[No surviving envelope]
Letter 1.
A Happy New Year to you. I am sorry that my delay in cabling at Christmas put you to the expense of an extra cable; asPerkins, Edith (EH's aunt);g4 I assumed that the very nice cable from Mrs. Perkins, received on Christmas Day, was to be considered as comprehending your own message. What happened was that I had no money – not enough to cable – havingShamley Wood, Surreydramatis personae;a4 already borrowed from Hetty, the Perfection [sic] Parlour Maid – the one who seemed a little surprised that I did not know old Lady Bute – to pay for some medicine and toilet articles – she was the only person in the house who had any money to lend. Otherwise I could have got to the post office two days before Christmas, my first day out and about. And I have a dislike of telephoning telegrams on other peoples’ telephones, or of using them for trunk calls: so I thought it would do if I cabled at full rate on Wednesday, as I did. All this was very carefully Thought Out: I thought you would think there had been a delay in transmission, but not that you would suppose that I was ill. It was just an infection, as I was very well before it: and as I had no temperature with the illness, and as I braved the cold of London directly after Boxing Day (andFaber and Faber (F&F)offices damaged by V-1;f2 on a cold day now one does feel very acutely the difference between glass windows and cheesecloth ones, and Russell Square was of course all the colder for the office having been shut up for three days) andFabers, thehost TSE at Minsted;g8 then went down to Minsted to the Fabers’ for the New Year’s weekend,1 and have no recurrence, I think I have done very well. ChristmasShamley Wood, SurreyChristmas at;a5, though I had dreaded it in such a family party, passed off very well. TheCoker, Lewis Aubrey ('Bolo')at Christmas;a3 surly squire, the last of the Cokers,2 was on his best behaviour, and was only a strain because he insisted on talking a great deal to me in a low mutter which I could not understand; andMirrlees, Maj.-Gen. William Henry Buchanan ('Reay')at Shamley for Christmas;b1 Reay, the General, was charming. He is back in Delhi by now. TheMurder in the CathedralHoellering film;g1TSE adapting for screen;a3 house was filled to capacity, and I had to give up my small study to Aubrey Coker (I don’t know how he managed, as the couch in it is less than six feet long, and he is six foot three) but'Preface to Roll Call';a1 managed to get done my preface for the account of a Polish concentration camp,3 and a speech for the Murder film. IHoellering, George M.sitting on TSE's scenario;b2 am now up to date with that: there is nothing more I can do until Hollering has reviewed his scenario. I feel that there ought to be some scene of ordinary humble life in it somewhere, as a foil to the high politics of the rest: much as in a picture of any enormous object, like a mastodon, you want a human figure to show the size. I felt that about the play: but there, there was the time limit, and I didn’t see how to leave anything out to put anything else in. Now, at last, I want to get down to doing some piece of work on my own account.
ChristmasSecond World WarThe Battle of the Bulge;f1 was overshadowed by the news of the German push, which then seemed very alarming:4 ITrevelyan, Maryreports from liberated Belgium;a6 have just had a letter from Mary Trevelyan, in Belgium, which has made more real to me, what none of us, and still less, I am sure, anyone in America, can realise, the horror and terror of the freed peoples at the possibility of the return of the Germans. She assured me, and she is not a person to exaggerate such things, that she was sure that many of the people she knew would commit suicide rather than face the occupation again.5 I am much worried over Poland, but more annoyed over Greece: annoyed, I mean, because that affair has been so magnified, and because it has been seized upon as a reason for abusing the English government.
Your letter of November 30 has just arrived: it does not add much information – I mean, more recent – to your last; butElsmith, Dorothy Olcott;b1 I was glad to hear that Mrs. Elsmith had received my letter, and that it amused her. IHinkley, Susan Heywood (TSE's aunt, née Stearns)'wambling';d1 am not surprised to hear that Aunt Susie is rather wambling in her mind. IHinkley, Eleanor Holmes (TSE's first cousin)reportedly writing novel;d3 hear that Eleanor is writing a novel. I must write to Aunt S. I am not a good correspondent: but I do think it singular that Eleanor has never once written to me in so many years. WhoBlake, Williamappears to masseuse in vision;a3 is ‘Bill’ Blake? Oh yes, I remember: no, butMrs Millington (the blind masseuse)communicates message from William Blake;a4 I go to Mrs. Millington tomorrow, and hope for some Christmas greetings from the other world. IHale, Emilyas director ('producer');v9Dear Brutus;b1 haveBarrie, Sir James Matthew ('J. M.')Dear Brutus;a9 never seen Dear Brutus: 6 I must try to get a copy to read.
