[22 Paradise Rd.; forwarded to Perkins, 90 Commonwealth Ave., Boston]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
Shamley Wood
Letter no. 65
26 November 1940
My dear,

No letter from you this week, but I stupidly forgot to comment on the two snapshots – one identifiable and very welcome, the other one of the vaguer specimens of amateur photography. It is now time almost to write a Christmas letter: next Sunday is the first in Advent; and this letter may only just reach you before you begin to prepare for the holidays. Nowadays one cannot communicate plans quickly enough for me to be able to write to wherever you will be, so there will be a further delay in correspondence then. I shall send no Christmas card this year: with the shortage of paper (of which a publisher must be as acutely conscious as anyone) I feel that it would be wrong, even if permitted. Fromde la Mares, thegive TSE wartime refuge;a6 just before Christmas for about a month, I shall be spending my Wednesday nights (and perhaps Thursdays) at Much Hadham Hall (it seems to be spelt either Hadham or Haddam according to fancy) Hertfordshire; exceptMoot, The;b6 thatArchbishop of York's Conference, Malvern 1941;a3 from the 7th to the 14th I shall be first at the Malvern conference and then at the Moot, probably in Oxford.

IChristian News-Letter (CNL)first number;a4 had a busy time last week; Tuesday at Oxford as usual, thenFabers, thehost TSE in Hampstead during war;e8 two nights with the Fabers (very quiet) andBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)broadcasts Hawkins interview with TSE;b8 a'Writer as Artist, The';a2 nightHawkins, A. Desmondinterviews TSE for BBC;a4 at the Langham Hotel for broadcasting. I think that my broadcast went off fairly well (I am trying to find the copy to send you by slow post, but I have mislaid it) on ‘The Writer as Artist’ – a subject which I turned to expatiating on the excellence of the English Language and the vital importance of the literary artist in maintaining its quality. They now want me to do a ‘postscript’ one evening after the news, butPriestley, J. B.as radio broadcaster;a6 I don’t think that I have the popular touch to succeed in a genre established by Priestley, and I think I should reserve my efforts for what I can do better: there is a projected series for February in which I may take part. IBelgion, Montgomeryon leave in London;c6 was joined at the Langham by Belgion, up for a few days leave, and now Captain Belgion, R.E. A broadcast talk now involves more time than it used to, as does everything else. So what with circulating between Surrey, London and Oxford, I have no desire to make appointments elsewhere, which would still further break the continuity of thought which is so difficult to maintain as it is.

ThisFaber and Faber (F&F)'blurbs' for;c9 weekend has had to be spent in the tedious and to me very trying job of writing catalogue notes about those spring books which I have sponsored: without the manuscripts in front of me, trying to remember what the book was about. I always mean to write my note the moment a book is accepted, and almost invariably forget to do so.

INoel-Buxton, Rufusimportunes TSE with sonnets;a2 may have to end this letter abruptly at any moment, as I have Rufus Noel Buxton coming to lunch – he and his wife are stopping a few miles away – and wanting to know my opinion of some indifferent sonnets he has written. If all the good poets were nice men, and all the nice young men who try to write verse were good poets, life would be very much simpler.

ISubercaseaux, Léon;a1 had lunch on Friday with some very agreeable Chileans, a man who is in the diplomatic service and his wife,1 who are friends of Marguerite’s, and were able to give me a little news of her – that is to say, comparatively recent news, as they left Rome in the summer. I am afraid that that family must be very unhappy now. TheseCaetani, Camillosent to Albania;a1 people feared that Camillo might have been sent to Albania.2

YouEnglandLondon;h1in wartime;d4 did ask about London in the daytime: I can say with assurance that except for occasional detours of traffic, transacting one’s affairs in the daytime is much the same as before – nothing happens to interfere. At night, of course, one prefers to stay indoors. ISeaverns, Helenhome bombed;d3 have had another letter from Mrs. Seaverns – I mislaid her first, so could not write to her, but now I have done so: you will have heard that her house was damaged. I was myself without a window for a few days, but I was out of town most of the time.

