Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922
Page 25
Another thing to mention is your offer of sending books. It is ever so kind of you, dear mother, but I think I can do without any. Fifteen dollars is a great deal to pay, and the few books I absolutely need I can buy. But I may make out a list of a few, perhaps three or four dollars worth, for Shef to send. Thank you very much. New philosophic books that I want I do not need to buy, as I can usually get them from the Monist or the Westminster. Jourdain (the Monist and the I. J. Ethics) is the most satisfactory employer I could wish. I have only to suggest an article and he clamours for it, and any book I see advertised and want to review he will send for, for me. Most papers only give you books which have been sent to them, and do not trouble to send to publishers unless the publishers send to them. The Westminster have given [me] some novels to do.1 At first sight they do not appear to pay much, as it is only half a crown (60¢) per each short notice of six or eight lines. But the editress2 told me that she could read and review six novels in an evening! and encouraged me to do the same. Vivien can do some of them for me, and the editress also informed me that I could sell the novels (published at 6s) for 2s each. At that rate one would rake in £1 7s for an evening’s work, which is not bad. I am learning something of the ins and outs of journalism, you see. These short notices are invaluable to the publishers, as they get from them all the little phrases, such as ‘enthralling’, ‘good workmanship’, ‘a book of wide appeal’, et cetera, which, with the name of a good newspaper after them, constitutes an important part of advertisement. This is Fleet Street!
I am working on my lectures now. The syllabus will be out in a few days, and it will look very imposing, with T. S. ELIOT M.A. (HARVARD) on it. I shall send you one directly. There is a good deal of reading to be done, and I want to be well prepared for the discussion which will follow every lecture.
I enclose, among several other things, (chess problems3 and a rather amusing letter of an autograph fiend), a review of the Catholic Anthology printed in the Nation.4 It is the best review I have had yet. Bertie thinks it is due to the fact that Massingham,5 the editor, visited Lady Ottoline Morrell6 lately, and probably had the things called to his attention there. Anyway, I am hoping that it will be of some help to me in getting work from the Nation.
I have begun this letter upside down. The facts are that I came up from Bosham yesterday, leaving Vivien there to try to squeeze a few more days benefit out of the seaside before the winter. I do not know how long she can stand it alone, but I hope that she can be induced to stay a week without me, as it is very good for her. We enjoyed our month immensely, and it did us both a world of good. Unfortunately, Vivien had the ill luck to have a very bad attack of neuralgia last week. It lasted the whole week, and discouraged her fearfully, as she felt that she had lost all the benefit of the previous weeks. These attacks always weaken her very much. It was aggravated, I think, by the fact that we had to move into different rooms (in the same house) as the landlady had let the ones we were in. The new rooms were unused and the sitting room very damp; I think this protracted the neuralgia. At any rate it gave us both mild attacks of rheumatism, mine in the left leg. Hers is nearer to gout, which she gets in the feet. It remains to be seen when she comes back what the net result of the seaside was. I hated to leave Bosham; it seems like a beautiful dream. The villagers all know us now, and we felt quite at home there. They are very much like New England fishing people, but rather more complete in their way. The old men are the typical old sailors of pictures, with great rings of white beard around their faces, play bowls on the green in the evening (it calls itself the Bosham Bowling club, Members Only) and arguefy in the Anchor Tavern in the evening and on Sunday after church. There is also the village idiot, the village drunkard (‘a splendid workman afore the drink got him’), the curate, et cetera. It is idyllic.
You are so good and kind with offers of help that I should like to work night and day without stopping to make up for it, but I know I never can. How splendid you and father are! I do appreciate it all, and so does Vivien. We shall, as you say, probably need some help before Christmas, but I hope not much. I have only recently paid the Oxford bill: the Linen Bank sent the cheque back to St Louis before crediting me with the money.
I must stop now. Good-night!
Your loving son
Tom.
1–Many of its reviews were unsigned, but none is thought to be by TSE.
2–Naomi Royde-Smith (1875–1964), journalist and novelist, was literary editor of the Westminster Gazette, 1912–22.
3–TSE played chess by post with his father.
4–See [Anon.], ‘Fragmenta Aurea’, N., 26 Aug. 1916, 670–2: ‘Mr. T. S. Eliot’s work is far and away the best … [Prufrock] is … brilliant … freely executed, and here and there premising a richer and more mature sense of beauty.’
5–H. W. Massingham (1860–1924) was editor of The Nation, 1907–23.
6–Lady Ottoline Morrell, wealthy and eccentric hostess, whose manor house from 1915, Garsington, was an important retreat for writers, artists and opponents of the Great War; see Glossary of Names.
