by T. S. Eliot
Dear Mr Eliot
This is not a proper letter, only a line, because the post, we have just found, goes out in five minutes. I have wanted to write to you for a long time, but all the time I have been ill writing letters has been such an effort to me. I hope you got my line at Xmas, and also that the little things I sent to Ada, Charlotte and Margaret arrived safely. Will you please thank Mrs Eliot for her nice letters. There are proper grates (for coal fires) in all the rooms in our flat, but we had gas stoves fixed in to the two bedrooms, and also a gas cooker in the kitchen, because it is much cheaper than coal. But as I was ill, we found that we could not get enough heat from the gas stove in our bedroom, and it is not healthy either, so we had it removed, and burn a coal fire there, and also in the sitting room. It is most beautiful here at Torquay, and we are so grateful to Mr Russell for giving us this wonderful holiday.
V. S. E.
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
Friday [14 January 1916]
Torbay Hotel, Torquay
Dear Bertie,
I hope you got our wire this afternoon. The MS is here, and Vivien will have it ready for you at the time you want it. I am very anxious to hear all the lectures, and shall certainly be at the first one;1 but I am not sure about my Tuesday afternoons after that (though I think I have a half holiday on Tuesdays) so you had better not give me a ticket now, in any case.
Vivien is not very well today. She felt very well yesterday, and was too active; consequently a bad night, and stomach and headache today, and very tired. As it was a lovely afternoon, however, we took a taxi drive along the shore to the place where one sees the two small islands; as we thought there might not be another such good chance. It is one of the loveliest bits of shore I have ever seen. There was no wind; the water that peculiar clear green blue which I have never seen anywhere else. I was in raptures over it. An atmosphere of perfect peace that nothing but the ocean has. It is wonderful to have come out of town and been bathed in this purity. You could not have chosen a better place for Vivien: it’s a sign how badly she needed it, when even under the absolutely perfect conditions you have provided for her she is still so weak and fatigued. I am convinced that no one could have been so wise and understanding with her as you. She was very happy. I have felt happier, these few days, than ever in my life.
Vivien hopes you will forgive her for not writing tonight, as she is so very tired. She is all right when she is lying down, but immediately she gets up is very faint.
Thank you very much for the cheque. You think of everything.
I shall see you on Tuesday. I am looking forward to the first lecture.
Affectionately,
Tom
1–The first of Russell’s eight Tuesday lectures at Caxton Hall, published as Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916), was given on 18 Jan.
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
Sunday [16 January 1916]
Torbay Hotel, Torquay
Dear Bertie,
Thank you very much for putting me in for Jourdain’s1 work – your efforts have been inexhaustible, and I shall do my best to justify them with Jourdain as well as Waterlow. I wrote to him at once, and I hope I can do something for him. I must do everything I can to earn more money, even with the thesis etc. on my hands. If Jourdain is willing to take something from me, and if I could do it well, I should find it worth while aside from the money, as an introduction. If he wants it soon, I should have no extra time; but I am going to find out if there is any opportunity for tutoring boys a few hours a week – privately, at Highgate, or through the medium of one of the agencies. It pays fairly well.
Vivien is wretched today – another bad night. Yesterday she was fairly well; we walked along the shore for over half an hour; but today very tired and low.
I shall come Tuesday afternoon, and of course Vivien is hoping to come. I don’t expect to see you afterwards, or only for a moment – but I want to see you in a few days, if possible for you.
Affectionately,
Tom.
1–Philip Jourdain (1879–1919), mathematician, had been a student of Russell’s at Cambridge and was British editor of The Monist and the International Journal of Ethics.
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
Monday 7 p.m. [17 January 1916]
Torbay Hotel, Torquay
Dear Bertie,
I was awfully sorry to be obliged to postpone the journey till tomorrow, as now it will be impossible for us to get to the lecture; but I was quite sure that Vivien was not well enough to travel today. I was almost convinced of it yesterday but decided to postpone the decision till this morning. Of course we are staying this extra night at our own expense; I insist on that. Vivien wanted to stick to the original timetable, but as I let her do rather too much on Saturday, she was quite exhausted yesterday, and was by no means fit today. I am sure that the net results will be definitely on the side of advance, but she will not be fit for much the rest of this week. A very strict regimen, with very clear limits of exertion will be imperative for the rest of the winter.
I will write to you tomorrow night, and hope to see you as soon as possible.
