Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922
Page 68
1–HWE had written on 20 July that their mother had been diagnosed with incipient diabetes, and on 4 Aug. that he had sold $800 of Liberty Bonds and was sending money to TSE.
TO Sydney Schiff
TS BL
Friday [17 September 1920]1
[London]
Dear Sydney,
I don’t quite know where to send this, but you said you were leaving on the 18th, so I hope it will catch you. You say nothing about dates in your letter, but I trust you will be in London from next week.
I never see the New Age.2 I had the impression that you were rather bored with it, but from what you say it appears to be improving. Certainly there is no other political weekly, at any rate, that is anything but dormitive.
Of course Arnold is tarred with his own brush. He is not really a free man, in the best sense of the word; who in England was, at his time?3 Who in England is now? I wish someone with more leisure and more scholarship than myself would make a study of the spiritual decadence of England which should not be a web of generalisations about the Puritan revolution etc. but a skilful collocation of facts. But I must not write any more; I have had an immoderately busy week and have not finished getting my proofs into shape. But for that – I have not had a moment free – I should have written to Violet to say how much I enjoyed the weekend. We must not let our theatricals drop!
What is the connexion of Rodker with the New Age?4
Yours affly.,
T.S.E.
Besides, I am using Arnold a little as a stalking horse, or as a cloak of invisibility-respectability to protect me from the elderly. I wanted him as a scarecrow with a real gun under his arm.
1–Tentatively dated a week earlier in the first edition of these Letters, but redated in the light of the new letter of 5 Sept.
2–The New Age, which ran from 1909 to 1922, was a Socialist and literary paper edited by A. R. Orage (1873–1934), later founder of the New English Weekly and an advocate of Social Credit.
3–TSE is evidently referring to the Introduction to SW, which takes its bearings from Essays in Criticism (1865, 1888), by Matthew Arnold (1822–88). TSE observed that ‘what makes Arnold seem all the more remarkable is, that if he were our exact contemporary, he would find all his labour to perform again’ (ix). The notion of the critic as ‘free’ recurs in the essay ‘The Perfect Critic’, where TSE hails ‘the free intelligence’ as ‘that which is wholly devoted to inquiry’ (12).
4–Rodker was only a contributor.
TO His Mother
TS Houghton
20 September 1920
[London]
My dearest mother,
I had been expecting a period when I could devote several leisurely evenings to writing a long letter and including an account of my visit to France with Wyndham Lewis. But I came back only to make up my mind to try again to find us a new flat. I think I have found one, it has taken a lot of trouble and will take more before we are in. Of course it is considerably more expensive, but I believe it to be very much more respectable, very much less noisy, and in a better neighbourhood in which not so many people are arrested.1 In any case, we shall I think be free from the neighbourhood of prostitution. This new flat has absorbed most of my time out of bank hours – seeing the landlord, writing to him, trying to get him to make alterations, etc. I will let you know when to change the address. Also, at the same time the proof for my book turned up and has had to be corrected very rapidly in order to get it through in time for publication this autumn. I got Pound and his wife [Dorothy] also to help in correcting it, but even so it entailed a lot of work, what with all the quotations in various languages which had to be verified and were found to have lots of mistakes in them.
I have another ten days holiday due to me in October, and want to take Vivien away for that period; it may unfortunately fall within the time which we shall have to devote to overseeing preparations and moving. I do not suppose that I shall be properly settled at work again till November; I have several things I want to do; and I want a period of tranquility to do a poem that I have in mind.
I am anxiously waiting to hear that you have got right in your new house. Henry has sent a photograph of it which looks very attractive and quiet. I hope that the street cars will not be a nuisance. You have never lived on a street car line. I hope and expect that you feel perfectly well again.
Abby has left with a friend for a trip in Belgium and Holland before returning to America. She was very anxious to go to Berlin, but we finally dissuaded her from attempting that.
I must write again at the end of the week. It is just striking 12. I am only writing this that you may not get discouraged and stop writing again, for I depend dearly on your letter every week.
your very affectionate son
Tom
1–‘There are evil neighbourhoods of noise and evil neighbourhoods of silence, and Eeldrop and Appleplex preferred the latter, as being the more evil … From time to time the silence of the street was broken; whenever a malefactor was apprehended, a wave of excitement curled into the street and broke upon the doors of the police station’ (TSE, ‘Eeldrop and Appleplex’ [I]).
TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
Wednesday [22 September 1920]
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear Mary,
It would be far more reasonable to ask if you had forgotten me, and if something had suddenly recalled me to your memory. If so, what was it? It would be interesting to know. In answer to your questions: 1. I am not well, and amabout to have an operation. 2. I have been engaged in activity tending toward a new flat, varied by agreeable weekend visits. 3. My pamphlet will emerge into obscurity during October hoffentlich [it is to be hoped]. 4. Am I writing much? Only signing my name to leases and agreements.
