Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922
Page 93
All that I have to criticize in your article is this; that I know you are holding yourself in from prudence in my interest, desiring not to write anything which can arouse hostility toward the review. For that reason I think, your article lacks the bite of, for instance, your article on Joyce,1 and also I think it suffers from not being sufficiently concrete. I am perfectly aware of your reasons for avoiding mention of names or quotations of examples.
Yours always affectionately,
Tom.
When will you be in London?
My circulars are now being prepared and I will certainly very gratefully send you some and every additional subscriber will be a blessing. Let me know when you are coming to London – I want to see you very much.
1–RA, ‘The Influence of Mr. James Joyce’, English Review, Apr. 1921, 333–41.
TO Sydney Schiff
TS BL
13 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Sydney,
Thank you very much for your letter of the 12th, and for troubling to send it express. I am of course very disappointed that no reply has yet come, but I still have hope that Proust will yield to your persuasion if to anybody’s.1 Of course it would have been much better if I could have asked you to do this earlier. But I have not been in a position to discuss the review, and indeed have not been discussing it intimately with anyone. Also I had originally intended not to ask Proust until there was a tangible number of the review in existence to reassure him about the company in which he would find himself; it was in fact all that you told me about him after you came back from Paris, and knowing that you had come to know him so well, that made me venture to try to secure his support before the appearance of the first number.
With many thanks and best wishes to you both from both of us,
Yours affectionately,
Tom
1–Proust was wary of responding to a request from TSE that was associated with SS’s solicitations: ‘this Eliot question is all mixed up with the more delicate Schiff question’, wrote Proust (cited in Davenport-Hines, A Night at the Majestic, 269). A devout admirer, SS had begun translating Proust in 1919 and was proposing himself to the author as the only suitable translator. In the event, Proust’s ‘The Death of Albertine’ came out in C. 2: 8 (July 1924, 376–94), in the translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff; this was an extract from the penultimate book, La Fugitive or Second Part of Sodome et Gomorrhe, published as The Captive (1927). After Scott Moncrieff’s death in 1930, the translation was completed by SS with Time Regained (1931).
TO Leonard Woolf
TS Princeton
13 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Woolf,
Thank you for your letter of the 8th, and for the trouble you have taken.
I shall still hope that Koteliansky will agree to our publishing
Yours always,
T. S. Eliot
Vivien Eliot TO Richard Aldington
MS Texas
Saturday morning [15? July 1922]
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Richard Aldington,
Tom always leaves his letters behind for me to read, and this morning among others I have just read yours.1 It is not easy for me to write to you in this way but I feel for once I must come out of my obscurity and say something. I think your letter is unkind, and not friendly. It is exactly the letter to upset Tom, and to harden his pride, and to help to precipitate the disasters we all foresee and which you cheerfully say he is asking for.
At this moment I know he cannot stand a letter like this from anyone he actually did look upon as his friend. You might have said nearly all you did say, but in such a different tone, if you were really the friend I have thought you were to Tom. It looks to me as though you are definitely angry and resentful against him for some reason, and are taking it out of him all round. Quarrel with me if you like, and send me any kind of letter, or no letter at all – to show your scorn for my interference.
The article in the [July] Dial that you speak of was written just before Tom went to Lugano. He was in a state of collapse – so ill – he asked me what he should say. And I told him what to say, and he just wrote it down, anything, not caring, for he felt too ill and in despair. So the article is more mine than his. I would be glad if everyone knew that.
And as for the title – the Criterion, I am responsible for that too. It would be nice if you had offered some good suggestion for the title yourself in time. Perhaps you do not know how many were tried and discarded, and how much worry and bother even the stupid naming of the Review caused us. Anyhow, I thought of the Criterion out of my own head simply because I liked the word, and I gave no thought to the meaning. Lady Rothermere liked it too, and Tom, too tired – too tired to bother very greatly once an apparently harmless title had been found, which pleased Lady Rothermere, agreed, and was glad to get the matter settled.
I don’t suppose he thought of it the way you have put it, because he has so many other things to think of. Now, after your letter, I feel the title must once more be changed, although the notices are now being printed, and the letter paper. And Lady R. will be annoyed. I don’t see what to do. – Tom won’t care, he will say let the wolves get him. You little understand his state of mind.
