Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922
Page 56
Always your very loving son
Tom.
1–RA wrote to TSE on 23 Sept., ‘Mr Richmond, the editor of the Literary Supplement, has a great admiration for your critical prose and, I think, would be willing to publish a leading article by you, if you cared to write it.’ Bruce Richmond initially feared TSE would find the paper ‘too old-fashioned’ and would consider himself ‘the property of the Athenaeum.’, but RA reassured him: he arranged for the two men to meet at The Times on 29 Sept. (Richard Aldington: An Autobiography in Letters ed. Norman T. Gates [1992], 53). In a tribute on Richmond’s ninetieth birthday, TSE recalled his first impressions of Richmond: ‘There is still a picture of the scene in my mind: the chief figure a man with a kind of bird-like quality, a bird-like alertness of eye, body and mind. I remember his quickness to put the newcomer at ease; and the suggestion in his mien and movement of an underlying strength of character’ (TLS, 13 Jan. 1961, 17).
2–Charlotte C. Eliot, ‘An Appeal to the Reservations’, Boston Herald, 27 Aug. 1919.
TO John Rodker
PC Typed copy Beinecke1
3 October 1919
18 Crawford Mansions
It has just occurred to me that the title ARA VUS PREC2 would do. For it is non-committal about the newness of the contents, and unintelligible to most people.
Yrs,
T. S. Eliot
1–The original postcard was sold by the Gotham Book Mart, New York, 6 Nov. 1936.
2–‘Now I pray you’, Purg. xxvi, 145. Not knowing Provençal, TSE relied on the little Temple Classics edition of Dante which he had carried in his pocket since 1911, and this resulted in the error ‘Vus’ for ‘Vos’. When the mistake was discovered, there was only time to correct the label.
Vivien Eliot TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
Friday night [3 October 1919]
Flat [18 Crawford Mansions]
My dear, aren’t you sick of staying in at Wittering? I am awfully disappointed about Sat. night. I hope you will excuse me asking you to bring my trunk. But it is rather miserable to be without everything so long. My Monday’s adventures were as follows. Awakened at 6 a.m. by faithful follower outside window, who said a motor was leaving Chi: at 10.30 – and a seat in it wd. cost 30s. Would I go?1 Yes. A thousand yeses – I was so sick and ill with Bosham. Packed up in great hurry, bitterly cold, no breakfast. Cab fetched me and took me to Chichester. Three motors all leaving at once, full of men, great excitement. Refused permission to take trunk! Left it in Chichester station cloakrooms. Wired Tom to meet me at Putney Bridge, as the motors refused to take us into London in case of being commandeered. Wild drive to London with elderly gent, with false teeth. Arrived Putney Bridge. No Tom. No lunch. Waited two hours. Wept. Came home. No Tom. 7 o’cl. Tom arrived surprised to see me. Had been waiting at London Bridge for 3¾ hours. Why? Thought I meant London Bridge altho’ I said Putney. Both wept.
Well now. Surely you are coming on Monday. I hate you being off there, and me here. If you can manage to fetch up my trunk I shall feel more than grateful. I think, if you come by train, you may bring as much luggage as you like. I arranged with the man at Chichester that someone might fetch it, and in that case he will give you back the 5/11d I paid for the carriage of it to London, in case it could be sent. If Tom cannot meet you at the time you arrive, I shall be able to. You must not hate Tom, it isn’t fair. But I know you won’t, always. I see I was rather silly in that unfortunate letter I wrote you from Bosham, Dear Mary.
I am having horrible times at the dentist, and that is one of the things I ‘mind’. It is not very nice here. Nothing seems to have begun. One is waiting, waiting for the strike to stop. Just as one waited for the war to stop. But you didn’t, did you? There you are again! And there am I again, but this is not a nasty letter.
I want to get clothes, but everything seems so wildly different (fashions, I mean) that I dare not begin. So I have not ordered a single thing. I dont know what will please Jim2 most either! Directly that horrible Belgian goes to Bermuda you must begin laying foundation stones for me with Jim.
Meanwhile I have no underclothes. Now Mary darling goodnight. Do try to come on Monday. If no train to London you can easily do it now by taking a train to Brighton, and then another to London. There are plenty of those I know. You could really have done that today. I hope you are not still unhappy.
Vivien
1–Despite the railway strike.
2–Jim Barnes, MH’s brother.
TO His Mother
MS Houghton
14 October 1919
18 Crawford Mansions
II
– Périgueux is a town that I like. The last time I was there was at Christmas (1910), and arriving early on an intensely hot August morning it seemed more southern than it had before. It is a small old town, the metropolis of that district. It had taken me thirty-six hours to get there, but I felt that I had left London – the London of four years of war – and reached the South at one instant – suddenly Roman ruins, and tall white houses, and gorgeous southern shrubs, and warm smells of garlic – donkeys – ox carts. There is a particular excitement about arriving at an exciting place after a sleepless night of travel. We went to the hotel which had that musty smell I have only found in France and Italy, and I fell straight asleep on a bed, only waking for lunch. I stuffed myself with the good French food, which is as good and plentiful as ever, but more expensive. Then we sat out in a garden1
1–The manuscript breaks off here at the top of the second page.