In case of this being the last letter you receive before Christmas, I want you to be thinking how much I shall think of you at that time.

Your loving
Tom

1.LéonSubercaseaux, Léon Subercaseaux (1894–1956), Chilean consul in London, and his wife Paz Larrain de Subercaseaux (d. 1994). They had a house at Windlesham, Surrey.

2.Italy had occupied Albania in Apr. 1939. In late Oct. 1940 the Italians attacked Greece from there but came off worse in the fighting through the winter of 1940–1.

Camillo Caetani (b. 1915) – son of Don Alfredo Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta, and TSE’s cousin Marguerite – died in action while serving in the Italian Army on the Albanian front, on 15 Dec. 1940. See Laurie Dennett, An American Princess: The Remarkable Life of Marguerite Chapin Caetani (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2016), ch. 10.

Archbishop of York's Conference, Malvern 1941, paper prepared for, occasion recounted, proceedings to be published,
Belgion, Montgomery, and Alida Monro dine chez Eliot, expensive club dinner with, accompanies TSE to Othello, and Charles Williams dine with TSE, accompanies TSE to Henry IV, Part II, to Garrigou-Lagrange lecture, takes TSE and Saurat to the Ivy, weekend's walking in Sussex with, in Criterion inner-circle, drink with Tom Burns and, accompanies TSE to Cranmer, and Mairet to lunch, accompanies TSE to Witch of Edmonton, arranges dinner for Murder, accompanies TSE to Uncle Vanya, to Measure for Measure, to Richard III, to Volpone, lonely, hosts dinner at Chinese restaurant, reviews Christian Society, on leave in London,

