Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922
Page 9
Je me propose un plan régulier de culture philosophique et littéraire. Excusez mon ambition, mais je hais les amateurs. On en fourmille, car le public aime le clinquant; mais est-il étalage plus odieux que celui d’objets sacrés? Ne dédaignons pas la méthode. Je vous vois avec plaisir appliqué à des études sérieuses; votre goût délicat et votre clairvoyance y auront plus bel emploi qu’à des futilités. Je vous souhaite pour cetre année une ardeur souvent renouvelée – ardeur, flamme – mais c’est au coeur qu’en est la source et voici où nos voeux doivent être prudents. ‘Amène sur moi les biens, ô Dieu, que je te les demande ou non, et écarte les maux quand même je te les demanderai.’
Au revoir, mon cher ami, et bien à vous.
J. Verdenal.
PS J’ai revu le bon Prichard qui m’a dit force opinions ridicules sur maintes oeuvres d’art, et répété des théories dont il ne sort guère. Il n’a pas, je crois, assez d’études philosophiques et scientifiques pour échapper aux charlatans.1
1–Translation: My dear friend, I am coming to the end of this boring examination, and my head is rather like a department store stocked with anything and everything to hoodwink the public. A month from now, I hope I shall have passed and can dispense with the burdensome display. The medical profession, like any other, is only interested in knowledge it can make use of. No good looking to it for anything other than the practical. It is to be my profession. At times, I feel exasperated at being obliged to submit to it; a sort of intellectual pride causes us to underrate the value of having a profession. Also, there is the fear of having wasted time needed for more serious problems. But let us take a different view: I shall endeavour to make it into a conscientious, meticulous occupation and the discipline necessary to prevent me wasting nervous energy in other directions. I hope, however, that my thought will continue to develop freely and that my heart will respond to the calls of life …
I propose to give myself an organised scheme of literary and philosophical study. Forgive my ambition, but I detest amateurs. There is no lack of them, since the public is fond of the flashy; but what more disgusting display could there be than that of sacred objects. Let us not despise methodicalness. I see with pleasure that you are engaged in serious study; your delicate taste and perspicacity will be put to better use than in dealing with futile matters. I wish you, for the coming year, an oft-renewed ardour – ardour, flame – but its source is in the heart, and here it is that our wishes must be prudent. ‘Bring good upon me, O Lord, whether I ask for it or not, and remove evil from me, even though I ask for it.’
Goodbye, my dear friend, and all best wishes. J. Verdenal.
PS I have seen the worthy Prichard again; he delivered himself of a mass of ridiculous opinions about a host of works of art, and repeated theories from which he more or less refuses to budge. He hasn’t, I think, a sufficient grounding in philosophy and science to avoid being taken in by charlatans.
1913–1914
TO Eleanor Hinkley
PC1 Houghton
[Postmark 29 June 1913]
Portland, Maine
This is sure one warm place. Am having photo snapped: if real good will send you one.
Yours etc
TSE
PS Going to have fortune told. If real nice will let you in on it.
1–Entitled ‘Quitcherkidin’, the postcard shows a woman tickling a man with a long feather.
TO W. E. Hocking1
MS Houghton
10 October 1913
16 Ash St, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
My dear Professor Hocking
I am writing to you as a representative of the Harvard Philosophical Club. We are anxious to secure a speaker for our first open meeting of the year, which will take place on Friday evening the thirty-first of October. Would it be possible for you to come up to Cambridge and address us on that night? We feel that it would be very much to the interest of the club and the pleasure of the public if you could accept. As you are an old member of the club yourself I have no need to describe the sort of occasion that our public meetings are; I can only assure you of our appreciation in the case of your acceptance. The club, of course, defrays the expenses of speakers whom it invites from a distance. And if you cannot accept for this date, could you suggest some other time, either in November or December, or later in the year, when it might be possible for you to come?2
Very truly yours
Thomas S. Eliot
(President)
1–William E. Hocking (1873–1966), idealist follower of Josiah Royce; Professor of Philosophy at Yale, 1908–14; Harvard, 1914–43. Author of The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912).
2–Hocking spoke on Bergson’s Philosophy of Art, 5 Dec.
This was TSE’s first dramatic appearance, in 1913, at one of the private theatricals given in the house of his aunt, Mrs Holmes Hinkley, for the benefit of The Cambridge Visiting Housekeeper, a scheme organised by Mrs Hinkley to train unskilled girls for domestic service. Eleanor Hinkley recorded that ‘the scenes were laid in the parlor fireplace in a space no bigger than seven square feet, so that the actors could be seen by the audience in the next room, through a doorway that was four feet eight’. The guests consisted of relatives, friends of the cast, and neighbours.