WhatHale, Emily Jose Milliken (EH's mother);c7 you said of your mother is very saddening: it is indeed a mystery that people’s lives should be prolonged when they get neither happiness nor profit from them: but there it is. I hope you do not find these visits heart-rending: you seem to me to have so little good of your Christmas holidays anyway.
I hope we shall both have very good health in 1945, and that this year may see the re-opening of Atlantic travel!
1.TSE visited the Fabers from 29 Dec. 1944 to 1 Jan. 1945.
2.Major Lewis Aubrey Coker.
3.The eventually unpublished preface to Roll Call by Jerzy Andrzejewski, CProse 6, 581–5.
4.The ‘Battle of the Bulge’ – the Ardennes Offensive – was a surprise counter-attack by German forces through Belgium and Luxembourg, with the aim of breaking apart the Western Front and denying the Allies the port of Antwerp. The German assault involved 410,000 men, 1,500 tanks, and over 1,000 aircraft. American forces saw the worst of it: some 19,000 Americans were killed. On the German side, up to 98,000 soldiers died by the end of the battle. In the event, the German advance was halted between 24 and 26 Dec., though engagements went on until 25 Jan. 1945.
5.Mary Trevelyan to TSE, Christmas Day 1944: ‘Early on Monday, a week ago, Julia and André, the femme de chambre and the valet de chambre on my floor here, came into my room to tell me that the Germans had broken through the American lines and were advancing on Brussels … I managed to wake up enough to observe their panic stricken faces … All our Belgian staff were shaking with fright and many of them, and of my Belgian friends outside the Hotel, told me that if the Germans came again to Brussels they would kill themselves … I know that most of my friends here would certainly try to kill themselves if they could.’
6.EH was to direct a production – by the Upper School, Concord Academy – of Dear Brutus, by J. M. Barrie, on 3 Mar. 1945, with proceeds going to the American Red Cross.
5.SirBarrie, Sir James Matthew ('J. M.') James Barrie, Bt, OM (1860–1937), Scottish novelist and dramatist; world-renowned for Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1904).
5.MargaretCoker, Margaret Rosalys ('Margot', née Mirrlees) Rosalys Mirrlees – ‘Margot’ (b. 1898) – wasCoker, Lewis Aubrey ('Bolo') married in 1920 to Lewis Aubrey Coker, OBE (1883–1953), nicknamed ‘Bolo’, a major in the Royal Field Artillery. T. S. Matthews, Great Tom: Notes towards the definition of T. S. Eliot (1974), 126: ‘The married daughter, Margot Coker, had a large country house near Bicester …’
4.TSEElsmiths, theseminal Woods Hole stay with;a1Elsmith, Dorothy Olcott
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.
3.GeorgeHoellering, George M. M. Hoellering (1898–1980), Austrian-born filmmaker and cinema manager: see Biographical Register.
1.MajMirrlees, Maj.-Gen. William Henry Buchanan ('Reay').-Gen. William Henry Buchanan ‘Reay’ Mirrlees, DSO, CB, MC (1892–1964), served in the Royal Artillery. He was the only son of William Julius and Emily Lina Mirrlees, brother of Hope Mirrlees.
2.MaryTrevelyan, Mary Trevelyan (1897–1983), Warden of Student Movement House, worked devotedly to support the needs of overseas students in London (her institution was based at 32 Russell Square, close to the offices of F&F; later at 103 Gower Street); founder and first governor of International Students House, London. Trevelyan left an unpublished memoir of her friendship with TSE – ‘The Pope of Russell Square’ – whom she long desired to marry. See further Biographical Register.