I am English, and once I liked England – once I fought like mad to keep Tom here and stopped his going back to America. I thought I could not marry him unless I was able to keep him here, in England. Now I hate it. I hate the word. I hate the people whom you explain so well and so truly. I think Ezra is lucky and wise to have got out. And it is an everlasting stain on the English that he did get out. I hope Tom will soon get out. Tom will never know I have sent this letter unless you tell him. You know I am ill and an endless drag on him.
I know you have been very good, and a friend to Tom. I have, I must say, always thought of you as his real friend. But the test is now, when Tom is apparently doing, or has done, something you do not like.
He does stand or fall by this review. Can’t you understand it? Each person who gives him a push now gives him a push out of England. And that will be damned England’s loss.
Vivien Eliot
1–Not found, but TSE addresses RA’s complaints in his letter to EP, 19 July 1922.
TO Richard Aldington
TS Texas
17 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Richard,
I am surprised at your letter. My criticism of your article for the Criterion was extremely mild compared to criticism you have often made of what I have written. I did not intend you to imagine that I was unwilling to print your article and I think you have taken a very exaggerated view tone about the whole matter. It is odd that the first time I have ever offered anything but praise of your work it should cause you such great offense, considering the many times you have objected to writings of mine.
I want to print your article (of course) and as you have promised me that I shall have it for the first number I shall take it that I may print the article before it appears elsewhere, unless I hear from you by return of post (as I am making up the paper now).
Yours always,
Tom.
TO Dorothy Pound
MS Lilly
Monday [17 July 1922]
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Dorothy,
I have just come back from Bosham. Will you have tea with me on Wednesday at the Carlton at 5.30? That is the easiest place for me to get to from the bank. I hope you can.
Yours al
ways,
T.S.E.
TO F. S. Flint
TS Texas
18 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Flint,
Thank you very much for your letter and for your good wishes. I am delighted to have your consent and am sending you tomorrow the two manuscripts by registered post. Gómez wrote that this manuscript was the only one in existence and implored me to take good care of it and return it to him when the translation was made. I have had no time to read it, especially as I am not enough of a Spanish scholar to read very hurried writing with ease, but whether it is worth his solicitude or not, it is, he says, the only copy.
I am very sorry that the rates are so low at present, and I can only say that the first endeavour of the review will be to increase its rates and to show more respect to the art of translation which is so painfully underrated in this country.
I am sorry that you did not take the last remarks in my letter as they were intended. I really should very much like to have a contribution from you, and should have asked for it in any case at this moment.
Will you bear this in mind and at least propose a subject if you have nothing more tangible at present?
Yours sincerely,
T. S. Eliot
TO Ottoline Morrell
TS Texas
18 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Ottoline,
I should have written to you before, but as you know I am head over heels in work, and we have also started occupation of the little cottage where I spend my weekends. I am dreadfully sorry to hear that you have had to put yourself into the hands of the specialists again and I do hope that the consultation has not shown the necessity for an operation. You know I have a great antipathy to operations and I hope, if you have not already had an operation in consequence of this examination, that you will not do so. Please write soon and tell me what has happened. I have so little time for seeing people now that I shall not know about it until you write.
We hope that the cottage [at Bosham, near Chichester] will be a success. It is certainly attractive although the conditions are primitive. Vivien has already benefited a great deal in some ways, but at the same time the cure is so drastic that it makes her feel extremely ill and indeed causes her a great deal of pain. In two or three weeks I hope we shall know definitely how sound the treatment is.
Yours ever affectionately,
Tom
TO Herbert Read
TS Victoria
18 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Read,
I estimate that you ought to be back in London by this time, although I have not heard from you, and I hope that your travels in Italy have been in every way successful.
I am writing now to tell you definitely that I am undertaking for Lady Rothermere the entire choice of contributors for a quarterly review, of which the first number will appear in October. The review will differ from Art & Letters in that it will not be illustrated and that it will contain a much smaller proportion of verse and fiction. There will also be room for longer articles than was possible in Ar & Letters, although I am at present more in need of shorter ones from 1500 to 2500 words. It will be mainly critical and reflective.
Although I will not publish regular or complete reviewing, it is always open to chosen contributors to use any new book or books as a foundation for an article as in the quarterly review of a hundred years ago.
I have been particularly anxious since it has been settled finally that the review is to appear, to obtain something from you for an early number. Do not disappoint me. Let me know what you are writing or wish to write about and let us arrange to meet and discuss these matters, as soon as I know that you are back in London.
