)requests English edition of Cats;e3 have had a note from Mrs. P. sending an order for Cats of which she prefers to use the English edition.
Yes, I am afraid that no one will be able to cross the Atlantic in a great hurry at this time, except on official business. Thattravels, trips and planspossible wartime transatlantic crossings;d7contingencies;a1 would not prevent my coming next year, if I got an invitation from America to lecture or teach: I do not think that in that event I should have much difficulty in getting permission from the Foreign Office. MuchPrinceton Universitypossible wartime lectures at;b2 might depend upon Princeton, and also, of course, upon there being nothing here which conscience would compel me to stay here to do. It is impossible to see far ahead; but at present I do not feel absolutely indispensible [sic]. ThereFaber and Faber (F&F)war ties TSE to;e3 is the firm, of course, andChristian News-Letter (CNL)TSE's commitment to as war work;a6 there is the Christian News Letter, to which I give at present quite a little time: over the weekend (I am stopping at home) I have undertaken to read and make notes upon the recent Papal Encyclical summi pontificatus, a long document.1 MyMorley, Frank Vigoramong TSE's closest friends;j2 closestHayward, Johnamong TSE's closest friends;j7 friends have left London, of course; Morley and Hayward, andTandy, Geoffreyaway on war business;c5 now Tandy is being sent away on official business. Not that there are not plenty of people left, or going to and fro. We must hope for next year, but realising the unpredictable possibilities that may alter my plans.
IHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1compared to TSE's;a5 cannotHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9TSE's reasons against marrying;c5 tellEliot, Vivien (TSE's first wife, née Haigh-Wood)the possibility of divorcing;f2in common and canon law;a5 you how distressed I have been about a persistent misunderstanding, which I thought had been cleared up a long time ago: the fact that this misunderstanding has gone on, without my knowing it, all through this year, makes me feel almost that I ought to try to erase from my memory everything since I last tried to explain. I cannot do that, of course. But I thought I had made [it] clear that the Church does not recognise insanity as a ground for dissolution, unless it could be proved that a person was too demented at the time of marriage to be able to contract a valid undertaking: insanity that only declares itself some time after cannot count. And I must say that my own instinct of right or wrong confirms this attitude. AndChristianitydivorce;b5in church law;a3 the Church cannot condone ‘divorce’ at all: marriage is indissoluble. The Church, from its own point of view, could only declare ‘nullity’, which means that the marriage never really took place – that is a totally different thing from divorce. But this it is not allowed by the state to do, for the State only recognises divorce. If I should eventually take advantage of the facilities offered by the State I should be doing something which from the point of view of the Church was morally wrong. I shall have to say all this again more fully; and also I shall have to try to explain to myself and to you why it is difficult for me to discuss it with you at all. It is a part of the difficulty, of which I have been very much aware, of discussing matters of the Christian Faith, matters which I feel could be much better explained by some qualified person with whom your relations could be quite impersonal. The atmosphere has not been favourable, and books are not, it would seem, of very much use. It is only now and then that I realise the extent of my own isolation from the environment in which I grew up, but I have spoken of points on which I feel utterly out of contact with my own family. My dear, I do not want to increase your own distress of mind, yet I must tell you that I have been very miserable over this correspondence on these subjects; and the self-reproach to which it leads, is much increased by the terror of setting you more firmly in opposition to the Catholic Faith. But I shall go on writing about this, having got to this point: but you must not expect me to say very much at any one time.
1.TheChristian News-Letter (CNL)TSE on Papal Encyclical;a7n Encyclical Summi Pontificatus, by Pope Pius XII; trans. by Ronald Knox as Darkness over the World (Catholic Truth Society). Christian News-Letter Supplement no. 9 (27 Dec. 1939) – ‘The Papal Encyclical’ – was by Ernest Baker. However, the final item of Christian News-Letter no. 9 (27 Dec. 1939), on ‘The Pope’s Encyclical’, is presumably the piece drafted by TSE (albeit the issue is signed off as always by Oldham):
I commend to your special attention this week’s Supplement on the Pope’s Encyclical. A considered utterance by the head of the largest Christian Church in the present crisis is an event of the highest importance, and its contents deserve to be not only read but pondered. It recalls us to an ancient wisdom. But there may be no greater revolutionary force than the thrilling re-discovery of forgotten truths and [the] application of them to the condition of a new age. If men’s minds were seized with the conviction that there is a natural and moral order in the universe which they can disregard only at the cost of unending frustration and suffering, there would take place a revolution in Western civilisation more fundamental than those of Communism and National-Socialism. These are from one point of view only the culminating expression of the belief in the self-sufficiency of man which has for several centuries dominated the European outlook. It is nearly a hundred years since that remarkable personality David Urquhart clearly perceived and passionately denounced the denial of the eternal principles of justice which threaten the decay of Western society. Against this insidious influence the Papacy seemed to him the only bulwark, if it would fearlessly discharge its responsibility as the guardian of the moral law and ‘hold up to the nations the commandments of God for their entire and unswerving obedience.’ His dreams were not realised in the way that he hoped; but they may yet come true.
3.IreneHale, Irene (née Baumgras) Hale, née Baumgras, widow of Philip Hale, celebrated as the prolific and influential music critic of the Boston Herald. Irene Hale, who was herself an accomplished pianist, had studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where she gained the Springer Gold Medal 1881, and continued with her studies in Europe under Raif and Moritz Mosckowski: she later wrote music under the name Victor Rene.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.
2.GeoffreyTandy, Geoffrey Tandy (1900–69), marine biologist; Assistant Keeper of Botany at the Natural History Museum, London, 1926–47; did broadcast readings for the BBC (including the first reading of TSE’s Practical Cats on Christmas Day 1937): see Biographical Register.