[22 Paradise Rd., Northampton, Mass.]
Letter 104
I returned from Salisbury this morning (for one night only, going to London tomorrow, andMoot, The;c5 Oxford on Friday – after which I shall take ten days or a fortnight in the country) to find, no letter (I did not expect one, after having three so close together) but the two photographs. I was appalled by the amount you had had to spend on stamps – I assure you that it was worth it, though I am not in a position to offer to refund that expense! I don’t know yet whether I think them good portraits or not; I don’t know yet which I prefer. The mouth looks a little tense, perhaps. But they are good enough to give me great satisfaction: and I am sure at least that I like them better than any adult photographs I have had – the two you don’t like, andHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7in Jane Austen fashion;d2 the younger, fluffyPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt)gives TSE photograph of EH;f2 one Mrs. Perkins gave me, taken at a period when photographers went in for blurred edges. TheHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7as child, in gold frame;e1 only ones I liked were the one in a gold frame (age 10?) and a smaller one for the pocketbook. Whether I shall be able to get a frame for these I doubt: one is not certain of getting anything nowadays: and the strain on transport is going to be severe through the winter, I should expect.
IBowes-Lyon, Ann;a1 forgot to tell youGarrick Club, London;a3 that Anne [sc. Ann] Bowes-Lyon1 asked after your family. BobbieSpeaight, Robertgives small dinner at Garrick;d8 Speaight gave a small dinner at the Garrick last week: theBowen, Elizabeth (Mrs Cameron)at Speaight's Garrick dinner;a9 fourth was Elizabeth Bowen. Anne Bowes-Lyon is doing V.A.D.2 work at a military hospital and arrived in uniform, having to leave rather early to get back. When I say last week I mean the week before last: theFitzgerald, Desmond;a5 other of the two nights I had Desmond Fitz Gerald to dinner, over from Dublin. LastSpender, Stephenintroduces new wife Natasha;b9 week I did not dine out at all: but Stephen Spender andSpender, Natasha (née Litvin)plays piano after dinner;a1 his new wife, a half-Russian pianist (a very good one too, she played for us after dinner)3 came to dinner – Stephen now a fireman, but did not come in uniform, as he was suffering from the approaches of jaundice, apparently due to the unaccustomed food at his fire station. ILiterary Society, The;b2 lunched on Friday with theBinyon, Laurence;a3 Literary Society (whereFaber, Geoffreyfalsely promised Literary Society membership;i3 a trying situation has arisen, becauseHamilton, General Sir Ian;a3 Sir Ian Hamilton, who is getting very old, has told Geoffrey that he had been elected, whereas he has only been nominated, and may not be elected at all) and talked mostly with Binyon. IRichmonds, theTSE's Netherhampton weekends with;a7 had to leave early to catch a train for Salisbury. The Richmonds, aging but still active in local affairs: the house full of the costume for the angel Gabriel for the parish entertainment. On Saturday there was an alarm that they were to have to put up four of the Pilgrim Players (not Martin’s group but the other one) but after making everything ready and arranging with a neighbour to take one, they finally telephoned to say that they had been otherwise provided for. MartinBrownes, the Martin;c2 and Henzie are just arriving in London. I shall have to try to see them one evening this week, as Christmas week I shall not be there; butFaber, Richard ('Dick')taken to Distant Point;a6 the Faber boys will be back from school, andAfinogenov, AlexanderDistant Point: A Soviet Play;a1 oneWestminster Theatre, The, Londonpresents Distant Point: A Soviet Play;a9 evening I want to take Dick to a Russian play called ‘Distant Point’.4 ISunday Times;a4 wish that I could send you cuttings and enclosures: forDry Salvages, Thereception;b1 instance, thereMacCarthy, Desmondreviews The Dry Salvages;a9 was a very nice review of ‘Dry Salvages’ by Desmond Mac Carthy in the Sunday Times5 (which ought to sell a good many copies) and I had a letter in the Times about the Ballet.6 (Do any English newspapers reach Northampton?) TheChoice of Kipling's Verse, Adelayed;a6 Kipling book is supposed to be out, but the copies are delayed: I have only had one, which I took to the Richmonds. (weEnglandChipping Campden, Gloucestershire;e1excursions from;b3 made two small excursions, to see a couple of nice old churches, and I thought of similar expeditions from Campden). However, the first printing of 10,000 copies has already been taken by booksellers, and we are reprinting the same number. But nowadays it is a slow business getting orders executed, and we could sell more books than we can print. IChoice of Kipling's Verse, ATSE paid £250 for;a7 get myfinances (TSE's);b8 fee of £250 and thereafter have no further interest in the sale of the book; but I have the right to reprint my essay if and when I like.
