[1418 East 63d St., Seattle]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
Faber & Faber Ltd
4 September 1931
Dear Dove,

Time only for a short line to-day; and I am wondering whether by Monday I should not be writing to Brimmer Street instead. I had been hoping that you would have a few weeks at West Rindge on your return; because, however salubrious Seattle may be, and even with mountaineering and other excursions, it is not quite the same as being in the country, is it?

ICrosby, Caresse;a2 am cursing myself for having promised to write a note of introduction for a volume of a young poet who killed himself a year or so ago named Harry Crosby. EzraPound, Ezra;a3 Pound has done a note for one volume1 andLawrence, David Herbert ('D. H.');a3 D. H. Lawrence did for another;2 and his widow (Caresse Crosby her name is)3 begged me so hard to write one for the third that I weakly agreed, the man being dead. AndCrosby, Harry;a1 I know very little about him, except that he was a nephew of Pierpont Morgan and had much more money than was good for him.4

WednesdayChristianityconfession;b3more dreaded than dentist;a2 I made my quarterly confession; and although I always wish beforehand that I was going to the dentist instead, this time I found it much easier, and was able to be much more calm and detached about myself, and felt more fully relieved afterwards than for a long time; andUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wellsconfession with;a4 Father Underhill was very encouraging; and so for the last 48 hours I have enjoyed a kind of serenity which comes from time to time; and which I hope you have more often than I, inasmuch as you deserve it more fully than I. No letter from you today; but no American mail anyway; so I look forward to Monday. You made me very happy, a couple of letters ago, by saying that you felt closer to me even since the spring. For I like to think that our lives grow more and more together, even against such odds of space and absence.

Tom.

1.Harry Crosby, Torchbearer, with notes by EP (Paris: Black Sun Press, 1931).

2.Crosby, Chariot of the Sun, with Intro by DHL (Paris: Black Sun Press, 1931).

3.See letter of 29 May 1931, above.

4.Crosby, Transit of Venus, with preface by TSE (Paris: Black Sun Press, 1931): see CProse 4, 365–8.

Christianity, and human isolation, and modern economics, Ada on TSE's personal piety, scheme for 'Pro Fide' bookshop, among the Eliot family, and beauty, its sects like different clubs, Anglo-Catholicism, TSE's conversion to, which he dates to Eccleston Square meeting, Anglican Missal sought for EH, but unfortunately out of print, discussed at Boston Theological School, and the Petrine Claims, apostolic succession, over Roman Catholicism, as refuge from VHE, and the Reformation, asceticism, discipline, rigour, the necessity for, and TSE's daily exhortation, making and breaking habits, mastering emotions and passions, as salubrious, only remedy for a prurient culture, confession and communion, more possible during Harvard year, the case for unattainable ideals, in time of war, gets TSE up before 7 o'clock, hereditary with TSE, belief, and good poetry, faced with Second World War, and conversion, antidote to TSE's skepticism, Christendom, TSE ponders the decline of, TSE on his prominence within, its ruin, the Church Visible and Invisible, and TSE's war work, the Malabar Church, prospect of total reunion within, confession, helps to objectify sin, more dreaded than dentist, harder in the morning, death and afterlife, the struggle to prepare for, consoles TSE in life, and cremation, Requiem Mass, gives meaning to life, and what makes a desirable burial place, the nature of eternal life, divorce, unrecognised by Anglo-Catholic Church, which TSE regrets, in church law, would separate TSE from Church, evil, TSE's belief in, and moral percipience, guilt, and the New England conscience, hell, TSE's 1910 vision of, and damnation, according to TSE, liturgy, TSE's weekly minimum, Mass of the Pre-sanctified, Requiem Mass versus Mass of Good Friday, and whether to serve at Mass, Imposition of Ashes, at Christmas, High Mass over Mattins, aversion to Low Church Mattins, Roman service in Wayland, Tenebrae, in country parish church, as guest at Kelham, remarkable sermon, over Christmas, Tenebrae and Family Reunion, during Holy Week, Mass of Charles King and Martyr, love, loving one's neighbour, marriage, TSE's need for privacy within, mysticism and transcendence, interpenetration of souls, intimations of life's 'pattern', 'doubleness', arrived at through reconciliation, orthodoxy, only remedy for contemporary culture, and pagans, sets TSE at odds with modernity, necessarily trinitarian, 'Christian' defined, iniquities of liberal theology, and creed, authority, Transubstantiation, TSE disclaims 'self-centredness' in maintaining, politics, the Church and social change, how denomination maps onto, need for working-class priests, church leaders against totalitarianism and Nazism, Christianity versus Fascism and Communism, Papal Encyclical against Nazi Germany, the 'Dividend morality', Presbyterianism, TSE quips on the meanness of, Quakerism, resignation, reconciliation, peace, TSE's love allows for, 'peace that passeth all understanding', the struggle to maintain, following separation from VHE, retreat and solitude, EH at Senexet, the need for, a need increasing with age, and TSE's mother, Roman Catholicism, TSE's counter-factual denomination, Rome, sacraments, Holy Communion, marriage, sainthood, TSE's idea of, the paradoxes of, susceptible of different sins, sins, vices, faults, how to invigilate, the sense of sin, the sinner's condition, bound up with the virtues, as a way to virtue, TSE's self-appraisal, when humility shades into, when unselfishness shades into, among saints, proportionate to spiritual progress, daydreaming, despair, lust, pride, perfection-seeking pride, spiritual progress and direction, TSE's crisis of 1910–11, EH's crisis, versus automatism, TSE's sense of, towards self-knowledge, in EH's case, as personal regeneration, temptation, to action/busyness, the Church Year, Advent, Christmas, dreaded, happily over, TSE rebuked for bah-humbugging, church trumps family during, season of irreligion, thoughts of EH during, unsettling, fatiguing, in wartime, Easter preferred to, Ash Wednesday, Lent, season for meditation and reading, prompts thoughts of EH, Lady Day, Holy Week, its intensity, arduous, preserved from public engagements, exhausting but refreshing, excitingly austere, Easter, better observed than Christmas, missed through illness, Unitarianism, the Eliots' as against EH's, the prospect of spiritual revival within, as personified by TSE's grandfather, regards the Bible as literature, as against Catholicism, divides EH from TSE, and whether Jesus believed himself divine, according to Dr Perkins, in England as against America, over-dependent on preachers' personality, TSE's wish that EH convert from, outside TSE's definition of 'Christian', the issue of communion, baptism, impossibly various, virtues heavenly and capital, bound up with the vices, better reached by way of sin, charity, towards others, in Bubu, TSE's intentness on, delusions of, as against tolerance, chastity, celibacy, beneath humility, TSE lacks vocation for, faith, and doubt, hope, a duty, TSE's struggle for, humility, distinguished from humiliation, comes as relief, greatest of the virtues, propinquitous to humour, not an Eliot virtue, opposed to timidity, danger of pride in, is endless, TSE criticised for overdoing, theatre a lesson in, most difficult of the virtues, possessed by EH, possessed by EH to a fault, TSE compares himself to EH in, the paradox of, distinguished from inferiority, self-discovery teaches, possessed by Dr Perkins, patience, recommended to EH, its foundations, possessed by Uncle John, purity, distinguished from purification, temperance, with alcohol, beneath humility,
Crosby, Caresse,

