[c/o Perkins: forwardedAmericaMadison, Wisconsin;f5EH summers in;a3 to c/o Prof. WeaverHale, Emilyholidays in Madison, Wisc.;n8, Dept. of Speech, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc.]
Letter 84.
I did not write last weekend, having to be again at Hindhead, and going to Oxford on Monday. I made [sc. make] my weekends at Hindhead as short as possible, and I cannot type very contentedly in a hotel bedroom, because I am always conscious of the neighbours – my small typewriter being a noisy one, too. IMirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff);b5 think that Mrs. M., who did not come to Hindhead at all, profited in health by the absence of her family: sheMoncrieff, Constance ('Cocky')as quondam resident of Pau;a4 takes a great deal of responsibility for her sister (hereinafter mentioned as Cockie) who is not only delicate (especially since the ardours of her escape from France) but after twentysix years of her own flat and devoted servants and her regular bridge parties in her small circle in Pau, suffers from the lack of the kind of interests which would sustain her as a guest in another household in a different environment. And at Hindhead she suddenly developed some eye trouble – very fortunately there was an eye specialist near by who saved the situation.
What with having spent Whitsun at Cambridge, I have had an unsettled three weeks, and am only beginning to get into order again. LastDawson, Christopherwhere he hosts TSE;b2 week, for instance, I spent Monday night at Christopher Dawson’s at Boar’s Hill – with good conversation, and I think it gave him pleasure: his health is always poor, and he is rather cut off from conversation at present. TuesdayLivingstones, theput TSE up again;a4 nightCorpus Christi College, OxfordTSE's Oxford perch;a1 at Corpus, afterChristian News-Letter (CNL)first number;a4 the C.N.L. meeting; WednesdayFabers, thehost TSE in Hampstead during war;e8 with the Fabers, and came here on Thursday. TheShamley Wood, Surreydaily and weekly life at;a3 weather has been favourable to basking, and I have spent a good deal of time in a deck chair: yesterday I went in the afternoon with the local doctor who has attended me – a pleasant Scot – to a private lake in Wonersh for a swim, and tea with his family afterwards. I don’t ordinarily, as you must have noticed, see much of local society. The house is outside the village and on a steep hill; neitherMirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff)indifferent to enlarging acquaintance;b6 MrsMirrlees, Hopeindifferent to enlarging her acquaintance;b9. M. nor Hope is curious to make new acquaintances, and of course, what with rationing of food and of petrol, there is not very much entertaining nowadays. But I find that this suits me, as after my visits to Oxford and London, which are pretty crowded with people, I want either to work or repose in solitude. The villagers here are said to be apathetic to communal activity – perhaps they are too near London – and I don’t think that there is very much I could do for the intellectual and spiritual advancement of the place even if I had the time! Thank you, my dear, for your reassurances about my usefulness (letter 88 of May 27 received a week ago, nothing since). There are more things to do, and less time to do them in, than in ‘normal’ times, and there is less to show for one’s work. I often hanker to be doing some one important work, but to expect to find something to do which would have both immediate and permanent value would be absurd. IKipling, Rudyard;a5 haveChoice of Kipling's Verse, ATSE's high and low motives for undertaking;a1 undertaken one task for the summer which I think worth while, though as there is a considerable fee attached to it I cannot claim complete disinterestedness: it is a selection of Kipling’s poems with critical introduction2 – I think it is a good time to attempt to rescue his verse from the depreciation it has suffered, and give it a dignified though not exaggerated place. HeKipling, Rudyardas poet;a6 did stand for some things which are worth reasserting at the present time; and the kind of poetry he wrote is apt to suffer from extreme popularity followed by undue neglect. It is all the more interesting to deal with someone whose kind of poetry is so very remote from my own. AlsoChristian News-Letter (CNL)TSE's guest-editorship of;b8 I have promised to write one issue of the News Letter this summer.3 ItOldham, Josephneeds holiday;d7 was my own suggestion that the only way to give Oldham a holiday (which he badly needs, when he is tired he neither thinks nor writes so well) was to get four friends to write one number each: no one person could undertake the whole period now, because that would involve transferring oneself to Oxford, which none of us can do.
I am in much better health, weather favouring. ILittle Giddingbeing drafted;a9 hope I shall be able to finish my poem.
I trust that having to comply with the full regulations of Michigan summer courses will not mean very hard work: when you get started I hope you will tell me just what the work is, and what the lectures are about. I am very glad that your last class was such a good one, and that it can leave you with the sense of having accomplished something for some intelligent girls.
