[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
Shamley Wood
Letter 78.
28 April 1941
My dear,

I have now, I hope, finished with winter ailments. It is true that a persistent east wind has delayed the sensation of spring, thoughflowers and floraprimroses;c4at Shamley;a2 it has not been able to deter the primroses: but there is sometimes a little warm sunshine, and we have already had primeurs of asparagus. I had an alarm over what seemed to be either a heavy cold or hay fever, over the weekend, but the doctor pronounced it to be (what I had from the circumstances suspected) merely a violent inflammation of the nose due to the specialist to whom he had sent me in London on Friday, squirting cocaine up it in order to have a good look. It would seem that my membrane is exceptionally sensitive to cocaine: so there is one habit at least which I am not liable to fall a prey to. Otherwise, the specialist declared that there was no evidence of any infection spot, recommended artificial sunlight etc. so with that and a good report on my lungs, I have nothing to blame but the strain of the times, an unsettled life, and a natural tendency to colds and catarrh.

With all this, and the usual feeling of fatigue at the change of the season, I have not felt very full of energy lately. ThereSecond World Warits effect on TSE;b3 are moments, of course, when the war submerges everything, and there seems to be no place for any of the activities which one is best qualified to exercise. One loses faith even, at times, in those plans for the future of the nation andMoot, Theseems futile;c1 the world which such assemblies as the Moot weave, in feeling how little one knows of what the future situation on which to act will be. IChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1;d4 know that theChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1;d9 answer is in practising both personal patience and humility, and in keeping before one those values which are always of first importance, whatever the situation of the world, but it is only the more stolid and unimaginative who can just stick to the immediate task without questioning the future; and I should not like to pretend that I am uniformly either cheerful or serene.

IChristian News-Letter (CNL)first number;a4 go to Oxford, at last, tomorrow. IMagdalene College, CambridgeWhitsun feast at;a6 have set my visit to Cambridge for Whitsun, as there is a private college feast on that day, and I shall stop over the bank holiday and pay a few calls. I shall try to give a morning or afternoon of each day to seeing John, of course.

Pray for me, my dear, and I pray for you.

