[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
This has been a lonely week for me – but I was prepared for it; and I have hoped that you might be speeding from one pleasant visit to another, with the best of the autumn weather – and not dreading the drear Boston winter too much. I shall be so curious to know how Boston and its people impress you upon your return – I seem to speak as if you had never been west before! but one gets new impressions after every absence. TheAmericaand the Great Depression;a5 accounts of American public and economic affairs, as they come to the newspapers here, are gloomy enough; and I suppose that everyone there is, as here, ‘talking poor’. I have heard a good deal of talk among my acquaintance lately of spending less on tobacco, giving up clubs etc. and other wild notions of economy; but the prevailing mood I think is restlessness and waiting, though what we are waiting for we hardly know. No street disturbance lately, that I know of; I imagine that the prospect of the election has postponed such demonstration. AndHale, Emilyfinances;w5;a3 how by the way, are your investments doing? does your income dwindle and dwindle, or does it arise from such bonds as still pay interest, though apparently unsaleable?
Wednesday we had the Criterion meeting, more than decimated, asRead, Herbertremoves to Edinburgh as professor;a4 Herbert Read has gone to Edinburgh to be Professor of Fine Arts there, andMonro, Haroldvisited in nursing home;a4 Harold Monro was in a nursing home for an operation; where I visited him before the meeting, and found him grumbling because they had prescribed him gin for his bladder, and being a Scot he only likes whisky. The meeting was fairly well attended, though no one in very good spirits. I hope to have the Thorps to tea next week; IThorp, Willardat the Criterion meeting;a5 trust that he enjoyed himself; anyway, he had a talk with Dobrée which may have been useful.
I am at last ordering the third photograph! I hope that they will send the right one – my delay has been due entirely to my reluctance to let you have a photograph I don’t like – though there is not much to be said for the others. And I wonder whether your vague remark about a portrait of you is to be taken as a promise or not.
And when you get to Boston, my dear Bird, count my letters and see if they are all there: one every Tuesday and every Friday since you told me to write to Brimmer Street. A tantôt, à tantôt. La photographie de la duchesse est devant mes yeux.1
1.‘Soon, soon. The photograph of the Duchess is before my eyes [in front of me].’
6.Harold MonroMonro, Harold (1879–1932), poet, editor, publisher, bookseller: see Biographical Register.
3.Herbert ReadRead, Herbert (1893–1968), English poet and literary critic: see Biographical Register.
1.Margaret Thorp, née Farrand (1891–1970), contemporary and close friend of EH; noted author and biographer. WillardThorp, Willard Thorp (1899–1990) was a Professor of English at Princeton University. See Biographical Register. See further Lyndall Gordon, Hyacinth Girl, 126–8, 158–9.