Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922
Page 38
The spring is getting on, but we have had no truly warm weather yet, though the trees and bushes are well out.
I hope to write more regularly now.
Your very affectionate son
Tom
TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
1 May 1918
[Marlow]
Dear Mrs Hutchinson
I only got your note late last night just as I was going to Marlow and did not have time to answer. I should love to come but had arranged sometime ahead to dine with Pound and some others on Thursday. It is annoying because we are at Marlow now and it limits our chances of seeing anyone. I am very sorry to hear that you are going to Wittering so soon, but I hope that you do not mean what you say, and that it will be only intermittent. Surely you will be up for a little while in June.
Yours
T. S. Eliot
I hope the book will amuse [incomplete: the margin of the paper is torn]
TO His Mother
MS Houghton
10 May 1918
[18 Crawford Mansions]
Dearest Mother,
In your last letter received Saturday you ask me whether I got the $10 you sent me for my suit. I did, and I am sure that you will have got my letter thanking you for it by this time, but I will thank you again to be sure.
I shall soon have ten days holiday, in the middle of June, and I have two days at ‘Whitsuntide’ next week, which will be very welcome. The weather is beginning to be settled and warm now – we had a thunder shower with hail this morning, and everything is very green.
I am trying to do some writing now – an article on Henry James for the Little Review, and trying to write verse again. I am glad to have some leisure for reading also, as all my reading last winter was for the courses. My Southall people want to do Elizabethan Literature next year which would interest me more than what we have done before, and would be of some use to me too, as I want to write some essays on the dramatists, who have never been properly criticised.
I have taken up the rudiments of both Spanish and Danish this winter, but have not got very far with either. I can read a Spanish newspaper pretty easily.
I was dining with May Sinclair (the novelist) the other day and met a woman named Robbins [sic]1 who said she was a cousin of the Macks in Portland. She seems to write popular novels and to know a good many people here. Did you ever hear of her?
Vivien will write again and give you news. She has been glad to have a letter from you lately, and would have written more often, but that it is very fatiguing to her and she did not know whether it was of any interest to you to hear from her.
I do hope you are going to Gloucester. I really think it would break you both up not to go. Please do.
Your devoted son
Tom.
1–Elizabeth Robins (1865–1952), American actress and novelist. She later described her experience of creating Ibsen roles in Ibsen and the Actress (1928), and edited the letters written to her by Henry James, Theatre and Friendship (1932).
TO His Mother
MS Houghton
22 May 1918
[18 Crawford Mansions]
Dearest Mother,
I have letters from you and father. It is now ten o’clock in the evening, and we have just turned on the lights – daylight saving and a northern latitude. I suppose it will be light till 11 in the middle of June, when I take a holiday. The weather has been very beautiful lately; clear, hot days. In the country wistaria and the golden laburnum are in full bloom.
I am glad you found the article in the Nation; but I am surprised and sorry you cannot get the book.1 It would make the article more intelligible. If the Mercantile Library takes the English Review you will find an article in the May issue, mostly about me, by Edgar Jepson,2 ‘Recent United States Poetry’.3 I was reviewed quite favourably in the New Republic some months ago.4
It is Lloyds Bank, which has no connection with Lloyds Insurance. It is the second largest bank in England. Banks here are different from in America, where a bank is purely local. There are about a dozen very large banks with head offices in London and branches in the country and sometimes abroad. Lloyds Bank has about 900 branches and four or five in France. Of course I have to do only with foreign business. The address is 17 Cornhill, E.C.3., in the heart of the ‘City’, and opposite the ‘Bank’ (of England). I have half of a room, two girls, and half of a typist. I share a typist with someone else.
I am very grateful to father for enquiring about the Policy. It sets my mind at rest.
You don’t say anything about Gloucester in this letter. But I should feel rather anxious if you were to try to spend a summer in St Louis now.
We are both feeling the combined effect of sudden hot weather and the strain of a long winter.
Always your loving son
Tom.
1–Russell, Mysticism and Logic (1917).
2–For Edgar Jepson see TSE’s postcard of 5 Feb. 1919.
3–Edgar Jepson, ‘Recent United States Poetry’, English Review 26 (May 1918).
4–[Babette Deutsch], ‘Another Impressionist’, New Republic 14 (16 Feb. 1918).
TO His Mother
MS Houghton
2 June 1918
[18 Crawford Mansions]
My dearest Mother,
I have not heard from you or father, I think, since I wrote last. I have been wondering if it has been as hot or hotter in St Louis than it has here. It is really midsummer; often in England August is much colder than June. We have had perfect cloudless days and nights. I am very much afraid that if it were as hot as it sometimes is in St Louis from July to September, in ‘spells’, you would suffer very much. I thrive on hot weather, and today I have done a lot of work, including a number of necessary business letters. I have written several poems lately, which will be published eventually, and wrote a review today of three philosophy books1 for the New Statesman. I am now preparing to write an article on Henry James and Hawthorne;2 I read James’s little book on Hawthorne [Hawthorne, 1879] yesterday – very good. James was a fine writer – his book of impressions of America, written about 1907 I think, is wonderfully well written.3 There are so very few people who will take the trouble to write well. It is full of acute criticism too.
