by T. S. Eliot
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
13 March 1917
[London]
Dear Bertie,
Thank you for reading my article1 and returning it so promptly. I think that what you say about it is probably correct, and I am so keenly aware of its deficiencies that I shall probably keep it in my drawer for a year or two. The questions involved are so difficult that it seems impossible under present conditions to treat them adequately, and I have no desire to do either your point of view or my own an injustice. One’s philosophy is bound to be based on temperament, but it certainly ought to be ‘reasoned’ as well, and my article is I feel too scattered and incoherent.
I made no positive objection to the principle of ‘reverence’2 – it merely seems to me inadequate. My chief objection is to the passage on p. 165.3
Aff.
T. S. E.
1–Evidently TSE had written a critique of BR’s Principles of Social Reconstruction (1917), though neither the article nor BR’s response has been found.
2–BR, in his chapter on ‘Education’ (Principles of Social Reconstruction, 146), argued: ‘A man who is to educate really well, and is to make the young grow and develop into their full stature, must be filled through and through with the spirit of reverence.’ However, he declared too, ‘It is not in a spirit of reverence that education is conducted by States and Chambers and the great institutions that are subservient to them’ (148).
3–‘It will be said that the joy of mental adventure must be rare, that there are few who can appreciate it, and that ordinary education can take no account of so aristocratic a good. I do not believe this. The joy of mental adventure is far commoner in the young than in grown men and women. Among children it is very common, and grows naturally out of the period of make-believe and fancy. It is rare in later life because everything is done to kill it during education. Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. It sees man, a feeble speck, surrounded by unfathomable depths of silence; [overleaf] yet it bears itself proudly, as unmoved as if it were lord of the universe. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.’
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
Thursday [15? March 1917]
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Bertie,
Thanks for your letter, which was very good of you. Nevertheless, I feel that the article is not satisfactory to me. I feel that I have put either too much or too little into it. I should prefer to discuss Authority and Reverence.1 I think what I have said is in appearance too negative and perhaps looks obscurantist. I am convinced that there is something beneath Authority in its historical forms which needs to be asserted clearly without reasserting impossible forms of political and religious organisation which have become impossible. But this is a task which needs impulse and hope, and without more peace of mind and contentedness, better nerves and more conviction in regard to my future, I do not feel capable of satisfying myself.
Yours aff.
Tom
1–For Russell on Authority, see Principles, 27, 33ff, 167ff; for Reverence, 146, 227.
TO His Mother
MS Houghton
21 March 1917
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, W.1 Note W.1
My dearest mother,
You will not have heard from me for some time, so I hope this will arrive quickly. You know that I have spent a large part of my time hunting for work to stop the gap, and I can assure you that nothing takes more time. Now I have found it, and I am in much better spirits than I have been for some time past. A friend of the Haigh-Woods is a very successful banker,1 and he gave me an introduction to Lloyds Bank, one of the biggest banks in London. I am now earning £2 10s a week for sitting in an office from 9.15 to 5 with an hour for lunch, and tea served in the office.2 This of course is not a princely salary, but there are good prospects of a rise as I become more useful. Perhaps it will surprise you to hear that I enjoy the work. It is not nearly so fatiguing as schoolteaching, and is more interesting. I have a desk and a filing cabinet in a small room with another man. The filing cabinet is my province, for it contains balance sheets of all the foreign banks with which Lloyds does business. These balances I file and tabulate in such a way as to show the progress or decline of every bank from year to year. The work had lapsed for some time, and I am filling in last year’s balances; when that is completed, I should be able to draft a little report on any bank when needed. French and Italian I find useful, and shall have to pick up a little Spanish, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian as well. The work is very interesting to me, and also, when 5 o’clock comes it is over, and I can think about my writing for Jourdain, or the New Statesman, or my class, with a free mind.
Of course there is no engagement to give more than a week’s notice so the place is not a trap. I hope for more evening work next winter. My article in the New Statesman was a great success, and I shall probably be able to get articles in very often. That is the best thing possible for me, as it will get my name known. Squire (the editor of the New Statesman)3 urged me to begin at once writing articles for American periodicals, and offered me an introduction to the Century and the Dial. Russell could introduce me to the Atlantic [Monthly]. I shall be rather busy for Jourdain too, as he has decided to increase the reviewing on the Monist, and as it is difficult now to get competent people to review technical books for a technical paper, we are to do almost all of it between us – I to do philosophy, theology, biology and anthropology.
