The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922
Page 15
– These are all obvious remarks which I need not weary you with: but the upshot is (or would be if I continued till I had really expressed my meaning) that relativism, strictly interpreted, is not an antidote for the other systems: one can have a relative absolute if one likes, for it is all one if one call the Absolute, Reality or Value. It does not exist for me, but I cannot say that it does not exist for Mr Bradley. And Mr Bradley may say that the Absolute is implied for me in my thought – and who is to be the referee?
Of course one cannot avoid metaphysics altogether, because nowhere can a sharp line be drawn – to draw a sharp line between metaphysics and common sense would itself be metaphysics and not common sense. But relativism does I think suggest this recommendation: not to pursue any theory to a conclusion, and to avoid complete consistency. Now the world of natural science may be unsatisfying, but after all it is the most satisfactory that we know, so far as it goes. And it is the only one which we must all accept. One cannot, of course, hope to separate Reality from Value. Some philosophies are only a play upon this ambiguity of the word Reality. In a way the most valuable is the most real, and the beauty of a work of art is in this way more real to me than its ultimate (or relatively ultimate) physical constituents. But one has got to neglect some aspects of the situation, and what relativism does, it seems to me, is to neglect consciously where realism protests that there is nothing to neglect, and idealism that it has neglected nothing. Thus I put, frankly arbitrarily, Reality and Value as opposite ends of a scale. Nowhere, of course, is either utterly absent. But I am content to say figuratively that the goal to which ‘reality’ strives is the world of the materialist. One is equally free to say that it ‘strives’ toward the other end too. Of course it does not get there, in either case.
I am quite ready to admit that the lesson of relativism is: to avoid philosophy and devote oneself to either real art or real science. (For philosophy is an unloved guest in either company). Still, this would be to draw a sharp line, and relativism preaches compromise. For me, as for Santayana, philosophy is chiefly literary criticism and conversation about life;8 and you have the logic, which seems to me of great value. The only reason why relativism does not do away with philosophy altogether, after all, is that there is no such thing to abolish! There is art, and there is science. And there are works of art, and perhaps of science, which would never have occurred had not many people been under the impression that there was philosophy.
However, I took a piece of fairly technical philosophy for my thesis, and my relativism made me see so many sides to questions that I became hopelessly involved, and wrote a thesis perfectly unintelligible to anyone but myself; and so I wished to rewrite it. It’s about Bradley’s theory of judgment, and I think the second version will be entirely destructive. I shall attack first ‘Reality’ second ‘Idea’ or ideal content, and then try to show sufficient reason for attempting to get along without any theory of judgment whatsoever. In other words, there are many objects in the world (I say many, as if one could draw a sharp line, though in point of fact it is degree everywhere) which can be handled as things sufficiently for ordinary purposes, but not exactly enough to be subject matter for a science – no definition of judgment, that is, is formally either right or wrong; and it simply is a waste of time to define judgment at all.
Well, I think I have bored you with these commonplaces long enough. Do let me know if you wish the other papers back. I thank you for sending them to me.
I have given a card of introduction to you to a friend of mine Thayer, an American (Harvard’13) now in Oxford. I do not know whether you will find much in common, but he was anxious to meet you, and is intelligent. He is a friend and admirer of Santayana’s.
Sincerely
Eliot
1–‘Relativism’, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 11: 21 (8 Oct. 1914), 561–77.
2–‘On a Method of Rearranging the Positive Integers in a Series of Ordinal Numbers Greater than That of Any Given Fundamental Sequence of Ω’, The Messenger of Mathematics 43 (May 1913–Apr. 1914), 97–105.
3–‘The Highest Good’, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 11 (10 Sept. 1914), 512–20.
4–‘Studies in Synthetic Logic’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 18 (1914), 14–28.
5–‘A Simplification of the Logic of Relations’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 17 (1914), 387–90.
6–‘A Contribution to the Theory of Relative Position’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 17 (1914), 441–9.
7–‘He said, this universe is very clever / The scientists have laid it out on paper’ (IMH, 71).
8–Though Santayana wrote literary as well as philosophical essays, and his Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante and Goethe (1910) moves between literature and philosophy, he did not actually speak of philosophy as literary criticism. In 1922 he wrote, ‘Criticism is something purely incidental – talk about talk – and to my mind has no serious value, except perhaps as an expression of the philosophy of the critic’ (quoted in John McCormick, George Santayana: A Biography [1987], 247).
TO Eleanor Hinkley
TS Houghton
[Postmark 27 January 1915]
[Merton College, Oxford]
SCENE I1
Miss Elizabeth Biddy, her tiring woman
B: And saw you Master Frederick at the ball, miss?
