A 1952 thank-you note from then recently widowed Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother is a moving description of how grief “bangs one about until one is senseless,” and the comfort that the gift of a book can provide. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “How Grief Bangs One About”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
King George VI of England died in February 1952, 15 years after his brother’s abdication, and 27-year-old Queen Elizabeth took the throne.
Shortly afterward, the widowed queen mother received a gift from the noted poet Edith Sitwell. It was a book edited by Sitwell, which included soothing poetry, as well as some writing by gardeners and philosophers and cooks and other people.
And in response to this, the Queen Mother sent a lovely thank you note that I wanted to share.
Dear Miss Sitwell, it was so very kind of you to send me a copy of your lovely book. It is giving me the greatest pleasure. And I took it out with me, and I started to read it, sitting by the river. And it was a day when one felt engulfed by great black clouds of unhappiness and misery.
And I found a sort of peace stealing round my heart as I read such lovely poems and heavenly words. I found a hope in George Herbert’s poem which she goes on to quote, who could have thought my shriveled heart could have recovered greenness? It was gone quite underground.
And then she continues, and I thought how small and selfish is sorrow, but it bangs one about until one is senseless. And I can never thank you enough for giving me such a delicious book wherein I found so much beauty and hope, quite suddenly, one day by the river.
I’m deeply touched by your thought of me. I love being given books, and I send you my warmest thanks. I’m yours very sincerely, Elizabeth R.
And Grant, there are so many things that strike me about this letter. I mean, first of all, in the context of a death in the royal family in England just recently, and the fact that all of us grieve and grieve in our own ways, and how the gift of a book of comforting poetry could make such a difference, even for somebody so exalted as the Queen Mother.
To sit by the river and read poetry.
Yeah. Sounds like a cure-all for a lot of things, doesn’t it?
Yeah. It’s not going to fix your bank account. It might not fix your body, but it might help with your mind. No matter what your station in life, I really appreciated her description of sorrow and how it bangs one about until one is senseless.
And I loved the George Herbert’s metaphor of the heart is a bit of plant life that had gone underground during the winter, but had come out again in the spring and turned green.
Yes, recovered greenness.
So anyway, I just thought that was a super cool letter. We are always on the lookout for your favorite passages. What’s a bit of writing that you turn to again and again to mull over, to reread, or to contemplate?
Share it with us, 877-929-9673. Email us, words@waywordradio.org, or tell us on Twitter @wayword.