4.MontgomeryBelgion, Montgomery (‘Monty’) Belgion (1892–1973), author and journalist: see Biographical Register.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), TSE's committee service for, its future discussed, TSE working on autumn programme for, TSE on educational broadcasting in general, Barbara Burnham production of Murder, lobbies TSE for next play, 'The Need for Poetic Drama', Metaphyical poet broadcasts for, 'The Church's Message to the World', Christmas Day 'Cats' broadcast, dramatic Waste Land adaptation, which is censored for broadcast, repeats 'Cats', plays Parsifal on Good Friday, broadcasts Hawkins interview with TSE, 'Towards a Christian Britain', 1941 production of Murder, Eastern Service broadcasts East Coker, broadcasts Webster talk, Tennyson talk, Dry Salvages, Poe talk, Dryden talk, Joyce talk, European Service broadcasts TSE's talk, TSE declines Christmas broadcast for, wants to record 'Milton II', broadcasts TSE's personal poetry selection, broadcasts Gielgud's Family Reunion, marks TSE's 60th birthday, Gielgud Family Reunion repeated, solicits TSE post-Nobel Prize, TSE's EP broadcast for, records TSE reading Ash-Wednesday, floats Reith Lectures suggestion, approaches Marilyn Monroe to star in Fitts's Lysistrata,
Caetani, Camillo, sent to Albania, where he is killed,
Christian News-Letter (CNL), TSE's way of writing for, described, first number, TSE's commitment to as war work, TSE on Papal Encyclical, TSE's colleagues not quite friends, becoming too politic for TSE, features TSE on Wells's New World Order, 'Education in a Mass Society', TSE's guest-editorship of, TSE gives talk for, relocates to Oxford, 'Responsibility and Power', TSE, Hambleden and Mrs Bliss discuss,
de la Mares, the, TSE forgoes EH's invitation for, TSE's dread of visiting, give dinner for the Morleys, give TSE wartime refuge, the children, teach TSE vingt-et-un,
England, TSE as transatlantic cultural conduit for, discomforts of its larger houses, and Henry James, at times unreal, TSE's patriotic homesickness for, which is not a repudiation of America, TSE's want of relations in, encourages superiority in Americans familiar with, reposeful, natural ally of France, compared to Wales, much more intimate with Europe than America, TSE on his 'exile' in, undone by 'Dividend morality', in wartime, war binds TSE to, post-war, post-war privations, the English, initially strange to TSE, contortions of upward mobility, comparatively rooted as a people, TSE more comfortable distinguishing, the two kinds of duke, TSE's vision of wealthy provincials, its Tories, more blunt than Americans, as congregants, considered racially superior, a relief from the Scottish, don't talk in poetry, compared to the Irish, English countryside, around Hindhead, distinguished, the West Country, compared to New England's, fen country, in primrose season, the English weather, cursed by Joyce, suits mistiness, preferred to America's, distinguished for America's by repose, relaxes TSE, not rainy enough, English traditions, Derby Day, Order of Merit, shooting, Varsity Cricket Match, TSE's dislike of talking cricket, rugby match enthralls, the death of George V, knighthood, the English language, Adlestrop, Gloucestershire, visited by EH and TSE, Amberley, West Sussex, ruined castle at, Arundel, West Sussex, TSE's guide to, Bath, Somerset, TSE 'ravished' by, EH visits, Bemerton, Wiltshire, visited on Herbert pilgrimage, Blockley, Gloucestershire, tea at the Crown, Bosham, West Sussex, EH introduced to, Bridport, Dorset, Tandys settled near, Burford, Oxfordshire, EH staying in, too hallowed to revisit, Burnt Norton, Gloucestershire, TSE remembers visiting, and the Cotswolds, its imagined fate, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, less oppressive than Oxford, TSE's vision of life in, possible refuge during Blitz, Charlbury, Oxfordshire, visited by EH and TSE, Chester, Cheshire, TSE's plans in, TSE on, Chichester, West Sussex, the Perkinses encouraged to visit, EH celebrates birthday in, TSE's guide to, 'The Church and the Artist', TSE gives EH ring in, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, Perkinses take house at, shockingly remote, TSE's first weekend at, likened to Florence, TSE jealous of memories associated with, its Arts & Crafts associations, its attractions to Dr Perkins, forever associated with TSE and EH, sound of the Angelus, without EH, treasured in TSE's memory, excursions from, EH on 'our' garden at, Stamford House passes into new hands, EH's fleeting return to, Cornwall, TSE's visit to, compared to North Devon, Cotswolds, sacred in TSE's memory, Derbyshire, as seen from Swanwick, Devon ('Devonshire'), likened to American South, the Eliots pre-Somerset home, its scenery, Dorset, highly civilised, TSE feels at home in, TSE's Tandy weekend in, Durham, TSE's visit to, East Anglia, its churches, TSE now feels at home in, East Coker, Somerset, visited by Uncle Chris and Abby, TSE conceives desire to visit, reasons for visiting, described, visited again, and the Shamley Cokers, now within Father Underhill's diocese, photographs of, Finchampstead, Berkshire, visited by TSE and EH, specifically the Queen's Head, Framlingham, Suffolk, visited, Garsington, Oxfordshire, recalled, Glastonbury, Somerset, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire, highly civilised, its beautiful edge, its countryside associated with EH, TSE at home in, its domestic architecture, Hadsleigh, Suffolk, visited, Hampshire, journey through, TSE's New Forest holiday, Hereford, highly civilised, Hull, Yorkshire, and 'Literature and the Modern World', Ilfracombe, Devon, and