Then I am reading, and rereading the poets and dramatists of the time of Shakespeare and immediately after. My Southall class is going to take up that period next year, if we are allowed to continue, and I am looking forward to it, as I prefer it infinitely to the 19th Century – to any periods in English Literature.
We are feeling the strain of this trying time very much – when you get this letter you will have to look back to see what time it was. One can hardly think or talk – only wait.
Your devoted son
Tom.
1–[TSE], ‘New Philosophers’, unsigned review of J. S. Mackenzie, Elements of Constructive Philosophy; De Witt H. Parker, The Self and Nature; James Gibson, Locke’s Theory of Knowledge, in NS 11 (13 July 1918).
2–TSE, ‘The Hawthorne Aspect’, Little Review 5: 4 (Aug. 1918).
3–Henry James, The American Scene (1907).
TO His Mother
MS Houghton
9 June 1918
31 West St,1 Marlow, Bucks
My dearest Mother,
It is a very long time since I have heard from you. I wonder if you have been waiting the same length of time to hear from me; I have not missed a week in writing since a couple of months, to the best of my knowledge and belief. But possibly some letter has not been forwarded yet. You will see by the address above that we have finally (like all our friends) come out of London. There are several reasons – you know we had contemplated it before; but finally we both were in very poor health after the winter, and the doctor said that I ought to be out in the country, for the summer anyway. So we are staying out here, on the Thames, a charming old little town, in the street where Shelley used to live.2 And I feel much better already, mentally and physic
ally. The relief of being out of London, getting quite away from it at the end of the day, is very great. The train journey is restful too. Of course it adds to the expenses, principally through the cost of a season ticket to go up and down every day, but it is fully worth it, even if it necessitates, as it does, more sacrifices in other directions. The suburban traffic of London is tremendous – most ‘city workers’ people in offices, live out of town and commute every day, and I am sure that it is much better for one. I think I am a little bit fatter – you know I have lost 15lbs. since leaving Oxford. Vivien is of course much better here too. I wish you could see an English county town in summer. You will find this on the map. I have been sitting out in a back garden all day writing about Henry James and Hawthorne.3 The roses are wonderful.
I have a week’s holiday, a few days hence, and I shall take some long walks and go out on the river.
I do hope I shall have a letter from you in a few days, dear mother, as it is over a fortnight. I shall write to father as soon as my holidays begin.
Your devoted son
Tom.
1–VHE had leased the house for five years from 5 Dec. 1917. BR had a financial interest in the arrangement, and provided some of the furniture. On 17 Dec. BR told OM that it would give him ‘a quiet peaceful existence in which I can work’; and on 6 Jan. 1918 he said to Colette O’Neil that his ‘work-a-day life will be at Marlow, with Mrs. E’ (quoted in Monk, Bertrand Russell, 515–16).
2–Shelley leased Albion House, West Street, Marlow, in 1817–18.
3–‘The Hawthorne Aspect’.
TO His Mother
TS Houghton
23 June 1918
[London]
Dearest mother,
I have just written to father, but I want to write a short one to you to acknowledge three from you which I have studied attentively. I am relieved that father has so rapidly rallied and only think that he ought to take very good care of himself for the rest of the summer especially if you stay in St Louis. There is something to be said for Millis, even with the increased fares. I am sure you will let me know how he is, and also how you are (but you have never done that!) in every letter.
I gave a good many particulars in my letter to father. Now I am writing with yours open in front of me, so that I may not overlook anything that requires an answer. I did get the £2 for the suit: it is very strange on this as on one or two other occasions that I have a strong conviction that I acknowledged it at once. Thank you very much indeed; I think I wrote and told you what a nice suit I got, and what a wise investment it was, as prices have been soaring since.
We both had a very painful time at the dentist, and Vivien has also been having much trouble with her eyes, and has had to have some expensive glasses. She fully meant to write to you today, but woke up with a very bad migraine (I think a delayed result of the dentist several days ago) and was so dizzy when she got up that she had to lie down again. We feel sometimes as if we were going to pieces and just being patched up from time to time. The strain of life is very great and I fear it will be for the rest of the lives of anyone now on earth. I am very pessimistic about the world we are going to have to live in after the war.
You type beautifully.
We had a pleasant day yesterday: a young friend of mine, named Huxley, a grandson of the scientist T. H. Huxley, who is a master at Eton not far away, came out to spend the day with us.1
I have some poems appearing very soon in the Little Review2 in New York, and also an article which I wrote at the beginning of this holiday on Henry James and Hawthorne. I have just reviewed some philosophy books for the New Statesman, have some more to do, and am commissioned for articles for that and for a paper called To-Day,3 when I can get them done. Also, I have this week done my monthly work for the Egoist, including the delicate task of reviewing half a dozen books by men I know. I think I know most of the people in London who write verse, and a fair number of the other men of letters. I have also read this week most of Catullus, and two plays of Ben Jonson.
