[Thousand PinesAmericaTryon, North Carolina;h6EH staying in;a3 InnHale, Emilyspends time in Tryon, N. C.;p1, Tryon, N. Carolina; forwarded to Apt. 17, Commonwealth Ave, Boston]
Letter 28.
Two weeks have elapsed since I last wrote, which represents ten days in bed with influenza, or one of the current ailments which passes for it. It is not a severe form – very little temperature and a painful throat for a few days and slight ear ache. Purely an infection, as I had not been chilled, but I think that I had got very tired on my visit to Cambridge and was therefore more exposed. Treatment with one of the ‘M. & B.’ varieties works very quickly;1 but catarrh lingers. So I am only to go up to town for one night (Thursday) this week, and'Civilisation: the Nature of Cultural Relations';a1 hope to be normal next week, whenForbes-Sempill, William, 19th Lord Sempill;a1 IAnglo-Swedish Societythen in London;a2 have to talk to the Anglo-Swedish Club at lunch: it is run by a man named Semphill [sc. Sempill], whose wife I used to know.2 MyReading UniversityTSE's Humanities Club lecture;a1 lecture at Reading has to be postponed until May.
I was very glad to get your letter of January 30 from Tryon, with the awaited information about that place. It sounds, on the whole, very satisfactory, except for your unfortunate neighbour – a familiar and commonplace type – I understand how disturbing to one’s serenity the presence of such a person can be. Actual disturbance, of course, noise and offensive behaviour can only be dealt with by firm complaints, if at all: the more subtle form of disturbance to one’s peace of mind, merely from the presence, one has to fight out and control in one’s own mind – an inner withdrawing which must yet be not without a human compassion – very difficult, I know, but one’s own private problem, and not society’s. Of course there are personalities from which one has just to remove oneself bodily: but they are usually more positive than that one! and usually one is more involved when with them. That strong combination of physical and moral loathing I have not experienced with many people, I am glad to say.
Idogs'Boerre' (Norwegian Elkhound);b7;d6 am very sorry about Boerre, and sorry that he has had to be so much away from you. I do know that you need a more active life – this part you have only to put up with as a convalescence – and after this, and pending that, some such schemes as you have thought of, to live in a New England village, might be very good: and I have no doubt that in such a place you would soon find yourself very active and important in local affairs. I imagine that in the South, one would always feel a foreigner – muchScotlandTSE on;a7Edinburgh
IEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother);g7 am nowSheffield, Alfred Dwight ('Shef' or 'Sheff');a8 awaiting the letters which Henry and Sheff (andMorley, Frank Vigor;k6 no doubt Frank Morley) will have written to me: IRichards, Dorothy (née Pilley);a3 have also written (not cabled) to Dorothea Richards. Itravels, trips and planspossible wartime transatlantic crossings;d7given Ada's impending death;b2 wish indeed that I could be sent on a visit to America: that would not only make unnecessary the permission which I probably should not get, the transport for which I should otherwise have to wait indefinitely, and the provision of money for my needs. What is perhaps equally important is that it would make matters very much easier on both sides, to see Ada in the course of some official commission; for one thought has been that it might be more distressing for her than otherwise, to know that I had come solely on her account. But these jobs are not to be fabricated, or had for the asking. ItFaber, Geoffreydeputed to America on publishing business;i8 is ironic that Faber is to be sent over, as one of a small posse of publishers, to confer with American publishers. Of course he has been President of the Publisher’s Association, and gained more distinction in that office than any other incumbent, so that he is now really the most prominent figure in the publishing world. I never expect much of this sort of mission myself, but, if there are to be such, then it is worth while that the best people should go on them. This is only an incidental reason why I should not want to leave England during April and the first part of May, which is when he is likely to be absent. ISheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister)her death contemplated;i6 am trying slowly and painfully to accustom myself to the thought of Ada’s short term left, but it is almost too painful to dwell upon for long.
My dear, while I am glad that the material conditions at Tryon are so good, and glad that you have a few pleasant neighbours, I know that it is also a lonely and desolate time for you, and that it needs all your strength and self-discipline to bear.
1.‘M. & B.’ signifies May & Baker, British pharmaceutical company, producers of a new drug, sulfapyridine, which was becoming widely used to treat bacterial infections, with considerable success.
2.‘Civilisation: The Nature of Cultural Relations’: talk given at the Anglo-Swedish Luncheon, 18 Mar. 1943; printed in Friendship, Progress, Civilisation: Three War-Time Speeches to the Anglo-Swedish Society by The Rt Hon. Lord Semple, A.F.C., The Hon. Harold Nicholson, C.M.G., M.P., Mr T. S. Eliot (Anglo-Swedish Society, 1943): CProse 6, 420–6. ‘The history of European civilisation is a history of perpetual cross-fertilisation …’
TheForbes-Sempill, William, 19th Lord Sempill Anglo-Swedish Society was chaired by the Scottish peer and pioneering pilot William Forbes-Sempill, 19th Lord Sempill (1893–1965), whose second wife Cecilia Sempill was a cousin of Christina Morley. (Lord Sempill was later discovered to have passed secret information to the Imperial Japanese military prior to WW2, but no prosecution took place.)
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
11.GeoffreyFaber, Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961), publisher and poet: see Biographical Register.
TheForbes-Sempill, William, 19th Lord Sempill Anglo-Swedish Society was chaired by the Scottish peer and pioneering pilot William Forbes-Sempill, 19th Lord Sempill (1893–1965), whose second wife Cecilia Sempill was a cousin of Christina Morley. (Lord Sempill was later discovered to have passed secret information to the Imperial Japanese military prior to WW2, but no prosecution took place.)
4.FrankMorley, Frank Vigor Vigor Morley (1899–1980), American publisher and author; a founding editor of F&F, 1929–39: see Biographical Register.
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.
8.AlfredSheffield, Alfred Dwight ('Shef' or 'Sheff') Dwight Sheffield (1871–1961) – ‘Shef’ or ‘Sheff’ – husband of TSE’s eldest sister, taught English at University School, Cleveland, Ohio, and was an English instructor, later Professor, of Group Work at Wellesley College. His publications include Lectures on the Harvard Classics: Confucianism (1909) and Grammar and Thinking: a study of the working conceptions in syntax (1912).