Letter from T.S. Eliot, London, to E. McKnight Kauffer, 1940 March 29 : typescript signed.

Thanking him for his kind words about his poem [East Coker] and about a possible visit to the White House; saying "I did not wish to make you feel that you needed to write to me about the poem - which was why I had it sent to you in that impersonal way wrapt up in the N.E.W. (of which, however, I am a member of the Editorial Committee, and to which I contribute from time to time, sometimes anonymously in the editorial notes - as a rule, you can assume that any note attacking bishops or a bishop is from my Cornoa (I will repeat that : CORONA) (sorry, but being only an amateur typist I sometimes drop unwittingly into Portuguese). Anyway, I hope you will feel rewarded for the trouble by my assurance of the vast pleasure that your generous and affectionate letter has given me : what you say is too kind to give me any reassurance of the value of the poem - but gives me, what is perhaps more to be cherished, a feeling of intimacy with yourself. Now about the White House. Nothing would give me more anticipation of content than the prospect of another visit to Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt. But between now and the middle of June I am in a Jam. I have to (1) rewrite a paper for the Church Summer School of Sociology (2) write two lectures to be delivered about the place in Italy where I am to go about the middle of May. I have one weekend engagement in the interim which I may have to cancel; and I should rather like to get down to Cambridge, where I have not been since October, if I can. So It's unlikely. But I will let you know if I can; and if not, may I come down after the middle of June."