TO Professor W. E. Hocking
MS Houghton
7 December [1913]
16 Ash St
My dear Professor Hocking
I am writing just to remind you to send a note of your expenses either to me or to our treasurer, Mr A. A. Roback, 51 Mt. Auburn Street, whenever it is convenient to you.
I hope that you feel justified for the time and fatigue of coming up to address us – if you could have talked (as I did) with a number of the members afterwards you would realise our gratitude!
Sincerely yours
Thomas S. Eliot
FROM Henry Ware Eliot TO Thomas Lamb Eliot
MS Reed College
7 March 1914
[St Louis]
Dear Bob,
You must and I have written to Tom D.1 It probably is a good thing to mix foreign blood with our effete New England people. Especially if it means brawn. It will prevent petering out.
I can’t get up sympathy with Sex Hygiene. It is a questionable fad.
I do not approve of public instruction in Sexual relations. When I teach my children to avoid the Devil I don’t begin by giving them a letter of introduction to him and his crowd. I hope that a cure for Syphilis will never be discovered. It is God’s punishment for nastiness. Take it away and there will be more nastiness, and it will be necessary to emasculate our children to keep them clean.
So there!
Yr
H
1–Unidentified, but probably Thomas Dawes Eliot.
FROM His Father
MS Houghton
11 April 1914
[St Louis]
My dear Tom:
I am much pleased that you have rec[eive]d the Scholarship,1 on ac[coun]t of the honor, as you couldn’t get it unless you deserved it. You have never been a ‘burden’ to me, my dear fellow. A parent is always in debt to a son who has been as dutiful and affectionate as you have been.
Yrs.
P.
1–On 31 Mar., the President and Fellows of Harvard University had appointed TSE a Sheldon Fellow in Philosophy for the academic year 1914–15. He planned to use this travelling award, worth $1000, at Merton College, Oxford, after attending a summer school in Marburg.
TO The Secretary of the Bureau of Information, University of Marburg
MS Bundesarchiv1
15 June 1914
[London]
Dear Sir,
I have received the announcement of your summer courses, and should like to ask a few questions, if I may impose upon your courtesy.
1) Do the July and August courses cover the same ground, or is the latter more advanced?
2) As it is impossible for me to reach Marburg till the
10th or 11th of July, could I still join the July course?
3) Is it possible for a foreigner to attend lectures without attending every series?
If the two courses (July and August) cover the same ground, I will subscribe to the August course, though I shall be in Marburg in July.
Perhaps these questions are answered in your pamphlet, but you will forgive a foreigner his uncertainty. Would you be so good as to reply (in either English or German – I read the latter readily enough) to me care of the British Linen Bank, Threadneedle St, London, England.
Very sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
(Sheldon travelling fellow, Harvard University).
1–Eventually returned after being taken to the USA in German Captured Documents, container 189.
TO Eleanor Hinkley
TS Houghton
[Postmark London 7 July 1914]
[Crossing the Atlantic]
Dear Friend:
I thought that I would while away a weary hour by culling for you a few of the fruits of my excursion upon Neptune’s empire. Free from the cares and irks of city life, indifferent to my whilom duties, I sit in my snug little cabin lazily watching the little clouds slip across the sky and the trunks slide across the floor. From my tiny round window I can see a flock of lovely birds dip and skim athwart the zenith (sparrows I believe – I am not much on ornithology). There are not a few interesting people among our company; many from the West. Some seventy, inspired by devotion to Art, join together in a University Tour (pronounced Tewer). There are about the same number of men and girls – 98 girls and 18 men,1 so that we have great fun, especially when it comes to dancing to the sound of the captain’s phonograph. There are diversions aplenty: shuffleboard, ringtoss, bridge, checkers, and limericks. Wednesday last we held a field day. Twould have given you keen delight to have seen me in the Pillow Fight, astride a pole, a pillow in each hand. The master of ceremonies was a real charming man, he introduced me as the champion of Russia. Some of his remarks were real witty and bright, for instance: ‘We have here Mr Williams and Miss Williams in the driving contest. Mr Williams and Miss Williams are not related yet’. I was also entered in the Thread the Needle contest, with my partner, Miss Mildred Levi Of Newton, the belle of the boat. Then last night we held a concert, for somebody’s benefit. Miss Mazie Smith sang us ‘Good bye Summer good bye good bye’.2
Collected from various sources:
Well I never should have said you came from St Louis … Is Harvard going to be your college … How did you enjoy your visit to America? … Well I thought you were an Englishman … When I look at the water, heven, it ’eaves my stomach ’orrible … My but you do have grand thoughts! … why arn’t you dancing? … Very pleased to meet you … My name’s Calkins, Michigan 1914 … Aw I wish I’d known what was good for me and staid in Detroit Michigan, it’s a long swim to the Irish coast … If I ever get to Liverpool I’m going to join the church … Ah no sir they don’t make no trouble for me, they just lays where I put’em and honly wants to be left quiet … Try the tripe and onions, its just lovely … Yes this genlmn knows I’m speakin gospel truth (pointing at me) he’s connected with the buildin trades hisself, he knows how business is now, its Wilson and Bryan’s3 made all the trouble … &, &, &.
