[No surviving envelope]
Letter 3.
I have temporarily run out of Faber air mail paper, and this sheet is a relic of my visit to Sweden. Your letter of December 14 is the last to arrive. Somehow, at a moment when you are changing over to a new place, I keep hoping that each letter that arrives will be more recent than it is. You have now been three weeks at Millbrook, I presume; and in this letter you do not seem yet quite certain of accepting the post! However, I didn’t really want you to write immediately upon your arrival, but wait to give me your impressions after a week or so; so I expect I must wait for another two or three weeks before I know anything.
I was glad to have some additional description of the setting of the Christmas play. IHale, Emilyas teacher;w1her work at Smith;c6 knowSmith CollegeTSE reflects on EH's time at;c8 that you were never really happy at Smith, and inferred that there had probably been more vexations than you told me of; and I am glad that Concord seems to have been a kind of refresher; and probably a help for your new work at Millbrook, in having more to do with your proper tasks than the work at Smith did. IHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3TSE chastened for short cables;i1 am sorry if my cable messages appear very short: perhaps it is that I was brought up to be frugal in such little things, and have not overcome it. I shall try, however, to develop more intelligence at the receiving end.
So much time elapses between sending a letter, and receiving your acknowledgements of it, that I cannot always grasp what you are referring to: and no doubt you sometimes have the same perplexity. IEducational Reform bill (1944 Education Act)TSE defends position on;a4 presume that the cutting to which you refer was the account of the meeting, at which I took the chair, about the Education Bill; but I can’t remember that I said anything, in that capacity, to show whether I took a wide or a narrow view. I maintained that religious education ought to be a full denominational education, and that children should not be given the impression that to be a Christian was one thing, and to be a Catholic, or an Episcopalian, or a Methodist or a Congregationalist, was quite a separate and less important matter; and I wanted the opportunity for such teaching offered to all: I can find room for different denominations (which seems to me broad) but I cannot accept ‘undenominationalism’, (which seems to you, perhaps, narrow). AnywayKirk, Kennethconcurs with TSE on education;a3, my view turned out to be the same as that of the Bishop of Oxford, which, from the point of view of that meeting, was satisfactory. But perhaps I am talking about something quite other than what you refer to. ButReunion by Destruction: Reflections on a Scheme for Church Union in South Indiafor which TSE prepares her;a8 ifChurch of South India controversy;a7 my pamphlet on South India ever reaches you (it was sent to Concord, and I should have thought that it would have arrived before you left – no, it was the beginning of December, having been much delayed) I fear that you will be horrified by my opinions. (I venture to think, however, that they may have had some effect: in the Convocation meeting last week, bothDuncan-Jones, Revd Arthur Stuart, Dean of Chichesterwith TSE over South Indian Church;a7 theSelwyn, Revd Edward Gordon, Dean of Winchesterwith TSE over South Indian Church;a7 Dean of Chichester (whom you know) and the Dean of Winchester, to whom I had sent copies personally, took the line which I hoped they would take[)]. As for the Education Bill, that is something I go up in the air over. But what I feel about it is not going to make the slightest difference: and'Johnson as Critic and Poet'being and not being written;a2 I am now giving all my spare attention to the critical principles of Dr. Johnson: I have completed the draft of the first of the two lectures, this morning.
Astravels, trips and planspossible wartime transatlantic crossings;d7impossible for TSE unless official;a8 for my visiting America, I don’t think you understand to which, in the first place, it is not a decision which one is free to make. Urgent domestic business (I.e. to fetch back evacuated children – I can’t think of any other that would do, except perhaps a dying wife or child) would get a licence to travel; otherwise only those go and come who are on Government business. Nor, even from a private point of view, can I see what justification I could have at present from the point of view of any need of my immediate relatives for my company. All that I hope is, that the restrictions will be considerably relaxed as soon as the war with Germany is completed; though I anticipate that the shortage of shipping will be just as bad, because I presume that the efforts against Japan will be doubled.
I am very glad to know that you have had no colds or flu, so far. IHale, Emilywritings;x4an 'epigram';a8 liked your little ‘epigram’; it is good for one’s writing to do these things, and I hope you will let me see more.1
IFaber and Faber (F&F)fire-watching duties at;e6 go up tomorrow for a short week: Tuesday night fire-watching, WednesdayBurke Club, The;a1 night the Burke Club (a semi-political affair, but with no particular purpose except to bring together the appropriate writers and members of Parliament) and on Thursday return to toil at Johnson, and'Walt Whitman and Modern Poetry';a1 toChurchill Club, TheWalt Whitman talk for;a1 prepare my next week’s chat on Walt Whitman for the Churchill Club (which is intended for the more intellectual members of the American Army when in London).2
1.EH’s ‘epigram’ has not been identified. She made it a habit for a while to send Christmas greetings in verses of her own composition: see Appendix for five examples from 1949–54.
2.TSE’s talk ‘Walt Whitman and Modern Poetry’, given at the Churchill Club, London, on 2 Feb. 1944, does not survive in TS; it was taken down verbatim at the time by Donald Gallup: ‘Mr Eliot at the Churchill Club’, Southern Review 21 (1985), 969–73; see CProse 6, 783–7.
7.RevdDuncan-Jones, Revd Arthur Stuart, Dean of Chichester Arthur Stuart Duncan-Jones (1879–1955) held various incumbencies, including St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, London, before becoming Dean of Chichester, 1929–55.
4.KennethKirk, Kenneth Kirk (1886–1954), Anglican priest, theologian, author. Fellow and Chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1933 he was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology. He was to be elevated as Bishop of Oxford, 1937–54. Works include Some Principles of Moral Theology (1920) and The Vision of God (Bampton Lectures, 1928) (1931).
9.RevdSelwyn, Revd Edward Gordon, Dean of Winchester Edward Gordon Selwyn (1885–1959), editor of Theology: A Monthly Journal of Historic Christianity, 1920–33. Educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge (Newcastle Scholar; Porson Scholar and Prizeman; Waddington Scholar; Browne’s Medallist; 2nd Chancellor’s Medallist), he was Rector of Redhill, Havant, 1919–30; Provost in Convocation, 1921–31; Dean of Winchester, 1931–58. Works include The Approach to Christianity (1925); Essays Catholic & Critical by Members of the Anglican Communion (ed., 1926). In 1910, he married Phyllis Eleanor Hoskyns, daughter of E. C. Hoskyns (then Bishop of Southwell).