The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I
Page 153
[Poem I 205 · Textual History II 532–34]
III 1–7 There are three conditions · · · indifference · · · the live and the dead nettle: to Hayward, 27 Aug 1942, on his suggested emendation “The live nettle and the dead”: “I cannot fall in with your suggestion of an inversion of ‘dead nettle’. You know as well as I do that the dead nettle is the family of flowering plant of which the White Archangel is one of the commonest and closely resembles the stinging nettle and is found in its company. If I wrote ‘the live nettle and the dead’ it would tend to suggest a dead stinging nettle instead of a quite different plant, so I don’t see that anything can be done about that.” Composition FQ 200, citing this letter: “The image is very apt, when explained: indifference, that neither stings nor bears a flower.” But this is qualified by Gardner in a footnote: “Mrs. Ridler pointed out to me that Eliot has confused two plants of the same family: White Deadnettle (Lamium album) and Yellow Archangel (Galeobdolon luteum). I suppose he would have rejected the suggestion of a hyphen in ‘deadnettle’ on the same grounds as he rejected Hayward’s suggestion of ‘downcast’” (see note to II 36–37).
TSE to Desmond MacCarthy, 28 Dec 1942:
In the “nettle” passage, you put your finger on a bit which I was myself dissatisfied with: I do not think that the operation has been completed, and your difficulty confirms my suspicion. I do not mean that Attachment resembles Indifference; but that Attachment can resemble Detachment, and that Detachment can be mistaken for Indifference. You will not agree about the first: but surely, on a more familiar plane, a selfish love of a person and an unselfish love of a person can easily be mistaken for each other, or at least the first can be mistaken for the second? But the image of the nettle is not happy, because it assumes the existence of a third kind of plant, which does not exist, which might be mistaken for both. By “dead nettle”, by the way, I do not mean a nettle which has died, but the “dead nettle”, the unstinging flowering plant which is found together with the stinging nettle, and belongs, I believe, to another species or genus.
In Noctes Binanianæ: “When the flowering nettle’s in blossom”, How to Pick a Possum 1.
III 1–11 There are three conditions · · · growing between them, indifference · · · action: Clough: “There are two different kinds · · · I do not wish to be moved, but growing where I was growing, | There more truly to grow, to live where as yet I had languished · · · action | Is a most dangerous thing”, Amours de Voyage II xi (Murray).
III 3 Attachment to self and to things and to persons: St. John of the Cross:
These habitual imperfections are, for example, a common custom of much speaking, or some attachment which we never wish entirely to conquer—such as that to a person, a garment, a book, a cell, a particular kind of food, tittle-tattle, fancies for tasting, knowing or hearing certain things, and suchlike. Any one of these imperfections, if the soul has become attached and habituated to it, is of as great harm to its growth and progress in virtue as though it were to fall daily into many other imperfections and casual venial sins which proceed not from a common indulgence in any common and harmful attachment, and will not hinder it so much as when it has attachment to anything. For while it has this there is no possibility that it will make progress in perfection, even though the imperfection be extremely small. And thus the soul that has attachment to anything, however much virtue it possess, will not attain to the liberty of Divine union.
Ascent of Mount Carmel I xi 4
[Poem I 205–206 · Textual History II 534]
TSE scored the entire passage in his copy. See his letter to Geoffrey Faber [18 Sept 1927] quoted in note to The Dry Salvages II 42–47. “It seems to me that all of us, so far as we attach ourselves to created objects and surrender our wills to temporal ends, are eaten by the same worm”, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, Preface (1937).
