[No surviving envelope]
I have received your letter of October 13, which I appreciate! I have kept a copy of my last letter to you – the first time that I have ever done this – and I notice one phrase in it which is not happily put. The phrase ‘can lead to your riding rough-shod over other people’s convictions and sensibilities’ might give the impression that I thought I had previous ground for complaint. I do not want to suggest that there has been any occasion in the past on which I could have made this complaint: I do not want at all to suggest, my dear, that I have had (real or imaginary) grievances which I have stored up, and which have come to a head now! Not at all. I might better have written: ‘can lead to a kind of contumaciousness’!
Mindful of your comments on my shabbiness, I have been making efforts to get a Hat and some shirts. I have found a shirt-maker who will make me three shirts (not more): they ought to be ready in two or three months, certainly well before next summer. As for a hat, that is more difficult. My hat-shop tells me that the only thing is for me to ring up every Monday morning, and sooner or later they will be able to tell me that they have got in some black hombourg [sc. homburg] hats, and I had better come round at once. I am intending also to get a new suit: and as that will probably take several months also, it will have to be a new suit. I don’t think I can venture on a new overcoat as well, the only trouble with my old ones is that the buttonholes are so worn that they don’t always keep buttoned. You will see that there are difficulties in the way of being really smartly dressed. IAmericaits horrors;c2the cut of American shirts;b6 do not like the cut of American shirts, either, thoughEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother);k3 Henry is going to send me a few when he can get them.
YouBooks Across the Sea;c2 will also be pleased to hear that ‘Books Across the Sea’ have at last agreed to look for a new President, and I hope that one will be inducted at a meeting in November. I was so pleased by this that I agreed to judge a competition of ‘scrap-books’ from American schools, andBritish Council;b2 spent a couple of hours with a strangely assorted jury, including a young lady from the British Council and the President of the National Union of Teachers, a burly man from the North, and we did a thorough job. We managed to distribute the three prizes as widely as Connecticut, New Jersey and Seattle; I was only sorry not to give a prize (but only honourable mention) to a little mountain school in Kentucky, in which the pupils ranged from 9 to 19.
ItSociety of the Friends of Little GiddingTSE becomes Vice-President of;a1 is true that I have had to become a vice-president of the Friends of Little Gidding1 – a society formed to see that the chapel there is kept up properly: but that does not involve doing any work, and the meetings are always in Cambridge, apparently. IBritish League for European FreedomTSE becomes member of;a1 have also become a member of the British League for European Freedom – that’s a result of Poland: but there again, it merely involves receipt of still more circular literature. AndNotes Towards the Definition of CultureTSE writing;a5 meanwhile I am now on the last chapter of my book, andJohnson, Dr SamuelTSE's projected Lives of the Poets book;a7 hope soon to get on to the Johnson book – and go back to literary criticism for a few months. IPrinceton UniversityJohnson lectures revamped for;b8 haveThorp, Willard;c1 written to Willard to ask whether two lectures on Johnson (extracted from the book) would be acceptable to Princeton. The question is, how many lectures altogether: I don’t want to do any more than are necessary, but I want to be able to leave some more money behind with Henry. And I want to keep June clear.
TheKinchin Smith, F.offers book for publication;a5 difficulty about Kinchin Smith and his Trojan Women is that he is [sc. has] now offered it for publication, and my board don’t want it – we have too many books as it is.2 So how he will receive a polite refusal, combined with a repeated request to send a copy to you for consideration for production, remains to be discovered. I ought to know within a week or so, however.
I await your next letter with the greatest curiosity.
1.TSE to A. L. Maycock – Cambridge author and librarian; author of Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding (1938) – 14 Oct. 1946: ‘I do not see how I can decline to accept the honour of becoming a Vice-President of the Friends of Little Gidding, and I therefore enclose my cheque for £5 for a life membership.’ The Society of the Friends of Little Gidding was formally inaugurated at a meeting at St John’s College, Cambridge, on 31 July 1946.
2.TSEHale, EmilyTSE seeks Trojan Women translation for;r2n had written to F. Kinchin-Smith on 28 Sept. 1946: ‘Thank you for your letter of the 27th with which you send the translation of The Trojan Woman …
‘It is curious that I was just on the point of writing to you. I was in America during June and July, and during my visit I saw a friend who directs the dramatic work of a small, but very reputable girls’ school. She has previously done dramatic direction at Smith College and elsewhere. I told her of your production, and suggested that the play, because it had few male characters, and those only in minor roles, might be suitable for her purposes. She expressed great interest, and would like to consider staging your version with her girls for their spring play. I am sure that the school would be prepared to pay the usual copyright fee for a performance under such conditions. Would it be possible for you to let her see a text with this view? I should be personally most grateful if you could. The address is: Miss Emily Hale, Concord Academy, Concord, Massachusetts.’
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
2.F. KinchinKinchin Smith, F. Smith (1895–1958), classicist, taught from 1934 in the Institute of Education, University of London; from 1936, he was Hon. Secretary of the Joint Committee of the Classical and English Associations. Best known for his Teach Yourself volumes on Greek and Latin, he also produced versions of The Trojan Women of Euripides (a work that was to be offered to F&F later in 1946 – and turned down) and the Antigone of Sophocles.
1.Margaret Thorp, née Farrand (1891–1970), contemporary and close friend of EH; noted author and biographer. WillardThorp, Willard Thorp (1899–1990) was a Professor of English at Princeton University. See Biographical Register. See further Lyndall Gordon, Hyacinth Girl, 126–8, 158–9.