ISecond World Warand America's response;b8 am afraid that it will be some months before the U.S.A. is in a position to take any very aggressive action. The news this last week has been varied enough:7 weSwing, Raymond Gram;a3 had a very skilful review of this most momentous week from Gram Swing on Saturday night. I wonder if there will now be a censorship in America, so that you will have to be careful what not to say to me – I hope at least that the rule against enclosing printed matter will not be applied on your side as well. What I am especially eager to know is how the war is affecting you, and our and your friends, in their local lives, and I want a picture of local activities. I am very glad now that you are not at Claremont!
I am very happy to have the photographs.
I hope that you will rest in the holidays, and not be tempted into public activities. You are in a ‘reserved occupation’.8
1.AnnBowes-Lyon, Ann Bowes-Lyon (1907–99), poet; cousin of the Queen Consort; intimate of Tom Burns, publisher and journalist. See Lyon, Poems (F&F, 1937).
2.Voluntary Aid Detachment, a nursing organisation.
3.NatashaSpender, Natasha (née Litvin) Spender, née Litvin (1919–2010), pianist, had met Spender in the previous year.
4.Alexander Afinogenov, Distant Point: A Soviet Play, trans. Hubert Griffith, was directed at the Westminster Theatre by André Van Gyseghem.
5.Desmond MacCarthy, ‘Time and The Timeless’, Sunday Times, 14 Dec. 1941, 3. ‘This meditation is pitched in the key of one conversing quietly with himself – toneless, simple, tentative, talk, now rising to a plangent poetic cry, now modulating into a beautiful sober passage of description which seems charged with the authority of things symbolic … [A] still, patient attention which no futility escapes, and listening, which would be profoundly sad if it had not caught the whisper of reassurance, is as near as I can get to my impression of it.’
6.TSE, ‘Russian Ballet’ (letter), The Times, 10 Dec. 1941, 5.
7.There had been disasters almost everywhere in the war against Japan, but successful Soviet attacks on the Moscow front, while British Empire forces had gained the upper hand for the moment in battles against the Germans and Italians in North Africa.
8.The British National Service Act, passed on 18 Dec., made all men and women between the ages of 18 and 64 liable for some form of national service. The Schedule of ‘Reserved Occupations’ was dropped.
4.LaurenceBinyon, Laurence Binyon, CH (1869–1943), Keeper of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 1932–3; translator of Dante. In 1933 he succeeded TSE as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard. John Hatcher, Laurence Binyon: Poet, Scholar of East and West (1995).
4.ElizabethBowen, Elizabeth (Mrs Cameron) Bowen (1899–1973) – Mrs Alan Cameron – Irish-born novelist; author of The Last September (1929), The Death of the Heart (1938), The Heat of the Day (1949). See Victoria Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait of a Writer (1977); Hermione Lee, Elizabeth Bowen: An Estimation (1981). TSE to Desmond Hawkins, 3 Feb. 1937: ‘She has a very definite place, and a pretty high one, amongst novelists of her kind.’
1.AnnBowes-Lyon, Ann Bowes-Lyon (1907–99), poet; cousin of the Queen Consort; intimate of Tom Burns, publisher and journalist. See Lyon, Poems (F&F, 1937).
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
3.DesmondFitzgerald, Desmond Fitzgerald (1888–1947), Irish Nationalist politician; poet. See Letters 4; Karl O’Hanlon in the Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/desmond-fitzgerald-on-ts-eliot-a-revolutionary-taste-in-poetry-1.4438458.
9.GeneralHamilton, General Sir Ian Sir Ian Hamilton (1853–1947), distinguished army officer; sometimes unfairly blamed for the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign during WW1. F&F were to publish his memoir When I Was a Boy (1939).
1.DesmondMacCarthy, Desmond MacCarthy (1877–1952), literary and dramatic critic, was intimately associated with the Bloomsbury Group. Literary editor of the New Statesman, 1920–7; editor of Life and Letters, 1928–33; he moved in 1928 to the Sunday Times, where he was the chief reviewer for many years. See Desmond MacCarthy: The Man and His Writings (1984); Hugh and Mirabel Cecil, Clever Hearts: Desmond and Molly MacCarthy: A Biography (1990).
2.RobertSpeaight, Robert Speaight (1904–77), actor, producer and author, was to create the role of Becket in Murder in the Cathedral in 1935: see Biographical Register.
3.NatashaSpender, Natasha (née Litvin) Spender, née Litvin (1919–2010), pianist, had met Spender in the previous year.
12.Stephen SpenderSpender, Stephen (1909–95), poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
3.RaymondSwing, Raymond Gram Gram Swing (1887–1968) – newspaper journalist and radio broadcaster – was especially valued for his anti-Nazi radio commentaries beamed from London during WW2.