This is not a real letter, as I am not writing letters till I reach Marburg. Your letters baffled me completely, with the exception of the first, which I guessed at once. You would be amused at some of my attributions. Regards to the bunch in the little old burg.
[unsigned]
1–The figures are reproduced as TSE typed them.
2–The refrain of a popular Edwardian ballad, ‘To Angela … Goodbye’, with words by G. J. Whyte-Melville (1821–78) and music by Paolo Tosti (1846–1916).
3–President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) and his Secretary of State, W. J. Bryan (1860–1925).
TO Conrad Aiken1
MS Huntington
19 July 1914
care Herr Superintendent Happich,
Luth. Kirchhof 1.
Marburg, a./d. Lahn, Germany
BLESS2
COLUMBO
BOLO BLUBUNG CUDJO
THE CHAPLAIN BRUTUS SQUIRTY PANSY
BLAST
THE BOSUN COUSIN HUGH THE COOK
PROF. DR. KRAPP
My dear Conrad
If you are in London, I am going to ask a serious favour of you. I should like
Marburg is charming, and I will write you more about it later, when I have seen more of the people. It seems a wonderfully civilised little place for its size: as you can get Abdulla’s cigarettes and several kinds of tooth powder; and being all on the side of a steep hill, is very compact. The houses have beautiful unkempt gardens, with great waves – ‘where tides of grass break into foam of flowers’!3 – of roses, in terraces looking out over the hills. Just now the Student verbindungen [societies] are very evident, as they are holding fests [celebrations] and parades, and their colours decorate all the houses; in a couple of weeks they will be gone. I think that this will be a very pleasant exile on the whole, – though I cannot look upon a summer in Germany as anything but an exile.
I called upon a Herr Professor this afternoon this is a very clear likeness of him – but he is a very good sort, and his wife is charming, though they neither have any conversation; and I was very much rattled, and wiped the sweat from my face as I stuttered every mistake in the language.
Belgium was a fatiguing trip in the hot weather. Bruges is charming if you like that sort of thing – very ‘picturesque’ – malerisch, but has a sort of post-putridity about it, the sort which infects small old towns and old things generally – Italy stinks the same way, except up in the lakes. The chimes are damnable – my hotel was opposite them, couldn’t sleep – in Ghent I was round the corner from them – in Antwerp I could lie in bed and look at them – in Brussels, which is a large modern town, very likeable and no sights to see – I slept. Flanders on the whole I don’t care for; it is neither French nor German, and seems to combine some of the defects of both. Still, it is unique, and the paintings are stunning! only one (great) one in Ghent,4 but treasures in Bruges and Antwerp and Brussels: Memling, van Eyck, Mastys, David, Breughel, Rubens – really great stuff. And I’m not in close sympathy with Flemish art either.
1) Mantegna (Ca d’Oro)
2) Antonello of Messina (Bergamo)
3) Memling (Brussels)>5
I have written some stuff – about fifty lines, but I find it shamefully laboured, and am belabouring it more. If I can improve it at all I will send it you. If you write me Poste Restante I shall get it; and if you are in the country (or just off for the country) you must of course leave my luggage out of consideration. It is not essential to me. If you are not in the country or going to the country you might wait a few days, and I will send you an address. Meanwhile I will send you this to go to sleep on:
Now while Columbo and his men
Were drinking ice cream soda
&
nbsp; In burst King Bolo’s big black queen
That famous old breech l(oader).
Just then they rang the bell for lunch
And served up – Fried Hyenas;
And Columbo said ‘Will you take tail?
Or just a bit of p(enis)?’
The bracketed portions we owe to the restorations of the editor, Prof. Dr Hasenpfeffer (Halle), with the assistance of his two inseparable friends, Dr Hans Frigger (the celebrated poet) and Herr Schnitzel (aus Wien). How much we owe to the hardwon intuition of this truly great scholar! The editor also justly observes: ‘There seems to be a double entendre about the last two lines, but the fine flavour of the jest has not survived the centuries’. – Yet we hope that such genius as his may penetrate even this enigma. Was it really the custom to drink ice-cream soda just before lunch? Prof. Dr Hasenpfeffer insists that it was. Prof. Dr Krapp (Jena) believes that the phrase is euphemistic, and that they were really drinking seidlidz powder. See Krapp: STREITSCHRIFT GEGEN HASENPFEFFER.6 1.XVii §367, also Hasenpfeffer: POLEMISCHES GEGEN KRAPP7 I–II. 368ff. 490ff.