[22 Paradise Rd.; forwarded to c/o Mrs Leonard Elsmith, Woods Hole, Mass.]
Letter no. 6
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1942 New Forest holiday;e5described;a2 returned from my holiday last night, being brought back, as I was taken, by the Hawkes’s:1 a great help, as Buckler’s Hard is six or seven miles from the nearest station, and even then one has to change at Southampton: whereas by car it is an easy hour and three quarter’s run from door to door. It was very kind of them. I feel much better for the sun and idling, and freedom from the machine; as I said, the hotel was very satisfactory and quiet, the scenery of the Beaulieu River is charming, and the shores abounding in birds and wild flowers. I had no correspondence forwarded, so I expect to find a good deal to attend to when I go to town tomorrow – several documents awaited me here. ILittle Giddingpartly redrafted at Buckler's Hard;b4 didJameson, Margaret Stormto which TSE contributes 'verses';a2 a'Note on War Poetry, A';a2 little scribbling: a set of verses (not a poem) which may do for that American Red Cross Book, part of a new version of one part of ‘Little Gidding’ which may or may not lead to something, and'T. S. Eliot on Poetry in Wartime';a1 some notes for a Swedish broadcast. TheChristian Frontier Council;a2 nuisance is that I have to go to Oxford for a conference of ‘The Christian Frontier’ on Saturday: that means that I must return here on Thursday and spend Friday working out the text of this broadcast to Sweden, so as to give the people time to work it out in dialogue form: apparently I am to be ‘interviewed’ in Swedish, and answer in English, which seems odd. To do this is of course a task which I cannot escape, any more than the task a little later of reading some of my poems to be recorded and sent over there. Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1942 week in Scotland;e6;a1 am wondering whether I really want to go all the way to Scotland for a week, at the beginning of August – coming back via Glasgow to stop over a couple of nights at Penrith with the Roberts’s and my younger god-son Adam (I hope he will not altogether resemble his grandfather).
I found your two letters, of June 20 and June 29 (the latter seeming very quick) awaiting me: the first, when you had not yet had any letter from me, would have required a cable reply if the second had not arrived at the same time. IHale, Emilyas teacher;w1let go by Smith;d2 had been awaiting a letter with some anxiety, after your cable: what you tell me is more or less what I expected, though it was the coincidence of the Smith crisis with the Martha’s Vineyard that puzzled me.2 Well, my dear, I don’t know whether to be sorry or not. I know that the work at Smith was not what you most desired, nor were you so happy there as in California: I am sure also that if there was to be any war-time entrenchment (which was likely) your department was one of those most likely to suffer. Nevertheless I feel very annoyed with the college. That scheme for an auditor from Iowa struck me as ominous: a tendency to run a college like a business institution and to stress an illusory ‘efficiency’ rather than the personal element – the vice of the English provincial universities and most American. IFlanagan, Hallietaken on by Smith;b1 had not liked either that grandiose scheme with Mrs. Flanagan in charge. If they get rid of you, they ought to dispense with the dramatic department. For it is much more necessary that the girls should be taught to speak English well (as Mrs. F. doesn’t). IScripps College, ClaremontEH's extra-curricular work at;f5 have always been doubtful of the desirability of undergraduates doing dramatic work as part of their academic course: of amateur dramatics (with of course, an expert like yourself to coach them – preferably a member of the faculty whose work in this way is recognised to the extent of lightening her other duties – I thought you had too many things to do at Scripps) I think highly. (IBaker, George Piercehis Yale theatre-group;a1 wonderYale Universityand George P. Baker's theatre-group;b1 whether George P. Baker’s experimental theatre at Yale has done anything to justify itself; butHinkley, Eleanor Holmes (TSE's first cousin)prejudices TSE against George Baker;c6 I associate it too much perhaps with efforts such as those of Eleanor). Of course the work you were actually doing at Smith seemed more valuable to me than to yourself: becauseHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7her voice;b7 your voice is one in a number of millions and that is much more important than a Ph.D. I only implore you not to go into war work just because it is war work. At the beginning, as you know, I wanted to get into some government department: but I think now that the chances are very strongly that I would either have found myself in a job I regarded as futile, or in a job which a thousand other men could have done just as well and a score or so could have done better. On the other hand, you must get a job of some sort; so I rather hope in another college. And I can’t do anything about it, or even be helpful in counsel at this distance. It makes me very restless.
ItEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)as curator of Eliotana;e9 was dear of you to make that suggestion about Henry and the collection, and I will certainly do as you propose. The thought of that collection, and Henry’s loving pains over it, has always been a distress rather than a pleasure to me. It represents to my mind not merely his devotion but also a substitute for the successful creative activity he never had himself. I had much rather that he had had some success in his life such that my achievements would have taken only their due place. He is more an aristocrat than I and also more decadent, with no streak of toughness.
IRichards, Dorothy (née Pilley);a2 had a confidential letter about him from Dorothea Richards, hinting anxiety about his health since his appendicitis, and suggesting that I should write and urge him to take a proper holiday this summer3 – which I have done. It has seemed to me from his accounts that some of his summer holidays were too social.
YourHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3constrained by war;g8 astonishment will not fall unheeded, but will need a deal of thinking about. Of course I am more conscious perhaps than you that every letter nowadays is a public letter, and that plays its part. (And goodness knows, in the way of indiscretions in the way of military value – if I had the material for any such – I should always carry mumness to the extreme!) But also the war has also, perhaps (I see nothing clearly yet) precipitated a phase of middle age which I must pass through, in which I have been experiencing a period also of spiritual aridity – not of religious doubt, that is something quite different – as well as a suspension of other feelings. What I do not give up is the conviction that any such period can be lived through in such a way as to gain from it, so that the later stage will be better than the earlier: and that there is always a later and better stage to reach, so long as one lives.
IHale, Emilyas actor;v8in masque with TSE;c7 can’t remember the name of that masque! I was in such an uneasy fever and dream. I only remember that there was a square dance we had to practise, called Hunsdon House (or something like that) rehearsed by Elmer Keith: and Ann van Ness was supposed to be (what she did not look) some Temptation. I cannot remember even what abstraction I was supposed to represent: IHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2and the first time TSE spoke EH's name;e5 remember chiefly that I called you by your first name for the first time (very timidly) andHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7blue dress worn following masque;d8 that you had a blue dress with a scarlet sash for the party afterwards.
1.Friends of Margot Coker.
2.Details unknown.
3.Dorothea Richards to TSE, 30 May 1942: ‘Meanwhile – without being depressing I am hurriedly writing this little note to suggest you write cheerfully to Henry & tell him to take a complete rest. He is looking increasing [sic] frail since the appendix & has horrid insomnia – nothing definite but worries Theresa & all his friends a good deal. I tell you this as a little bird might whisper it’ (EVE).
3.GeorgeBaker, George Pierce Pierce Baker (1866–1935) taught English at Harvard, where from 1905 he developed a pioneering playwriting course known as ‘Workshop 47’ that concentrated on performance and production rather than the literary text. This course extended, from 1914 to 1924, to an extracurricular practical workshop for playwrights called ‘47 Workshop’. From 1925 to 1933, he taught at Yale as professor of the history and technique of drama. Students included Hallie Flanagan, Eugene O’Neill and Thomas Wolfe. His influential publications include The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (1907) and Dramatic Technique (1919). See Wisner Payne Kinne, George Pierce Baker and the American Theatre (1954).
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
5.The directorFlanagan, Hallie Hallie Flanagan (1890–1969), a Professor at Vassar College, was planning to produce Sweeney Agonistes at the Experimental Theater that she had founded at Vassar.
5.EleanorHinkley, Eleanor Holmes (TSE's first cousin) Holmes Hinkley (1891–1971), playwright; TSE’s first cousin; daughter of Susan Heywood Stearns – TSE’s maternal aunt – and Holmes Hinkley: see Biographical Register.
4.MargaretJameson, Margaret Storm Storm Jameson (1891–1986), novelist and journalist. Daughter of a master-mariner, she was educated at Leeds University (the first woman to graduate in English, and with a first-class degree) and at King’s College London, where she held a research fellowship. Her MA thesis was published as Modern Drama in Europe (1920). Her novels include Cousin Honoré (1940), Cloudless May (1944), The Journal of Mary Hervey (1945) and her summa, the two-volume Journey from the North (1969–70). See Jennifer Birkett, Margaret Storm Jameson: A Life (2009).