Affy
Tom
Charlotte C. Eliot TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
18 January 1916
4446 Westminster Place, St Louis
Dear Mr Russell,
It was very kind in you to send me a copy of your book: The Problems of Philosophy. I have delayed acknowledgement, because I wished first to read it and I have been very busy. I have now read as far as the eleventh chapter. When I have completed the book, I shall re-read it, as thus I can grasp the contents more as a whole. I find the text very lucid – a sort of concentration of light on the important points. I have always been interested in Philosophy, since I studied as a girl what in those days was termed ‘Mental Philosophy’. Most of what little knowledge I have was obtained through reading, and is desultory. I am glad to study the Problems. I read Bergson’s Creative Evolution1 and attended a course of lectures thereon, largely influenced by Tom’s enthusiasm, which I think became later a ‘diminishing quantity’.2 In Bergson’s emphasis on life, its power and indestructibility, I think some persons found an intimation of immortality, which excited their interest.
My personal experience [has] been that the mere reading of Philosophy stimulates the mind and increases its creative power, so that I have sometimes read Philosophy as a preparation for writing. I do not see any reason why if my son makes Philosophy his life work he should not write all the poetry he desires, if not too much of the ephemeral ‘vers libre’. I went yesterday to the Library, to look for Tom’s review [of Balfour, Theism and Humanism] in the International Journal of Ethics. I found and read it. It produced an excellent impression but I am too ignorant to understand and appreciate the article. I feel very grateful to you for having obtained for Tom the opportunity to do this work, and am very glad he is to join the Aristotelian Society.
I hope Tom will be able to carry out his purpose of coming on in May to take his degree. The Ph.D. is becoming in America, and presumably also in England, almost an essential for an Academic position and promotion therein. The male teachers in our secondary schools, are as a rule inferior to the women teachers, and they have little social position or distinction. I hope Tom will not undertake such work another year – it is like putting Pegasus in harness.
Tom has always had every reasonable desire gratified, without any thought of ways and means, up to the present time. I am sure his father will do for him all he can as soon as he can. We hope for a return to power of the Republican party, and a consequent revision of the tariff. Mr Eliot thinks after the War is over, we shall be flooded with cheap German goods. I think even England, with her free trade traditions will find she needs protection.
I saw in the Fortnightly Review an article by Ezra Pound, in which he mentions Tom as one of two of the most intelligent
writers.3 He is generous in his praise. And a kindly man. Yet I cannot read Pound. His articles seem over-strained, unnatural. As for the Blast, Mr Eliot remarked when he saw a copy he did not know there were enough lunatics in the world to support such a magazine.
Yours very truly,
Charlotte C. Eliot
1–Trans. Arthur Mitchell (New York, 1911). TSE’s annotated copy survives, with his notes and an essay on Henri Bergson (Houghton).
2–TSE wrote later that his ‘only conversion, by the deliberate influence of one individual, was a temporary conversion to Bergsonism’ (A Sermon, preached in Magdalene College Chapel, Cambridge, 1948, 5). By 1924 he was asking, ‘Has not his exciting promise of immortality a somewhat meretricious captivation?’ (Vanity Fair 21: 6, Feb. 1924, 29).
3–‘With the appearance of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot, and the more “normal” part of Mr Wyndham Lewis’s narrative writings, one may even hope that intelligence shall once more have its innings in our own stalwart tongue’ (‘Rémy de Gourmont’ [Part I], Fortnightly Review 98, 1 Dec. 1915, 1159–66).
TO Sydney Waterlow
MS Waterlow
27 January 1916
3 Culworth House, Henry St,
St John’s Wood, N.W.
Dear Waterlow
It is very kind of you to forward the compliment and the message, and I shall look up your friend as soon as I can. In spite of your apologies, you have excited my curiosity, and I look forward to meeting him.
I am sending a copy of the Anthology I mentioned to you.1 I make the same apology for it that you do for your friend! but you have expressed an interest in such stuff, and I hope that some of the contents may amuse you.
Yours sincerely
T. Stearns Eliot
1–Catholic Anthology (1915).
TO J. H. Woods
MS Professor David G. Williams
20 February 1916
3 Compayne Gdns, London N.W.
Dear Professor Woods,
Thank you very much for writing and for asking the other members of the faculty to write. I will send on my thesis a little ahead, and if it is not acceptable I will ask you to cable so as to save me the journey.
I shall sail either the 2nd or the 5th of April and thus will have a few days before the week of the 19th and I hope a few days afterward. My examinations will have to be crammed into a very few days, I am sorry to say. I will let you know very shortly just what day I shall arrive.
I enclose two letters from Joachim. I am sure he and Smith (with whom he is hand in glove) will greet you very cordially, and I look forward to having you so near. I hope you will be often in London. If there is anything else I can do for you before you come I am at your disposal –
I am in a great rush tonight. I will write again very shortly.