I had a very pleasant time with Lewis in France; we started in Brittany and went up the Loire on bicycles. We stopped in Paris long enough to see and dine with Vanderpyl, Croce1 and Joyce twice. I should like you to meet Joyce.
It is very kind of you to invite me to Wittering in October, but I am rather afraid that my operation and the removal will get in the way. I heard from Jack and was very sorry I couldn’t arrange to meet him, but am writing to him to suggest a date when he gets back. Please do not dread the winter in London. Why should you? It might be so nice. I can think of ways in which it might be.
Yrs
Thomas Eliot.
1–Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), Italian philosopher, critic and senator; author of The Philosophy of Spirit (4 vols, 1902–17).
TO John Gould Fletcher1
MS Arkansas
23 September 1920
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear Fletcher,
Thank you vDateery much for writing me so fully. But I hope also that you will let me see or even if possible have a copy of the article when it appears.2 My article, of course, was (at best) and could only be a partial statement of what I take to be a neglected aspect.3 Certainly I don’t deny the importance of emotion. I often find it present to me when other people find only frigidity – or vice versa.4 One writes about the world one has experienced: and experience without emotion (of some kind) is almost a contradiction. I think there is an important distinction between the emotions which are in the experience which is one’s material and the emotion in the writing – the two seem to me very different. But I do not believe that my view is very different from yours. It differs very much from Aiken’s.
Have you tried any critical articles on the Athenaeum? Your Chapbook summary of America seemed to me excellent.5
Yours sincerely,
T. S. Eliot
I was appalled by Lindsay.6
1–For Fletcher see note to TSE’s letter to Scofield Thayer, 30 June 1918, above.
2–Apparently unpublished, this article is not among Fletcher’s papers at Arkansas.
3–‘The Perfect Critic’. Fletcher preferred the second part.
4–‘Emotional people –
such as stockbrokers, politicians, men of science – and a few people who pride themselves on being unemotional – detest or applaud great writers such as Spinoza or Stendhal because of their “frigidity”’ (‘The Perfect Critic’ [II]).
5–John Gould Fletcher, ‘Some Contemporary American Poets’, Chapbook 2: 2 (May 1920), 1–31.
6–Vachel Lindsay, ‘The Broncho that would not be Broken’, ibid., 38–9.
TO The Editor of The New Republic1
MS Princeton
23 September 1920
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Sirs,
I thank you for your letter of the 24th August. I can only say that I am pleased at being asked to contribute verse to your paper, and, as I have not a shred of verse about me at present, I can only keep your invitation in mind, which I shall do.
Yours faithfully,
T. S. Eliot
1–The editor of the New Republic was Ridgely Torrence (1875–1950).
TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
28 September 1920
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear Mary,
My letter had, if no other, the merit of provoking yours. I am more than most people dependent on my friends’ good will (though I hate to keep invoking it). Since I have come back I have been too immersed in private affairs of the most trying sort to seek out anyone. So I have only seen a very few people who looked me out. I have assumed that those were the only ones who wanted to see me at all. So I was very much pleased to hear from you and Jack.
But as for not seeing us! You asked us to Wittering for the weekend when I was leaving for France, and so Vivien suggested September instead. Then neither of us heard from you till well into September, after our month was settled. So that is why we have not met.
I quite believe you when you say you like living in the country, but still I wonder if you would like it if you had to choose finally and cut yourself off from town or from country. That is what it has come to for me – for I do not see how I can afford both. One of the things about living in the country is that it simplifies existence (or plays at simplifying it, which is pleasanter still) but for me it only complicates it. You seem to me to have obtained so to speak a life lease on the pre-war terms, and to have been guaranteed against the horrible waste of time, energy, life, of the struggle with post-war machinery of life. If you take this as a reproach you will lose the whole point of it: it is merely a statement.
I think life in London would be more tolerable if there were more mixing: if there were more people entertaining who were capable of bringing very diverse people together and making them combine well. That is a great point in the Schiffs’ favour. They won’t have anyone about whom they don’t really like: so the atmosphere preserves one from boredom. One result is that everyone is ready to expand and play the fool if necessary. We got up some good acting at Eastbourne and they have started to take a great interest in it and are going to have acting parties at Cambridge Square.
Please let me know when you come back?
Yours affectionately
Thomas Eliot
We are moving in three weeks.
Vivien Eliot TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
[28? September 1920]
[18 Crawford Mansions]
Dear Mary,
I think it is nice of you to have written like that, and very nice to offer us Eleanor.1 I do not know yet when Tom will have his operation, but I shall know on Thursday. I will write and tell you. I want him to put it off until we have moved, and until we know just how ruined we are by the transaction, and until we have decided about Paris. But I suppose he will do just as the doctor advises (on Thursday). We are moving in three weeks.
