[No surviving envelope]
Your letter of the 27th arrived yesterday: I should not wish to answer such a letter immediately on receipt, and I had to be out in the evening. SoAmericaPetersham, Massachusetts;g5EH spends birthday in;a3 I am answering it to-day. I am truly sorry that my birthday telegram1 seemed inadequate, that it arrived too soon, and most of all that I should have forgotten when sending it that you were to be at Petersham. Please forgive me for these lapses. But I trust that you would not have been able to write quite as you did, had you received my letter of the 25th.2 I hope at least that that will make some difference. IHale, Emilyreligious beliefs and practices;x1the issue of communion;a8 was very distressed by your letter: butHale, EmilyTSE's love for;x2argument over communion challenges;e9 at the same time I still feel that you are looking at the matter in a much more dramatic light than there is any need for, an interpretation to which your use of the third person singular bears further evidence. Anyone would think, my dear, from your letter, that I was being quite faithless to my past words, that I was perjured, and that I was merely seeking a pretext for breaking with you completely. I am still astonished by your treatment of the situation. I am as devoted to you as ever I was, and I feel as inseparable as ever. But do try to remember the original cause of this disagreement. I made a perfectly reasonable request of you. After I had received what seemed to me an unsatisfactory answer, I wrote rather brusquely to ask for an answer. Had you said, in reply to my first or second time of raising the issue, that you were taking time to think about it, I should have shown patience. Your answer, when it did come, was simply to tick me off for venturing to cross you. I then attempted to put it strongly to you, that you would have to accede to my very temperate request unless our relations were to be impaired, and that brought this storm upon me. ByChristianitysacraments;d3Holy Communion;a1 implication, you treat my attitude about the Blessed Sacrament as unreasonable, and dismiss it as unworthy of argument even. But I am afraid, my dear, that the request I made is one which I must go on asking, and that relations between us cannot be perfect until you comply with it. Do you think I like this situation? DoHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9if TSE were not married;c3 you not see that there is a flaw in our relationship, so long as I have to reflect, thatHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9TSE conditionally promises marriage;d6 if I were ever freed, by a death, and was able to marry, I should have to come to you with this same request again, because I should not feel that I would wish to marry anyone who could not agree to it?
There was no need for you to express regret for losing your temper, my dear: I don’t mind your losing your temper in the least. Perhaps I shall lose my own temper, and then we shall know more about each other than we did before. I said your letter distressed me; and much else in the letter would move me very much too, if your assurances of love did not come with an implication of reproach which I do not think that I deserve.
Please go back to the beginning of this correspondence, and see whether you still think my simple request so unreasonable that it could only be dismissed as you dismissed it.
IFamily Reunion, The1946 Mercury revival;i2opening night;a2 am rather tired, this weekend, asMercury Theatre, Londonand 1946 Family Reunion revival;c8 I had to fight a cold all the week (in spite of all my inoculations) in order not to disappoint Martin and the players by being absent from the first night of the Family Reunion. (ItWheatley, Alanas Harry in Family Reunion;a1 was aWatson, HenriettaAmy in Family Reunion revival;a1 brilliant production: theLacey, Catherineagain Agatha in 1946 revival;a2 three leads, Alan Wheatley, Henrietta Watson (who is 73) and Catherine Lacey (who was Agatha in the original production also) were as good as could be asked; and the only weaknesses in the play are those only too obvious ones which are due to the lack of skill of the playwright). AndBlunden, EdmundTSE careful to honour;a3 then I had to go out last night too, to a small dinner in honour of Edmund Blunden’s 50th birthday: one must show particular courtesy to minor poets.3 AndIovetz-Tereshchenko, N. M.in hospital;a8 tomorrow I must take myself out to Wandsworth to see Tereshchenko. AndEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)has pneumonia;k6 I am very worried about Henry, who has pneumonia.
1.Cable not found.
2.Letter of 25 Oct. not found; the letter that seems to fit the sense is that of 19 Oct.
3.TSE to Frank Morley, All Souls’ Day 1946: ‘Went last night to dinner to Blunden on his 50th birthday: Walter, Philip Tomlinson, Stanley Morison, Plomer, Day Lewis, HartDavis. Complimentary poems by Sassoon, Plomer and Day Lewis. The port was good.’
3.EdmundBlunden, Edmund Blunden (1896–1974), poet and critic, who won the Military Cross for valour in Flanders in 1916 – see his Undertones of War (1928; ed. John Greening: Oxford, 2015) – was Professor of English at the Imperial University, Tokyo, 1924–7; and in 1930–1 literary editor of The Nation. He was Fellow and Tutor in English at Merton College, Oxford, 1931–44; and for a year after WW2 he was assistant editor of the TLS. In 1947 he returned to Japan with the UK Liaison Mission; and he was Professor of English, Hong Kong, from 1953 until retirement. Made CBE in 1964, he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1956. In 1966 he was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry (his rival was Robert Lowell), but stood down before the completion of his tenure. See Barry Webb, Edmund Blunden: A Biography (1990).
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
2.N. M. Iovetz-TereshchenkoIovetz-Tereshchenko, N. M. (1895–1954), B.Litt. (Oxon), PhD (London): Russian exile; Orthodox Catholic Christian; university lecturer in psychology: see Biographical Register.
2.CatherineLacey, Catherine Lacey (1904–79): British actor who was Agatha in The Family Reunion at the Westminster Theatre in 1939 and again at the Mercury Theatre in 1946.
1.HenriettaWatson, Henrietta Watson (1873–1964), Scottish stage and screen actor.