the Field Marshal, hideous, Knole Park, Kent, Lavenham, Suffolk, visited, Leeds, Yorkshire, TSE lectures in, touring Murder opens in, the Dobrées visited in, home to EVE's family, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, TSE's visit to, especially the Bishop's Palace, Lincolnshire, arouses TSE's curiosity, unknown to EH, Lingfield, Surrey, Little Gidding, Cambridgeshire, TSE's long-intended expedition to, London, in TSE's experience, TSE's isolation within, affords solitude and anonymity, contrasted to country life, its fogs, socially freer than Boston and Paris, eternally misty, its lionhunters, rain preferable in, more 'home' to TSE than America, socially more legible than Boston, its society compared to Boston's, TSE's desire to live among cockneys, South Kensington too respectable, Clerkenwell, Camberwell, Blackheath, Greenwich scouted for lodging, its comparatively vigorous religious life, Camberwell lodging sought, Clerkenwell lodging sought, and music-hall nostalgia, abandoned by society in August, the varieties of cockney, TSE's East End sojourn, South Kensington grows on TSE, prepares for Silver Jubilee, South Kensington street names, Dulwich hallowed in memory, so too Greenwich, during 1937 Coronation, preparing for war, Dulwich revisited with family, in wartime, TSE as air-raid warden in, Long Melford, Suffolk, Lowestoft, Suffolk, Lyme Regis, Dorset, with the Morleys, Marlborough, Wiltshire, scene of a happy drink, Needham Market, Suffolk, Newcastle, Northumberland, TSE's visit to, Norfolk, appeals to TSE, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, dreary, Nottinghamshire, described for EH, Oxford, Oxfordshire, as recollected by TSE, past and present, EH takes lodgings in, haunted for TSE, in July, compared to Cambridge, Peacehaven, Sussex, amazing sermon preached in, Penrith, TSE's visit to, Rochester, as Dickens described, Salisbury, Wiltshire, in the Richmonds' company, Shamley Green, Surrey, TSE's ARP work in, its post office, Pilgrim Players due at, Somerset, highly civilised, TSE at home in, Southwold, Suffolk, TSE visits with family, Stanton, Gloucestershire, on TSE and EH's walk, Stanway, Gloucestershire, on EH and TSE's walk, Suffolk, TSE visits with family, Surrey, Morley finds TSE lodging in, evening bitter at the Royal Oak, TSE misses, as it must have been, Sussex, commended to EH, TSE walking Stane Street and downs, EH remembers, Walberswick, Suffolk, Wells, Somerset, TSE on visiting, Whipsnade, Bedfordshire, EH and TSE visit, Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset, delightful name, Wiltshire, highly civilised, TSE at home in, Winchelsea, East Sussex, visited, Winchester, TSE on, Wisbech, Lincolnshire, TSE on visiting, Worcestershire, TSE feels at home in, Yeovil, Somerset, visited en route to East Coker, York, TSE's glimpse of, Yorkshire,
see also British General Election
Faber and Faber (F&F), TSE's office in, the garrulousness of publishing, refuge from home, in financial straits, future feared for, tranquil Saturday mornings at, TSE disenchanted with, hosts summer garden-party, as part of Bloomsbury, TSE considers 'home', VHE intrusion dreaded at, robbed, increases TSE's workload, TSE's editorial beat at, negotiate over Murder in the Cathedral, pay advance for Murder, VHE's appearances at, and Duff Cooper's Haig, 'blurbs' for, commission new letterhead from Eric Gill, give Ivy lunch for Dukes, TSE as talent-spotter and talent-counsellor, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, mark TSE's 50th birthday, and the prospect of war, and closing The Criterion, lose Morley to America, on war footing, war ties TSE to, fire-watching duties at, wartime bookbinding issues, advertisements to write for, Picture Post photographs boardroom, offices damaged by V-1, consider moving to Grosvenor Place, lunch at Wednesday board-meetings, Christmas staff party,
Fabers, the, model of happiness and respectability, their domestic situation, Faber children to tea chez Eliot, visit TSE at Pike's Farm, compared to the Morleys, closer to TSE than to VHE, 1933 summer holiday with, Ty Glyn Aeron described, request TSE to write play, too absorbed in their children, at the Morleys' party, give anti-Nazi party for author, host poker party, 1934 summer holiday with, take TSE to lunch in Oxford, 1935 summer holiday with, for which the children are bought tent, give party, 1936 summer holiday with, at Morleys' Thanksgiving Day party, sail model boats with TSE, and TSE's foggy adventure, cinema-going with TSE, take TSE to Witch of Edmonton, and Morleys take TSE to pantomime, and TSE attend opening of Ascent of F6, 1937 summer holiday with, and the Bradfield Greek play, School for Scandal with, take TSE to pantomime again, 1938 summer holiday with, 1939 summer holiday with, offer possible wartime refuge, 1940 summer holiday with, host TSE in Hampstead during war, TSE makes bread sauce for, brought vegetables from Shamley, move to Minsted, and TSE attend musical revue, 1941 summer holiday with, Minsted as substitute for nursing-home, trying to sell Welsh home, take TSE to International Squadron, invite TSE to Wales for Christmas, host TSE at Minsted, away fishing in Scotland, mourn TSE's post-war independence, 1947 Minsted summer stay, 1948 Minsted summer stay, host TSE for weekend, on 1950 South Africa trip, on TSE's 1951 Spain trip, 1951 Minsted summer stay, 1952 Minsted summer stay, 1953 Minsted summer stay, on 1953–4 South Africa trip, 35th wedding anniversary weekend,
Hawkins, A. Desmond, discusses novel with TSE, mourns The Criterion, interviews TSE for BBC, asks TSE to godfather child,

