[No surviving envelope]
Letter 39
OnHale, Emilybirthdays, presents and love-tokens;w2TSE sent marmalade and liver-paste;f1 returning from London this week I found your parcel from S.S. Pierce – the most beautifully packed that I ever had, containing marmalade and liver paste. I don’t know whether to consider it a birthday or Christmas present, but it was very sweet of you. Liver paste is unknown, and of marmalade there cannot be enough. IShamley Wood, SurreyTSE distributes food parcels at;b6 have kept the paste for Shamley, where I can enjoy it at tea, and the marmalade for Russell Square, where it is more needed – besides, I thought it would be tactless, in a Scottish household, to exhibit a pot of marmalade labelled SCOTCH TYPE. Of course I have to share my good things received, but of course I get a share of other people’s parcels, and the Mirrlees occasionally get a parcel from South Africa and from India. I only wish I could send you things you need in return, but even so, there would not be much to choose that you could not get better at home.
I had a busy week, firstBarker, Ernest;a2 chairing for Sir Ernest Barker: he was excellent value, made just the right speech, the hall was filled, and altogether the good ladies of BAS were in ecstasies of pleasure; 1 and'Britain and America: Promotion of Mutual Understanding';a3 as my article in the Educational Supplement had appeared the week before, andBooks Across the SeaTLS reports on;b6 there was a leading article in the Literary Supplement two days before, they felt that the spotlight was upon BAS as never before.2 IEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)as curator of Eliotana;e9 enclose both these cuttings, and a report of the exhibition: would you be so good as to send them on to Henry when you have read them, as he treasures these records, and it is impossible to get extra copies of periodicals now, so I have only the one set to send. Then'Bridgebuilders';a3 on Tuesday IBooks Across the Sea'Bridgebuilders';b5 repaired to the same place for the broadcast recording: I was told that it would be heard in New York at 7 p.m. the next evening, but there wasn’t time to notify anybody. They said it would be advertised in the papers, but I fear that it might easily be overlooked: I wish that the time could have been fixed long enough ahead to give you warning. I thought the speeches were quite good – a woman who wrote children’s books, a librarian of a children’s library at Hendon, and Mrs. Street, as well as myself with an Interlocutor or Master of Ceremonies. I found that a little opening speech with ‘hello, listeners in New York’ had been written in for me. I wish that I could have warned people, for my own sake, for I should like to know how it sounded! and whether I got the right mixture of Serious Purpose and Whimsical Twinkle. – A young sergeant in the Airborne Forces to see me: like so many American sergeants who may look like ordinary young huskies, he turned out to be a Professor in civilian life, and was regretful at having lost his Book of Sanskrit irregular verbs in a melée with Germans in Luxembourg. He left me, to my regret, to be airborne, I suppose, but contented at having picked up a copy of the Meghadhuta of Kalidasa and a copy of Lucretius to occupy his periods of inaction. RanMacaulay, Rosepresses Polish cause on TSE;a4 into Rose Macaulay and Miss Livingstone, who suggested that I might become chairman of a committee to press for the interests of Polish deportees in Europe, but I said (as indeed I believe) that the matter is so important that they need a chairman who can give more time to it. MyChurchill Club, TheMilton talk for;a3 otherMilton, JohnTSE's Churchill Club talk on;a5 engagement for this year (exceptRichmonds, theTSE's Netherhampton weekends with;a7 for a weekend at the Richmonds’), the Churchill Club, in a fortnight hence – no, next week, so I must give most of the next weekend to preparing notes on Milton. IMurder in the CathedralHoellering film;g1TSE adapting for screen;a3 have just completed the draft of a scene for the film (the appearance of the Archbishop before the King at Northampton – all the additional stuff deals with incidents prior to the play itself). HolleringHoellering, George M.encourages TSE over adaptation;b1 was quite satisfied with the speeches I had already submitted to him: and I do not think that there will be very much more to do: one or two speeches in verse (which will take a little more trouble) and one short chorus.
Slight chill on the liver, which did not incapacitate me, but alarmed me at first while I feared it was going to be flu. AgnesMoncrieff, Dr Agnesministers to TSE;a2 Moncrieff, the homeopathic cousin, came to Shamley on Saturday, punched my stomach, listened to my heart and lungs, took my blood pressure, and pronounced the diagnosis. MyMrs Millington (the blind masseuse);a5 blood pressure, by the way, has gone up from 108 to 122 since I began with Mrs Millington the masseuse, which I think is a tribute either to the massage or the sanatogen, or both. This weekend has been rather too social. OnSinclair, Marjorie, Baroness Pentland;a3 Friday, LadyAmericaBoston, Massachusetts;d1its society;b3 Pentland brought over this American officer, whom I was to have met before – the bond being only Boston, as I did not discover any other interests in common. But he seems a very nice fellow – a Colonel (he was a Major when last heard of) Sedgwick, married to an Endicott – a big hearty chap, not one of the prim type of Bostonian (such as Billy Phillips) and not silly like his uncle Ellery. (YoungSedgwick, Professor William Elleryelegised;a4 Ellery I liked, the one who died a couple of years ago).3 ThenBehrens, Margaret Elizabeth (née Davidson)introduces Violet Powell to TSE;c1 the Field Marshal, who is installed in her cottage at the foot of the hill (but she never stops long in one place) broughtPowell, Lady Violet (née Pakenham);a1 Violet Powell to supper (aPakenham, Edward, 6th Earl of Longford;a4 sisterGate Theatre, Dublin;a5 of the Lord Longford who ran the Gate Theatre in Dublin: 4 he is very well off, but he spends his money on the theatre, and his sisters don’t get any of it – he also wrote one or two plays himself, which I don’t suppose have ever been played in America). And on Saturday Agnes Moncrieff and her sister Noel from Lanarkshire.