III 3–12 Attachment to self and to things · · · The live and the dead · · · attachment · · · action · · · action: “To live as if tomorrow might bring any worldly disaster, or illness or death, and yet live serenely, without attachment to material objects, and giving to human beings that love which is proper after the love of God; that is hard work. And if we repudiate non-Christian philosophies of life in the name of Christianity, then we have a great responsibility to repudiate them in that name alone, and not in the name of worldly attachments. And worldly attachments may be just as much to prejudices and mental habits, as to possessions. This is one side of the Christian attitude. The other is that of action”, The Christian in the Modern World (1935). For Arnold’s words “attachment to so many beaten causes”, see note to III 36–45. detachment | From self and from things and from persons · · · not less of love but expanding | Of love beyond desire · · · love of a country | Begins as attachment to our own field of action: Paul Elmer More: “The true aim of the philosopher is not morality · · · but isolation and inattachment · · · From the individual we extend this love to our neighbors, from them to the world at large in ever widening circles · · · beyond this · · · we strive to loose ourselves from all attachment whatsoever”, The Great Refusal 7–8. For More, see note to II 67–71. detachment · · · action · · · action: “The detached observer, by the way, is likely to be anything but a dispassionate observer; he probably suffers more acutely than the various apostles of immediate action”, The Lion and the Fox (1937).
III 4 persons: as distinct from “people”; on ambition: “For most people, in most occupations, it is a very good thing · · · so long as it does not lead them to sacrifice persons and spiritual values”, On Poetry (1947) 8. indifference: “few men have the energy to follow the middle way in government · · · there is only extremity or apathy: dictatorship or communism, with enthusiasm or with indifference”, John Bramhall (1927). “We are really, you see, up against the very difficult problem of the spiritual and the temporal · · · The danger, for those who start from the spiritual end, is Indifferentism; neglect the affairs of the world and save as many souls out of the wreckage as possible”, A Commentary in Criterion Jan 1935. OED “indifferentism” b: “esp. The principle that differences of religious belief are of no importance” (last citation from 1856).
III 4–6 growing between them, indifference · · · life | Being between two lives: More: “we who walk in the shadow of doubt, we know not which is the sadder and which is the wiser, the fortitude and disdain of the stoic who contemns pleasure and pain alike, or the anguish and humiliation of the monk who deliberately loses his life to gain life. Between the two lies the world of indifference”, The Great Refusal 75. See note to II 69, 72.
III 5–6 as death resembles life, | Being between two lives: “Swinging from life to death | Bleeding between two lives”, Song (“The golden foot I may not kiss or clutch”) 4–5. “throbbing between two lives”, The Waste Land [III] 218. “to keep two lives together”, A Note on War Poetry 13 variant.
[Poem I 205–206 · Textual History II 534]
III 6, 8–9 two lives · · · not less of love but expanding | Of love: Donne: “Our two soules · · · endure not yet | A breach, but an expansion”, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning 21–23.
III 9 love beyond desire: “Our obligation, certainly, is to love—to love without desire (for the latter is to seek oneself in the beloved object, see St. John of the Cross quoted above)—or I might say to love beyond desire—for such love is not effected by the mere quenching of desire. The soul, by resigning itself to the divine light, that is, by removing every spot and stain of the creature, which is to keep the will perfectly united to the will of God—for to love Him is to labour to detach ourselves from, and to divest ourselves of, everything which is not God’s for God’s sake—becomes immediately enlightened by, and transformed in, God”, end of Notes on the Way in Time & Tide 19 Jan 1935. The closing sentence, from Ascent of Mount Carmel (tr. David Lewis), II v, is quoted from The Mystical Doctrine of St. John of the Cross (1934), the edition TSE reviewed in the Criterion July 1934.
The previous passage referred to, from ch. vii, reads: “this is not that other course which is nothing but to seek oneself in God, which is the very opposite of love”, and appears in the abridgment under the heading “Detachment and Freedom are Necessary”.
III 9–10 liberation | From the future as well as the past: “And right action is freedom | From past and future also”, The Dry Salvages V 41–42. The earliest outline of The Dry Salvages had “Liberation from the past is liberation from the future” (msA fol. 65).
III 10–11 love of a country | Begins as attachment to our own field of action: Burke: “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle · · · of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind”, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) 68–69. TSE to Willard Thorp, 1937: “It is difficult anyway to be sure except when two people have a common knowledge of one field of political action.” To Hayward, 4 Aug 1940: “So much for local patriotism.” At the end of the war: “the duty to ‘take action’ · · · will vary according to the position, the influence, the intelligence and the knowledge of the individual Christian; but · · · it is the duty of the individual to do what he can in his own sphere of action”, Full Employment and the Responsibility of Christians (1945).