TO Sydney Schiff
MS BL
17 October 1919
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear Schiff,
I was glad to hear from you, as I have just received an extraordinary letter from Osbert Sitwell,1 with regard to which I should like to consult you. I am afraid I was very tired the other night, but I have had a great deal to worry me. It is good of you to suggest coming in to see me, and I should be very grateful if we could meet that way, much as I hate to impose upon you. Would Monday evening do, could you come in after dinner?
We are very sorry not to have the pleasure of lunching with you on Sunday, but Vivien must go to Marlow tomorrow, as she is writing to explain; and I am not going because I have something to work at all day which I must finish by Sunday night – so I really must deny myself going out.
I saw the review in the Times, but it did not strike me as more unjust than one should expect, and indeed for that sort of thing as good as one expects.2 Anyway, the Times treated me far worse, in 1917, as I can show you!3
Looking forward to seeing you
Sincerely
T. S. Eliot
1–Sitwell, who was co-editing Art & Letters with Frank Rutter, had written to ask if it was true that SS had invited TSE to replace him as second editor.
2–The review adjudged that Stephen Hudson’s Richard Kurt ‘is like living in a hotel. People come and go through its pages, and leave you with no more than a vague impression that there are too many of them, and that they are unpleasant or uninteresting or both’ (TLS, 16 Oct. 1919, 569).
3–The TLS review of Prufrock and Other Observations had found TSE ‘frequently inarticulate’, and judged that ‘the things which occurred to the mind of Mr. Eliot’ were ‘surely of the very smallest importance to anyone – even himself’ (June 1917).
TO Osbert Sitwell1
MS Valerie Eliot
[19? October 1919]
We hope
e liars I should heartily join you, but I am afraid there would be a few left.3
Do send me your book as soon as it is out.4
Yrs – ever –
1–Unaddressed and unsigned draft.
2–Sitwell had said he could not help fancying it was SS’s ‘chatterbox of a nephew who starts the rumours’ and ‘spread[s] it about’. He meant (he declared), ‘B – B – B. Beddington B. Behrens’ – Sir Edward Beddington-Behrens (1897–1968), later author of The International Labour Office (League of Nations): A Survey of Certain Problems of International Administration (1924).
3–Sitwell wrote (17 Oct.), ‘I suggest we both start a pogrom at Oxford’; and on 18 Oct.: ‘If I meet him, there will be a pogrom; and I hope you will also be very severe; he might be flayed alive.’
4–Sitwell, Argonaut and Juggernaut (1919), his first book of poetry.
TO Sydney Schiff
MS Valerie Eliot
Monday night [20 October 1919]
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear Schiff,
I want to add this word to say that on reviewing this absurd affair after I said goodnight to you, I am convinced that your nephew had nothing to do with it. I strongly suspect that the rumour was started by a Mrs Hutchinson of whom you may have heard, as an innuendo of hers when several people were present has flashed into my mind. – But so far as you and I are concerned, the matter is, as you say, of no importance. I want you to know that I appreciate the friendship you show me, and can contrast it with all that is not genuine.
Cordially
T. S. Eliot
TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
Wednesday [22 Oct? 1919]
[18 Crawford Mansions]
My dear Mary,
I am so sorry and hope it is not a very painful attack, for lumbago can be torture. I am disappointed of course and should have rung you up today about tomorrow evening1 had I not got your note. However, I am glad in a way that you will not be there, as it cannot be a good address in the circumstances. I don’t know whether Vivien is better or not; sometimes she seems much better and sometimes worse. I will ring up in a day or two to ask how you are and about Sunday. I shall see you then in any case surely.
Affectionately
Tom.
I have taken your Flaubert lately as my lunch time reading. A nice man, I think. I have enjoyed it.
1–TSE’s lecture ‘Modern Tendencies in Poetry’ was delivered to the Arts League of Service on Tuesday 28 Oct., as VHE’s letter of the 29th confirms, so this may refer to a separate social occasion.
TO The Editor of The Athenaeum
Published 24 October 1919
Sir,
Your correspondents appear to have exhausted their commentary upon the ‘Inaccessible Heritage’.1 There is, however, one important branch of the subject which has not, so far as I know, been explored. The heritage does not include only the books we wish to buy and cannot procure; it includes also the books which we do not wish to buy, but wish to read and cannot reach. The question is whether the British Museum Library ought not to be open to readers in the evening, and on Sunday.
At present the Library can only be used by those whose occupation or lack of occupation permits them to pass their days there. The research of the professional scholar, the curiosity of the affluent, the affliction of the dotard, the idleness of the pauper – these may all be gratified or solaced in the Library; it can also provide a degree of physical warmth for the homeless. But for those who are regularly occupied elsewhere for even six hours of the day, the Library is useless; and among this last class, I believe, are many of those who might most profitably make use of it.
