By Phil Hanrahan
Lawrence Today, Summer 1990
It must have been hard writing to the most famous poet in modern literature. Fifteen years earlier, back when they were young and in love, back when the poet was known as Tom, a bright, well-mannered Harvard boy, it would have been so much easier. Now it was different. Now Tom was T. S. Eliot, acclaimed author of "The Waste Land," influential critic and reviewer, the most talked-about poet in London.
The time is 1927, late April. Emily Hale, a teacher on leave from Milwaukee-Downer College, ponders the voice she will use in her first letter to Eliot in years. Gazing out the window of her hotel, she takes in the beauty of Florence and then begins to write. Her tone is careful, restrained. She tells Eliot about her trip; she wonders, at the letter's end, how he is doing.
The letter arrives on a warm spring morning in May. That afternoon, Eliot takes a walk through London with William Stead, a close friend and fellow American. Admiring the glow of sunshine on new leaves, Stead says it is the kind of day to be in love. Eliot agrees and then mentions the letter, says it was written by a woman he knew long ago as a young man in Boston. Stead is silent, wanting Eliot to continue. This letter, Eliot says, brought back vivid memories, made him feel things he hasn't felt in quite some time. He does not mention the woman's name.
Emily Hale came to Milwaukee in the fall of 1921. Hired to teach vocal expression at Milwaukee-Downer College, she also taught drama, directed plays, and presided over Johnston Hall, a beautiful red-brick dormitory built along Downer Avenue. At the time of her arrival, it already had been six years since she had last seen Eliot, a man she met in 1908 during Eliot's third year at Harvard.
From 1908 until 1914, Hale and Eliot grew close, so close that she -- as well as members of both families -- expected they would marry. In 1914, though, Eliot decided not to return from a trip to Europe, and their union withered. A year later, following Eliot's impulsive marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a long period of silence set in. Not until 1927, in the letter from Florence, did Hale try to revive communication.
It worked. Eliot, whose catastrophic marriage to Vivienne had all but dissolved, was receptive to this voice from the past, this lady of memory who represented Boston tradition, family, a time before marital trauma. Eliot wrote back, and their relationship was built anew. It took shape through correspondence; it grew solid through visits, Hale traveling to England for summer holidays, Eliot, less often, sailing to America.
And all the while they managed to keep it secret. Their vigilance must have been constant. Eliot, who during the 1930s and '40s had become England's most public poet and conservative intellectual, used these same years to forge an intensely private relationship with Emily Hale. Though by now separated from his wife, he had refused to file for divorce: That was one reason for secrecy. Just as important, though, was Eliot's own troubled psychology. Feelings of love and intimacy met in Eliot's mind with feelings of shame and guilt, a distrust of pleasure, and an obsession with interior, unspeakable states of mind.
Hale, who had a similar but less extreme concern with discretion, was able to love Eliot in spite of his demand for silence, though in her later years she expressed resentment about her role as a mystery woman, a woman who, arguably the most important person in Eliot's life, was yet the least known, the least recognized.
Her story finally is emerging. Lyndall Gordon's biography of T. S. Eliot (Eliot's New Life, Farrar/Straus/Giroux, 1988) provides compelling evidence of Hale's importance to Eliot, her central influence on both his life and art. Newly discovered letters, unpublished memoirs, and revealing testimony from friends of both Hale and Eliot are used to build Gordon's airtight case. And she is adept at using her knowledge of his secret relationship to interpret Eliot's creative work, his essays, poetry, and plays. Although Eliot refused to speak about Hale in public, he did speak about her in his art. This speech, of course, was subtle, obscure, crafted to elude, and yet, once Eliot¹s private code is cracked, strangely honest in its treatment of his feelings for Hale.
There is more to be learned about Emily Hale. Although her relationship with T. S. Eliot has been uncovered, she still is hardly known, yet to come out from the shadow of the great poet. . . .
Emily Hale at Milwaukee-Downer
In the summer of 1921, following a successful three-year stint as a dormitory head and an official drama coach at Simmons College in Boston, Hale survived an administrative wrangle over her lack of formal qualifications and was hired by Milwaukee-Downer College for $1,000 and a room in Johnston Hall. . . .
