[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
Letter 98.
To-dayHale, Emilybirthdays, presents and love-tokens;w2TSE neglects to cable EH;e5 is your Birthday, but I have not got your cable off. I meant to send it Saturday, and again this morning, but each time that I went out I forgot to take my pocketbook. So it will have to go off tomorrow, by direct cable, but that is not so good, and I am disappointed. ItHale, Irene (née Baumgras)taken less seriously by EH;c7 shows that I have not adapted myself to living in the country – but it is more that I shall never adapt myself to living in other people’s houses. It is not that one is not one’s own master, but that one does not feel that one is. A communal life would never suit me. I imagine you as having a few friends in, or perhaps they will ask you: or if Mrs. Hale is still in residence in Northampton, she will have had to be included. I am, by the way, very glad to note, more from your tone than by your direct assertion, that you can now take her more lightly: and of course if she is to make a habit of long visits in Northampton, it is essential that her visits should not affect your life: but I hope that it is a symptom of taking things more serenely in general – as one can, relatively speaking, however grim the circumstances may be, or however one is oppressed by the thought of the beastliness, futility and dark night all about. Iwritingthe effect of war on;c7 findSecond World Warits effect on TSE;b3 it a constant struggle to maintain belief in the value of my own efforts, and this struggle no doubt makes all mental effort the more toilsome and slow.1 IReads, thehouse TSE's possessions;b1 came back on Friday this week, havingSecond World Warrationing;b7 spent one night with the Reads at Beaconsfield for the purpose of depositing some spring clothes and retrieving some winter ones, for I have practised this distribution for the last year: and with the rationing of clothing, it is all the more desirable a precaution.2 I have not found the coupon system embarrassing yet, because I was pretty well provided a year ago; and barring accidents, ought not to have to make any substantial additions to my wardrobe for a long time to come. The only coupons I have spent have been on another suit of winter underwear; and I am fortunate to be fairly well off for ties and handkerchiefs, for it would be annoying to have to use many coupons on such small articles as dress. In the country I wear corduroys and sometimes a leather jacket, and in the evening I put on an old dinner jacket as an economy, so that it is only in town that I wear my best clothing at all.
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1941 Northern tour;e3;a4 have been trying over the weekend to prepare a few notes for brief speeches at Newcastle and Durham: I shall be glad when this major journey is over. But there have been interruptions: onHallett, Monsignor Philipplays chess with TSE;a1 Friday afternoon I had to play chess with Monsignor Hallett, the head of a Roman seminary in the vicinity:3 andCharterhouse Literary SocietyTSE ambushed by;a1 on Saturday afternoon two lads arrived who had cycled over from Charterhouse School, to ask me to be the ‘patron’ of their small literary society. I had to ask them in and talk kindly to them, and explain why I could not undertake any more engagements than I had already: apart from the fact that I have a sort of waiting list of schools to which I have promised to speak, withBeckett, Eric;a1 Sherborne at the head as Enid’s brother in law4 is one of the governors. But I should naturally be inclined more towards invitations coming from the boys, like this one and the Eton Literary Society, than when as in the other cases I am invited by masters. ButReckitt, Mauriceand 'Notes Towards a Definition of Culture';a7 the three things I have undertaken – the'Notes Towards a Definition of Culture'commissioned by Reckitt;a1 paper for Maurice Reckitt’s volume, the'Music of Poetry, The';a2 KerUniversity of GlasgowTSE's W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture;a1 Lecture at Glasgow,5 andClassical AssociationPresidential Address for;a4 theClassics and the Man of Letters, The;a2 Presidential Address to the Classical Association, will take all the time I can afford between now and next May. And one looks forward to the summer with mixed feelings.
LeonardWoolf, Leonardinvites TSE to Rodmell alone;a9 Woolf is still living at Rodmell (not at all a sign of insensibility, but a triumph of reason over feeling) and would like me to go down for a night at some time. I shall try to do so, but I do not at all look forward to it: I should like very much to see him, but not there. MaryHutchinson, St. Johnremoved to Cambridge post-stroke;a7 Hutchinson’s husband (whom you did not meet: he is not very loveable) has had a stroke, and she had moved him, in a very helpless and half blind condition, to Merton Hall in Cambridge: whichHayward, John;k5 will, I fear, add to the difficulties and distractions of John Hayward’s life. IMonro, Alida (née Klementaski)reports from Selsey;c6 have just heard from Alida Monro, after having written and wired from time to time in vain: she is living in her cottage at Selsey, apparently in a very impoverished state alone and depressed, but says she has to come up to town soon and I hope to see her and find out exactly what the situation is. ICaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin);b5 have had a touching letter from Marguerite from Switzerland: I cannot make out whether she has gone to live there or is just on a visit: LeliaCaetani, Lélia;a26 was with her, but she says nothing of her husband.