TO Henry Eliot
TS Houghton
6 September 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Henry,
It is nearly 12 o’clock, and I am very tired, but I must write you just a line, because I shall never have more time than I have now. I enclose a photograph which I had taken for my Identity Book to go into the country; it is rather good, I think. Therefore I shall send this letter to someone to forward to you, as I am not sure that your address is 7 Fifth Avenue or some other number, it sounds too simple to be true. I am also going to get you a Catholic Anthology tomorrow. I had a very good review in the London Nation which I will send you. I feel a sort of posthumous pleasure in it. I often feel that ‘J.A.P.’ is a swan song, but I never mention the fact because Vivien is so exceedingly anxious that I shall equal it, and would be bitterly disappointed if I do not. So do not suggest to anyone how I feel. The present year has been, in some respects, the most awful nightmare of anxiety that the mind of man could conceive, but at least it is not dull, and it has its compensations. You have been awfully good to send us so much money, and we do appreciate it. I am always glad when you write to Vivien, for she is very fond of you. I have left her at Bosham for a few days longer; meanwhile I am working at my lectures. I will send you the syllabus when it is out. I cannot write more, but I will try to write a few lines from time to time.
Affectionately
Tom
TO Mary Hutchinson1
TS Texas
6 September 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Mrs Hutchinson
I was very sorry to miss the opportunity of seeing you when you wrote to me at Bosham, but as I suddenly discovered [Roger] Fry’s2 plans for taking you on the water, I thought that it would be a pity to interfere with them. When I returned to Bosham, I found that you had left – after I had been occupied for several days with a brother-in-law who turned up from France. Had I known that I should have no other opportunity I might not have been so generous as to yield precedence to the boating party. But I hope that I may see you when you return to town.
Sincerely yours
T. Stearns Eliot
1–Mary Hutchinson, hostess and patron of the arts; see Glossary of Names.
2–Roger Fry (1866–1934), artist and art critic; champion of Cézanne and organiser of the London Post-Impressionist exhibition of 1911, he also founded the Omega Workshops with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in 1912. Author of Vision and Design (1920) and Civilization (1928).
TO J. H. Woods
TS Professor David G. Williams
7 September 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Professor Woods,
I must apologise for not having answered your exceedingly kind letter sooner, but I can only say that I have been under very great pressure. I want to tell you how keenly I appreciate your kindness and that of the department in regard to
my thesis, and that I shall try to justify its acceptance by passing a good examination when I come. I do not know at all when that can be. My plans are very subject to alteration still, and I have so much on foot that it is difficult for me to make plans for my visit to America. This autumn I am to give a course of six lectures in Yorkshire on Social, Philosophical and Religious Problems in Contemporary France (the syllabus is given as ‘Literature’ and the course is advertised as ‘Contemporary France’, but this is what it really is). If I can establish myself in this Oxford Extension Lecturing I shall abandon teaching, and shall also have a clear six months a year for whatever else I wish to do.
I have been very busy in Fleet Street journalism as well. I am doing considerable reviewing for the Westminster Gazette – all sorts of things from Durkheim1 and Boutroux2 down to Village Government in India and even H. de Vere Stacpoole’s novels.3 I got hold of their Indian books by telling them that I was a student of Sanskrit and Pali – whereupon they gave me several books on contemporary Indian politics. I have been doing some work for the New Statesman as well,4 Jourdain has been very kind to me, and gives me practically any book I want to review for the Monist, besides articles. He will have two articles, I believe, in the October Monist – the Leibniz number – one on Leibniz and Bradley,5 the other on Leibniz and Aristotle.6 He wants me to do a series on English idealists of the last generation (Green, Caird etc.),7 but I fear it will progress very slowly, as I have so little time. He has also given me an introduction to Stout,8 in the hope of getting reviews for Mind. I was so busy, and so much taken up and concerned about my wife’s health, this last winter, that I was able to attend but very few meetings of the Aristotelian society, much less read the papers beforehand, but I hope to pay more attention to it this year.
I have just returned from a holiday with my wife at the village of Bosham, on the coast near Portsmouth. We had a delightful month, though disturbed for my wife by an attack of neuralgia at the end, which I fear will retract some of the benefit of her holiday. Part of the time we had the company of Lowes Dickinson. I have seen a good deal of BR, but it is impossible to report much news of him, for obvious reasons.9
I am still clamouring for Patañjali. Please give my affectionate regards to Lanman when you see him.
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
1–TSE, ‘Durkheim’, rev. of Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology, trans. J. W. Swain, in Westminster Gazette, 19 Aug. 1916.
2–TSE, review of Philosophy and War by Émile Boutroux, in IJE 27: 1 (Oct. 1916), 128.
3–Not reviewed.
4–TSE, ‘An American Critic’ (rev. of Charles Sarolea, The French Renascence), NS 7: 168 (24 June 1916); and a review of L.M. Bristol, Social Adaptation, in NS 7: 173 (29 July 1916).
5–TSE, ‘Leibniz’s Monads and Bradley’s Finite Centers’, The Monist 26: 4 (Oct. 1916), 566–76.
6–TSE, ‘The Development of Leibniz’s Monadism’, The Monist 26: 4 (Oct. 1916), 534–6.
7–Not written.
8–G. F. Stout (1860–1944), Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at St Andrews University, was editor of Mind, 1891–1920, but TSE did not contribute to it.
9–In June, after BR was convicted of impeding recruitment on account of his support for the No-Conscription Fellowship, he was sacked from his lectureship at Trinity College, Cambridge.