Yours sincerely,
T. S. Eliot
TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson
TS Beinecke
18 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Cobden-Sanderson,
Thank you very much for your letter of the 17th inst. I hope to be able to place the list in your hands within a few days, and I think it would certainly be worth while to send a circular to most of the people on your list. There are also three or four people to whom I want to send ten or a dozen copies each for distribution.
I quite agree with you that it is better to have the envelopes plain and I agree with your previous suggestion that they should be of a rather large size.
Yours sincerely,
T. S. Eliot
Will you add the name Ernst Robert Curtius in alphabetical order to the list in the circular. He is one of the best Germans.
TO Leonard Woolf
TS Princeton
18 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Woolf,
Thank you very much for your efforts and their success. You know that I shall be delighted to publish
The only question is how early in October you must bring out your book. If you will let me know definitely I can prepare to bring out the review slightly in advance. I should certainly put in a note to say that you were publishing it together with the unpublished Chapter. I shall take this contribution as definitely settled, and please remember that any other parts of books or shorter pieces will always be most welcome.
Is this Plan done by you or by Virginia?
Yours,
T. S. Eliot
Vivien Eliot TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
Tuesday [18 July 1922]
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Mary
I came back here yesterday and as the dentist can’t see me this week, I find, I am going back tomorrow and so I cannot have lunch with you, for I want to get the 1.40. I am very very sorry not to see you for so long. I want to see you – badly. I would have stayed here till Thursday in order to see you but I do feel I ought to go back and start there properly, without delaying any more, especially as I shall probably have to come up again next week.
The weekend was rather ghastly as we had no woman, but I have
engaged two! – one in the mornings and one for the evenings. It is quite a nice cottage, but inconceivably tiny.
If only if only I could find an unfurnished cottage there and put my furniture in [it], how happy I should be! Bosham seemed so lovely. Even although Tom may be leaving the Bank at Xmas and us going to live in Paris, it would be worthwhile – for there is no country I like better than English country. Don’t you think it is the best? But should quite cheerfully exchange Paris for London, I think.
Write to me!
My love
VE
####160###TO John Quinn
TS NYPL (MS)
19 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Mr Quinn,
Thank you very much for your letter of the 22nd ultimo. By this time you will have my letter of explanation, as I have yesterday a mild letter from Liveright which sounds as if he would come to terms. As it is now so late I am enclosing the typescript to hand to him when the contract is complete, or to hold if he does not complete. I had wished to type it out fair, but I did not wish to delay it any longer. This will do for him to get on with, and I shall rush forward the notes to go at the end. I only hope the printers are not allowed to bitch the punctuation and the spacing, as that is very important for the sense. I am not sure that you will approve of the punctuation, but I very much hope you will like the poem, as it seems to me the best I have ever done, and I am anxious to hear.
I did get your draft for £10,1 and am distressed to hear that I did not acknowledge it and thank you at the time. Rodker owed me £5 so I kept the whole and discharged his debt, with which he was quite satisfied. I should like to present you the manuscript of The Waste Land, if you would care to have it – when I say manuscript, I mean that it is partly manuscript and partly typescript, with Ezra’s and my alterations scrawled
all over it.
It is true that I had three months leave from Lloyds Bank in the winter, and was in Lausanne under a nerve specialist, a very good man. Physically, I was in very poor shape even after that, until I had two weeks holiday in Lugano (and a visit to Pound in Verona), and since then I have been very much better. My wife also has been very ill with colitis, and has only just found a treatment which seems to be doing her some good.
I expect to write to you again within a fortnight, on other matters, and meanwhile I pray that my affair with Liveright will not give you a great deal of trouble. And meanwhile you will be spared the nuisance of a long letter from me.
Yours always gratefully,
T. S. Eliot
1–Quinn sent the money on 25May 1921 as payment for a copy of Ara Vos Prec on vellum.
TO Ezra Pound
TS Lilly
19 July 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Cher Ezra,
I have seen Dorothy this afternoon and she has handed me the draft for Lir. 4246.50 on Rome.1 As I have no immediate crying need to spend the money and havnt time for a three days debooch, I shall bank it or invest it temporarily in some appreciable security. As you have not mentioned the address of the Club and as Dorothy