Thursday, January 2nd, officials at Princeton University Library disclosed a collection of 1,131 letters from T.S. Eliot to his companion Emily Hale. The letters have been sealed and untouched since 1956. It was in that year that Hale donated them to the Princeton University Library. She requested that the letters remain sealed until 50 years after her or Eliot’s death.
The letters contain details of Eliot’s personal life, opinions of the literary community, his career, and a final instruction to his estate. A surprising letter with a prophetic warning:
Jonathan is a degreed physicist and engineer by day, and amateur entertainer in the evenings. He enjoys studying and performing improvised comedy and writing sketch comedy. When he’s had enough of listening to people complain, you can find him underwater scuba diving where he can’t hear you. It’s like space. No one can hear you, but not because of a vacuum. No. It’s because you can’t talk. So it’s like space, but without the radiation and deadly aliens that burst out of your chest.