E: Ay, that I did, Biddy, and I vow I believe there was none there to match him. With what an easy grace did he enter the room, dextrously advancing one foot before the other; how magisterially did he glance about him, as one who knew himself formed to set all female hearts in commotion, and yet aware of his own excellences and perfections would not acknowledge himself aware sensible that he was observed; how punctilious was his manner; how exact his dress; how informing his discourse; how aimiable and condescending his smile; how gay and sprightly his sallies, and yet all the while with a kind of sad gravity about him, as one accustomed to consideration of weighty matters, and who knew how to reprove and check any unseemly levity. I confess that when he did summon me to the Sir Roger de Coverly, my knees would scarce sustain me.
B: Fye, my lady, I do perceive your ladyship has taken a fancy to the gentleman.
E: Ah, Biddy, how shrewdly do you devine my thoughts! Tis true he has taken my fancy hugely.
B: I beseech you, miss, bestow not your heart so lightly. Tis not five years that he hath smiled upon you, and men are ever fickle creatures.
E: Tis justly you advise me Biddy. I have indeed some comeliness of feature; but whether he deems me worthy for his spouse, or whether he but toys with me, that I cannot tell. Blame rather the weakness of my sex, than the impetuosity of my blood, or the defect of my understanding, when I avow that I look upon him with aspiration of holy wedlock.
Enter Footman.
F: Master Frederick waits below, miss, and he bid me request of you that you dally not, for tis but fifteen minutes he can give you.
E: (aside) Oh my heart, how it flutters … Tell him I descend forthwith.
SCENE II
Miss Elizabeth Master Frederick
* * * * * * * * *
E: Oh la, Master Frederick, you men are such dissemblers, I vow there’s no believing a one of you. Will you never ha’ done a-plaguing a poor maid?
F: Miss Elizabeth, the devotion and ardour of my flame in the past is sufficient earnest and token guarantee of my constancy in the future, and any further hesitation upon your part would argue not that natural coyness and timidity which in the female appears so seemly, but rather a coldness of complexion and a defect of appreciation of my merits. Conscious as I am, and as I ought to be, of the honour I bestow, and of the exalted and difficult post which I propose that you should occupy, I yet am fully minded to make you my wife.
E: Then, Master Frederick, I will make no further conditions but own myself your willing slave and adorer. And still I admire much whether y
ou have not learnt these blandishments and cunning wiles which bespeak such knowledge of the female heart, at the cost of those victims of whom perhaps your Elizabeth is not the last.
F: (on one knee) My Elizabeth!
(Sensation among the old ladies in the front row)
He rises, his boots creaking as he does so. ‘There, that’s settled’. Looks at his watch. ‘Now I must be off to address a meeting of the Church Lads Brigade in Arlington’. Starts to put on his rubbers. ‘Oh, I forgot’. Advances f.c.. ‘Permit me’. Kisses her decorously in exact centre of left cheek.
CURTAIN
1–This jeu d’esprit was prompted by the announcement of the engagement of his cousin the Revd Frederick Eliot to Elizabeth Lee.
TO J. H. Woods
MS Professor David G. Williams
28 January 1915
Merton College, Oxford
Dear Professor Woods,
I have not forgotten. I am sending you under separate cover the notes on Joachim’s Ethics for the first term, including all that he has to say up to Book V. In script are the more important marginal notes, and the references of course are to Burnet’s text.1 I hope to send you Collingwood’s notes within a fortnight. I hope that some small part of the notes will be of use to you.
My notes on the Post-Anal. and on Zabarella on the de An. are brief and marginal, or on interleaves, but I will put them in order for you.
I have written, at Mr Joachim’s suggestion, to Mr R. P. Hardie of Edinburgh, who knows the resources of Italian booksellers, but have not yet had an answer.
I am continuing with Joachim’s and Smith’s lectures, and with Joachim’s Post-Anal., and am taking up a class in Plotinus with Stewart. I shall go to Smith’s and I expect Stewart’s informals as well. For Joachim I am now writing papers on Plato, and shall later write on Aristotle. He is much better on historical problems than on constructive philosophy I think, and is really almost a genius, with respect to Aristotle. In general philosophical discussion I did not often really ‘get anywhere’ with him, though this failure was due no doubt as much to my fatal disposition toward scepticism as to his Hegelianism. I find that I take so much keener enjoyment in criticism than in construction that I propose making a virtue of a vice and recasting my thesis with a mind to this limitation; as I find satisfaction only in the historical aspect of philosophy. I had great difficulty, even agony, with the first draft, owing to my attempt to reach a positive conclusion; and so I should like to turn it into a criticism and valuation of the Bradleian metaphysic – for it seems to me that those best qualified for such tasks are those who have held a doctrine and no longer hold it. It is possible that I may prefer to remain here for the spring term, as I shall not be done with the commentaries within the next six weeks.
Very sincerely yours
Thomas S. Eliot
1–TSE’s annotated copy of The Ethics of Aristotle, ed. John Burnet (1900), is in his library.