It is a great satisfaction to me to have regular work, and I can do my own work much the better for it. Even when circumstances stand in my way as they do at present, I should not feel that I was doing all I could if I did only what writing and lecturing there is to be done. Besides, Vivien is very anxious to give up her charwoman as soon as the weather is a little warmer, and I insist that she must not. She has not got over the laryngitis yet by any means; the work would take all her time and the strength which should go to building up; and I am afraid she cannot have as good a holiday as last summer. I want her to go away in July and August, as I think she can get another girl to accompany her. I might be able to get a short vacation, but I think we could live almost as cheaply, she in the country I here, during the hottest period, as we do now. Besides, for the present, I do not feel comfortable for her never to have anyone in the flat while I am out all day. Of course, when I think of all the clothes she needs – she has not had any for a long time, and I have my new suit – I see advantages in giving up the woman, but I do not like it.
The war must end sometime. Do write me about the health and activities of all the family. I have not had a letter from Henry for a long time. I hope he will find his present post good enough to keep, as I feel that it is not good to move about so much.4
I think of you and wonder what you are doing very often.
Always your devoted son
Tom
1–E. L. Thomas was Chief General Manager of the National Provincial Bank.
2–TSE began work on 19 Mar. in the Colonial and Foreign Department, ‘at £120 a year and no food … on the false pretence of being a linguist’ (Harvard College Class of 1910, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, 219).
3–See TSE’s letter to him of 29 Mar.
4–HWE was a partner in the Chicago advertising agency Husband & Thomas (later the Buchen Company), 1917–29.
TO Charlotte Eliot Smith
MS Houghton
21 March 1917
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, W.1 Note. W.1
My dear Charlotte,
We were delighted to get
the pictures from you, and still more when two more came from Henry, for the little head of Chardy is by far the best of the lot. Vivien is going to have it passe-partout’d. All of the pictures of Chardy are good. Theodora does not ‘take’ so easily, and the picture of her as Tunisienne does not do her justice – though it looks extraordinarily like Marion. It was jolly to see the Christmas party, too. I get the impression that Theodora is extremely tall, already, and probably will be tall. I should like to have helped bring in the greens.
As you say, political topics are barred in letters: it is a great annoyance to me, as I am violently interested in the subject at present. However, one can ‘lay down’ bottles to be opened when the vintage has ripened. I quite believe that you do not find much intelligent discussion among your friends or our relations. The war has at least brought variety into our lives. I am at present combining the activities of journalist, lecturer, and financier. During the daytime I am now employed at Lloyds Bank as a stop-gap. Lloyds is one of the banks with largest foreign connections, and I am busy tabulating balance-sheets of foreign banks to see how they are prospering. My ideal is to know the assets and liabilities (of every bank abroad that Lloyds deals with) for ten years past! You will be surprised to hear of me in this capacity, but I enjoy it. Incidentally, I shall pick up scraps of the Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian languages. Russians, fortunately, manage to produce their reports in English or French. Anything to do with money – especially foreign money – is fascinating, and I hope to learn a little about finance while I am there.
This engagement, of course, is due to the fact that under war conditions it is impossible to make an all-the-year-round living by writing and lecturing. I hope to have more lecturing next winter. My literature (working people’s) class has been a great success, and I am enthusiastic about the work. These people, who meet once a week for my lecture and discussion, and write papers, are very anxious to improve themselves, though there is not the slightest chance of its helping them to make a better living. In America there would, I think, be less chance for this sort of class. Education is so diffused, and it is so easy for almost anyone to get a socalled ‘college education’, that education is less prized. A young man who will work himself to death to ‘go through college’ usually works himself to death making money afterwards. The idea of people studying all their lives is unknown, as also among the more prosperous classes in England. But my class is entirely disinterested in its devotion to study and thought.
I really ought not to write any more. I have several letters to write, and a pile of books to review for the Monist, and I ought to write an article for the New Statesman.
Vivien sends you her love, and adds her thanks for the pictures. She has continued to suffer from her larynx – you know she had a bad attack of laryngitis some weeks ago, and her voice is very weak. The protracted cold weather has made matters more difficult. She is very anxious to do without the charwoman when the weather is warmer, but I am sure that would be unwise. What she needs is another summer at the seaside.
With much love to you all from both of us
Your affectionate brother,
Tom
TO Graham Wallas1
MS LSE
23 March 1917
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, W.
Dear Mr Wallas,
I am writing to inform you of my having at last hooked something – a very small fish, it is true. I am now in the Foreign department of Lloyds bank, living in hopes of a rise in salary. Anyway, it is a relief to be no longer on the hunt, and a nuisance to everyone I know. The work is neither difficult nor exhausting nor uninteresting; it is done under very comfortable conditions, and leaves me less fatigued than teaching, so that I can read and write in the evenings. I should like to think that I shall come to learn something of that extraordinary science of banking, if I can grasp any of it.