2.CaresseCrosby, Caresse Crosby (1892–1970), née Jacob (her parents were wealthy New Yorkers), married in 1922 the poet Harry Crosby, with whom she set up in Paris an imprint called Editions Narcisse, which became the Black Sun Press: they published writers including James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Hart Crane and Ezra Pound. Following Harry Crosby’s suicide in Dec. 1929, she continued to expand the Black Sun Press – publishing works including Hart Crane’s The Bridge (1930) and editions of Crosby’s writings – before returning to the USA. In later years she took initiatives in various fields: she opened the Crosby Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, DC; she launched a quarterly journal, Portfolio: An Intercontinental Review; and she became active in the international peace movement, co-founding Citizens of the World and Women Against War. Writings include Poems for Harry Crosby (1931); The Passionate Years (memoir, 1953).

Crosby, Harry,
Lawrence, David Herbert ('D. H.'), his singularity as poet, piece of faux-Eliotana concerning, as writer of letters, TSE appreciates loneliness of, deranges TSE, singled out Bain's 'Disraeli' for praise, on The Criterion, represented better in Revelation, David, 'The Prussian Officer',
Pound, Ezra, within Hulme's circle, at The Egoist, indebted to Harriet Weaver, epistolary style, on President Lowell, TSE recites for Boston audience, distinguished from Joyce and Lawrence, TSE's reasons for disliking, attacks After Strange Gods, as correspondent, needs pacification, and TSE's possible visit to Rapallo, recommended to NEW editorial committee, anecdotalised by Jane Heap, of TSE and David Jones's generation, his strange gift to Joyce recalled, delicacies of his ego, Morley halves burden of, lacks religion, his letters from Italy censored, one of TSE's 'group', indicted for treason, TSE on his indictment, his legal situation, correspondence between TSE and Bernard Shaw concerning, visited by TSE in Washington, defended by TSE in Poetry, Osbert Sitwell on, his treatment in hospital protested, his insanity, TSE's BBC broadcast on, The Pisan Cantos, TSE writes introduction for, TSE chairs evening devoted to, further efforts on behalf of, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, The Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, 'The Seafarer',
see also Pounds, the

3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.

Underhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, receives TSE's confession of love for EH, consulted on 'Thoughts After Lambeth', suggests separation from VHE is TSE's duty, confession with, introduces TSE to his cousin Evelyn, TSE's only confidant as to EH, becomes Dean of Rochester, writes to TSE about separation, against TSE shirking Oxford Movement Centenary, and TSE's 1933 return, invites TSE to school prize-day, at King's School prize-day, consulted on question of divorce, supportive over TSE's separation, his books commended to EH, visited in Rochester, and wife as TSE's Rochester hosts, and Miss O'Donovan, becomes Bishop of Bath and Wells, his consecration attended, perhaps, as Bishop, above receiving TSE's confession, takes Evelyn Underhill's funeral, visited in Wells, adjudicates on limit to godchildren, hosts Gordon George for week, dies,

2.Revd Francis UnderhillUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, DD (1878–1943), TSE’s spiritual counsellor: see Biographical Register.