[No surviving envelope]
Letter 31.
YourHale, Emilyreturned to Boston;p2 letter of March 13 was extremely welcome, though I was vexed with myself, on seeing the Boston postmark, for having been writing to Tryon. I suppose I was optimistic, also I assumed that you would be stopping much longer, also I am often tempted to write to the place whence you have written, instead of the place where you are likely to be, because it makes time and space seem less. ItHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3and the experience of delay;h5 is odd to be always writing to the person you were a month ago, and the person who will receive it will be the person you will be a month hence! You know, I have had only one letter from you from Tryon, the first you could have written after getting there: and it sounded, on the whole, very pleasant and restful. I think that you must have written at least one other letter from there, which may turn up some time: for there is such a long gap between the two, and because you make no reference to Tryon, or your reasons for staying such a short time, in this letter.
HoweverHale, Emilyspends three days in New York;p3, I am glad to know that you had three pleasant days in New York; andSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister);i9 I am grateful for your news of Ada. ThisEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)as correspondent;h1 gives me a real picture, and is the sort of letter than [sc. that] Henry does not write: he gives information, but nothing to appeal to the imagination. NeitherEliot, Theresa Garrett (TSE's sister-in-law)as correspondent;c1 Theresa norEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)as correspondent;d8 Marion is a good letter writer. You have rather an unusual gift in this way. I can also imagine Sheff talking, like an eager worn little bird, about the heating system. They all speak of Ada’s fortitude and cheerfulness, and mind triumphing over pain; but your letter makes it real to me. I am glad also that you had a word with Frank Morley (yesMorley, Christopherinferior to Frank;a1, both his brothers always struck me as common and rather coarse, especially Kit, but Kit has a very nice and intelligent daughter named Louisa who was over here in the autumn). (I was talking of the Morleys the other night, with their cousin, Lady Semphill [sc. Sempill] – her husband is the chairman of the Anglo-Swedish Society, and a very worthy person full of public zeal but somewhat lacking in humour – the day happened to be his wife’s birthday, so he wrote to me two days before to suggest that I should write her a birthday poem, and giving me some details about her as material!)1 IHinkley, Eleanor Holmes (TSE's first cousin)cossetted;c7 wondered, after what you said about Aunt Susie, whether Eleanor realises her mother’s feebleness: but I think that this has been a very gradual process, and due partly to her narrowing interests and concentration on her descendants and their worldly success. AdaSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister)on Aunt Susie;e2 used to say that whenHinkley, Susan Heywood (TSE's aunt, née Stearns)in Ada's memory;c7 they were young (for they are within a few years in age) Susie had a very alert mind and varied intellectual interests: her later restriction somewhat estranged them, and I think that Susie’s lowered scale of values depressed Ada. But I am glad that Eleanor is leading a more active and extroverted life under the war pressure; it will be good for her in general and also prepare her to face the world better after her mother’s death.
LastBritish–Norwegian Instituteand 'The Social Function of Poetry';a1 weekend I'Social Function of Poetry, The';a5 was busy preparing my speech to the Norwegian Institute, andPound, Omarhis prospects;a4 discussing the future of young Omar Pound – a difficult matter, is the boy is not only dissimilar to other boys but almost wholly mediocre: I have seen his school reports, and in his best subject he has been only in the middle of his form. He wants to become an hotel keeper. I had a talk to his housemaster last week and am going to see his family solicitor. It is a most wretched and deplorable case. I'John Dryden's Tragedies';a3 broadcastBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)Dryden talk;d2 to India again on Thursday, toDryden, Johnsubject of Indian Service broadcast;a4 talk to them about Dryden’s tragedies;2 andTheological Literature Association;a2 have been preparing a speech which I have to make (informal) to a group which meets in Oxford on Monday, about the publication of divinity books for schools: I go in the company of a director of Methuen’s, as the project is for some joint publication.3 Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1943 trip to Edinburgh;e8;a3 don’t think I shall have time to prepare a broadcast talk to deliver of the Scotch Regional, and an address to a group of Episcopalians in Edinburgh too! TheChurch of South India controversy;a2 controversy over South India has simmered down, but will boil up again sooner or later.
