[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
Letter 94
The Liza Jane with a blue topmast
And a deckload of hay came driftin’ past.
The cap’n stands aft, and he says ‘How do?
We’re from Bangor Maine, from where are you?’1
But I did not know that Bangor boasted such a grand hotel, which sounds delightful from your description. And now the Eastern holiday is ended, and tomorrow you begin work. I am overjoyed by your high marks! youHarvard UniversityTSE's election to Phi Beta Kappa Society;b5 ought to be made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa – as I am, having been too lazy and idle as an undergraduate to have attained the honour properly.2
I have not written any letters, except a few notes of appointments, for the past ten days – butPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle);e2 I did write to Dr. Perkins, butSeaverns, Helen;d5 I still have Mrs. Seaverns on my conscience – because'Rudyard Kipling'prevents all other work;a6 I have had to put everything aside, stop away from London, and hammer away at my Kipling introduction: which is supposed to be 10,000 words – a very long stretch for me. I am always so unconfident of being able to think of enough to say, when I have to write to length, that I begin by just keeping going and putting down whatever comes into my head, as it comes: then sort it out later, and in my second writing, having assured myself that I can fill the space, the better ideas come, if at all. But it has been a prodigious labour. The trouble of being a member of the publishing house, when one is the author, is the double responsibility: otherwise I should just have said that I wanted more time: but I feel that I must conform to requirements when they want a book for the Christmas season. Besides, Mrs. Bambridge, out of whose profits my fee comes, will want the book to sell quickly. HavingUniversity of BristolTSE's Lewis Fry Lectures;a3 finishedLewis Fry LecturesShakespeare lectures revised for;a2 the essay, I go up to town for two days tomorrow, and'Development of Shakespeare's Verse, The'revised again for Bristol;b1 spend the weekend revising hastily my Shakespeare paper for Bristol. IChristian News-Letter (CNL)first number;a4 told you, I think, that next week I have to spend two nights at Oxford (for two meetings) one in London, two in Bristol, andUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wellsvisited in Wells;d4 finally two in Wells with the Bishop (I have never seen Wells and look forward to it) and then two more nights in London before returning here for several days on the 8th.
What was the ‘bug’ that bit you on Grand Manan? (Your letter of the moment was forwarded to Tyglyn [sic]). TheShamley Wood, Surreyits melodramas;b2 other day I was cutting down bracken, for an hour’s exercise, and came bang in to a nest of wasps on the ground. I didn’t notice them until I noticed three distinct stings. But they were pretty torpid – the day was coolish – and only one had the energy to pursue me far: I dashed in a [sc. at] one door of the house and out at another so eluded him. What surprised me was the mildness of the wasp sting, and they left no marks. Fortunately, bites only on the hands and wrists: the end of the nose or the neighbourhood of the eye might be more unpleasant. Unless these happened just to be peculiarly impotent wasps, I prefer wasps to the harvesters (I don’t know what they are called in the States) which bite in the most unexpected places and leave itching lumps for several days – they are equally active in Wales and in Surrey; and the mosquitoes this year have baritone voices like Canadian ones, but are less virile. But I am worried to hear about your bug, which I presume was a germ, and want to know whether it has upset you for long. I do pray that these weeks down East have done you good: I only wish that the water had been warm enough for you to bathe, as I believe you enjoy it, though not a strong swimmer?
TheFabers, thetrying to sell Welsh home;g1 Fabers are trying to sell the house in Wales – though I doubt whether they will be successful quickly. NowFaber, Annengaged to Alan Watt;a6 that the children are growing up (Anne [sc. Ann] is engaged to a soldier)3 and will use it less, they begin to find it something of a burden, in spite of its great charm, and would like to find a small estate nearer London. I have suggested to them that if they do get a place, accessible to town, with a spare cottage or two, I should like to take a cottage, and divide my time more or less as I do now, only between a cottage of my own and a couple of rooms of my own in London. But these projects, if they ever are reliable at all, will be for after the war, probably.
ITandy, Pollyknits jumper for TSE;a1 should love to have a pair of socks knitted by you. IClement, Margotknits TSE socks;a3 am still using, for country wear, two pairs knitted by Margot Clement in 1932, IMorley, Christina (née Innes)knits TSE socks;a6 have several pairs knitted by Christina Morley, no socks but a jumper from Polly Tandy: my other two godmothers have done nothing for me in this way. My size I think is 11½ but I am by no means sure that the sizes run the same in America: so I shall have to borrow a tapemeasure and give you the length of my foot in precise inches.
1.TSE is evidently riffing on the old song ‘Li’l Liza Jane’, which dates from black minstrelsy or Southern dialect tradition: a version of the song was first published in San Francisco, 1916.
2.TSE was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1935.
3.Ann Faber was engaged to a young man named Alan Watt (who was to be killed in the El Alamein offensive on 2 Nov. 1942).
2.JamesClement, James Clement (1889–1973), Harvard Class of 1911, marriedClement, Margot Marguerite C. Burrel (who was Swiss by birth) in 1913. In later years, TSE liked visiting them at their home in Geneva.
AnnFaber, Ann Faber (1922–78) was born and registered in Hampshire: her mother would teasingly refer to her as a ‘Hampshire hog’. She was a boarder at Downe House School, Berkshire, and read history at Somerville College, Oxford (where she became engaged to Alan Watt, who was to be killed at El Alamein). After Oxford, she spent time with the Wrens in Liverpool. Following her military service Ann was employed as secretary by the classical scholar Gilbert Murray in Oxford. She then moved to London where she worked for the family firm in editorial and publicity, as well as writing and publishing a novel of her own, The Imago. However, in Aug. 1952 she suffered a life-changing accident when she crashed her motorcycle, which resulted in the loss of the use of her left arm. (In the mid-1960s she was still doing a little freelance work for Faber, reading manuscripts for Charles Monteith and – in 1967 – arranging a lunch party at her home for the science fiction writers James Blish and Brian Aldiss and their wives.) In Apr. 1958 she married John Corlett, who had two children – Anthony and Brione – from his first marriage, which had ended in divorce. Ann and John did not have children of their own. In the early to mid-1960s Ann and John spent some weeks or months of most years in the West Indies. John had launched and Ann helped with a business called Inter-Continental Air Guides: their firm sold advertising space to hotels and other tourist destinations for inclusion in guidebooks which Ann compiled. In 1966 Ann and John moved from their flat in Highgate to Wiltshire. In the late 1960s or early 1970s John contracted polio while on a work trip to Hong Kong. He became a paraplegic and for the remainder of Ann’s life she was his primary carer, with financial assistance from her mother. During all the years that she had her own property, whether in London or in Wiltshire, Ann’s great love was her garden. Ann died of cancer in March 1978. John survived her by two or three years.
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
3.HelenSeaverns, Helen Seaverns, widow of the American-born businessman and Liberal MP, Joel Herbert Seaverns: see Biographical Register.
2.Revd Francis UnderhillUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, DD (1878–1943), TSE’s spiritual counsellor: see Biographical Register.