[forwarded toHale, Emilyholidays on Grand Manan;o1 TheCanadaGrand Manan Island, New Brunswick;a2EH holidays on;a2 Anchorage, Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Maine]
Letter 90.
I returned from Oxford to find your letter 96, and enjoyed your description of the Wisconsin scenery, which I have never visited. You seemed to be exceedingly busy, and about to be more so, and I hope that your activities will not interfere with each other, and still more that you will not be too exhausted to enjoy your holidays in Maine. By today you will have left for the East, I hope contented with the results of your western interlude.1
I feel very much stronger again. Last week, for the first few days, I felt rather seedy from my operation, andFabers, theMinsted as substitute for nursing-home;f9 did not go up to town until Thursday, the last night before the Fabers left for Wales. On Friday I went to my conference in Oxford, which passed off very interestingly, and the hostel provided good food. The conference broke up on Sunday, soDawson, Christopherwhere he hosts TSE;b2 after tea I went out to the Christopher Dawsons on Boar’s Hill and spent the night with them: I like Dawson and find his conversation profitable. Monday was Bank Holiday and the office was shut. IDisney, WaltFantasia attended alone;a4 was expecting some people named Cox to lunch with me, and to take me to ‘Fantasia’2 afterwards: rather to my relief, they did not turn up, so, having nothing better to do, I decided to do what I have only done once or twice in my life, and go to the film by myself (I very rarely go even in company). I thought it over ambitious, though the more abstract patterns very very interesting, and some of the lighter stuff was very charming in the usual Disney way: there is a delightful dance of toadstools. ButBeethoven, Ludwig van'Pastoral' Symphony;a9 the whole idea of a picture accompaniment to music is wrong, and the particular accompaniment to the Pastoral Symphony cheap and vulgar: Disney, or the Disney Corporation, has a very remarkable imagination, but it is not the imagination of an adult. The programme idea of the Pastoral rather inspired my enjoyment of the music at best; and I shall be still more bothered by having acquired this tasteless illustration of it.
My mouth has quite healed, but I am taking this week off, partly because my secretary is away anyway, and'Rudyard Kipling'begun;a2 to get a little more continuous attention onto Kipling. I want to finish the first draft of the introduction, or come within sight of it, beforeFabers, the1941 summer holiday with;f8 Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1941 Faber summer holiday;e2;a4 go to Wales on the 26th. IMackworth, Margaret Haig, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda (née Thomas);a2 am amused to find myself sympathising with your feeling about excess of female company, because I find I suffer from the same condition while in the country: tomorrowBosanquet, Theodoravisits Shamley;a1 Theodora Bosanquet,3 Lady Rhondda and an unknown friend come to lunch, making a party of five females and myself (MissMoncrieff, Constance ('Cocky');a6 Moncrieff, otherwise ‘Cocky’, having departed for a sojourn at Bude, which is no doubt a relief to her sister). I could not stand it week in week out, if I did not have the change of London – and to say this is no personal reflection on my hostess either. So I wish all the more that you could have a more varied society.
MyChristian News-Letter (CNL)TSE's guest-editorship of;b8 extra job before going away will be to compose one issue of the Christian News Letter.
Idogs'Boerre' (Norwegian Elkhound);b7not taken to Maine;d4 wish that you could pick up Boerre and take him to Maine with you, but a large and lively dog is by no means acceptable in every hotel: but it is such a pity that you cannot have him with you on holidays in the country, when his companionship would be so agreeable. I hope you are sleeping and eating well, and that Maine will reconcile you to having your photograph taken!
1.TSEPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle);e1n to J. C. Perkins, 20 Sept. 1941: ‘I hear from Emily that she considers herself to be in good health, in spite of her summer school and the Wisconsin heat: I rely on Maine to fortify her for the winter. I hope that you can give as good a report of her as she gives of herself, but I have wondered whether she was not overdoing herself at Madison – with a theatrical engagement at the end. She enjoys that work so much that one could not think of dissuading her, but it is very exhausting’ (Beinecke).
TSE to Meg Nason, 26 Sept. 1941: ‘Emily seems to have had a very busy summer, what with going to a summer school at Wisconsin University – she got Highest Marks in all three subjects – and taking part in a play, in very hot weather – and you can imagine what intense concentration she gives to dramatic work; but she reports great benefit from subsequent holidays in Maine and Nova Scotia, so I hope that she will start the winter in fair trim’ (BL).
See EH, ‘Criticism and Its Function for the Teacher of Interpretation’, in Appendix.
2.Fantasia (1940): animated film by Walt Disney featuring music by Beethoven and others.
3.TheodoraBosanquet, Theodora Bosanquet (1880–1961) had been Henry James’s amanuensis, 1907–16. See Larry McMurty, ‘Almost Forgotten Women’ (on Bosanquet and Lady Rhondda), New York Review of Books, 7 Nov. 2002, 51–2.
3.TheodoraBosanquet, Theodora Bosanquet (1880–1961) had been Henry James’s amanuensis, 1907–16. See Larry McMurty, ‘Almost Forgotten Women’ (on Bosanquet and Lady Rhondda), New York Review of Books, 7 Nov. 2002, 51–2.
2.ChristopherDawson, Christopher Dawson (1889–1970), cultural historian: see Biographical Register.
2.MargaretMackworth, Margaret Haig, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda (née Thomas) Haig Thomas, Viscountess Rhondda (1883–1958), writer and feminist, was proprietor and editor from 1926 of Time & Tide. See Angela V. John, Turning the Tide: The Life of Lady Rhondda (Cardigan, 2013); Catherine Clay, ‘Time and Tide’: The feminist and cultural politics of a modern magazine (Edinburgh, 2018).
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.