So much for gossip. I have been thinking, you may be sure, of your birthday in Rosary Gardens, as well as of my birthdays in Campden. I wish I could feel any hope of next year finding either of us having a birthday under those conditions.
1.Cf. Philo of Alexandria, On Abraham 59: ‘For journeys uphill are toilsome and slow, but the downhill course where one is swept along rather than descends is swift and most easy.’
2.Civilian clothing had been rationed from 1 June 1941.
3.MonsignorHallett, Monsignor Philip Philip Hallett: rector (since 1924) of St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, Surrey.
4.EricBeckett, Eric Beckett (1896–1966), international lawyer; joined the Foreign Office in 1925, where he rose to be Legal Adviser, 1945–53. Educated at Sherborne School and at Wadham College, Oxford; Prize Fellow of All Souls, 1921. His wife was Katharine Mary Richards, younger daughter of the lawyer Sir Henry Erle Richards: the elder daughter was Geoffrey Faber’s wife Enid. Beckett was a godfather to Tom Faber – as was TSE.
5.The Music of Poetry: The Third W. P. Ker Lecture delivered in the University of Glasgow 23rd February 1942 (Glasgow, 1942): CProse 6, 310–25.
6.Lélia Caetani (1913–1977), sole daughter, was to marry Hubert Howard (1908–87), a scion of the English Catholic House of Howard, who worked to preserve the Caetani heritage in Rome and at the castle of Sermoneta.
4.EricBeckett, Eric Beckett (1896–1966), international lawyer; joined the Foreign Office in 1925, where he rose to be Legal Adviser, 1945–53. Educated at Sherborne School and at Wadham College, Oxford; Prize Fellow of All Souls, 1921. His wife was Katharine Mary Richards, younger daughter of the lawyer Sir Henry Erle Richards: the elder daughter was Geoffrey Faber’s wife Enid. Beckett was a godfather to Tom Faber – as was TSE.
4.MargueriteCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin) Caetani, née Chapin (1880–1963) – Princesse di Bassiano – literary patron and editor: see Biographical Register. LéliaCaetani, Lélia Caetani (1913–77), sole daughter, was to marry Hubert Howard (1908–87), a scion of the English Catholic House of Howard, who worked to preserve the Caetani heritage at Rome and at the castle of Sermoneta.
4.MargueriteCaetani, Marguerite (née Chapin) Caetani, née Chapin (1880–1963) – Princesse di Bassiano – literary patron and editor: see Biographical Register. LéliaCaetani, Lélia Caetani (1913–77), sole daughter, was to marry Hubert Howard (1908–87), a scion of the English Catholic House of Howard, who worked to preserve the Caetani heritage at Rome and at the castle of Sermoneta.
3.IreneHale, Irene (née Baumgras) Hale, née Baumgras, widow of Philip Hale, celebrated as the prolific and influential music critic of the Boston Herald. Irene Hale, who was herself an accomplished pianist, had studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where she gained the Springer Gold Medal 1881, and continued with her studies in Europe under Raif and Moritz Mosckowski: she later wrote music under the name Victor Rene.
3.MonsignorHallett, Monsignor Philip Philip Hallett: rector (since 1924) of St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, Surrey.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
3.AlidaMonro, Alida (née Klementaski) Klementaski (1892–1969) married Harold Monro on 27 Mar. 1920: see Alida Monro in Biographical Register.
2.MauriceReckitt, Maurice Reckitt (1888–1980), Anglo-Catholic and Christian socialist writer; editor of Christendom: A Quarterly Journal of Christian Sociology: see Biographical Register.
13.LeonardWoolf, Leonard Woolf (1880–1969), writer and publisher; husband of Virginia Woolf: see Biographical Register.