She led a kind of amphibious teaching life at Downer College, using knowledge gained through summer courses and years of private reading to lecture on developments in modern literature and then calling upon her society background to teach classes on poise, posture, and correct speech. Although she had eschewed the life of a Boston lady, Hale clearly retained a fondness for elegance, for social grace. Her students remember a woman dignified and poised who spoke with a distinct Eastern accent, but they insist she was never haughty or cool, in contrast to Virginia Woolf's superficial assessment of Hale in 1935. Woolf, who met Hale during a tea with Eliot, dismissed her as a prim Boston snob. . . .
Her approachability, her willingness to make friends with students was mentioned again and again during interviews (several former students felt quite close to Hale and kept in touch with her after she left Downer). Her elite background did not prevent Hale from establishing ties with "city students," those Milwaukee natives who commuted to school each day via streetcar or foot and whose backgrounds often were less privileged than those of the dorm residents (and Hale's). . . .
Her life on campus was a full one. Hale helped organize talks given by a number of cultural celebrities in the 1920s: Edna St. Vincent Millay in '24, Helen Keller in '25, the son of Leo Tolstoy in 1927. She was there on the night of March 22, 1924, when Robert Frost began a poetry reading by asking for help with his cuff links, and she watched with amusement as Evangeline (Van) Fisher Conway, M-D '27, got up and bravely approached the podium. When not busy teaching or directing, Hale invited students to her rooms for tea and talk and was fond of throwing parties for The Montebanks [drama club].
Hale as Eliot's muse
[In 1927], Eliot sent Hale a gift she would always treasure, an essay he wrote about the personal sources of poetry; poetry's roots in emotions like nostalgia and the regret for lost happiness. In this essay, Eliot alluded to Dante, whose tremendous love for Beatrice was the inspiration for the poetry of the Via Nuova (New Life). Hale, of course, would have found special meaning in Eliot's words -- she understood. Did Eliot perceive Hale as a kind of Beatrice? It would seem so. In Eliot's work during and after 1927, one finds traces of a mysterious woman whose elegant vitality can inspire, whose purity can guide the poet's art.
Hale's role, then, as Eliot's muse, returned her to his life but ultimately worked to limit the growth of their relationship. However energized he was by Hale's intimate presence, art and the demands of Eliot's austere Christianity would in the end dominate his affection for her.
In 1947, following years of summer reunions and faithful correspondence, Hale learned from Eliot that his wife, Vivienne, had died. Well aware of his emotional squeamishness, already having witnessed his tendency to abruptly withdraw, Hale nevertheless expected she and Eliot would marry. . . . Eliot, however, was not as willing and after a series of painful confrontations during a visit to America in 1947, he let Hale know that marriage between them would not happen.
Ten years later, she received a second shock: Eliot, at age 68, had remarried, this time to Valerie Fletcher, his secretary and a woman almost 40 years younger. Devastated by the news, Hale, who had continued to teach at a variety of colleges and high schools since leaving Downer, retired from her post at Abbot Academy, bequeathed her Eliot letters to Princeton, and also sent many of the first editions and typescripts Eliot had sent her over the years.
After suffering what seems to have been a nervous collapse, she recovered to spend her last 12 years maintaining a vigorous life, traveling, revisiting places of memory, acting, and working to assemble a public record of her relationship with Eliot. Fully aware of her importance in Eliot's life and wanting to end this strange mystery, Hale produced what she called her "spoken memoirs," a tape recording of her impressions of T. S. Eliot.
Unfortunately, this recording has not survived: After considering Eliot's unrelenting demand for secrecy, Hale decided to have it destroyed. Just as saddening, though, was Eliot's handling of Hale's letters to him, a precious record of 30 years' intimate communication. There is reason to believe, says [his biographer], that Eliot had these letters burned in 1963, two years before his death.
Emily Hale died in 1969 in Concord, Massachusetts. Although Eliot tried hard to expunge all evidence of his relationship with Hale, there is one crucial record that has survived -- his letters to her, over a thousand of them, by far the largest single collection of his correspondence. Free to do with these letters what she wanted, Hale decided to negotiate with Eliot: The letters will remain locked in a Princeton University vault until the year 2019.
Editor's Note: A 1998 novel, The Archivist, by Martha Cooley, while not actually about the Eliot/Hale relationship, takes the fact of Eliot's letters being sealed for 50 years at Princeton as its starting point.