III 13 indifferent: pronounced as four full syllables in TSE’s recording of 1946–47.
III 13–14 History may be servitude, | History may be freedom: Keynes: “The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation · · · should be abhorrent · · · In the great events of man’s history · · · Justice is not so simple”, The Economic Consequences of the Peace ch. V. TSE: “Assuming that the individual has political and economic freedom, is that enough to guarantee his liberty? · · · How easy it is to see the servitude of others, their obedience to prejudice · · · and how difficult to recognize and face our own!” Notes on the Way in Time & Tide 19 Jan 1935. History · · · History: the word pronounced as three full syllables in TSE’s recording of 1946–47. servitude · · · freedom: “There is all the difference in the world between imitation and influence. Imitation is servitude; influence can mean liberation”, Royal Academy Speech (1960).
[Poem I 206 · Textual History II 534–35]
III 15 with the self which, as it could, loved them: Bradley: “the self which, as identified · · · the self which”, Ethical Studies Essay VII (“Selfishness and Self-Sacrifice”). the self which, as: to Stephen Spender, 9 May 1935: “you have to give yourself up, and then recover yourself, and the third movement is having something to say, before you have wholly forgotten both surrender and recovery. Of course the self recovered is never the same as the self before it was given”.
III 17–19 Sin is Behovely · · · shall be well: the words of Jesus, in a vision, to Juliana of Norwich, who adds: “In this naked word sin, our Lord brought to my mind generally all that is not good; and the shameful despite, and the uttermost tribulation that he bare for us in this life, and his dying, and all his pains and passion”, XVI Revelations of Divine Love XIII ch. 27. TSE to Hayward, 2 Sept 1942: “I forgot in my previous letter to give an explanation which bears on your query of behovely. This line and the two which follow and which occur twice later constitute a quotation from Juliana of Norwich. The beautiful line the presence of which puzzles you toward the end of page 11 comes out of The Cloud of Unknowing [“the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling”, V 25]. My purpose was this: there is so much 17th century in the poem that I was afraid of a certain romantic Bonnie Dundee period effect and I wanted to check this and at the same time give greater historical depth to the poem by allusions to the other great period, i.e. the 14th century. Juliana and The Cloud of Unknowing represent pretty well the two mystical extremes or, one might say, the male and female of this literature. I might have dragged in Walter Hilton and Richard Rolle, I daresay, but for one thing I don’t know them so well and for another I think that would be overdoing it. Does it seem to you possible that the passages in question ought to be put in inverted commas?” (For Bonnie Dundee see note to III 33 and the headnote to Whan cam ye fra the Kirk? in “Other Verses”.) For the 14th and 17th centuries, see headnote 4. AFTER PUBLICATION.) To Hayward, 7 Sept 1942: “I’m afraid I don’t like capitalising the quotes. Too much like headlines: slightly comic. I thought better of restoring the spelling; but I read the texts in modern versions, and the London Library seems to possess no texts with the xiii [margin: ? xiv] century spelling · · · I now incline to put between guillemets ‘Sin is behovely,’ etc. on its first appearance, but not the two repetitions. This means putting ‘With the drawing of this love …’ in quotes also. [added: Or not?]” 9 Sept: “I accept the more limited capitalisation.” Hayward to TSE, 21 Sept 1942 (after ts13):
There is no one I can send to the University Library and I can only get a Chairman [pilot for his wheelchair] now after sunset, otherwise I should have investigated for you the original spelling and capitalization of the texts of Juliana and William Rolle. I still hope to be able to do this, if only to satisfy my own curiosity · · · Meanwhile the good Miss Flack has procured · · · the best edition of Juliana’s Revelations · · · The Sloane MS. follows almost exactly the only other extant · · · and both preserve pretty well the 14th cent. English of the lost prototype. What may be of interest to you is the reproduction, given by the editor in a footnote, of the exact form (from the Sloane MS.) of the passage you quote. Viz.—
“Synne is behovabil, but al shal be wel & al shal be wel
& al manner of thyng shal be wele.”
· · · I am curious to know where you got the reading “behovely”.