I think it would be good for him to go to Eleanor after the operation, and I hope it may be arranged. But, Mary, I could not possibly go with him. It is a pity, but there are some things I can’t do, and that is one of them.
Would there be anyone in the village who could come in and cook his meals?
I do not bear you a grudge – it is not that. But I hope you will come back to London soon, if only for a few days, and see me then. I should like to talk to you.
It would have been nice if you had come to Eastbourne to find me. I wish you had.
Please let me know at once when you will be in London.
V.
Send these photographs back, because they are the only prints I have and are destined for America. But if you like either I will have a print done for you.
1–The Hutchinsons’ country house, Eleanor, at West Wittering, Sussex.
TO His Mother
MS Houghton
6 October 1920
18 Crawford Mansions
My dearest mother,
Our time and thought has been taken up lately by negotiations over a new flat [at 9 Clarence Gate Gardens]. It has been a great worry. Everything is so expensive, so fearfully expensive, that it is bound to cripple one and prevent one from being able to do other things – and it means counting very close at that; and then one is so anxious lest it should prove to have some unexpected drawback when one finally gets into it. We have been worried out of our wits. I have finally agreed to take one – it will cost a great deal for us. But I simply cannot any longer work where we are, or even rest. I have of course been unable to write, or even read and think, for some weeks. Previously, we had practically decided on another one, but dropped it at the last minute partly because the landlord was a very disagreeable person – that took a lot of time. We have to have a flat that could be managed without a servant, for if we lost the one we have we should never get another at anywhere like such low wages and would never attempt to get another. I would do a good deal to keep this one, who has been with us four years; for besides taking low wages she does all sorts of things that no one else would do, and is almost like a trained nurse when either of us is ill. But we must have a flat convenient enough so that we could manage to do without her, if the pinch of expense became so tight.
You had better write to the Bank unless you meanwhile hear from me another address.
My book will I hope be out in two or three weeks. We have made all sorts of plans for you when you come in the spring – both for London and visiting other cathedral towns and the country. I am very glad you have got your moving over. I fear the streetcars will be trying for you at first. I am very sorry to hear about Charlotte. It sounds very painful.
I dissuaded Abby from going to Berlin. She went to Holland with a friend, and will soon be in Boston. She wanted Vivien to travel with her, but owing to this question of moving, and the expense, Vivien could not go. It was a pity. I do not know whether we shall ever take the rest of my holiday.
When you come, we shall arrange to let you have our flat and our servant, and we shall go elsewhere for the time. This is much the best plan. You will only have to walk into it.
Harold Peters has reached England; I have a letter from him from Plymouth; he will be in London in a few days.
I should be inclined to recommend English securities rather than French were it not for the income tax, which is very heavy here. I will try to find out for you at what rate foreigners not living in England have to pay tax.
I am very tired and must stop now.
Your devoted son
Tom.
TO Henry Eliot
TS Houghton
10 October 1920
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Henry,
I am answering your letter at once, as you request.1 It is very kind of you indeed to take such infinite trouble and provide such very full information.
I figure that the $22,500 of stock at 4% and 3.60 pays Lst. 250 per annum. If I sold it @ 50 and 3.60 exchange I should get Lst. 3125. This invested in various bonds to yield @ 7%would give Lst. 218 p.a. The rate has fluctuated around 3.50 (a little over) the last few days. If you could sell @ 50 and buy sterling around 3.50 I think it would be a good investment. I have not heard
of a projected loan to England in the American market.2 If you sold 100 shares ($10,000) @ 50 = $5000 and could get sterling @ 3.50 it would produce Lst.1428, which invested @ 7%yield would net me Lst.100 p.a., a loss of only Lst.11 p.a. over 4% on the 100 shares (Lst.111 p.a.). I should not gamble on sterling going much lower.
Apparently I am not liable for any income tax in America on the Brick stock.
I think, in short, that it would be worthwhile to sell half the stock at a ratio of 50 (stock) to 3.50 (exchange) or thereabouts. If the exchange dropped further you could of course sell the stock for less, if necessary; and if the stock rose you could take a less favourable exchange. But I should be surprised if sterling got as high as 4.00 for many months. The present British government is very extravagant, and is likely to stay in power for some time; and on the other hand the accession of a Labour government would very likely be reflected by a depression in the value of sterling.
One is as a matter of fact very much in the dark (even arbitrage men seem to be) as to the immediate future of sterling. You know quite as much as I.
I cannot figure on better than 7%for gilt edged (government) securities.
We shall not let you forget your suggestion that you should come over with mother next year. You ought to have six weeks – that would give you at least three weeks here if you made proper arrangements, and that would be well worth it. In fact, you must come; so don’t let yourself think that there is any further doubt about it.