TO Professor L. B. R. Briggs
MS Harvard
28 January 1915
Merton College
My dear Dean Briggs,
In accordance with the instructions of my letter, I offer respectfully this account of my work. I was in residence at this college for the first term of eight weeks from the 5th October to the 5th December. During this period I attended three sets of lectures, one on logic, the other two explanations of texts of Aristotle; I also participated in a small class reading the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle under my tutor Mr Joachim; and I attended the weekly discussion class of Professor J. A. Smith. I also brought once a week to Mr Joachim a short paper dealing with some one of the questions considered in the thesis which I hope to present for the degree of Ph.D. at Harvard; this paper we discussed always in detail; and I hope that at the end of the year Mr Joachim will be able to give a satisfactory report of this work and also of the work in his class. I have spent a large part of my time studying certain Italian commentaries upon Aristotle which he has recommended to me.
During the vacation I continued my reading, both during a fortnight in the country, and the rest of the period in London, where I devoted my time to the use of another commentary preserved in the British Museum.
The present term will continue much the same routine. Instead of one of the lecture courses (now completed) I pursue a class under Professor Stewart, reading Plotinus, and the essays which I carry to Mr Joachim are to be devoted to questions of criticism of Plato and Aristotle.
I had had some purpose of removing to Gottingen or Berlin for the spring term (from the latter part of April); but as I have become engrossed in the work I am doing here in Greek Philosophy, I shall probably continue as before. I have consulted Professor Woods upon this matter, and have been in communication with him throughout. Last summer was to have been spent in Germany, but soon after the outbreak of war the impossibility of securing money made it necessary to return to London.
I have the honour to remain
Very sincerely yours
Thomas S. Eliot
TO Ezra Pound1
MS Beinecke
2 February [1915]
Merton College
My dear Pound,
I am very glad to hear from you, and2 it is certainly very kind of you to make these efforts3 on my behalf. I enclose a copy of the Lady,4 which seems cruder and awkwarder and more juvenile every time I copy it. The only enrichment enhancement which time has brought is the fact that by this time there are two or three other ladies who, if it is ever printed, may vie for the honour of having sat for it. It will please you, I hope, to hear that I had a Christmas card from the lady,5 bearing the ‘ringing greetings of friend to friend at this season of high festival’. It seems like old times.
I must thank you again for your introduction to the Dolmetsch family6 – I passed one of the most delightful afternoons I have ever spent, in one of the most delightful households I have ever visited. You were quite right – there was no difficulty about the conversation, and I made friends with the extraordinary children in no time, and am wild to see them again. As for the dancing, they all danced (except the head of the family) for about an hour, I think, while I sat rapt. I have corresponded with [Wyndham] Lewis,6 but his puritanical principles seem to bar my way to Publicity. I fear that King Bolo and his Big Black Kween will never burst into print. I understand that Priapism, Narcissism etc. are not approved of, and even so innocent a rhyme as
… pulled her stockings off
With a frightful cry of ‘Hauptbahnhof!!’
is considered decadent.7
I have been reading some of your work lately. I enjoyed the article on the Vortex (please tell me who Kandinsky is).8 I distrust and detest Aesthetics, when it cuts loose from the Object, and vapours in the void, but you have not done that. The closer one keeps to the Artist’s discussion of his technique the better, I think, and the only kind of art worth talking about is the art one happens to like. There can be no contemplative or easychair aesthetics, I think; only the aesthetics of the person who is about to do something. I was fearful lest you should hitch it up to Bergson or James or some philosopher, and was relieved to find that Vorticism was not a philosophy.
I hope that your work is progressing satisfactorily. I probably shall not be in town again until March. I hope that Yeats will still be there. Please remember me to Mrs Pound.
Sincerely yours Thomas S. Eliot
I enclose one small verse. I know it is not good, but everything else I have done is worse. Besides, I am constipated and have a cold on the chest. Burn it.
SUPPRESSED COMPLEX9
She lay very still in bed with stubborn eyes
Holding her breath lest she begin to think.
I was a shadow upright in the corner
Dancing joyously in the firelight.
She stirred in her sleep and clutched the blanket
with her fingers
She was very pale and breathed hard.
When morning shook the long nasturtium c
reeper in
the tawny bowl
I passed joyously out through the window.
1–Ezra Pound: see Glossary of Names.
2–Above these smudged words TSE added ‘excuse tea’, which he had spilt on them.
3–‘Portrait of a Lady’.
4–Miss Adeleine Moffatt, the subject of the poem, lived behind the State House in Boston and invited selected Harvard undergraduates to tea. During a visit to London in 1927 she asked the Eliots to dine, offering ‘a modest choice of dates to sacrifice yourselves on the altar of New England’, but they were away.
5–Arnold Dolmetsch (1858–1940), musician and craftsman, who made early English musical instruments and revived the playing of them. The eldest of his four gifted children was then aged eight.
6–(Percy)Wyndham Lewis, writer and painter: see Glossary of Names. Though often difficult and cantankerous, he was greatly admired by TSE.