[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
Letter 103
Your letters 107-8-9 arrived serially but close together: so I have not to weary you this time with apprehensions. I was very glad to get some sketch of your life through the most of this November, from the birthday party to the 21st. ISecond World WarPearl Harbor;d1 amSecond World Warand America's response;b8 now wondering, of course, in what way the events of the last two days will have altered life for you – whether you will be plunged into new war activities. I had been expecting the Japanese to move against Malaya: but I think that their attack on American bases has taken everyone, except no doubt those with inner knowledge, entirely by surprise.1 IGermanyGerman conduct in warfare;b6 dare say that they will have more successes, if such surprise attacks can be called that, in the immediate future, and that the next few months will be very difficult for both America and Britain: I fear too that the Japanese will prove free from even such scruples in the conduct of warfare as the Germans possess. I wait eagerly for the first letters from America at war: it is difficult to imagine a blackout on the whole Pacific coast, and even practice blackouts, I believe, on the Atlantic seaboard. While there is a feeling of excitement here, I think that every one is without any feeling of elation – perhaps a certain feeling of relief from the tension over Japan.
I go to town tomorrow as usual, butRichmonds, theTSE's Netherhampton weekends with;a7 to the Richmonds in Wiltshire for the weekend, which should be pleasant: I do not look forward with pleasure to any journey, now that I have to travel so much, but I shall enjoy seeing them and shall be glad that I have been. I shall return to Shamley merely for one night on Monday, then London again andMoot, The;c4 then another weekend conference at Oxford (the Moot), returning to Shamley a fortnight to-day for, I think, a fortnight’s rest and consecutive work in the country. I have not thought seriously of returning to London to live this winter. I should have to find furnished rooms, or furnish a flat – it does not seem sensible to buy furniture for London use until things are more certain. IFaber and Faber (F&F)'blurbs' for;c9 have over this long weekend, written half a dozen blurbs for our spring catalogue, writtenNew English Weekly;c1 some editorial notes for the N.E.W., (on education) and a memorandum for the Moot (on Christian Imagination). Over'Notes Towards a Definition of Culture';a3 Christmas I shall try to get my contribution to Reckitt’sReckitt, Maurice;a9 book written. No, I am not engaged in any work directly connected with the war: if any presented itself, of more immediate importance than something I am actually doing, I would naturally do it: but anything more would mean giving up some of the things with which I am engaged.
IHale, Irene (née Baumgras)less exhausting than Mrs Perkins;c9 can quite understand that, nowPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt)compared to Irene Hale;f1 that you have got the hang of dealing with Aunt Irene, you find her less profoundly exhausting than Mrs. Perkins. Against the former you can protect yourself by detached understanding, and while she may take your time and make demands upon your sympathy, she is not possessive. You cannot expect to acquire the same immunity; and all you can do, my dear, is to insist on certain independence and certain privacy: the insistence is itself very exhausting for you, but you have only the choice with her of being exhausted in one way or in another, and that is the better way.
ItHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1TSE pointedly refrains from criticising;b6 is quite right that you should go to your own church if there is one available: IHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1the issue of communion;a8 did not suppose that there was one in Northampton. It is a great pity that it has no form of communion service, because the reality of that service corresponds to what it means to you. But you are evidently quite aware that it is not my place to interfere in this matter, or to criticise the clergy with whom you are concerned, either here or in America.
MrsMirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff)celebrates 80th birthday;c2. M. had her 80th birthday on Saturday: MargotCoker, Margaret Rosalys ('Margot', née Mirrlees)at Mappie's 80th-birthday celebrations;a4 Coker came for the weekend, and the two sisters together make a great deal of noise: but the hullabaloo has now subsided.
MrRoosevelt, Franklin D.'Day of Infamy' speech;a8. Roosevelt’s speech in Congress came through very well this evening, and I thought it very dignified.2
I never heard of Prof. Bush, but I agree with you about what he seems to have said about me! It must have been very banal and professorial. IDry Salvages, Thepraised by Kennard Rand;b2 had a charming letter from Kennard Rand about the Salvages.3
1.The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, in the early morning (local time) of Sunday 7 Dec. Other Japanese forces simultaneously attacked the British colony of Malaya (though in fact early on 8 Dec., local time). Later on 8 Dec. the USA and UK both declared war on Japan.
2.President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s so-called ‘Day of Infamy Speech’: his address to the Joint Session of the U.S. Congress, on 8 Dec. 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Japan’s declaration of war on the USA and the British Empire.
3.KenRand, Edward Kennardpraises The Dry Salvages;a4n Rand to TSE, 27 Oct. 1941: ‘“The Dry Salvages” seems to me in some respects your greatest achievement. “Murder in the Cathedral” is equally great in its way, but there is something in the present poem that you have never expressed before to my knowledge – the meeting of East and West, despite Kipling. There is also the apprehension of timelessness – not a survey sub specie aeternitatis, since you remain modestly human. But it is the immediate grasp of eternity that only the saints of the church understand.
‘And then there is the sea itself with its saltiness and fresh winds and hidden might and timelessness. Of course I am reminded of Lucretius and whatever your intention, you have Lucretius under your skin. Perhaps I am wrong in feeling certain classical metres hidden skillfully in your own verses, especially at the beginning of the poem. But that of course may be the fancy of an old teacher who would trace back the oak to the tiny seed sown years ago.’
5.MargaretCoker, Margaret Rosalys ('Margot', née Mirrlees) Rosalys Mirrlees – ‘Margot’ (b. 1898) – wasCoker, Lewis Aubrey ('Bolo') married in 1920 to Lewis Aubrey Coker, OBE (1883–1953), nicknamed ‘Bolo’, a major in the Royal Field Artillery. T. S. Matthews, Great Tom: Notes towards the definition of T. S. Eliot (1974), 126: ‘The married daughter, Margot Coker, had a large country house near Bicester …’
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.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.
2.E. KennardRand, Edward Kennard Rand (1871–1945), classicist and medievalist, taught at Harvard from 1901, becoming Pope Professor of Latin, 1931–42. Founded the Medieval Academy of America, 1925, and edited the journal Speculum. Author of Ovid and His Influence (1925); Studies in the Script of Tours (2 vols, 1929–34); The Building of Eternal Rome (Lowell Lectures, 1943). TSE to Gladys H. McCafferty, 19 June 1958: ‘Ken Rand was one of my teachers at Harvard for whom I have the warmest personal affection …’
2.MauriceReckitt, Maurice Reckitt (1888–1980), Anglo-Catholic and Christian socialist writer; editor of Christendom: A Quarterly Journal of Christian Sociology: see Biographical Register.