IFour Quartetspublished in America;a4 hope Frank will have the sense to send you a copy of the American edition of ‘Four Quartets’ direct, instead of sending all the author’s copies to me here. I think that the four, printed together, will show a satisfactory unity – they are meant to have it. But it was a good thing to have published them first one by one (of course, L.G. has never appeared in the U.S.A. at all) as people have got used to them in that way, and have probably become more familiar with the details than if they had seen them first all together.
I cannot say how relieved I was to hear about your Russian doctor’s report on your health. I am sure that you assisted nature, by taking the affliction so heroically. But mind, he has said a position ‘within reasonable requirements’, and you must not forget that in considering any offer; also, you will not be able for some time, I think, to undertake outside activities as well. Of course I do not know the extent to which possible positions have diminished in number since the war. IFlanagan, Hallietaken on by Smith;b1 am afraid I grudge Hallie Flanagan her place at Smith. DoesPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle)relations with Aunt Edith;f2 Uncle John get irritated with Aunt E.? I used to think that there were times when he would have done, in the old days, but for self-control and natural sweetness of temper: I thought he suffered from spells of depression which he could not share with her – and I thought that the religious side of him was a bit frustrated in life – but I may well be wrong about this?
Thank you again, for your lovely letter. I shall go on hoping that an earlier one will come to fill the gap: and I hope that the 1000 Pines Inn will forward my letters to you.
1.TSE did not write the poem requested.
2.‘John Dryden’s Tragedies’: talk broadcast over the BBC Eastern Service, in a series ‘Great Dramatists’, 1 Apr. 1943; published in the Listener 29 (22 Apr. 1943), 486–7: CProse 6, 388–91.
3.TSE to Frank Morley, Epiphany (6 Jan. 1943): ‘Oh yes, I am also involved in the Divinity Books Problem which you remember; I am a member of the Council of the Theological Literature Association; I am on a committee of the Church Union which is to take the field in the battle of the SOUTH INDIA SCHEME …’
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: 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.
5.ChristopherMorley, Christopher Morley (1890–1957), noted journalist, novelist, essayist, poet. Educated at Haverford College, Pennsylvania, and as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, he made his name as a journalist with the New York Evening Post, and he was co-founder of and contributor to the Saturday Review of Literature. A passionate Sherlock Holmesian, he was to be co-founder in 1934 of ‘The Baker Street Irregulars’. Works include Kitty Foyle (novel, 1939).
3.DrPerkins, Dr John Carroll (EH's uncle) John Carroll Perkins (1862–1950), Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston: see Biographical Register.
1.OmarPound, Omar Shakespear Pound (1926–2010), author, editor and poet; son of Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear, he was born in Paris and brought up in his early years by his maternal grandmother, Olivia Shakespear; he met his father for the first time only in 1938. During 1940–2 he was a boarder at Charterhouse School, where TSE took a proactive avuncular interest in the progress and well-being of ‘the unfortunate Omar’: ‘I make a point of trying to see him about twice a quarter. The whole situation is difficult and I am afraid that the future is not going to be easy for him. I like the boy who at the present moment thinks that he would like to make hotel keeping his profession.’ On leaving school, Pound undertook to study hotel management and worked in a London hotel; but in 1945 he enlisted in the US Army and served terms in France and Germany. Subsequently he studied at Hamilton College, New York (his father’s alma mater); at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London; and at McGill University. Later he taught in Boston; at the American School of Tangier; at the Cambridgeshire School of Arts and Technology; and at Princeton. He brought out Arabic & Persian Poems (1970) and volumes of his own poetry, and was co-editor (with Philip Grover) of Wyndham Lewis: A Descriptive Bibliography (1978). Other editions include Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1908–1914 (1984), and Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945–1946, edited with Robert Spoo (1999).
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.