For this class there is one resource, if they can afford it: the London Library. The London Library, for a private library, is surprisingly good; its terms are generous and its manners gracious; but if one wishes to pursue any subject very far, it is, naturally, not inexhaustible. Moreover, there is no need for more than one complete repository of printed matter. The Museum might, as a test, be opened for two nights a week until ten o’clock. Some enlargement of staff would be necessary; if the Museum authorities would inform us of the probable cost of this innovation we should know whether such an expansion of the usefulness of the Library is beyond the means of the nation, which endures expenses of far less general benefit.
I am, Sir,
your obliged obedient servant,
T. S. Eliot
1–In his unsigned leading article ‘Our Inaccessible Heritage’ (11 July), JMM complained that many English classics, such as the Elizabethan dramatists, were unprocurable, and suggested that the university presses, or failing them the government, should provide cheap reprints. Among the letters that followed, R.W. Chapman at the Clarendon Press felt that the public did not take the opportunity to purchase the classics already available. ‘Experience has shown that even the nimble shilling was inadequate to create new appetites … the rate of production cannot be accelerated unless the demand grows in range and volume.’ J.M. Dent, publisher of the Temple Classics, found that the works of Fielding, Goldsmith, Sterne, etc. ‘hardly had enough buyers to enable us to keep the books in stock’.
Vivien Eliot TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
Wednesday 29 October [1919]
18 Crawford Mansions
Thank you, Mary dear, for your nasty letter. I always love to hear from you. I hope your chill is better.
As Tom is not a French artist, or a Flirt, or Amusing or even Rather Fun, your absence from his lecture was no surprise to him. But I should have loved to sit by you and poke you in the ribs. Instead, I played the Dormouse to Pasha Schiff’s and his concubine’s March Hare and Mad Hatter. They leaned heavily on either side of me, in the middle of the front row.
Dear Mary, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity of forwarding yr. invitation to my great friend Mrs Aldous Huxley.1 You have a delicious sense of humour. Tom and I will come to your party with so much pleasure. I need not reply formally? need I?
You did not send me the film, little cat, even now. And I have all the latest photographs to show you, which are kolossal. They almost shock me.
I hope I shall see you at Edith’s party, – you will know me by my paisley shawl.2
Goodnight my dear. When may I come and spend the night? I embrace you.
V.
1–AH had proposed to Maria Nys, a Belgian protégée of OM, at Garsington in 1916, and they married on 10 July 1919. MH wrote, in an unpublished memoir: ‘Of the two Huxleys –Maria and Aldous –Maria was the one I loved … She always seemed to be sweetly scented, oiled and voluptuous’ (‘Aldous Huxley’; Texas). According to to AH’s biographer, during the 1920s Aldous and Maria Huxley and Mary Hutchinson were involved in a ménage à trois (Nicholas Murray, Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual [2002], 143).
2–VHE wrote in her diary (31 Oct.), ‘Edith Sitwell’s party. Wore my shawl dress. Fairly good. Dull party.’
TO Edgar Jepson
MS Beinecke
31 October 1919
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Mr Jepson,
Yes, I should like that, as I don’t want that lecture to go to press in this country until it has undergone your criticisms. I fully realised, by the way, that you forebore to press your point the other night, and was grateful, as yours was the one criticism which appeared to me damaging.
Unfortunately, we happen to be going to Marlow this weekend. This is what happened the last time you asked us, so instead of waiting may I ask you if the following Sunday would do? If not, we must try again.
Yours sincerely
T. S. Eliot
I am trying your lecture on A[rt]&L[etters]. If that doesn’t come off, may I speak to Weaver about it?
FROM Leonard Woolf
TS Valerie Eliot
2 November 1919
The Hogarth Press, Hogarth House,
Richmond, Surrey
Dear Eliot,
I ha
ve been meaning to let you know that we have so far sold 140 odd copies of your Poems, and they are still selling slowly. The receipts up to date have been £12-14-10 and the cost £5-19-4 leaving a profit of £6-15-6 of which your share is £1-13-10 for which I enclose a cheque.
Yours sincerely
Leonard Woolf
TO Edgar Jepson
MS Beinecke
Monday [3 November? 1919]
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, W.1
Dear Mr Jepson,
I wrote and suggested next Sunday. I have not heard from you – but I now realise that I have an important article to finish by Monday and that I ought to stay in all Sunday to do it.1 So might we come the week after (Sunday week)? I hope this is possible if you can plan for so far ahead, and please accept my apologies for this confusion.
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
1–‘Ben Jonson’, a review of G. Gregory Smith, Ben Jonson, in TLS, 13 Nov. 1919, 637–8 (SW). It was TSE’s first piece for the TLS, and unsigned (TLS practice until 1974).
TO John Quinn
TS NYPL (MS)