[No surviving envelope]
Letter 24.
I have just had my five days on end in the country, and go up tomorrow for one night. This week I may have to go up again for the day on Thursday, which is fatiguing, but I sleep better in the country. YouSecond World WarV-1 Cruise Missile strikes;e5 have no doubt had a good deal in your newspapers by now, about the automatic bombs on southern England; 1 theyEnglandLondon;h1in wartime;d4 are certainly a nuisance even to the most fortunate, though the destruction does not appear to be so great as that of proper air raids, and the chief danger is to people who happen to be out of doors and near at hand, or from flying glass – more windows broken but fewer houses demolished. The other difference, on the other side of the balance, is that air raids have a beginning and an end, whereas one of these may drop in at any time: though I am always surprised that there are not more of them. TheFabers, themore at 23 Russell Square;g5 Fabers have now begun spending a couple of nights at Russell Square again, instead of only one for fire-watching; but I do not think I shall attempt that just yet. And in town I always go about by Underground anyway. Since we are pretty quiet in Surrey, I feel all the more doubt about attempting to go anywhere else for a holiday – and any place one thinks of is likely to be pretty crowded – especially from now to the beginning of September anyway: and perhaps one ought to leave what accommodation there is to those who are less fortunately placed than I. IWhat is a Classic?drafted;a3 have spent these last days finishing the first draft of my Virgil address, and hope to finish revising it in the next fortnight, soAssociation of Bookmen of Swansea and West Walespaper prepared for;a1 as to do my paper for Swansea, andtravels, trips and plansTSE's abortive 1944 North Africa mission;f3;a6 another lecture for Algiers just in case I do go in the late autumn. IMorley, Christina (née Innes)TSE writes letter of condolence to;c7 have just had to write to Christina Morley, asInnes, Hugh McLeoddies;a2 her father died (of the ailments of old age, I imagine) in Cambridge last week,2 and she will feel her exile all the more keenly. I do not know whether there are any relatives near enough to be of help to her mother. It seems strange that the two sons should have been killed in the last war, and the father die of old age during this. ButSecond World Warprognostications as to its end;e2 I dare say that towards the end of this war – and one does now hope to see the end of it before Christmas! – many old people will die, from a kind of fatigue, who otherwise would have lived a few years longer. I imagine that all middle-aged people throught [sic: ?throughout] Europe, except those who are in a far worse position, are now aware more of tiredness than of any other feeling, and wondering whether the end of the war will restore one sufficiently to face the perplexing, and largely insoluble, problems of the time after. ButAmerican Presidential Election1944;a1 I suppose that attention is largely distracted, in America, to the forth-coming election, on which a person like myself can hold no opinions, and make no forecast.
I do not know where you now are, after your brief stay at Bleak House; but I hope at Manan, or somewhere equally suitable for the sultry season. YouPerkinses, the;l1 have said nothing of any plans of the Perkins’s for a holiday out of Boston. I shall expect your letters to take longer in reaching me while you are away, though possibly at Manan you could connect with the air service as quickly as from Boston.
1.Germany’s V-1 cruise missiles were first launched from northern France and the Low Countries against Britain on 13 June. Over 2,000 would be fired that first month, out of about 10,000 in all before the attacks ended in late March 1945. About a third reached London, target for most attacks, causing over 6,000 deaths.
2.Hugh McLeod Innes (b. 1862) died on 13 July 1944.
2.ChristinaInnes, Hugh McLeod Morley’s father, Hugh McLeod Innes (1862–1944), classicist, was a Fellow and Bursar of Trinity College, Cambridge; author of Fellows of Trinity (1941).