I think I have given all my news between you and father. We have not heard from Maurice for some time; I expect he is pretty busy just now. He had a few days in Rome about six weeks ago.
Always your devoted son
Tom
1–Of his visit to Marlow, AH wrote to his brother: ‘Eliot in excellent form and his wife too; I rather like her; she is such a genuine person, vulgar, but with no attempt to conceal her vulgarity, with no snobbery of the kind that makes people say they like things, such as Bach or Cézanne, when they don’t’ (Letters of Aldous Huxley, ed. Grover Smith [1969], 156).
2–Four poems appeared in the Little Review 5 (Sept. 1918): ‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’, ‘Whispers of Immortality’, ‘Dans le Restaurant’, and ‘Mr Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service’.
3–He published one article in To-Day 4: 19 (Sept. 1918): ‘A Note on Ezra Pound’.
TO Scofield Thayer
TS Beinecke
30 June 1918
at 17 Cornhill, London, E.C.3
Dear Scofield,
Delightful to hear from you, both sentimentally and because it is cheering that there should still be someone who preserves in these times the literary standards of epistolary style. I am also delighted that you should be applying your cosmopolitan talents where they are needed, and breasting the full flood of bovine excreta of which the effluvium in occasional gusts attacks my nostril from oversea. I look forward to the receipt of your specimen.1 Of course, your superior officer is a Lady. They always are. Be PATIENT, I say PATIENT. Be Sly, INSIDIOUS, even UNSCRUPULOUS, Suffering Many Things, Slow to WRATH, concealing the Paw of the Lion, the Fang of the Serpent, the Tail of the Scorpion, beneath the Pelt of the ASS. Under the cloak of imbecility dart forth your scorn and pour the vials of contumely upon the fair flat face of the people. Be Proud, but Genial, Affable, but Inflexible; be to the inhabitants of Greenwich Village a Flail, and to the Intellect of Indianapolis a Scourge. I WILL REPAY, saith the LORD.2
I speak from experience, as asst. (I say ASSt) Editor of the Egoist, which I will send you, numero specimene, if you do not know it. I am the only male, and three (3) women, incumbents, incunabula, incubae.
Do you see the Little Review? I hope so. There you can watch (in bathing) our Friend Ezra, and sometimes myself (sc. next July and after), and particularly the superb new novel of Joyce, which I do commend to your attention. You no doubt have read the Portrait of the Artist by him. The best living prose writer.
I should be delighted to write for your paper – or rather for any paper with which you are connected. Is Conrad Aiken still to be the Critic?3 I think that if I composed something in the hope of your printing it I ought to exploit my geographical position rather than send you my projected series on the Jacobean Dramatists. Studies in European Literature, by one on the SPOT! Reflections on American Literature, by one NOT on the spot!4 As Poetry said of J. G. Fletcher ‘cosmopolitan by education and residence’.5
Everything I say is quite serious. I am delighted with your occupation.
Vivien says (and says to tell you) that she is homesick for America.
Adieu. Would I might talk to you. You have as much news of friends here as I. Harwood,6 I hear (from the charming Aldous Huxley) is in London again, in some Govt. office. Willie King7 is in London, in [Military] Intelligence Dept, I have seen him occasionally.
Note my address above.
Je t’embrasse sur les deux joues.
Yours ever
T.S.E.
1–Thayer was planning to support the Dial financially.
2–TSE is parodying various biblical proverbs and epistles, as well as sententiae in Shakespeare.
3–Once Thayer took charge of the Dial, Aiken was a contributor but never its official critic.
4–TSE, ‘American Literature’, a review of A History of American Literature, vol. 2, by William B. Trent, John Erskine, Stuart P. Sherman and Carl Van Doren, in A., 25 Apr. 1919.
5–Jo
hn Gould Fletcher (1886–1950), American poet and critic, scion of a wealthy Southern family, dropped out of Harvard and lived for many years in Europe; a friend of EP, he became one of the mainstays of Imagism. His Selected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize, 1938. See his autobiography, Life Is My Song (1937), which includes a portrait of TSE; and Selected Letters of John Gould Fletcher, ed. Leighton Rudolph and Ethel C. Simpson (1996). From 1926 he was to become a frequent contributor to C. and he was also one of the first of the Faber poets.
6–Henry Harwood (1893–1964), an Oxford acquaintance who became a journalist.
7–William King (1894–1958), who was to become Deputy Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities, British Museum, 1952.
TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
1 July 1918
[London]
I meant to let you know that I had sent your P.O. on. I sent it to Pound as I thought he could let you have the backnumbers at once.1 The Joyce is quite superb. I should be interested to hear your opinion of it. I wonder if you are in a hammock reading Ste Beuve. I shall want to know what you think of Sachie’s poems.2