Perhaps encouraged by his greater intimacy with Hale, Eliot reminisces about his family and upbringing in the letters of early On 6 January, he writes that his grandfather William Greenleaf Eliot may have been less a Saint than a Personality, whose accomplishments were built on sand; he thinks the Unitarian service is only effective if led by a Saint.
About his parents, Eliot says they always seemed distant to him: kind and indulgent, but also neglectful. He did not entrust them with confidences, and he believed they cared more about Henry than about him.
After marrying, he decided not to ask them for help though in earlier letters he explained that his father continued paying his rent after he married, and this was why he could not separate from Vivien ; his father probably thought he had got what he deserved.
Eliot was not intimate with his mother, he says, but his literary reputation consoled her for her own lack of acclaim as a writer. When she was older, he writes on 19 February, he felt that he had to keep up a pretense of being happy and successful. He devotes the most attention to his sister Ada, whom Hale occasionally sees in Cambridge; Ada is his favorite family member, he tells Hale, and the affection is mutual.
She is shy and reserved, but not cold; indeed, he himself is extremely reserved with other people apart from Hale 19 January. Ada never received the approbation she deserved from their parents, fighting for a college education and professional training she became a social worker ; Eliot hints that the two of them share a bond from feeling unappreciated by their parents.