TO Harriet Monroe
TS Chicago
7 September 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Miss Monroe,
Many thanks for your kind letter. The title you have given will do excellently.1 The proof is all right except that I am T. S., not T. R. There is only one ‘T. R.’ I hope!2
I wonder if you have yet received my review of H. D.’s Iphigenia?3 I sent it about the middle of August, but being in the country I did not have the address of Poetry by me, and I remembered the number as 345 Cass Street.4 However, if there is any intelligence in the Chicago post-office, the letter ought to reach you. If it does not, I have another copy of the review. I must apologise for the delay in any case. I also have been over-worked.
I am glad that you have taken the ‘Portrait’. All success to your anthology!
Thank you for your suggestions. I shall certainly try a note or two on you, 750 words or so. As I have not time, I am glad that you have not space, for anything long.
I shall be most interested to see the October Poetry.
I am interested in what you say about the Dial. Is there any chance for us with it now? It would be poetic justice if we could capture its columns. If you notice any signs of improvement in it, I should consider it a great kindness if you could let me see a copy.
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
1–‘Conversation Galante’, ‘La Figlia Che Piange’, ‘Mr Apollinax’, and ‘Morning at the Window’ appeared under the heading ‘Observations’, Poetry 8: 6 (Sept. 1916), 292–5.
2–Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), President of the United States, 1901–9. This letter arrived after the magazine had been printed, so the initial was not corrected.
3–TSE, ‘Classics in English’, Poetry 9: 2 (Nov. 1916), 101–4, a review of The Poets’ Translation Series, I–VI, of which Iphigenia was III.
4–The correct address was 543 Cass Street.
TO Harriet Monroe
MS Houghton
28 September 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Miss Monroe,
Thank you very much for the cheque for £5, which I received by the last mail. I hope to send you an attempt in prose before long.1 I shall be most interested to see a copy of the Anthology as soon as it appears.2 Will you send me one? With all best wishes for its success
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
I like the new cover of Poetry very much.
1–This suggests that ‘Eeldrop and Appleplex’ may have been submitted to Poetry before appearing in Little Review, May and Sept. 1917.
2–The New Poetry, ed. Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin (New York, 1917), which TSE would review in Egoist 4: 11 (Dec. 1917).
Vivien Eliot TO Henry Eliot
MS Houghton
Wed[nesday] 11 Oct[ober 1916]
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Henry –
I am writing this in the train on my way to Manchester. I am going to stay with friends at a place called Hale, which is about ten miles the other side of Manchester. This girl I have known all my life. She married a year before I did, and she has got two children. I have never seen her since I was married. I am only going to stay a week, or perhaps ten days. I know I shall hate it. I know my Father was
I wanted to answer your letter before I left home but hadn’t time. Really Henry I am quite sure you cannot afford these constant five poundses. I shall thank you whatever you say – and I tell you I think you are nobly adorably gener
ous and kind. It was very very welcome because we are very low at present – we have only got about £22 in the bank, and Tom won’t get any more till Christmas – so you can see we are in a fairly tight place. Unfortunately it has meant writing to your Father for help again. I can’t bear to do that. I should never have arranged to go on this visit if I had known how low we should be – for it has entailed getting more clothes than I should have needed otherwise – but I promised in July to go now, so I really could not back out. I liked your letter to me – thank you. I shan’t have my sinus trouble touched until I simply have to. I still hope to live it down. Did T. tell you they sent me to see a doctor three weeks ago? It was chiefly for my headaches (I don’t mean the sinus pain, these headaches are something quite separate and much more horrible!) So I went and he said I was chiefly starved! The headaches are called hemicranial migraine, and they are really ‘nerve storms’ affecting one whole side of me – they make me sick and feverish and they always last 15–24 hours – and I rise up weak and white as if I had been through some long and dreadful illness. He explained that they are caused in me by starvation – I do not eat enough to nourish my nervous system – and brain. They are rather rare, these headaches – no drug touches them. I have taken (before I knew the futility of it) 15–20 grains of phenacetin without having the slightest relief). However he gave me some medicine to take regularly, and told me not to economise – and I have certainly had them less often since. But it will take a long time, he said. I must have been iller last winter than I thought. I hope all this does not bore you. I have really a lot to say to you in this letter. Tom got your letter about two days ago – as he was out I opened and read it (we always do this with family letters) so that I read the postscript which you did not intend me to see. I had read it all sort of in one glance – so that by the time I’d realised it was private I had seen it all. However, it does not matter, Tom knows perfectly well that I share his feeling over the poetry – in fact, he knows that of the two of us perhaps I worry most – and rather more often get despondent. I look upon Tom’s poetry as real genius – I do think he is made to be a great writer – a poet. His prose is very good – but I think it will never be so good as his poetry. Anyhow, it is a constant canker with me that it is at a standstill – and every time that thought is in Tom’s mind I see it. I know how he feels – he has told me more than once – he feels dried up – not a bit as if he could write poetry even if he had the leisure and circumstances.