AndLivingstone, Sir RichardTSE declines lecture invitation from;a5 IOxford UniversityTSE's Romanes Lectures nomination;b1 have just declined another lecture engagement, please note: Livingstone (who is now Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and a very pet) wanted to nominate me for the Romanes Lecture at Oxford next spring, and I have declined.5
IWhiting, Isabelfor which she thanks TSE;a2 had a charming letter from Mrs. Whiting, in acknowledgement of the book I inscribed for you – it doesn’t require any answer, but you might let her know, when you see her, that I appreciated it. I shall hope to meet her when I am in Cambridge again. She spoke of you as ‘beautiful, zestful, and confident in life’. I hope she knows you well enough to be right: she ought to.
1.TSE was in the chair as Sir Ernest Barker launched the Books Across the Sea exhibition of American wartime children’s books, at Chaucer House, London, on 13 Nov.
2.The TLS, 18 Nov. 1944, 564, reported that TSE ‘reaffirmed his belief that the books that children read for pleasure had an important relation to their education; and that the education of children had an important relation to the future and development of Anglo-American understanding’.
3.ProfessorSedgwick, Professor William Ellery William Ellery Sedgwick (1899–1942) taught English at Harvard, 1926–38, before joining Bennington College, Vermont. His widow was the former Sarah F. Cabot of Boston; and his brother was O. Sedgwick, foreign correspondent of the New York Times.
4.LadyPowell, Lady Violet (née Pakenham) Violet Powell, née Pakenham (1912–2002), writer and biographer; wife of the novelist Anthony Powell (1905–2000). Her eldest brother was Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford (1902–61), Irish peer and politician who ran the Gate Theatre, Dublin, 1930–6.
5.The annual Romanes Lecture – an appointment since 1891 endowed by George John Romanes (Christ Church) – is in the gift of the Vice-Chancellor, who invites a distinguished figure from the sciences, arts or literature. The first lecture was given in 1891 by William Gladstone.
4.ErnestBarker, Ernest Barker (1874–1960), political scientist and author; Principal of King’s College, London, 1920–7; Professor of Political Science, Cambridge, from 1928. Knighted in 1944. See J. Stapleton, Englishness and the Study of Politics: The Social and Political Thought of Ernest Barker (Cambridge, 1994).
4.MargaretBehrens, Margaret Elizabeth (née Davidson) Elizabeth Behrens, née Davidson (1885–1968), author of novels including In Masquerade (1930); Puck in Petticoats (1931); Miss Mackay (1932); Half a Loaf (1933).
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
3.GeorgeHoellering, George M. M. Hoellering (1898–1980), Austrian-born filmmaker and cinema manager: see Biographical Register.
1.SirLivingstone, Sir Richard Richard Livingstone (1880–1960), President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1933–50; Vice-Chancellor, 1944–7. Author of A Defence of Classical Education (1916); The Pageant of Greece (1923); The Future in Education (1941). President of the Classical Association, 1940–1. TSE to Aimée Lamb, 16 Mar. 1948: ‘[Livingstone] is … not only one of the most distinguished men in education, but a very charming person.’
1.RoseMacaulay, Rose Macaulay (1881–1958), novelist, biographer, travel writer. Her fictions include Dangerous Ages (1921); Told by an Idiot (1923); Keeping Up Appearances (1928); The Towers of Trebizond (1956). Created DBE, 1957. (TSE’s secretary Brigid O’Donovan was Macaulay’s goddaughter.)
4.EdwardPakenham, Edward, 6th Earl of Longford Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford (1902–61), Anglo-Catholic Irish peer, politician (Irish Nationalist), dramatist and translator, succeeded to the earldom in 1915 and was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. Chairman of the Gate Theatre, Dublin, 1930–6. Yahoo (1933), his play about Jonathan Swift – ‘the father of modern Irish nationalism,’ as Longford hailed him – was running at the Westminster Theatre, London.
4.LadyPowell, Lady Violet (née Pakenham) Violet Powell, née Pakenham (1912–2002), writer and biographer; wife of the novelist Anthony Powell (1905–2000). Her eldest brother was Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford (1902–61), Irish peer and politician who ran the Gate Theatre, Dublin, 1930–6.
3.ProfessorSedgwick, Professor William Ellery William Ellery Sedgwick (1899–1942) taught English at Harvard, 1926–38, before joining Bennington College, Vermont. His widow was the former Sarah F. Cabot of Boston; and his brother was O. Sedgwick, foreign correspondent of the New York Times.
5.MarjorieSinclair, Marjorie, Baroness Pentland Sinclair, Baroness Pentland, DBE (1880–1970), who grew up in Canada, was the widow of John Sinclair, 1st Baron Pentland (1860–1925).
1.AnWhiting, Isabel old, close friend of EH’s, Isabel Whiting lived for some years at 11 Mason Street, Cambridge, MA; later at 9 Phillips Place, Cambridge, MA.