[Poem I 206 · Textual History II 535]
TSE explained to Desmond MacCarthy, 28 Dec 1942, that his source was “Juliana of Norwich, Revelations, Cressy’s edition, which is the only one I know or have access to, and ‘behovely’ there means ‘unescapeable’, inevitable, and not the modern ‘useful’. I hesitated over putting the whole sentence into quotation marks; John Hayward persuaded me to introduce the capital B instead, as in the later quotation from the Cloud of Unknowing (‘With the Drawing of this love’). My motive for forcing these XIV century references was to give greater historical depth and avoid the sentimentality which concentration on the XVII might arouse (for a somewhat similar reason, the crossing of Thomas Browne with Nijinsky). This is an explanation, not a defence.” (For Browne and Nijinsky, see note to III 35–36.) To Henry Eliot, 8 Jan 1943: “After much thought and discussion, I put in the capitals instead of quotation marks, which one critic thought would be more irritating to the reader.” To Henry Eliot, 25 Mar 1943: “‘Behovely’, by the way, means inevitable, unescapable. This is the XIV century use; later it came to mean ‘useful’. The three lines are quoted from the Revelations of Juliana of Norwich, Cressy’s edition; the copy which I have and which I bought in London, was published in St. Louis, Mo.” (1920, reprinting the original ed. of 1670). In 1373, the anchoret and mystic, then aged about 30, “received 16 ‘shewings’ of the Passion in the form of words spoken to her from the Cross. In her 13th revelation she quotes the mystical voice reassuring her about the nature of sin” (Hayward).
TSE emphasised “the probable importance of the mystics of the fourteenth century—of Richard Rolle and Julian of Norwich for instance—as late as the time of Lancelot Andrewes and George Herbert”, Paul Elmer More (1937). “no one could confuse the mysticism of Spain with that of Germany, or the mysticism of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries · · · with that of the seventeenth”, Letter to Dr. Oldham from T. S. Eliot (1941), a paper for The Moot. “Some have accused the Reformed Church of England of having been, even at its best, of a golden mediocrity now somewhat tarnished: certainly it is a long way from Juliana of Norwich to George Herbert”, Reunion by Destruction (1943) 19 (earlier in the pamphlet: “It behoves us to come to a judgment upon the merits of the Scheme for South India”). sin is
Behovely: OED “behovely”: “Of use; useful, profitable; needful, necessary”, Obs. except arch., with these lines as the first citation since Gower in 1393. Pronounced behoovely in TSE’s recording of 1946–47. TSE to J. H. Oldham, 14 Aug 1942, on the bombing of German towns: “The difficult problem to present in short is that of what one might call the necessity of sin · · · we have got into the position—indeed, that humanity is chronically more or less deeply in the position—in which it is necessary to do what is wrong · · · consent to the action and at the same time feel the necessity for penitence.” On “just wars”: “it is almost impossible to say anything about the subject without being misunderstood by one or both parties of simplifiers. (Yet Æschylus, at least, understood that it may be a man’s duty to commit a crime, and to accomplish his expiation for it.) The whole notion of justice is travestied when we draw too sharp a distinction between war and peace”, A Commentary in Criterion July 1936. Behovely: alongside the Gide/Bosco tr., “ce qui convient, car”, TSE wrote: “fatale / inévitable”, and underlining “car”, he wrote “mais”. For “it behoves him” in St. John of the Cross, see note to Ash-Wednesday II 1.
[Poem I 206 · Textual History II 535]
III 18 All shall be well: “All will be well” was a habitual phrase of Winston Churchill’s, occurring dozens of times in his wartime speeches. Hayward to TSE, 20 June 1940: “I don’t mean that I’m not hopeful, as Mr Churchill is, that all will be well · · · East Coker says this and much more far better than I can.” In his “Give us the tools” broadcast of 9 Feb 1941, Churchill spoke of receiving from President Roosevelt a copy of Longfellow’s poem Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! and declared that his reply was “Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and under Providence, all will be well.” TSE to Christina Morley, 27 July 1942: “I am still pottering with Little Gidding, and think that when I have got Part II right all will be well, though not very well.”