[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
I am feeling sorry for myself again; but as I ignominiously failed to get off a letter until the second mail last week, I am justly punished ubi peccavi1 by having no letter yet. NothingSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece)her wedding described;a5 particular arrived from America except aEliot, Margaret Dawes (TSE's sister);a1 letter from my sister Margaret describing my niece’s wedding, which seems to have gone off to the general satisfaction. ChardySmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece)resembles her mother;a1 is a very pretty girl, in features and colouring like her mother; not a type which I particularly admire, a very swarthy strain with dark brown eyes, which runs in the Eliot blood and is said to come from the Dawes’s.2 ChardySmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)in contrast to her sister;a5 is essentially a girl for whom matrimony is the best career; not like her older sister, with whom I feel much more sympathy: a reserved, independent and rather solitary girl who bravely goes her own way and is, I believe, quite an efficient schoolteacher, and likes reading books. Whether Chardy will turn out to be as like my sister Charlotte as she looks, I do not know.3 CharlotteSmith, Charlotte Eliot (TSE's sister, née Eliot)described;a1 was originally a lively, society loving girl, with a swarm of friends of both sexes. She became much more serious later; she had a hard life – they were for long very poor; GeorgeSmith, George Lawrence (TSE's brother-in-law)as husband to TSE's sister;a2 was not a very brilliant architect, and he would put all his money into a large estate near Millis, which made no money – but then George hungered for country life, which is a perfectly reasonable taste; butEliot, Henry Ware (TSE's father)disapproved of son-in-law;a3 my father disapproved strongly, thinking that George should stop in town and attend to architecture; and my mother thought that Charlotte suffered much hardship from having to live out of town, and run a large place with insufficient means and staff. She certainly had several terrible illnesses, and weakened her health. So George was not very popular with my family, who considered him rather a lout (though when I have seen him here in recent years, I have found him decidedly intelligent and charming); and I think Charlotte was sensitive to this. She was certainly very loyal to him. ISmith, Charlotte Eliot (TSE's sister, née Eliot)her departure from Unitarianism;a2 had always supposed that she became an Episcopalian in order to be of the same church as her husband (a step at which the family sighed faintly); but a few years ago Elizabeth Wentworth told me that George’s family were Presbyterians; and that the initiative towards orthodoxy came entirely from Charlotte’s side: which at least shows a certain independence and seriousness. AsSmith, Charlotte Eliot (TSE's sister, née Eliot)her visit in 1924;a3 happens so often with near relatives, I felt much closer to her when I saw her again, for the last time, in 1924, when she came with my mother on her last visit; and though she said but little, I believe that she came to understand, while she was here, something of my real situation.4
So much about my family. HaveSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister);a2 you, I wonder, seen my sister Marion, or Ada, since you have been back?
MyMarston, JohnTSE's paper on;a1 last few days have been bothered by having to prepare the paper on Marston to deliver tomorrow night, and even now I have still three or four pages to write. IThorps, the;a8 have sent a ticket to the Thorps; I shall be pleased if they will go, particularly because I like to have some one present who may be in touch with you. It has been slow writing; and I must turn immediately to write two or three other papers for which I shall be paid by periodicals. ICharles Eliot Norton Professorship of PoetryTSE in suspense over;a6 confess that if the Norton professorship falls through my financial anxieties will seem heavier than ever, and I shall regret very deeply that the suggestion was ever put into my mind; it is now two or three weeks since I heard anything about it. In addition, the prospect of such a prolonged holiday has made the prospect of the intervening period more tolerable.
BusinessFaber and Faber (F&F)future feared for;a5, too, is very bad; bad all round in Britain, and getting worse; and a general tone of discouragement. And the future of this firm is causing me apprehension; so, among other occupations, I am racking my brains to think of any possible reforms or enterprise. And I see that there will be a huge deficit in the U.S.A. budget; so no doubt Income Tax will have to be revised to squeeze more out of the middle class; and then you will have more and more unemployment; and heaven knows where it will all end.
Would that I had more time for writing letters: but while I am here in my office I have more than I can do, and am never secure from interruptions, and have to spend part of my time discussing matters with other directors individually; and also have to write here nearly all the private letters that I write. ButHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3keeps TSE sane;b4 I snatch every minute I can for correspondence with you, and that helps more than everything to keep me sane and normal and above despair. YouChristianitysins, vices, faults;d5despair;b4 spoke of fits of despair yourself in your last letter; and I do pray hard that you may be preserved from them, for real despair is the most terrible thing, a real temptation of the Devil of those whom he cannot attack with the commoner forms of fault. But have I not said this before. But in the context in which you mentioned it, I admit I always feel just as you do, with the same alternatives.
1.TSE plays surprisingly with the liturgical ‘Peccavi, quid faciam miser, ubi fugiam, nisi ad te, Deus Meus?’: ‘I have sinned, what shall I do, wretch, where shall I flee, except to you, my God?’
2.Col. Thomas Dawes (1757–1825) was TSE’s great-grandfather on his father’s side.
3.TSE’s sister Charlotte (1874–1926) was married to George Lawrence Smith (1873–1962).
4.See Letters 2, 467 ff.
6.MargaretEliot, Margaret Dawes (TSE's sister) Dawes Eliot (1871–1956), TSE's second-oldest sister sister, resident in Cambridge, Mass. In an undated letter (1952) to his Harvard friend Leon M. Little, TSE wrote: ‘Margaret is 83, deaf, eccentric, recluse (I don’t think she has bought any new clothes since 1900).’
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.
2.TheodoraSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece) Eliot Smith (1904–92) – ‘Dodo’ – daughter of George Lawrence and Charlotte E. Smith: see Biographical Register. Theodora’sSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece) sister was Charlotte Stearns Smith (b. 1911), known as ‘Chardy’.
2.TheodoraSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece) Eliot Smith (1904–92) – ‘Dodo’ – daughter of George Lawrence and Charlotte E. Smith: see Biographical Register. Theodora’sSmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece) sister was Charlotte Stearns Smith (b. 1911), known as ‘Chardy’.