Mr Boas1 has been very kind to me, and hopes to get me some evening work next autumn. What I should like especially would be another tutorial class, but there seems faint hope of that. Thank you again for getting me into contact with Mr Boas.
I hope I may see you again soon.
With kind regards to Mrs Wallas and your daughter.
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
And after all I forgot to thank you for writing to Hobhouse.2 I was much disappointed over the Manchester Guardian, but apparently the place has been filled.
1–Graham Wallas (1858–1932), Professor of Political Science, London School of Economics, 1914–23. An early Fabian, he had protested against the war in 1914. His writings included Human Nature in Politics (1908) and The Great Society (1914).
2–F. S. Boas (1862–1957), Divisional Inspector for Higher Education for London County Council from 1905; scholar of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama; Professor of English Literature, Queen’s College, Belfast, 1901–5; author of Shakespeare and his Predecessors (1902).
3–L. T. Hobhouse (1846–1929), first Professor of Sociology, London University, 1907–29. Previously on the staff of the Manchester Guardian, he was a friend of the editor, C. P. Scott (1864–1932).
TO Eleanor Hinkley
TS Houghton
23 March 1917
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, W.1
Dear Eleanor,
I am seizing a spare moment to write a page to you, as always if I wait to write a letter it is never written. I have wondered often whether you ever received a longish letter from me last summer from Bosham, as I have not heard from you since. There has never been a time in the last two years when I have not had to leave as many things undone as I have done, and much of what I have done has been at the expense of more or less of one’s lawful amount of sleep every night, so you will understand my not writing oftener.
At present – as both writing and lecturing are so restricted and precarious under present conditions – I am working at Lloyds Bank (not to be confused with the shipping people) during the day, and doing my writing in the evening. I sit in a small office with a mahogany desk and a tall filing cabinet, and feel much more important than my salary warrants, as I have charge of all the balance sheets of their foreign correspondents, filing and tabulating and reporting on them. Not that I know anything about banking, but the business is so huge that I don’t suppose more than half a dozen men in the bank know more than their own little corner of it. I share an office with Mr McKnight,1 who lives in a suburb, cultivates a kitchen garden out of hours, polishes his silk hat with great care when he goes out, and talks about his eldest boy.
My greatest pleasure however is my workingmen’s class in English Literature on Monday evenings. I have steered them through Browning (who arouses great enthusiasm), Carlyle, Meredith, Arnold, and am now conducting them through Ruskin. There are not many working men at present, except one very intelligent grocer who reads Ruskin behind his counter; most of them are (female) elementary schoolteachers, who work very hard with large classes of refractory children all day but come with unabated eagerness to get culture in the evening (stimulated, I hope, by my personal magnetism). I sit at the head of a table flanked by Mrs Howells and Mrs Sloggett. Both are mad. Mrs Howells is a spiritualist, and wanted to give me mental treatment for a cold in the head. She writes articles on the New Mysticism etc., for a paper called the Superman,2 and presents them to me. Mrs Sloggett writes me letters beginning Dear Teacher, Philosopher and Friend,3 and her special interests are astrology and politics. She has written a character study of me (very flattering) which I should like to send you; and spends some of her time writing letters to cabinet ministers. Still, at the present time she does not seem to me much madder than most people. The rest of the class are quite sane, and some of them are remarkably clever, and I have to do my best to keep up with them in discussion. This class of person is really the most attractive in England, in many ways; it is not so petrified in snobbism and prejudice as the middle classes, and yet is very humble. To a
n American, the English working classes are impressive because of their fundamental conservatism; they are not, as a whole, aggressive and insolent like the same people in America.
You will perhaps be interested to hear whom I met about a fortnight ago. I was at a gathering of a curious zoo of people known as the Omega Club,4 and was sitting on a mat (as is the custom in such circles) discussing psychical research with William Butler Yeats (the only thing he ever talks about, except Dublin gossip)5 when a red-faced, sprucely dressed man with an air of impertinent prosperity and the aspect of a successful wholesale grocer came up and interrupted us with a most disagreeable Cockney accent (and you may hear accents in Amurka but the lower middle class cockney beats them all). I was so irritated by the man that I left for another part of the room almost at once – later I found out that it was Arnold Bennett.6
I must stop now; I have written far more than I expected to. Do write to me some time. Give my love to Aunt Susie, and believe me
Always affectionately
Tom
1–TSE said to Valerie Eliot that he based the character Eggerson, in The Confidential Clerk, on Mr McKnight.
2–First published in Mar. 1915 as Man: all about him from his horoscope, hands, head, face, handwriting etc., this monthly magazine continued (from Apr. 1915) as Superman, and ran, with a gap of six months, until Oct. 1916.
3–‘Shall then this verse to future age pretend / Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?’ (Pope, Essay on Man IV, 390).
