[No surviving envelope]
IEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother);l3 have just had your letter of January 12, and rather wish now that I had cabled: though it still seems to me that a cable might have kept you, and certainly Henry, in a state of uncertainty than no news at all, until the explanatory letter had come. I hope you will feel sure that in case of anything really serious I should cable, or have a cable sent: but this was merely a fiasco which would have sounded more serious than it was. I staid at home until Friday, going out for walks on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday afternoon went to my office for the first time. Only'Milton II'further revision;a7 on Friday did I begin to feel any return of intelligence, and started on the third draft of my Milton lecture, of which I have now done about half.1 I am taking a tonic called Metatone.2 The mental and emotional deadness after an illness is a worse burden than the illness itself. It was a very slight illness indeed: I think it is only that after these seven years, and with the limited kind of diet that one gets (partly simply its dullness!)[,] no one in England rebounds from an illness as quickly as we used to.
I do not feel that you have failed me in any way! ITucker, J. Josephine;a3 was amused by your comment on my letter to Sophie Tucker the champion torch singer.3 IConcord Academy, MassachusettsTSE's Commencement Address to;a4 simply meant to say that if she wished to make the engagement, on the understanding first that I might have to come and go before the ceremony takes place, and second that if Henry should be in extremis when I did arrive, I should want to cancel all engagements – then I was willing too. Now it is up to her to write and say that she accepts on these conditions. I presume that it is like the other school prize days that I have done (inMilton Academy, BostonTSE's Commencement Address for;a2 America only at Milton in 1933, and in England mostly at Methodist schools): one hands the prizes (books) to the winners as they step up, smile[s] at them, shakes a moist embarrassed palm, and after all the prizes are given out makes a speech of about thirty five minutes. I don’t like making a general homily about life: I prefer to talk to them about the relevance to their lives of something about – such as poetry for instance. ButEuropeits post-war condition;a9 I shall be glad of any suggestions from you. I don’t suppose they want me to talk about air raid [sic], or starvation of Europe, or the fate of Mikolaijcsch [sc. Mikolajczyk],4 or such other matters as weigh on my mind most.
I am very disappointed that there will be no play of yours for me to see. I had hoped that these Trojan Women might be done.
As you suggest, it has occurred to me that Henry may hang on for a long time yet. And a visit to America every year will involve my arranging all the rest of my year to fit in with it. Under ordinary conditions, it would not upset my life so much: but we must face the fact that so long as present conditions continue (and I fear that there is no reason to expect them to improve) a visit to America every year means a good four months lost to my normal work. I shall try to start a play after I return this summer, but whether I can finish it before I have to begin thinking about lectures to pay for my next visit, I don’t know. The line between accepting what one ought to reject, and fighting against what one ought to resign oneself to, is always a very narrow path indeed!
IfStephenson, Paul;a1 you give up Manan, inHale, Emilyas actor;v8with Paul Stephenson;d3 order to work with Paul Stephenson,5 it is a question of what sort of life you are going to lead during the following winter. I incline to Dorset for you: but that depends on how hard your life will be afterwards, and whether, if you have no regular job, you will find yourself forced to devote yourself to your aunt and uncle – and that is probably about the most tiring life you could have.
1.TSE’s lecture on Milton was to be delivered at the British Academy, as the Annual Lecture on a Master Mind, 26 Mar. 1947; broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on the same evening. TSE repeated the lecture at the Frick Gallery, New York, 3 May 1947. Published as Milton (1947); collected in On Poetry and Poets: CProse 7, 21–43.
2.Metatone Tonic is a liquid supplement containing vitamin B1 and four essential minerals.
3.TSE actually refers to J. Josephine Tucker, Head of Concord Academy. A ‘torch song’ is a sentimental love song, a sub-genre about lost or unrequited love, though these were not in fact a speciality of the singer Sophie Tucker.
4.In a supposedly ‘free and unfettered’ Polish parliamentary election held on 19 Jan. 1947, the Polish People’s Party, led by Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, was beaten by the Blok Demokratyczny (Democratic Party), backed by the Soviet Union and various agents of falsification, intimidation and violence. According to the official account, the PPP gained only 28 seats in the 444-strong legislature the Sejm, so that a Communist-controlled puppet regime was formally established in Poland. Mikolajczyk expeditiously left the country, in fear for his safety.
5.PaulStephenson, Paul Stephenson (1898–1974), theatre director – he worked for various theatres, with seasons at the Central City Opera House, Colorado (where he directed Lillian Gish in Camille), and at the Brattleboro Theater Group, Vermont – was first engaged for the summer season at the Dorset Players, Vermont in 1939–40, After war service in the Marine Corps, he returned to the Dorset Players for the summers of 1946 and 1947. But box office takings during 1947 were so poor that the final shows were cancelled: Stephenson was not asked back for the summer of 1948.
TSE means by his remarks that EH might choose to give up her vacation time – the opportunity to enjoy a complete rest at Grand Manan – in order to act with the Dorset Players under Stephenson’s direction.
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
5.PaulStephenson, Paul Stephenson (1898–1974), theatre director – he worked for various theatres, with seasons at the Central City Opera House, Colorado (where he directed Lillian Gish in Camille), and at the Brattleboro Theater Group, Vermont – was first engaged for the summer season at the Dorset Players, Vermont in 1939–40, After war service in the Marine Corps, he returned to the Dorset Players for the summers of 1946 and 1947. But box office takings during 1947 were so poor that the final shows were cancelled: Stephenson was not asked back for the summer of 1948.
3.TSETucker, J. Josephine mischievously implies that EH’s boss, J. Josephine Tucker, Head of Concord Academy, 1940–9, might be the Ukrainian-born American singer, comedian and actor Sophie Tucker (1886–1966), ‘Last of the Red-Hot Mamas’. Josephine Tucker invited TSE to give the Commencement address at Concord Academy in 1946.