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I have had a succession of short weekends, or of none at all, just when they would have been most welcome. LastMoot, The;d6 week, as you know, IOldham, Joseph;e9 went to Oldham’s Moot which met at a hostel near Horsham; I came back to Shamley on Monday afternoon, pretty tired, and wrote no letters, then went up to London on Tuesday morning. I returned to Shamley on Friday afternoon, but must go up to town again tomorrow (Monday). I have a certain amount of news to tell, and I am confused as to how much I have already told. AHayward, Johnflat-hunting with;l9 friend of John’s discovered a flat empty at19 Carlyle Mansions, Londonits Chelsea environs;a2 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. I have been to see it, and it would do. The neighbourhood is good, though not of the most convenient – one has to take a bus to Sloane Square or Knightsbridge and then tube (ourFaber and Faber (F&F)consider moving to Grosvenor Place;f4 new offices will be near Hyde Park Corner, however, but it will be a year or more before we can move). It is a large flat, and the kitchen offices, and servant’s bedroom, well at the back, as in all old-fashioned flats; and the ceilings are high. The drawback is that it is in bad repair: it is vacant through the war, and used only as a kind of air raid shelter by the other inhabitants of the building. Now to get repairs done, costing more than £10, one must have a licence from the Office of Works. So tomorrow I meet the builder on the premises; he will make an estimate of what is essential, and then makes [sc. make] an application for a licence. Obviously, until one knows that the permission will be given, it is out of the question to take the flat; and there is always the risk that somebody more daring may step in and take it first. One must risk that: but the housing problem in London is very serious, so we shall certainly take this flat if we can. John thinks he has enough furniture to carry on with; but it may be some time before it could be completely furnished.
At14 Elvaston Place, LondonTSE takes furnished room at;a1 the same time, I have taken, by the month, a furnished room at 14 Elvaston Place, near Queen’s Gate Gardens. It is close to Gloucester Road and Cromwell Road, andCheetham, Revd Ericand Elvaston Place;g1 is kept by two faithful parishioners of Fr. Cheetham, so you will understand that it is highly respectable. It is a bed sitting room, and breakfast and supper will be served in my room (I could not stand a boarding house). I wish I had a bath to myself (I have to share with two others) but there is a ‘concealed’ basin with running water in the bedroom for washing. There is nothing sordid about it – the windows look out towards Queen’s Gate Gardens: it is much less depressing than the rooms at Emperor’s Gate. It is on the second floor, which is right.
ThusFabers, themourn TSE's post-war independence;h1 IMirrleeses, themourn prospect of TSE's departure;b3 cease to be dependent upon either the Fabers or the Mirrlees – though I must say that both households have expressed, I believe, genuine regret at the idea of my leaving them. I propose to detach myself from the latter gradually: for the present I shall continue to come for weekends, unless there is some domestic crisis such as they are always on the verge of, (in the way of servants); thentravels, trips and plansTSE's 1945 September fortnight in Lee;f7;a1 I take a fortnight at Lee near Ilfracombe, the second half of September, and after that I shall probably be altogether in town. Of course, if we really do take this flat, there is no telling how long the work of making it habitable may take.
I19 Carlyle Mansions, LondonTSE on settling down at;a3 confess to feeling a certain pang at the prospect of settling down in this way. It is not that I have any doubt that this is the best thing to do, or that John is not the right person to share with; nor is it, on the other hand, due to regret at change, or parting with the really excellent fleshpots and comforts of Shamley. It is because I have lived for so long an unsettled life (forCheetham, Revd Eric;g2 the arrangement as Cheetham’s lodger never seemed one that could last indefinitely) that the prospect of settling seems the prospect of the rest of my life – of a future nothing better than which can happen. It would be the same, even if John and I agreed in a few years to separate. One knew all this, with the reason, before, but the heart evades longer than the mind can. I am sure, my dear, that you will understand all that this means to me without my saying more.
IMurder in the Cathedral1945 Théâtre du Vieux Colombier production;g2;a5 have heard nothing about ‘Meurtre dans la Cathédrale’ since my return, and am still awaiting the newspaper cuttings which were promised me. Communication with Paris is still extremely slow. ButRead, Herbert;c7 Herbert Read is going to Paris for a week tomorrow, to open an exhibition, and may be able to give me some information on his return. I am naturally anxious to learn whether the Paris public is supporting the play, and anxious that it should not be a complete failure. It would hardly run longer than this month at best, as the Paris theatres are apt to close in August (and most likely now, when there are no summer visitors); but if it justified it, I have no doubt they would revive it in the autumn. PaulValéry, Paulis dying;a4 Valéry, I believe, is dying. Again the end of a chapter. A curious paragraph in the evening News the other night said of him ‘he was born in 1871, and has been called the French T. S. Eliot’!1 ItEliot, Revd Christopher Rhodes (TSE's uncle)memorialised;b3 is strange that my first apprisal of the death of Uncle Christopher was your letter of July 3d.2 I was very fond of him, and liked him better than any of my other uncles; a very good man, who had made the most of very modest abilities, and lived a useful life. A very modest man too – IEliot, Revd Frederick May (TSE's first cousin)compared to Uncle Christopher;b2 sometimes suspect that Frederick is a little pompous and big for his boots. ButEliot, Dr Martha May (TSE's cousin)TSE's favourite cousin;a7 Martha is really my favourite cousin.
