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It19 Carlyle Mansions, Londonjoined by JDH;b2 was very agreeable that your letter of March 6 should be the first addressed to me at 19, Carlyle Mansions. It helps to make me feel settled. It is now really becoming habitable; andHayward, Johninstalled at Carlyle Mansions;m4 John arrived on Thursday, so that I can now turn over the actual running of it to him – he would be able to attend to nearly everything if we only had a telephone. IMme Frenayas JDH and TSE's housekeeper;a3 was also relieved to have him come, because I was aware that the housekeeper (hereinafter known as Mme. F.) was in a state of tension waiting for him and no doubt wondering whether she would get on with him, and whether he would not turn out to need more attention than I had warned her of. Mr. Rainsley the builder has been invaluable, and has attended to numbers of small details, and has started laying the corridor carpet, which makes the place look much more inhabited. If Madame F. is strong enough for the work she should find it an ideal place, with a homelike atmosphere, and, in future, no doubt, French visitors. She is an excellent cook. And the work should not be too hard, with a charwoman two mornings a week: she comes in a third morning to wash the clothes, as laundries call only ever[y] three or four weeks nowadays. ISt. Stephen's Church, Gloucester RoadTSE reduced to Sundays at;b5 only go to St. Stephens at 11 o’clock on Sundays, as the buses do not run early enough to get me there by 8; soSt. Luke's, Sydney Streetlocal to Carlyle Mansions;a2 I go to the local St. Luke’s, which is not sympathetic, but I have always a strong feeling that one should have some connexion with the parish church; and I can easily get to St. Stephen’s for 8 o’clock mass on a weekday.
The weather has continued to be cold. DuringRichmonds, theTSE's Netherhampton weekends with;a7 this weekend I have attended first to furbishing up a paper to read to the joint meeting of the Salisbury Poetry Society and the Salisbury Religious Drama Society when I go to stay with the Richmonds on the 29th, preparingSt. Anne's Church House, Soholunch-hour Lenten talk for;a6 notes for a lunch hour Lenten talk on Words & Meanings at St. Anne’s Soho, andGwynne, M. Brookeimportunes another reading from TSE;b4 considering my poetry reading to M. Brooke-Gwynne’s Institute of Education tomorrow morning. ThisAlliance FrançaiseTSE British Federation council for;a1 week I attended a meeting of the Conseil d’Administration de la Fédération Britannique de l’Alliance Française, of which I am now a member: it is at least good practice, attending a committee meeting conducted in French (though most of the members can speak English more fluently than I speak French).
IHale, Emily Jose Milliken (EH's mother)her funeral;d2 was very glad to have your account of your mother’s funeral. IPerkins, Palfreyconducts EH's mother's funeral;a6 am glad that Palfrey Perkins took it, as I am sure that he would conduct such a ceremony with dignity and taste. I hope that the right people were present, and that the right friends showed the right attentions. IHinkleys, the;f1 doFurness, Laura;a6 hope that some relatives of mine were there, though I should now hardly count upon the Hinkleys, who become more and more remote to my mind. ButEliots, the Henry;b7 I should like Henry and Theresa to have been there, though they never knew your mother; and somebody like Laura Furness.
AndCoward, NoëlHay Fever;a7 itHale, Emilyas director ('producer');v9Hay Fever;b4 is probably good at the moment to have to plunge again into the play at once; and very good that it should have been such a success. (I have never seen it, but I have read it and thought it very amusing, though all CowardCoward, NoëlTSE's dislike for;a1 dates very quickly – in general I dislike everything the man stands for – I have never met him, but I think I know his type). And after that, I am glad that you are going [to] the country (is it that Unitarian Retreat House to which you have been before?) for the Easter holidays. May they be days of peace and recueuillement 1 for you, and a happy Easter. IThorp, Margaret (née Farrand)F&F publish book by;b8 don’t know what M. Farrand (Thorp) could be hinting about me: the only big thing I know is that we are to publish her big book on the American film – thisMayer, Jacob-Peter;a1, through the activity of one Peter Mayer, who has himself written a book on sociology of film for us.2 IPrinceton Universityinvites TSE to conference;b7 was invited to a conference of some kind at Princeton in the autumn; but iftravels, trips and plansTSE's 1946 summer in America;f9date for passage fixed;a1, as I hope[,] I can get a passage in May, I shall certainly not be present at Princeton in the autumn. I wish you could come and bless this flat by coming to tea at once.