3.A. DesmondHawkins, A. Desmond Hawkins (1908–99), novelist, critic, broadcaster: see Biographical Register.

Moot, The, first meeting, invited to TSE's Maritain dinner, no substitute for individual friendships, seems futile, welcomes Reinhold Niebuhr as guest, discusses TSE's paper,
Noel-Buxton, Rufus, seeks passage on cargo ship, importunes TSE with sonnets, visits to Shamley, continues to ply TSE with verses, TSE walks four miles to lunch with, as poet, visits Shamley again,

1.RufusNoel-Buxton, Rufus Buxton (1917–80), a scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, was to become 2nd Baron Noel-Buxton. In WW2 he was invalided from an Officer Cadet Training Unit and became a research assistant at the Agricultural Economics Research Institute in Oxford, while also lecturing to the forces. After two further years as a producer on the BBC North American Service, he joined Farmers’ Weekly, 1950–2. In later years he became famous for fording a number of perilous English rivers. His publications include Without the Red Flag (1936); The Ford: A Poem (1955); Westminster Wader (F&F, 1957).

Priestley, J. B., meets TSE as theatre proprietor, and Family Reunion's unsuccess, invites TSE to dinner, speaks at Purchase Tax meeting, as radio broadcaster, as playwright, Dangerous Corner, I Have Been Here Before, Time and the Conways,

1.J. B. PriestleyPriestley, J. B. (1894–1984), novelist, playwright, social commentator, broadcaster; author of bestselling novels including The Good Companions (1929) and Angel Pavement (1930); and plays including Time and the Conways (1937) and An Inspector Calls (1945).

Seaverns, Helen, finally dines with TSE, teaches TSE card games, bearer of EH's Christmas present, charms TSE, hosts TSE and the Perkinses, entertained by TSE, TSE hesitates to confide in, and Perkinses dine with TSE, to tea with TSE, seeks advice from TSE on transatlantic tourism, her comforts equivalent to Mappie's, houses EH on 1939 arrival, an old spoiled child, disburdens herself over tea, laments life in Hove, removed from grandchildren,

3.HelenSeaverns, Helen Seaverns, widow of the American-born businessman and Liberal MP, Joel Herbert Seaverns: see Biographical Register.

Subercaseaux, Léon,

1.LéonSubercaseaux, Léon Subercaseaux (1894–1956), Chilean consul in London, and his wife Paz Larrain de Subercaseaux (d. 1994). They had a house at Windlesham, Surrey.

'Writer as Artist, The',