YouUnderhill, Evelynher death;c1 were not present, some years ago, when I had the Perkins’s to tea at Grenville Place and Evelyn Underhill came: but I think that you went to her house with them afterwards. You will be sorry to hear that she is dead.4 She had always been very frail, and had a heart attack about ten days ago. She had been living in Hampstead, and I was able to go to the funeral, with Enid and her sister. I have been told that Mr. Stuart Moore hoped I would write a note of appreciation to the Times: but the official notice seemed to me adequate, and I did not know her well enough to have much value to add; so that I am still havering over it.5 I saw her last about two months ago. HerUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wellstakes Evelyn Underhill's funeral;d3 cousin the Bishop took the funeral, but I did not have a chance to speak to him: IEnglandEast Coker, Somerset;e9now within Father Underhill's diocese;a7 had had a note from him only a few days before, when he had been staying at East Coker, which is in his diocese.
You said something about a photograph, which has not yet arrived. I should like it now more than ever, but I suppose it would be very expensive by air mail. IMore, Paul Elmerhis letters returned to executors;b7 had to send a few copies of letters from Paul More that way – they were asked for by his literary executors – and even that cost me six shillings.
I shall write again at the end of the week.
1.The German invasion of the USSR began the day before this letter, on 22 June 1941. It was immediately very successful.
2.TSE was to edit a selection of the verse of Rudyard Kipling, and to write an introduction of ‘about’ 10,000 words, at the invitation of W. P. Watt (Messrs A. P. Watt & Son) on behalf of Mrs Elsie Kipling Bambridge (1896–1976). Watt put the idea to TSE over lunch in early Apr. 1941, and followed up with a formal proposal on 15 Apr. 1941: ‘You understand, of course, that any arrangement is subject to the approval of Mrs Bambridge, Mr Kipling’s daughter and executrix, who would, I think, wish to approve also your selection and Preface.’
The full terms of the agreement, set out in Watt’s letter of 19 June, provided that the selection should comprise ‘no more than one-third’ of Kipling’s published verse; and that Mrs Bambridge would have ‘the right to make arrangements for the publication of the said work in book form under some title to be mutually agreed upon under the joint imprint of Messrs Methuen & Co. and Messrs Faber & Faber Ltd., and other publishers to be selected by her in the United States of America and elsewhere.’ In return, Mrs Bambridge agreed to pay TSE a fee of £250 on publication – ‘to cover publication of the said work in any language throughout the world except in the English language in the United States of America’. Mrs Bambridge was to pay TSE an additional fee of £150 when the work was first published in English in the USA.
3.Christian News-Letter 97 (3 Sept. 1941).
4.Evelyn Underhill had died on 15 June 1941.
5.InUnderhill, EvelynTSE's unpublished tribute to;c2n his unpublished note to The Times, 1941, TSE wrote: ‘She gave (with frail health and constant illness) herself to many, in retreats, which she conducted and in the intercourse of daily life – she was always at the disposal of all who called upon her. With a lively and humorous interest in human beings, especially the young. She was at the same time withdrawn and sociable. With shrewdness and simplicity she helped to support the spiritual life of many more than she could in her humility have been aware of aiding.’
The pencil draft of TSE’s notice (MS A. ff. 90, 91) is quoted in Helen Gardner, The Composition of Four Quartets, 69–70.
2.ChristopherDawson, Christopher Dawson (1889–1970), cultural historian: see Biographical Register.
3.HopeMirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff) Mirrlees’s mother was Emily Lina Mirrlees, née Moncrieff (1862–1948) – known as ‘Mappie’ or ‘Mappy’ – see Biographical Register.
2.HopeMirrlees, Hope Mirrlees (1887–1978), British poet, novelist, translator and biographer, was to become a close friend of TSE: see Biographical Register.
4.PaulMore, Paul Elmer Elmer More (1864–1937), critic, scholar, philosopher: see Biographical Register.
8.JosephOldham, Joseph (‘Joe’) Houldsworth Oldham (1874–1969), missionary, adviser, organiser: see Biographical Register.
1.EvelynUnderhill, Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941), spiritual director and writer on mysticism and the spiritual life: see Biographical Register.
2.Revd Francis UnderhillUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, DD (1878–1943), TSE’s spiritual counsellor: see Biographical Register.