1.recueuillement (Fr.): meditation.
2.J.-P. MayerMayer, Jacob-Peter, Sociology of Film: Studies and Documents (F&F, 1946). Jacob-Peter Mayer (1903–92) was the German-born Jewish editor of the Oeuvres Complètes of the sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville (Gallimard, 27 vols., 1951–83); author of Political Thought in France from the Revolution to the Fifth Republic (1943), Max Weber and German Politics (1944) and (ed.) Tocqueville, Journeys to England & Ireland (F&F, 1958). Born in Frankenthal, Mayer studied at Marburg, Freiburg, Hamburg and Berlin – his education included seminars with Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl – joined the German Social Democratic Party and became involved with the anti-Nazi movement before fleeing Germany with his wife and son in 1936. During WW2 he worked on German broadcasts for the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and he became a British citizen in 1950. His splendid work on Tocqueville earned him the Légion d’honneur. See further Michael Sonenscher, ‘Power, populism and plots: A German refugee-scholar’s papers and the politics of mass society’, TLS, 19 June 2020.
6.RebekahFurness, Rebekah ('Rebe') (‘Rebe’) Furness (1854–1937) andFurness, Laura Laura Furness (1857–1949) – born in Philadelphia, daughters of James Thwing Furness and Elizabeth Margaret Eliot (a descendant of Sheriff William Greenleaf, who had declaimed the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the State House in Boston in 1776) – had lived since 1920, with their brother Dawes Eliot Furness, in Boston’s Back Bay neighbourhood and in Petersham, New Hampshire. Rebekah, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, was an artist.
4.M. BrookeGwynne, M. Brooke Gwynne, University of London Institute of Education – ‘a Training College for Graduate students’ – invited TSE on 19 Jan. to participate in their Weds.-morning seminar: ‘Emily Hale suggested that you might possibly consent to come to the Institute to talk to our students; otherwise I should have not felt justified in asking you … The teaching of poetry is the subject most hotly discussed & the subject we should like you to choose if possible.’
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
2.J.-P. MayerMayer, Jacob-Peter, Sociology of Film: Studies and Documents (F&F, 1946). Jacob-Peter Mayer (1903–92) was the German-born Jewish editor of the Oeuvres Complètes of the sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville (Gallimard, 27 vols., 1951–83); author of Political Thought in France from the Revolution to the Fifth Republic (1943), Max Weber and German Politics (1944) and (ed.) Tocqueville, Journeys to England & Ireland (F&F, 1958). Born in Frankenthal, Mayer studied at Marburg, Freiburg, Hamburg and Berlin – his education included seminars with Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl – joined the German Social Democratic Party and became involved with the anti-Nazi movement before fleeing Germany with his wife and son in 1936. During WW2 he worked on German broadcasts for the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and he became a British citizen in 1950. His splendid work on Tocqueville earned him the Légion d’honneur. See further Michael Sonenscher, ‘Power, populism and plots: A German refugee-scholar’s papers and the politics of mass society’, TLS, 19 June 2020.
1.TSEMme Frenay to John Hayward, 8 Jan. 1946: ‘I have interviewed Madame Frenay today, and was very well impressed. Her ailment was a cancer of the side, she says, but after five months in hospital her doctor declares her cured and fit to work. She is middle-aged, portly, and pleasant in manner and appearance. I have asked Miss Melton to get on to P. Codrington who has the references, and get her either to take them up or let me have the names and addresses. She has been a nursery governess until her illness, before that kept house until her husband died. P.C. told Miss M. the references looked excellent. Has three sons, one of them a farmer in Devon. Lived in this country since the last war. Knows London well and has friends. She wants £3 a week, says she cant do on less, and I should think she would easily get it. Seemed intelligent and claims to be a good cook, also prepared to do sewing etc.’
18.PalfreyPerkins, Palfrey Perkins (1883–1976), who graduated from the Harvard Divinity School, was Unitarian Minister in Buffalo, New York, 1926–33; later of King’s Chapel, Boston, 1933–53.
16.MargaretThorp, Margaret (née Farrand) Farrand (1891–1970), author and journalist – see Margaret Thorp in Biographical Register.