[c/o Revd J. C. Perkins, D.D., 90 Commonwealth Ave., Boston]
Letter 26.
I have still no letter from you written since before Christmas, but no more recent news of America from any other source, so I suppose that eventually I may receive several letters at once: and no doubt the mails westwards are equally delayed. ISheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister);i4 have been anxious also for news of Ada’s illness. But this year, when your plans have been so unsettled and uncertain ever since the summer, I should particularly have wished to be in regular communication with you. In your last few letters, long ago as they were, you have said little or nothing to judge by except the restoration of your handwriting to ‘normal’. I hope that at least you are by now assured that I write regularly, even though all of my letters are late, and some may not turn up at all.
IFamily Reunion, The1943 ADC production;h6;a2 go from London, at the end of this week, to pass the weekend in Cambridge, where the Amateur Dramatic Club of the university is producing ‘The Family Reunion’. I dread the climate, and shall take every precaution possible. IMagdalene College, Cambridge;b1 shall stay in college, andHayward, John;l2 dine with John (I hope alone) on Friday, lunch with the A.D.C. committee on Saturday, dine with a company for the theatre on Saturday, and in Hall on Sunday. After a rather heavy day on Friday – an x-ray in the morning (another precaution simply, not having had one since 1941), thenBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)Poe talk;d1 toPoe, Edgar AllanTSE's Indian Service broadcast on;a1 the BBC to address the Indians on the subject of Poe, thenSt. Anne's Church House, Sohoinitial meeting at;a1 to a meeting of a group to start a kind of church mission at St. Anne’s Soho vicarage.1 It will be interesting, however, to see a production which is pretty sure to be very different from Martin Browne’s: I have perhaps seen both the plays too exclusively through his eyes. In normal times, when one was less likely to catch cold and when it mattered less if one did, I should have been glad to visit Cambridge just now: theflowers and floraaconite;a1imagined in Cambridge;a2 aconitesflowers and floracrocuses;b3imagined in Cambridge;a2 must be in bloom now and perhaps a few crocuses. Herebirdsfinches;b7swarm at Shamley;a3, the birds are beginning their spring activities: a swarm of finches has been fluttering about the garden, andbirdschiffchaff;b2in Shamley woods;a2 I heard a chiff-chaff in the woods. Therespringmelancholy;b3 will no doubt be much winter still, but meanwhile one feels from time to time the melancholy stirring of spring.2
IfLittle Giddingsales;c2, by the way, you have not received Little Gidding by the time you get this letter, please let me know. If one of my copies has reached America, no doubt all have; but I have heard from no one. SoSunday Times;a5 far it has sold about 12,000 copies: aMacCarthy, Desmondpraises Little Gidding;b1 laudatory review in the Sunday Times by Desmond Mac Carthy ought to be good for a couple of thousand more.3
Because of going to Cambridge, and'Poetical and Prosaic Use of Words, The';a2 because of having to write aReading UniversityTSE's Humanities Club lecture;a1 lecture (which I have just finished) for Reading University for March 5, I returned last week on Thursday, and only go to town tomorrow (Wednesday). I shall return here for the night on Monday, and then again spend two nights in town instead of three: forBritish–Norwegian Instituteand 'The Social Function of Poetry';a1 the'Social Function of Poetry, The';a2 following week I have to talk to the Norwegians on Tuesday evening, goSpender, Stephengives musical party;c1 to a musical party at Stephen Spender’s on Wednesday (heSpender, Natasha (née Litvin)described;a2 is now married to a young half-Russian pianist named Natasha, lives in Hampstead, and is in the Fire Brigade as his wartime occupation) andFaber and Faber (F&F)fire-watching duties at;e6 take the fire watch on Thursday.
I have used up all my normal sized Swedish air mail paper, and as I can’t get any more am using up these foolscap sheets. MrHoellering, George M.;a3. Hoellering did not turn up last week to discuss the film, being in bed with a cold; he may appear on Thursday morning.
TheSecond World Warprospect of its end unsettles;d7 possibility of the end of the war being in sight is, somehow, very unsettling. I do not believe it myself – I do not see how, with the most sanguine prospects, it could possibly end until some time in 1944 – but of course there are many people who have that expectation. At times when it is acute near home – as in 1940–41 – one only lived from day to day with very little thought of the more distant future; and perhaps it will be so again; but now the war has been going on so long that one wonders what it has done to one and what the period immediately after will be like. Mytravels, trips and planspossible post-war American visit;f6;a1 first thought, of course, would be to take the immediately post-war time for a visit to America; to avoid bitter disappointment, we must remember the possibility that transport may be difficult for some time after the war – so that if I could, when that moment comes, have some academic or official reason for coming it might make all the difference. I should fly to see you first of all, wherever you are; I pray God to keep my dear Emily well and in comfort until then.
1.SeeSt. Anne's Church House, SohoTSE's connection with;a2n ‘Church House, Soho’, The Times, 1 Dec. 1943, 7: CProse 6, 809. St Anne’s Church, Dean Street, Soho, London, was destroyed by bombing on 24 Sept. 1940, but the adjacent Church House survived. The Bishop of London, Geoffrey Fisher, appointed two wardens, the Revd Gilbert Shaw and the Revd Patrick McLaughlin, to run the reconstructed building; and a governing committee – comprising Lord Halifax, Baroness Redesdale, and TSE – worked to appoint it as ‘a centre for evangelization’. TSE agreed to organise a summer lecture series; and on 6 May 1943 he was to take the chair for the first lecture, by S. L. Bethell, who was at work on his monograph Shakespeare and the Popular Dramatic Tradition (1944) – for which TSE would write an introduction. See too Jeremy Diaper, T. S. Eliot and Organicism (2018), 145: ‘In 1943, both Eliot and Mairet held a series of meetings at St Anne’s House in Soho to consider the question of culture in the light of Christian teaching. These weekly meetings (which were held under the title Towards the Definition of Culture) took place from autumn until December and gave Eliot a setting in which to evolve further his ideas.’
2.The Waste Land, 1–4:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
3.Desmond MacCarthy – ‘A Religious Poem’, Sunday Times, 7 Feb. 1943, 3 – hails the work as ‘a singularly moving, singularly beautiful poem. I have read it many times, yet its power to guide my thoughts and feelings has not diminished … [T]he words move in consort to the music of meditation.’
4.Francis Underhill died on 24 Jan. 1943.
5.Philip Morrell died on 5 Jan. 1943.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
3.GeorgeHoellering, George M. M. Hoellering (1898–1980), Austrian-born filmmaker and cinema manager: see Biographical Register.
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.PhilipMorrell, Philip Morrell (1870–1943), a scion of the Morrell’s Brewing Company, was a Liberal MP, 1906–18.
2.AdaSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister) Eliot Sheffield (1869–1943), eldest of the seven Eliot children; author of The Social Case History: Its Construction and Content (1920) and Social Insight in Case Situations (1937): 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.
2.Revd Francis UnderhillUnderhill, Revd Francis, Bishop of Bath and Wells, DD (1878–1943), TSE’s spiritual counsellor: see Biographical Register.