[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
Your letter no. 30 (that is right) was a surprise, and the gap was not so long as it might have been. No. 29 had arrived (or I got it) on Tuesday of last week, and 30 on Friday of this; and the time does not seem to[o] long if I get a letter in each calendar week. If on the other hand a whole week from Monday to Monday goes by without a letter, then I begin to wonder. Sincespringlanguorous;a9 Easter I have been perfectly well, and the spring has been coming very slowly: a good thing, because any sudden change to a much warmer temperature always reduces me to languor. The foliage has been in advance of the warmth: lilac bushes in Kensington quite clearly green, and for a short time bright before they become grimy; and the trees in the faint colours that precede the green. I have not, in a way, been anxious for the spring to come: it seems more appropriate that the season should remain winter for the duration of the war; yetSecond World Warinvasion of Poland;c1 for the sake of the innumerable destitute sufferers in Poland, and the population of ruined Finland, one must welcome the alleviation, partial and temporary as it is. Ireading (TSE's)My Name is Million;h4 have been reading the ms. of a book we are to publish by an Englishwoman, married to a Pole, who went through the terror there, both under Germans and under Russians, and it exceeds one’s imagination. She expresses very well how people survive these horrors only through a sort of numbness that comes upon them.1
IHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3constrained by war;g8 don’tEnglandin wartime;b6 wonder at your missing any glimpses of England in wartime in my letters. It is not that I am being cautious in communication, but that there is so little to say about it. Both wartime and peace time activities are largely in abeyance. AsFaber and Faber (F&F)on war footing;e2 many odds and ends of people call at my office, though fewer foreigners (I don’t know what has happened to all the foreign students who could not get home who had no home to go to – some of them were in great difficulties). Everyone who is out of London turns up now and again, and has to be seen at short notice if at all: it is rather like the constant stream of American pilgrims (often strangers bearing an introduction from someone whom I have forgotten) that comes through in a normal summer. The coming summer will be a strange time for me, haunted by memories of all the summers since 1934, superimposed upon each other. I am from time to time concerned with trying to get one or another of my young men into the right place: but to get anybody into the right place in such a war as this is almost impossible – one is never sure how one could be best employed oneself. IHutchinsons, the;b9 wasWoolfs, the;e4 to have dined with the Hutchinsons this week, together with the Woolves, not having seen either for a long time; but both Mary and Virginia came down with the flu which now seems to be attacking those who were not ill during the winter. I should rather expect that each change in the war barometer, so to speak, would alter the proportion of my occupations: between my peacetime and proper concerns and wartime activities. I have tried to explain, haven’t I? that although you may say (and, of course, it is always a salutary reminder, and I don’t want to discourage you from such admonitions) I ought like the cobbler to stick to my last, yet one simply must have some emotional outlet of public activity of however modest a kind. Thetravels, trips and plansTSE's abortive 1940 Italian mission;d8;a4 Italian tour is an interruption of a kind which I do not expect to be repeated this year. For the most part, my thoughts on public affairs are not directly concerned with the war at all: and I am not, and do not try to be, an economist. What occupies one’s mind is the thought of the things that are happening, that may be happening, that ought to happen, or that ought not to happen – internally in this country; and the situation we should be prepared to find, and what we should make of it, after the war is over. ISecond World Warand America's response;b8 think that if America and Russia keep out of the war, so much the better: but there are two things one can’t say to people in America (1) that we want America in the war (they seem to think that anyway, erroneously) or (2) that we want America to keep out of it (which would sound unflattering). TheBell, Bernard Iddingsand America's position on war;b3 supercilious American critic (like Iddings Bell) is much more irritating than the straightforward simple isolationist.
I'Types of English Religious Verse'prepared for Italy;a2 have'Last Twenty-Five Years of English Poetry, The'written for Italian audience;a2 finished the first draft of one of my two lectures, and start to-day on the second lecture. After'English Tradition: Some Thoughts as a Preface to Study, The';a2 that I rewrite both and also my Christendom article; and hope to get all done by the end of the month, andMagdalene College, Cambridge;a4 takeHayward, Johnexcursions to Cambridge to visit;k1 a weekend in Cambridge before starting off. I expect to have my time table in a few days. Astravels, trips and plansTSE's abortive 1940 Italian mission;d8might include Paris;a5 I am anxious to stop in Paris on the way back, because I think it most important that people of my sort in London and Paris should take every opportunity of contact and exchange of views in the interest of mutual understanding between the two countries, I may be away nearly a month altogether. It is depressing that I shall not hear from you during that time – but I hope that there will be four letters for me to read on my return: I shall communicate as often as I can, perhaps more often though more briefly.
It was, as I said, an unexpected joy to hear from you from Harwichport, and to know that you had survived the days in Boston, about which I am always anxious, and which seem to have been even more arduous than I expected, becausePerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);e5 of Mrs. Perkins’s illness. I hope that she is not visibly frailer than a year ago. And it is good to know that you have had congenial company on the Cape. If I go away alone, I do not mind being alone, but I fear and shrink from the strangers in seaside hotels and such places who want to be friendly to the supposedly lonely guest (there is the same problem on shipboard); so that one important function of friends is to protect one from wellmeaning strangers. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4TSE reflects on;b6 remember especially oneAmericaWoods Hole, Falmouth, Massachusetts;i2TSE and EH's holiday in recalled;a2 afternoon when we sat on the beach at Wood’s Holl [sic] near some pine trees, and there was a bell-buoy tolling a little way off. We have had so few days be [sc. by] the sea, and I hope we shall have more. Theretravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4excursion to Greenwich;f6 wasEnglandLondon;h1Greenwich hallowed in memory;c8 another good excursion to Greenwich when we walked along the river and looked at the sailing barges, do you remember.
Well, I am glad that I have this Italian job to do, as it will help to prevent me from brooding too much on the anticipation of a different summer, and the memories of past expectations that became more animated at this time of year. There will probably be a let-down in June after I return.
1.The author of My Name is Million: The Experiences of an Englishwoman in Poland – published anonymously (F&F, 1940) – was Zoe Zajdlerowa, née Lucy Zoe Girling (1905–68), daughter of a Protestant minister, the Revd Frederick Girling of Heswall. In 1933 she married Aleksander Zajdler, an officer in the Polish Army, and lived with him in Poland. In 1940 she escaped from Soviet-occupied Poland (incurring a severe wound in the process) and reached Britain. She was separated from her husband and never saw him again. Before the war, when she was working as journalist and writer in the Liverpool–Wallasey area, she published novels under the pseudonym ‘Martin Hare’: Butler’s Gift (1932), Describe a Circle (1933), The Diary of a Pensionnare (1935), A Mirror for Skylarks (1936), Polonaise (1939). She was also to write – apparently at the request of Gen. W. Sikorski (head of the Polish government in exile until his death in 1943) – The Dark Side of the Moon (F&F, 1946), published with a preface by TSE.
3.BernardBell, Bernard Iddings Iddings Bell, DD (1886–1958), American Episcopal priest, author and cultural commentator; Warden of Bard College, 1919–33. In his last years he was made Canon of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Chicago, and a William Vaughn Lecturer at the University of Chicago.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.