[41 Brimmer St., Boston]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
Faber & Faber
24 December 1930
Dear Emily,

Your beautiful letter came just when I needed it most – before Christmas. And towards the end of the month I begin now to feel rather famished for a letter from you, and you have given me the wanted sustenance. I cannot write a letter till next Monday, and there are so many things to write about to you; this is only to acknowledge and thank. I wish that you might be happy; and it is bliss to me1 to feel that I can contribute to making you happier or less lonely; and you have had so little happiness and deserved so much, and I have given so little to anyone. And it is a strange new bliss to find another person thinking the same thoughts and having the same feelings as myself at the same time. At the same time the pain is more acute, but it is a pain which in the circumstances I would not be without. God bless you and keep you.2 Ibirdsdove;b5EH as TSE's;a1 shall try to make you understand how tremendously you have helped me, and are helping me, my dove. And so next week for cabbages and bishops.3

Your
Tom

1.Cf. William Wordsworth, The Prelude Bk 10: ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive’.

2.‘The Lord bless thee, and keep thee’ (Numbers 6: 24).

3.‘"The time has come," the Walrus said, / "To talk of many things: / Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax – / Of cabbages – and kings – "’ (Alice Through the Looking Glass).

birds, TSE reading Birds of the Countryside, American Yellow warbler ('Summer Yellowbird'), fellow passenger on the Laetitia, Baltimore Oriole, spotted in Maine, blackbird, more innocent singer than nightingale, Blue Heron, spotted in Maine, blue tits, at Pike's Farm, budgerigar, belonging to Mrs Behrens, cardinals, spotted near Charlottesville, chaffinch, at Pike's Farm, Chestnut-sided warbler, spotted in Maine, chiffchaff, more piping than the nightingale, in Shamley woods, Common whitethroat, identified in Winchester, cuckoo, compared to nightingale, as herald of spring, its song, dove, EH as TSE's, Evening grosbeak, finches, at autumntide, more piping than the nightingale, swarm at Shamley, geese, slaughtered at autumntide, hermit thrush, TSE's personal poetic bird, heron, at Shamley, House Sparrow ('English Sparrow'), fellow passenger on the Laetitia, kestrels, over the Surrey fields, lapwings, in the Surrey fields, Longbilled Marsh Wren, spotted in Maine, magpies, in the fields of Surrey, mockingbird, TSE 'the Missouri Mockingbird', and Walt Whitman, nightingale, EH addressed as, 'clanging' at Pike's Farm, and Sophocles, associated with Pike's Farm, hoped for at Herbert Read's, Pied Wagtail, on lawn at Pike's Farm, songbirds, TSE and Hodgson discuss, tanagers, spotted near Charlottesville, thrush, inspires humility in TSE, more innocent singer than the nightingale, wagtails, on the lawn at Shamley, Willow Warbler ('Willow Wren'), identified in Winchester, wren, more piping than the nightingale,