[22 Paradise Rd.; forwarded to 90 Commonwealth Ave., Boston]
St. John Baptist
It did seem very odd and quaint to get a typed letter from you, but it has some advantages! For one thing, it is easier to take in as a whole, and to be sure that one overlooks no point in answering; and of course, through handwritten letters, to find something when you don’t remember which letter it was in. IConant, James B.;a2 was much interested also by the report of President Conant’s speech.1
TheSecond World WarDunkirk;c5 events of the last few days have absorbed one’s mind, and still do, as the situation is not yet quite clear.2 There is no need for me to comment on them: we will take them as read. Meanwhile my speeches, such as they are, are all ready, and my papers are in order. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1940 visit to Dublin;d9itinerary;a3 leave for Dublin on Saturday and return on Tuesday. The address is at the Abbey Theatre on Sunday night (white tie) and the broadcast some time on Monday. IRobinson, Lennox;a1 shall be staying with Lennox Robinson, Sorrento Cottage, Dalkey, Co. Dublin: 3 not that I am there long enough to matter, but I like you to know exactly where I am and where I have been. I have also had some of my time taken up, as you can imagine, by local and parochial activities suitable to the times. AndLang, William Cosmo Gordon, Archbishop of Canterbury (later Baron Lang of Lambeth)petitioned over Purchase Tax;a2 myPurchase TaxTSE's efforts to exclude books from;a1 interviewDon, Alan;a1 with Mr. Don was successful: as a result the Archbishop attended the meeting and spoke (I was not there, as it was to consist of authors etc. not connected with the publishing business).
I am glad to think that you are all ready for the summer, with hair waves and some new dresses, but am waiting to hear more exactly what your plans are. I fear that the summer may be a harder time for you – and for others in America – while you have not your work to take your mind off Europe: but you must for every reason (and not least to reassure me) devote it to building up strength and serenity. AndPerkinses, the;j5 I suppose that by this time the Perkins’s will have laid their own plans for getting out of Boston. BySeaverns, Helen;e1 the way, I have not heard from Mrs. Seaverns for some weeks, and wonder whether she is settled yet at Millbank or not. DoCresswell, Euphemia ('Effie');a1 youCresswell, Pinkney;a1 hear at all, or do the Perkins’s, from the Creswells [sc. Cresswell],4 or anybody in Gloucestershire? YourLees-Milne, James;a1 mention of the Lees-Milnes’ reminded me.5 IMcPherrin, Jeanette;e5 was pleased to have the message from Jeannie.
IHinkleys, thetheir insularity;e5 fear that the Hinkleys will with time become more so, rather than less, and will cease to [be] able to communicate at all with any but the immediate family of Welch’s, Wolcotts and Danes. AndHinkley, Susan Heywood (TSE's aunt, née Stearns)indifferent to war;c5 to Aunt S., at her age and with her restricted interests, a war only means the fear that her grandsons would be sent abroad.
By now you will be somewhere else, and I should like a more direct address if possible.
AChristianitybelief;b1faced with Second World War;a2 couple of letters ago – bother, I have put it away – you seemed to wonder whether I could still, in these times, believe in the purposes of God, and I have been meaning to answer that when I could take the time to do so properly. But I don’t think that I have ever fallen into that attitude, though I know it occurs often to many minds. I dare not say that I should ever fail, because, as with physical courage, one does not know what strength will be given one until the occasion for it arises; nor can one anticipate confidently how one will behave in a crisis of agony. But I know that it would be a weakness, almost of the flesh; and I know that what we are called upon to experience is something that can improve us as a nation. All that one can do is to search every event and crisis for the possibilities of action for good, and thus try to make oneself an instrument of God.6 TheChristianityChristendom;b2TSE ponders the decline of;a1 decline of Christendom is a fault for which all nations must suffer in their turn; and must try to see the suffering as a way back to God.
I shall write again before Dublin, and of course directly after.
1.James Bryant Conant, ‘Education For A Classless Society: The Jeffersonian Tradition’ (address given at the University of California, 28 Mar. 1940), The Atlantic, May 1940.
2.The evacuation from Dunkirk of 338,226 British and French troops was completed on 4 June. German forces entered Paris on 14 June, staging a parade down the Champs Elysées; France surrendered to Germany on 21 June, with the armistice being signed at the same location in the forest of Compiègne and in the same railway coach in which the Germans had surrendered at the end of WW1 in Nov. 1918.
3.LennoxRobinson, Lennox Robinson (1886–1958) – playwright – wrote on 17 June: ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable, it’s only a small house but nicely situated. Of course I’ll meet you on arrival.’
4.Herbert PinkneyCresswell, Pinkney Creswell andCresswell, Euphemia ('Effie') his wife Euphemia – ‘Effie’ (a friend at Chipping Campden) – lived at Ardley House (now the Kings Hotel) before moving in 1934–5 to Charingworth Manor, a fine Tudor house (also now a hotel) about four miles east of Chipping Campden. Effie Cresswell liked to hold arty gatherings and tea parties for cultured visitors.
5.JamesLees-Milne, James Lees-Milne (1908–97), author and expert on country houses. From 1936 to 1973 he worked for the National Trust – and it may have been in that capacity, and early in his career, that EH and the Perkinses came into contact with him.
6.Acts 9: 15: ‘But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.’
1.JamesConant, James B. B. Conant (1893–1978), chemist; 23rd President of Harvard University, 1933–53.
4.Herbert PinkneyCresswell, Pinkney Creswell andCresswell, Euphemia ('Effie') his wife Euphemia – ‘Effie’ (a friend at Chipping Campden) – lived at Ardley House (now the Kings Hotel) before moving in 1934–5 to Charingworth Manor, a fine Tudor house (also now a hotel) about four miles east of Chipping Campden. Effie Cresswell liked to hold arty gatherings and tea parties for cultured visitors.
4.Herbert PinkneyCresswell, Pinkney Creswell andCresswell, Euphemia ('Effie') his wife Euphemia – ‘Effie’ (a friend at Chipping Campden) – lived at Ardley House (now the Kings Hotel) before moving in 1934–5 to Charingworth Manor, a fine Tudor house (also now a hotel) about four miles east of Chipping Campden. Effie Cresswell liked to hold arty gatherings and tea parties for cultured visitors.
1.AlanDon, Alan Don (1885–1966), chaplain to Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1931–41. Later, chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, 1946–56; Dean of Westminster, 1946–59. TSE hoped to persuade the Archbishop to be present, and perhaps to speak, at a meeting convened to urge the government that ‘Books should be excluded from the Scope of Purchase Tax’: see The Book Crisis, ed. Gilbert McAllister (F&F, 1940).
5.JamesLees-Milne, James Lees-Milne (1908–97), author and expert on country houses. From 1936 to 1973 he worked for the National Trust – and it may have been in that capacity, and early in his career, that EH and the Perkinses came into contact with him.
2.JeanetteMcPherrin, Jeanette McPherrin (1911–92), postgraduate student at Scripps College; friend of EH: see Biographical Register.
3.LennoxRobinson, Lennox Robinson (1886–1958) – playwright – wrote on 17 June: ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable, it’s only a small house but nicely situated. Of course I’ll meet you on arrival.’
3.HelenSeaverns, Helen Seaverns, widow of the American-born businessman and Liberal MP, Joel Herbert Seaverns: see Biographical Register.