Exactly. People often just want to hold onto data and studies that say what they want to hear, but the time period, variants, etc should ALWAYS be considered relevant. I agree it should be clearly marked. Newspapers should also point out if a quoted/reported study is about a past variant.

I’m editing this as I’ve now read all the letters. In 1956, Eliot agreed with Emily Hale’s decision to hand over the letters to Princeton with the stipulation that they not be read by anyone for 50 years. Emily agreed until she made a formal visit to Princeton where she was talked into agreeing that the letters should be read by current scholars. Eliot wrote her back feeling betrayed and very understandably upset at the thought of anyone reading the letters while he and people mentioned were still living. He points out in his letter to Emily that fifty years is the typical modus operandi. Emily writes back saying no one had yet read his letters (I doubt her honesty as Eliot received a letter from the Librarian at Princeton about how they were cataloguing the letters and the “richness” of the material), and she says she will tell Princeton they must do the fifty years.

I assumed all along that I’d side with Emily, but in the end, I would feel betrayed and upset like Eliot. He and Emily became quite stilted and terse in the next couple of letters.

Six weeks after having been faced with Emily’s initial (She later agreed again to 50 years) choice to go against their agreement on the time of the letters, Eliot was suddenly married to his secretary Valerie.

I read his statement, and my take was a bit different from yours but more in line with your second option. When he mentions early in the statement that he could never write an autobiography and explains why - that along with his love for Valerie and his request that his letters to Emily Hale be destroyed, makes me believe that he did love Emily Hale.

I think perhaps at some point he realized that Emily Hale would be detrimental to his being a poet. I can understand this. I’m with a very grounded science fellow who has no interest in poetry. The difference is he cares about me so much that he cares about what inspires me. If Emily did not respect the soul of a poet within Eliot, I can see where marriage to her would mean the death of the poet within him.

Meanwhile, if he didn’t marry Emily, her very presence in a off-limits way would allow him to love her from a distance and allow that love to serve as a muse. Also, he clearly loved Valerie and did not want her to feel that his love for her was diminished or less.

I question if he would have requested his letters to Emily be destroyed if he had felt completely confident in the letters not being made public for fifty years after his death. I wonder if perhaps Emily went against his wishes in sending the letters to Princeton while they both yet lived and that was the final thing that made him decide she did not value him as he had her. His statement, I think, wouldn’t mention Emily valuing her uncle’s opinion more and perhaps caring more about his reputation than for him IF he wasn’t nursing some wounded feelings over the letters being given to Princeton early.

This is of course just my own thinking about the circumstances. I might be completely in error.