With many thanks,
Sincerely,
Thomas Stearns Eliot
Bertrand Russell TO J. H. Woods
MS Harvard
4 March 1916
34 Russell Chambers, Bury St, W.C.
Dear Professor Woods
I am looking forward to your answer as to my lectures1 next year. I am very anxious to give the sort of course that will be acceptable. But what I want to write about now is Eliot. I hope he is all right for his Doctor’s Degree. I have seen a great deal of him since his marriage, and have got to know a new side of him, which I never suspected. He has been poor and his wife has been ill. He has had to work very hard to make a living, and has spent his spare hours in looking after his wife, with the most amazing devotion and unselfishness. I can’t help fearing that he may have grown rusty in his work – but if he has it is not from laziness, quite the reverse. It has driven me almost to despair to see his really fine talents wasting; he is so reserved and modest that I am sure Harvard will never learn anything of his private circumstances from him.
He has here, among all the younger literary men, a very considerable reputation for his poetry. All sorts of cultivated people who have never met him think his work in that line the best work done by any young man. For a long time, I was unable to see any merit in it, but now I agree with them. It takes time to get used to a new style. My view is that he is right to live in Europe because the atmosphere of Europe is better for that sort of work; and that is the sort of work he ought to aim at doing. But my only motive in writing is to recommend him to your kindness, and to let you know something of the struggle he has had – which he would never mention. Except in the one matter of health, his marriage is a very happy one and altogether desirable.
Yours very sincerely
Bertrand Russell
1–The lectures were cancelled because the Foreign Office refused BR a passport.
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
Monday [6 March? 1916]
3 Culworth House
Dear Bertie
We went to the dentist this afternoon. I was not able to go with Vivien, but I arrived a few minutes later and talked to the doctor afterwards. Vivien was very much shaken by the interview, and is now in very great pain, both neuralgia and stomach. I think the dentist quite failed in tact, and did not understand what was required, though I had talked to him and also written to him last night. I saw that she had had a shock, and was puzzled when he made light of the matter in talking to me afterwards. He said it could be easily attended to, required no anaesthetic, could wait for some little time, and meant no great pain or risk. He said that there was probably some decay in the crowned tooth, and that the nerve of the other tooth was dead; that the pain it had given was in the process of dying. He told me that he had not told her this – I then found that he had told her and also, what he had not told me, that there was a possibility of an abscess. He evidently thought that I was the person to be calmed down, and that I had communicated my fears to Vivien, and evidently he had not understood what I had told him. I have no doubt he is a good dentist, but the interview has done no good, and has taken it out of her very much indeed. How much this will postpone her recovery I cannot yet tell. She is very low tonight. I think that the teeth will take care of themselves until she is ready to have them attended to. She is very ill tonight, and I am very very sorry that she went through this. It has been too great a strain upon her will.
I will write to you tomorrow, and see you soon and talk to you.
Yours aff.
Tom
She finished the typing this afternoon before going to the dentist. I am sending it tonight.
The dentist told her that there was a possibility of an abscess forming in the tooth of which the nerve had died. After all however, the consequences are not his fault – he was very kind and did his best. The mistake was in letting her go at all – the effort and the anticipation during the last weeks – which she didn’t say anything about, and which have taken every ounce of strength out of her.
Don’t expect her to lunch tomorrow. I am sure it will be some days before she can go out to lunch or dinner.
TO J. H. Woods
MS Professor David G. Williams
6 March 1916
3 Culworth House, Henry St,
St John’s Wood, London N.W.
Dear Professor Woods,
I enclose the form1 which was sent me by the secretary.
I shall sail, if all goes well, on the first of April. This will I suppose compel me to have all the examinations in the week of April 10th as (I presume) the spring holidays occupy the week of April 17th. I hope that this will not inconvenience the department.
I trust that no international developments will prevent my sailing. If a breach with Germany should occur, either to make it impossible to sail or to jeopardise my return, I hope such an unfortunate occurrence might be considered only a postponement.
I am sending my thesis in a few days in any case, and will write you a line by the same mail. If it should not prove acceptable, there might just be time to cable to me before my sailing; but I hope that it will not be found unsatisfactory.
Sincerely yours
Thomas Stearns Eliot
Cable address: ‘LINEN’, London.
TO Harriet Monroe
MS Chicago
27 March 1916
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, London W.
Dear Miss Monroe
I hope that I have not seriously inconvenienced you by not writing before in regard to your inquiry about putting my ‘Prufrock’ into your anthology.1 I can only excuse myself by saying that I have been busier than most men are in a lifetime – and I find it very hard to keep anything on my mind. I do hope your plans have not been put out by my delay.
I am very much pleased that you want to reprint the poem; but as it has already appeared in the Catholic Anthology here, and as it will form the ballast of a very small volume in the future, I really feel that I should be making a mistake in reprinting it again in an Anthology before it appears in a book.
If there is anything else of mine which you would care to use instead, I wish you would make use of it. But I suppose you are using only material which has already appeared in Poetry, or I should suggest some things of mine which appeared in Blast and Others.
Thank you for the clippings in regard to the Dial episode.2 Does the battle still go on? I should be glad to participate with a few quotations which the critic would perhaps not identify.