Your very loving
Tom
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,
Christianity, and human isolation, and modern economics, Ada on TSE's personal piety, scheme for 'Pro Fide' bookshop, among the Eliot family, and beauty, its sects like different clubs, Anglo-Catholicism, TSE's conversion to, which he dates to Eccleston Square meeting, Anglican Missal sought for EH, but unfortunately out of print, discussed at Boston Theological School, and the Petrine Claims, apostolic succession, over Roman Catholicism, as refuge from VHE, and the Reformation, asceticism, discipline, rigour, the necessity for, and TSE's daily exhortation, making and breaking habits, mastering emotions and passions, as salubrious, only remedy for a prurient culture, confession and communion, more possible during Harvard year, the case for unattainable ideals, in time of war, gets TSE up before 7 o'clock, hereditary with TSE, belief, and good poetry, faced with Second World War, and conversion, antidote to TSE's skepticism, Christendom, TSE ponders the decline of, TSE on his prominence within, its ruin, the Church Visible and Invisible, and TSE's war work, the Malabar Church, prospect of total reunion within, confession, helps to objectify sin, more dreaded than dentist, harder in the morning, death and afterlife, the struggle to prepare for, consoles TSE in life, and cremation, Requiem Mass, gives meaning to life, and what makes a desirable burial place, the nature of eternal life, divorce, unrecognised by Anglo-Catholic Church, which TSE regrets, in church law, would separate TSE from Church, evil, TSE's belief in, and moral percipience, guilt, and the New England conscience, hell, TSE's 1910 vision of, and damnation, according to TSE, liturgy, TSE's weekly minimum, Mass of the Pre-sanctified, Requiem Mass versus Mass of Good Friday, and whether to serve at Mass, Imposition of Ashes, at Christmas, High Mass over Mattins, aversion to Low Church Mattins, Roman service in Wayland, Tenebrae, in country parish church, as guest at Kelham, remarkable sermon, over Christmas, Tenebrae and Family Reunion, during Holy Week, Mass of Charles King and Martyr, love, loving one's neighbour, marriage, TSE's need for privacy within, mysticism and transcendence, interpenetration of souls, intimations of life's 'pattern', 'doubleness', arrived at through reconciliation, orthodoxy, only remedy for contemporary culture, and pagans, sets TSE at odds with modernity, necessarily trinitarian, 'Christian' defined, iniquities of liberal theology, and creed, authority, Transubstantiation, TSE disclaims 'self-centredness' in maintaining, politics, the Church and social change, how denomination maps onto, need for working-class priests, church leaders against totalitarianism and Nazism, Christianity versus Fascism and Communism, Papal Encyclical against Nazi Germany, the 'Dividend morality', Presbyterianism, TSE quips on the meanness of, Quakerism, resignation, reconciliation, peace, TSE's love allows for, 'peace that passeth all understanding', the struggle to maintain, following separation from VHE, retreat and solitude, EH at Senexet, the need for, a need increasing with age, and TSE's mother, Roman Catholicism, TSE's counter-factual denomination, Rome, sacraments, Holy Communion, marriage, sainthood, TSE's idea of, the paradoxes of, susceptible of different sins, sins, vices, faults, how to invigilate, the sense of sin, the sinner's condition, bound up with the virtues, as a way to virtue, TSE's self-appraisal, when humility shades into, when unselfishness shades into, among saints, proportionate to spiritual progress, daydreaming, despair, lust, pride, perfection-seeking pride, spiritual progress and direction, TSE's crisis of 1910–11, EH's crisis, versus automatism, TSE's sense of, towards self-knowledge, in EH's case, as personal regeneration, temptation, to action/busyness, the Church Year, Advent, Christmas, dreaded, happily over, TSE rebuked for bah-humbugging, church trumps family during, season of irreligion, thoughts of EH during, unsettling, fatiguing, in wartime, Easter preferred to, Ash Wednesday, Lent, season for meditation and reading, prompts thoughts of EH, Lady Day, Holy Week, its intensity, arduous, preserved from public engagements, exhausting but refreshing, excitingly austere, Easter, better observed than Christmas, missed through illness, Unitarianism, the Eliots' as against EH's, the prospect of spiritual revival within, as personified by TSE's grandfather, regards the Bible as literature, as against Catholicism, divides EH from TSE, and whether Jesus believed himself divine, according to Dr Perkins, in England as against America, over-dependent on preachers' personality, TSE's wish that EH convert from, outside TSE's definition of 'Christian', the issue of communion, baptism, impossibly various, virtues heavenly and capital, bound up with the vices, better reached by way of sin, charity, towards others, in Bubu, TSE's intentness on, delusions of, as against tolerance, chastity, celibacy, beneath humility, TSE lacks vocation for, faith, and doubt, hope, a duty, TSE's struggle for, humility, distinguished from humiliation, comes as relief, greatest of the virtues, propinquitous to humour, not an Eliot virtue, opposed to timidity, danger of pride in, is endless, TSE criticised for overdoing, theatre a lesson in, most difficult of the virtues, possessed by EH, possessed by EH to a fault, TSE compares himself to EH in, the paradox of, distinguished from inferiority, self-discovery teaches, possessed by Dr Perkins, patience, recommended to EH, its foundations, possessed by Uncle John, purity, distinguished from purification, temperance, with alcohol, beneath humility,
flowers and flora, aconite, at Shamley, imagined in Cambridge, azaleas, summon memories of EH, bamboo, imagined by TSE in California, bluebells, in Shamley Wood, bourgainvillea, imagined by TSE in California, cactus, imagined by TSE in California, carnations, from Chipping Campden, catkins, at Shamley, celandine, spotted at Shamley, chrysanthemums, TSE prefers to roses, cowslips, at Shamley, crocuses, at Shamley, imagined in Cambridge, gladioli, sent to EH in TSE's name, hawthorn ('may'), summons memories of EH, heliotrope, enclosed in letter from Christine Galitzi, hibiscus, imagined by TSE in California, laburnum, summons memories of EH, lilacs, in Russell and Woburn Squares, summon memories of EH, lilies-of-the-valley, delivered to EH on the Samaria, Michaelmas daisies, around Pike's Farm, palms, imagined by TSE in California, primroses, and the English spring, at Shamley, pussy-willow, at Shamley, rhododendrons, summon memories of EH, roses, in autumn, sent to EH on birthday, from Chipping Campden, left by EH in TSE's Grenville rooms, their emotionally disturbing scent, given to TSE as EH's parting gift, for EH's birthday, snowdrops, at Shamley, sweet peas, and EH's performance in Hay Fever, effect of their scent on TSE, no longer painful to TSE, delivered to EH, TSE buys himself at Gloucester Road, cheer TSE up, the essence of summer, sent to Aunt Edith, violets, EH gives TSE as buttonhole, emotionally disturbing, left by departing EH, wisteria, summons memories of EH, Wood anemone, at Shamley, yew, sprig picked for TSE by EH, zinnias, TSE prefers over roses,
Magdalene College, Cambridge, claret discussed at, annual Pepys Dinner, makes TSE an Honorary Fellow, feast of St. Mary Magdalen at, Whitsun feast at, TSE's guest rooms at, repository for Eliotana, sermon preached at, houses Lewis portrait of TSE, which TSE pays for,
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,
Second World War, the prospect of, F&F plans in the event of, Britain's preparations for, prognostications as to its outbreak, and The Family Reunion, and the policy of appeasement, and transatlantic tourism, evacuation imminent, TSE discusses its outbreak with Dutchman, TSE refrains from commenting on, TSE's thoughts on, its effect on TSE, the 'Winter War', the 'Phoney War', Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, rationing, evacuation, seems continuous with First World War, invasion of Poland, invasion of Denmark and Norway, Chamberlain's resignation, Italy's declaration of war, Dunkirk, The Blitz, Battle of Cape Matapan, Operation Barbarossa, Greece enters war, Pearl Harbor, the Pacific War, Libyan campaign, North African campaign, and TSE's decision to remain in England, in relation to the First, prospect of its end unsettles, and returning to London, bombing of German cities, its effect on TSE's work, prognostications as to its end, the Little Blitz, Operation Overlord, V-1 Cruise Missile strikes, Operation Market Garden, and continental privations, and post-war European prospects, The Battle of the Bulge, possibility of post-war pandemic, V-2 Bombs, concentration camps, Germany's surrender, VE Day, and post-war Anglo-American relations, VJ Day, atomic bomb, its long-term economic consequences,