[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
from Tyglyn Aeron
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1941 Faber summer holiday;e2TSE reports from;a7 date this from Wales, where my visit is drawing to a close: a peaceful and healthy holiday with variable weather, but when good very good indeed. I have had several sea bathes, a little tennis, a day of trout fishing (I am not an angler, though I think that if I had lived where there was fishing – there is none in Surrey – and had the assistance of an experienced fisherman, it is the one blood-sport which I might enjoy) when I made myself useful by rowing the boat to fish from. MyFaber, Thomas Erle ('Tom', TSE's godson)TSE goes fishing with;b8 god-son is very keen at fishing. A picnic at a ruined castle on a precipice (but a gentle slope to approach it on one side: a visit to the local village sports, some prawning (I never catch any) and tomorrow a shoot in which I expect to be one of the amateur beaters. This afternoon, tea with Miss Davies, the last of what was the great local landowning family, who, having lived in Ealing until circumstances forced her to return to take up housekeeping with her elderly brother, the family fortunes being at a low ebb, is always eager to see visitors from the metropolis, and being 65 likes a little mild flirtation. I am actually stopping a little longer than expected, but that turns out convenient for everybody, sinceMoncrieff, Constance ('Cocky');a7 Aunt Cocky Moncrieff is being spirited away from Shamley so that her sister may have a rest, andMirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff)engineers solitude at Shamley;b8 as she had to be told that Mrs. M. had been ordered solitude by the doctor (a difficult pill to swallow in itself, Mrs. M. being a Christian Scientist) it is desirable that she should think that I was away too. So I return on Tuesday by sleeping car, spendde la Mares, thegive TSE wartime refuge;a6 Wednesday night at Hadham (which is in Hertfordshire, near Bishop’s Stortford, and is the seat of Richard de la Mare Esqre.)[,] pay a visit to the dentist on Thursday to have more minor repairs and see whether my mouth is yet ready to have an impression for the set (he said that it was a waste of money to have a temporary set, as I should only begin to get used to it by the time the final set was ready; and I can eat everything except very hard dry toast). GeoffreyFaber, Geoffreydrops teeth on beach;i1 dropped his teeth on the beach the other day, but they were retrieved before the tide came in. And it seems difficult to remember to put them in before breakfast. I wish indeed that you could have been present to sit by my bed, for I remember one slight feverish cold, contracted in Wales, and providentially appearing on my arrival in Campden, which gave me two very happy days. I think that the next time we are in Campden, or in some similar situation, I shall aim at arriving with a chill and a slight temperature. IHale, Emilyas actor;v8The Wingless Victory;c6 think theHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7in Wingless Victory;d9 photograph of ‘Wingless Victory’1 is very good, though I could have wished it were more of a close-up, and a photograph of you disguised as An Old lady of the XVIII century is not a substitute for a photograph of yourself in more usual daily dress and coiffure. I am happy to think of you at the seaside, and there is no place where I had rather be for this time of year than that coast. TheAmericaWoods Hole, Falmouth, Massachusetts;i2and The Dry Salvages;a4 tollingDry Salvages, Theand Woods Hole;a1 of thetravels, trips and plansTSE's 1936 American trip;c4TSE reflects on;b6 bell in the first part of Dry Salvages is involved in my mind with the bell-buoy when we sat on the beach at Wood’s Holl [sic]– one of the moments peculiarly sharp and poignant in my memory. CorrespondenceHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2apparently undimmed but dwarfed by war;e4 is a poor substitute, yet if one has to be separated, it is somehow less trying to be separated by such universally abnormal circumstances, than it would be (for some length of time) were the world about going on normally. I mean, one can more easily regard it as an interlude, though of a terrible kind. I do not think that these circumstances numb one’s personal feelings; indeed, they make personal relations if anything more important than ever: they merely make personal desires and frustrations seem insignificant in the universal tragedy.
P.S. I almost forgot the following. A letter from Janet Roberts begins
and ends
‘And when you write to Miss Hale, will you give her my Mother’s and my very good wishes?’
1.EH had appeared in a University of Wisconsin production of The Wingless Victory: A Play in Three Acts, by Maxwell Anderson (1936).
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
4.ThomasFaber, Thomas Erle ('Tom', TSE's godson) Erle Faber (1927–2004), TSE’s godson and principal dedicatee of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, was to become a physicist, teaching at Cambridge, first at Trinity, then for fifty years at Corpus Christi. He served too as chairman of the Geoffrey Faber holding company.
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.