[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
I was delighted to get your letter no. 26 of the 20th February with its good news: firstSmith Collegereappoints and promotes EH again;c2 of your re-appointment and ‘promotion’ (for surely the most important kind of promotion is increase of salary). You must feel convinced by now that you have made a success of your work – and all the more of a triumph when it does not happen to be the kind of work that one has most at heart. It is a success of character as well as of ability. As for your address, I read between the lines that it was an unqualified success, and you are therefore right to keep rather quiet and demure about it with the members of your department. Universities and colleges are places where jealousy is liable to flourish; and jealousy is an emotion the power of which is apt to be underestimated by those who are incapable of it. If one has a modest attitude to oneself, one is apt innocently not to allow for, or even to recognise the jealousy of others (‘Why who could be jealous of me’, one says); and yet it is one of the most violent of emotions, which can drive people into the most unexpected behaviour. I don’t want to exaggerate to the point of leading you to believe that you will have infernal machines 1 put under your bed; only to say that there are some things which generous people, however shrewd and observant of human beings, can hardly realise except through disagreeable experience. Ipoetryjealousy among poets;c1 have always to remind myself never to trust absolutely anybody in the same line of activity as myself; I have not chosen, as intimate friends, anybody who writes poetry – even if a man has produced a volume in his youth and had to give up poetry as a bad job, that is enough reason for being wary. The tricky thing about jealousy is that jealous people are by no means limited to one’s enemies: they may be people who are very fond of one and who would do a good deal for one’s sake. But jealous folk are apt to be people with a certain dishonesty of mind, so that they can wound or damage you while pretending to themselves that they have your interests very much at heart.
After this short homily, which you will understand is purely general, I must express envy, in a mild sense – but not jealousy – of anyone who can enjoy public speaking. It seems to me almost miraculous, at least, it is an ability which to me is quite incomprehensible – that anybody should be able to feel at ease on a platform, and enjoy it, and be able to sway a crowd and watch it happening. It is much more mysterious than acting, though that is mysterious enough. But in acting, one is so to speak concealed behind a rôle, and behind words that someone else has composed: but in speaking, one is nakedly oneself – or it is a very different kind of acting. I just can’t understand it.
Anddogs'Boerre' (Norwegian Elkhound);b7scourge of Northampton;b4, of course, withAmericaNorthampton, Massachusetts;g3Boerre's imagined life in;b3 Boerre on the loose – perhaps, in the spring, he feels a primeval urge to go and hunt an elk. If one should turn up in Northampton what excitement there would be. It has become difficult for me to think of that town as having any other occupation than hunting for Boerre. There can hardly be a single inhabitant now who does not know him.
IEast Cokerready for printer;a9 shall be able to send you a copy of ‘East Coker’ in a few days. I think it is ready for printing in a periodical: that is, I don’t believe that I shall want later to make any radical changes to it. IChristian News-Letter (CNL)'Education in a Mass Society';b5 have also completed my supplement on Christian Education, whichOldham, Josephpleased with TSE's education supplement;d5 Oldham says he is very pleased with, and will publish in the News Letter next week, so you will get a copy of that automatically. Now'Types of English Religious Verse';a1 for'Last Twenty-Five Years of English Poetry, The'written for Italian audience;a2 the Summer School article andtravels, trips and plansTSE's abortive 1940 Italian mission;d8lectures prepared for;a2 my two lectures – one to be on seventeenth century religious verse and the other on contemporary poetry – the latter, of course, most difficult to write, as there are obvious points of embarrassment – but contemporary literature is what the Italians want to hear about.
AsHale, Irene (née Baumgras);c4 for seeing your Aunt Irene, I don’t think you should make up your mind fixedly in advance! It should be done if convenient, and not if not. Don’t regard it as an absolute duty: except when you can put a little more into it than that it is not worthy [sc. worth] doing at all. Certainly the fact that she has spent so much time in Northampton makes seeing her less necessary. But she is certainly not one of your primary obligations, and the pleasure she gets is, I fear, not adequate to the amount of strain for you. AsHale, Emilyfamily;w4and EH's obligations to;a8 I think you are most persuadeable [sic] when a choice is put in the form of relative duties, let me suggest that – and all the more with the recognition you have just received for your own work – apart from certain, and not unlimited obligations to your mother, aunt and uncle, your first duty surely is to your work; and that means that it is your duty to use your vacation as a vacation, for rest and refreshment, and not to cheat the college by using it for other kinds of work – and seeing Aunt Irene is very hard work. If you can be in Boston just long enough to see the people you ought to see, and a few of the people you want to see, and then get away for a visit with chosen friends, that is (as you raise the problem yourself!) what I should approve most! INiebuhr, Reinholdcommended to EH;a5 hope you will like Niebuhr – I have a great liking and admiration for him. And I hope you will get to New Haven.
1.Cf. Jean Cocteau, La machine infernale (1932).
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.
3.ReinholdNiebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), influential theologian, ethicist, philosopher, and polemical commentator on politics and public affairs: see Biographical Register.
8.JosephOldham, Joseph (‘Joe’) Houldsworth Oldham (1874–1969), missionary, adviser, organiser: see Biographical Register.