[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
I have two letters to acknowledge since I last wrote: no. 81 of March 18, and one (in two envelopes: why don’t you get some thin paper instead of squandering thirty cents on every long letter) of April 1, which you inscribe doubtfully ‘no. 83 I think’; but I expect it is really 82. I find in my notebook that I wrote a week ago, but I can’t remember at all what I said – I mean I can’t remember mentioning that I was away from town for another week because of another cold. It has been very vexing. The doctor, very reasonably, wants me to go to see a nose and throat specialist in London to see whether I have any spot from which I poison myself with cold germs, after this bad season. I think myself that it is probably due simply to have [sc. having] got very tired and run down in the autumn. ISecond World WarThe Blitz;c6 rememberEnglandLondon;h1TSE as air-raid warden in;d5 after the first bad week, when there had been several ‘incidents’ in my area and I had been on duty three nights running, goingReads, thegive TSE refuge during Blitz;a9 to the Reads for the weekend and sleeping all of Saturday afternoon, and again from eleven that night until four the next afternoon. Such cases were not uncommon. I shall begin with my dentist after the throat man: not that I am aware of any trouble, but that I have not been for nearly a year.
The weather has been quite springlike for the last few days. This house has a southern exposure, with two Ls which protect a paved terrace, where one has been able to have coffee after lunch in quite a warm sun, and yesterday, tea also. Theflowers and floraprimroses;c4at Shamley;a2 garden is full of early blooms, andflowers and florabluebells;a4in Shamley Wood;a1 in the woods there are still primroses, with the first bluebells; and yesterday I heard the first cuckoo. Ide la Mares, thegive TSE wartime refuge;a6 am going to London tomorrow, but shall continue to sleep with the De la Mares in Hertfordshire until the end of the month. I am going to Hindhead for a few days change of air in about ten days, and a little later to Cambridge – I have written to ask when they can have me.
I still have not fixed my broadcast. IWoolf, VirginiaTSE's tribute to;d7 have'Virginia Woolf';a1 been finishing my note on Virginia: very short, but difficult to write, for ‘Horizon’: I will ask for a copy to be sent you when it appears. ButBurnt Norton;b9 itEast Coker;b8 isDry Salvages, The;a8 discouraging sending periodicals, as you do not seem to have received either the second ‘East Coker’ (with the separate ‘Burnt Norton’) or the ‘Dry Salvages’ in the New English Weekly which was posted from their office on February 27.
Your vacation does not seem to have been a very bright one, and I hope you will do better for the summer. I gather that you would not choose to go to ‘Cumberland Centre’ again, though it was certainly better than being in Boston. I appreciate the dilemma about dividing your time when in Boston, as well as the strain of being in the middle of a large city after being used to a quiet country town; and I don’t know that there is any perfectly satisfactory solution of the problem. As for people expecting you to come to see them and not appreciating your reasons for asking them to come to you, that I suppose is just human nature and unimaginativeness. TheSmith CollegeEH's employment insecurities at;c3 situationHale, Emilyas teacher;w1insecure over job at Smith;c9 at Smith seems very perplexing: when you speak of general insecurity I am not sure whether you are referring merely to the world as it is now, or to some particular crisis at Smith which might lead to reduction or change of staff. What other, smaller colleges are there, where you might get the sort of work you want to do and where you might find also congenial surroundings? Would you prefer to be out of New England, also? The time that letters take now makes it almost impossible to discuss problems of the moment with any profit, or to give or ask for advice.
You do not say whether any of my letters appear to have been lost. If they had been, I could not remember what was in them, unless I kept carbons, which I do not like to do, because it seems so very formal and business like. ThereChristianityhell;b8and damnation;a2 wasHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1fears TSE considers her damned;b4 one passage in your letter of March 10 which needed a rejoinder which I have not yet given. You speak of your being ‘lost’ (religiously) from my point of view. This, from my point of view, is rather a shocking assumption for you to make! Not only is my faith not so grim and exclusive as that, but to hold such a view would be contrary to the doctrines of the Church. No one is entitled to believe that anyone in particular is ‘lost’; and we certainly do not believe that everyone, or even the majority, outside the fold is damned. There are many circumstances, besides pure spiritual blindness, which make it impossible for the majority of mankind (taking all its races) to believe the full Christian faith; those who have it not lack the most important aid to salvation, but character and conduct may make it possible to many who hold, not even a mistaken religion, but none at all. For you there is in addition the practice of the faith which you hold. ThereChristianityhell;b8according to TSE;a3 is certainly Hell, but we may hope that it is very sparsely populated: and if I believed that everyone who did not believe as I did was hopelessly undone in eternity, I should certainly want to avoid most of my acquaintance – including a great many whose commerce is most useful to my mind and spirit, as well as those I love most. So I trust, my dear, that you will clear your mind on this point.
ItEast CokerTSE on its mood;b3 is difficult to reply to your comment on my poetry. CheerfulnessDry Salvages, Thedefended from charge of cheerlessness;a9 about the affairs of this world (‘sunniness’ in fact) is one thing and serenity is another: the latter is difficult to gain and difficult to maintain. Certainly I am not hopeful about this world: and whatever happens in the immediate future, I am not hopeful about the prospects of civilisation for a long time to come; and I do not see any prospect of greater spiritual light in this evil time when the peoples are being judged. But I hope that it is not altogether my own weakness of spirit which prevents any of the light of eternity flickering through my verse. IFamily Reunion, Theits cheerfulness;h4 should myself have thought, you see, that the last two poems were the most serene – in contrast to ‘cheerful’, which I have never been – of all that I have written, with the exception of the Family Reunion. But let me hope that there will be a little more warmth as well as light in Little Gidding: though that too, I am sure, will bear some traces of the experiences of the last eight months. IWoolf, Virginiaher death;d3 admit that at this moment I am not in high animal spirits, at all events: probably debility from the winter, and also Virginia’s death more than I was aware of at first. You may have seen that they have finally recovered her body, of which I am glad. She was to me like a member of my own family, somehow: and also, her going seems to mark the end of an age.
1.VirginiaWoolf, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), novelist, essayist and critic: see Biographical Register.