VARIETY
MR. ELIOT ' S EVENING
SERVICE
How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
With his features of clerical cut,
And his brow so grim
And his mouth so prim
And his conversation, so nicely
Restricted to What Precisely
And
If
and Perhaps and But.
(from: "Lines for Cuscuscaraway
and Mirza Murad Ali Beg")
The masters of the subtle schools
Are controversial, polymath.
(from: "Mr. Eliot's Sunday
Morning Service")
The meeting convened at the
Parish House of St. Thomas's
Church in Washington, D.C. Mr.
Eliot spoke under the auspices of
the Episcopal Fellowship. This was
to have been a private gathering,
an informal exchange of views be–
tween the illustrious visitor-expa–
triate and the few dozen regular
members of the Fellowship; but,
alas, the news of the meeting had
slipped into the entertainment col–
umns of the
Washington Post-a
few lines about "T. S. Eliot whose
play 'Murder in the Cathedral' has
made him a noted dramatist will
speak, etc." sandwiched between
the cliche announcements of local
motion picture attractions-and
instead of the expected small group
of twenty or thirty parishioners,
131
some 150 to 200 outsiders, school
teachers, students, civil servants,
and members of the diplomatic
staff had made the pilgrimage to
the Parish House and filled the
bare, somber meeting hall until it
overflowed and the late-comers
were crowding and pushing around
the narrow entrance door.
This was a bad setting for the
purpose of the meeting. Mr. Eliot
was hesitant. The extemporaneously
spoken word in public must be a
great effort in any case. The over–
flow audience of strangers seemed
to make it even more difficult.
Free speech came haltingly as if
constantly preyed upon by nu–
merous censors, as
if
each word
were released only by accident and
never attained the full blessing of
the aim achieved. Mr. Eliot wel–
comed the opportunity of being an
emissary for the Community of
Episcopal Churches throughout
the ·English-speaking world; but,
alas, he was hesitant and unpre–
pared "for this specific situation
... or any situation in general."
His was a strange performance;
and the setting of the Parish House
as well as the incongruity of the
composition of the audience made
it even stranger. There was a deli–
cate, almost embarrassing element
in it for those who came to hear
the "noted" poet T. S. Eliot. What
they did hear was the recital of a
rather private record, almost in
the nature of a diary, of Mr. Eliot's
credentials as a guest-speaker be-