But reference to Meurtre reminds me of my surprise that my letter and yours should both have sped so quickly. I was certainly unprepared for this, and it makes a gap of a fortnight in writing a more serious lapse. ICanadaCampobello, New Brunswick;a1;a1 am sorry about Campobello,3 and I hope you can find some other remote seaside place (and to get to Canada or the Maritime Provinces seems a better change than simply the New England mountains or Maine): for the same thought always recurs to me in all your summer holidays – that you have had so much to divide your life between caring for people much older than yourself, or teaching those much younger; and in both relations of course having to give more than you receive. At moments my regret over this becomes passionate: that you should have had so little of the companionship (and the larger circle of acquaintances) of your own generation, of both sexes.
IHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3constrained by war;g8 will destroy your letter when I have finished and sealed this one. I do think that you understand better the difficulties that I have had, in these last years, in finding just the right tone in which to write. To put it in this way might give a suggestion of artificiality: but as a matter of fact a simple spontaneity was not possible. That belongs either to an early stage at which one hardly looks ahead, or to a situation of a very different kind. To speak more of my own feelings towards yourself might have been to make a greater claim upon you than was right; yet to ignore them altogether gives the impression of making no claim at all – and that is a situation in which ‘friendship’ does not prosper: I put it in inverted commas because it has to be a very peculiar kind of friendship (for which the word is inadequate) to be anything. And in absence one is visited by fears that one does not understand, and has not understood, the other person as well as one thought one did. I do not want to be a bond and no more; only a bond so far as the bond is of value to you (I do not mean value that is calculable). The obstacle is on my side, and not on yours: and that makes a great difference. I want you at the same time to feel free and to feel quite certain of my love, and that it develops only as it would have done (though of course not so richly) as if we could have come together, many years ago. AsHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3again, EH's to do with as she pleases;h8 for the letters: you will hardly expect me to destroy them while I am here to possess them – only at the end. As for mine – on the one hand I shrink from the thought of anyone else reading them – who might make literary capital out of them – yet I want the world to know and remember something about you. IHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7all inadequate;f1 wish that there was any portrait, photograph or snapshot, that conveyed anything of what you have been and are like! I should not like any of my letters (the real ones) to be read within fifty years of our death: some perhaps never. Would that I could really cherish and comfort you.
1.Evening News (London), 13 July 1945, 1: ‘PAUL VALÉRY ILL: Paul Valéry, the French poet, philosopher and mathematician is critically ill, said Paris radio today. He was born in 1871 and has been called “the French T. S. Eliot”.’ Valéry was to die on 20 July 1945.
TSE told Wladimir Weidle, 30 July 1945, that he had felt distracted by ‘the strain of the occasion. I was aware at the time that Valery was a very sick man and I had been very much afraid of his collapsing in that very hot room during the course of my lecture.’ See TSE’s ‘Homage to Valéry’: CProse 6, 653–4
2.Christopher Rhodes Eliot (b. 1856), who served for many years as a Unitarian minister, died in Cambridge, Mass., on 20 June 1945.
3.Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada, is located in the Bay of Fundy, off the coast of Maine.
4.RevdCheetham, Revd Eric Eric Cheetham (1892–1957): vicar of St Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, London, 1929–56 – ‘a fine ecclesiastical showman’, as E. W. F. Tomlin dubbed him. TSE’s landlord and friend at presbytery-houses in S. Kensington, 1934–9. See Letters 7, 34–8.
1.DrEliot, Dr Martha May (TSE's cousin) Martha May Eliot (1891–1978), pediatrician: see Biographical Register.
2.RevdEliot, Revd Christopher Rhodes (TSE's uncle) Christopher Rhodes Eliot (1856–1945) andEliot, Abigail Adams (TSE's cousin) his daughter Abigail Adams Eliot (b. 1892). ‘After taking his A.B. at Washington University in 1856, [Christopher] taught for a year in the Academic Department. He later continued his studies at Washington University and at Harvard, and received two degrees in 1881, an A.M. from Washington University and an S.T.B. from the Harvard Divinity School. He was ordained in 1882, but thereafter associated himself with eastern pastorates, chiefly with the Bulfinch Place Church in Boston. His distinctions as churchman and teacher were officially recognized by Washington University in [its] granting him an honorary Doctorate of Laws in 1925’ (‘The Eliot Family and St Louis’: appendix prepared by the Department of English to TSE’s ‘American Literature and the American Language’ [Washington University Press, 1953].)
2.RevdEliot, Revd Frederick May (TSE's first cousin) Frederick May Eliot (1889–1958) – first cousin – Unitarian clergyman and author: see Biographical Register.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
8.JosephOldham, Joseph (‘Joe’) Houldsworth Oldham (1874–1969), missionary, adviser, organiser: see Biographical Register.
3.Herbert ReadRead, Herbert (1893–1968), English poet and literary critic: see Biographical Register.
4.Paul ValéryValéry, Paul (1871–1945), poet, essayist and literary theorist: see Biographical Register.