Read The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 Online
Authors: T. S. Eliot
MS
Houghton
8 March 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dearest mother,
I just have your letter of the 23rd February, and think of cabling you tomorrow to urge you strongly to change your reservation to an earlier date.
Next day
: I have cabled this afternoon. You say you have reserved a stateroom for the
Celtic
(
Cedric
?) for the 11th June. This would bring you to Liverpool on the 18th June. The point is that the middle of May to the middle of June is apt to be the
best weather of the year in England.
It is certainly likely to be sunnier and as warm then as later. The time is so short anyway that it is
important
to get the best of the season. You need not dread the cold in May; it is much warmer here in May than in America, although in midsummer it is not nearly so hot. I think the end of August or beginning of September is the best time to return; and you should certainly come in May, to get the good weather and prolong your stay.
Remember that
living
in London will not be expensive, if you do as I tell you to.
I cabled to change your reservation to the
Cedric
or the
Olympic
, both of which sail on May 14, getting you here on the 21st – you will see from the list I enclose that there are several boats sailing in May. Also, it is somewhat better to arrive at
Southampton
, which is 1½ hours from London by express train, than at
Liverpool
, which is 4 hours away.
I have chosen boats of the same line as the one you chose (White Star) in case you have paid part or all of the price, but if you have not, you can of course change to a
Cunard
. Please take my advice in this as in the other matter of habitation, as they both make for the comfort and happiness of everyone concerned. The proposal for taking this flat means also a great
saving in expense.
I shall expect you by the 21st May, and shall arrange to meet you at the station in London.
You will make a great mistake if you postpone arriving till the 18th June. The best plan is to get three clear months from the 21st May.
Also, you ought to make an attempt to get Henry to come with you. He could return alone before you did, and even if he only had a fortnight here it would be worth it. It is much more desirable that he should come over with you than that he should be able to return with you. With even a month’s holiday he could do it, and it would be
absurd
if he could not get that much.
You do not seem to get my letters very quickly, and I almost think one has gone astray, as I thanked you for the dividends and insurance papers some time ago. I also sent you a copy of Desmond MacCarthy’s article.
1
I have known him some years, he is literary editor of the
New Statesman.
Bob Trevelyan, of whom you ask, is a member of the same family as the historian, cousin or nephew. His father was named Sir George Trevelyan, I think. He is a country gentleman and minor poet, mostly writes translations from Latin and Greek.
Mr Haigh-Wood appears to be getting on very well, and is now at Eastbourne, recuperating, walks about a little and writes letters. It was a miraculous cure.
I am very sorry to hear about your real estate troubles.
Surely
the city compensates you for the loss in value and the expense of rebuilding! But you will have to arrange, and
well in advance
, for your affairs to be looked after while you are away.
Otherwise
, something will turn up at the last moment, and you will say ‘I must wait and see to this’. And it is
important
that you should come early and have your first experience of English weather while it is good and settled.
I must go to bed now.
Make your sailing early – the Shipping Companies are used to such alterations, and let me know at once.
Your devoted son
Tom
1–Desmond MacCarthy, ‘New Poets, T. S. Eliot’,
NS
, 8 Jan. 1921: a review of
Ara Vos Prec.
MS
Beinecke
17 March [1921]
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Brigit
It is pleasant to hear that you have not forgotten us, in this interval. I wish I could reply as I should wish. For the last four days Vivien has been lying in the most dreadful agony with
neuritis
in every nerve, increasingly – arms, hands, legs, feet, back. Have you ever been in such incessant and extreme pain that you felt your sanity going, and that you no longer knew reality from delusion? That’s the way she is. The doctors have never seen so bad a case, and hold out no definite hope, and have so far done her no good. Meanwhile she is in screaming agony, and I fear the exhaustion might just snuff her out. She has just enough mind left to send you her love, and say she really would like to see you very much – though she couldn’t talk or speak – if you could come in late one afternoon and have a cup of tea with me. Could you, at short notice (it would be)? And
later
I hope to come to tea and meet Collins.
1
Ever yours
Tom.
1–Unidentified.
MS
Rosenbach
3 April 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Miss Moore,
I am writing to thank you for your review of my essays in the
Dial
.
2
It gave me pleasure, and still more pleasure to be reviewed by you, as I have long delayed writing to you, in fact since the 1917
Others
, to tell you how much I admire your verse.
3
It interests me, I think, more than that of anyone now writing in America. I wish that you would make a book of it, and I should like to try to get it published here. I wish you would let me try.
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
I have just met McAlmon, who spoke of you, and whom I liked.
4
1–Marianne Moore (1887–1972), one of the most distinguished American poets and critics of the century, contributed to
The Egoist
from 1915 and went on to become acting editor of
The Dial
, then editor, 1927–9. In his introduction to her
Selected Poems
, which he was to publish at F&F in 1935, Eliot stated his judgement that her ‘poems form part of the small body of durable poetry written in our time’.
2–‘In his poetry, he seems to move troutlike through a multiplicity of foreign objects and in his instinctiveness and care as a critic, he appears as a complement to the sheen upon his poetry’ (
Dial
70: 3 [Mar. 1921], 336–9).
3–
Others: An Anthology of the New Verse
(1917) included thirteen of her poems.
4–Robert McAlmon (1896–1956): American poet and publisher; from 1921, an expatriate in Paris; friend and supporter of numerous modern writers. His own publications include stories (
A Hasty Bunch
, 1922), the autobiographical novel
Post-Adolescence
(1923), and
Being Geniuses Together:
An Autobiography
(1938). He founded Contact editions which published Hemingway, Stein and others.
MS
Houghton
3 April 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dearest mother,
I have not written lately, being very busy and also there was nothing further to say on the subject most on my mind until I heard from you. I was
very glad
to get your last two letters and to hear that you had changed to June 1st. Also, Southampton is much nearer London than Liverpool. I doubt if I can get to Southampton, but I shall meet you at the station.
Our flat has electricity, gas stoves in bedrooms, anthracite stoves in sitting room. Hot water is supplied constantly from a heater to
all
the building. First floor (i.e. second floor, American style) and lift (elevator) also.
I have Baedekers.
Bring hot water bottles each, and heavy and light underwear.
I should like to have as many of my books as possible. Especially the
Century Dictionary
, the heaviest of all! There are also a few photographs I bought in Paris and Italy, and a copy, illuminated, of the Eliot arms. This would have to be taken from its frame. The books should be sent by slow freight to save expense.
I will send you in a day or two my Andrew Marvell article from the
Times
.
1
You overestimate the cost of cable. But thank you for the cheque.
I have managed to arrange a week’s holiday in July, so as to go away with you. I should like to take you to some cathedral town like Exeter, and for a few days into the country. But we shall see how
much
and what you will want to do. I understand that Henry cannot come with you. It is a great pity, but he must come another year.
I shall write again in a few days.
Always your devoted son
Tom.
An old friend of the Thayer family, a Mrs Studt, is coming on the
Adriatic
, so you may meet her.
1–TSE, ‘Andrew Marvell’,
TLS
, 31Mar. 1921, 201–2. This influential article on seventeenthcentury poetry memorably defined Marvell’s Puritan wit as ‘a tough reasonableness beneath the slight lyric grace’, and defined literary wit, not as ‘erudition’, but ‘a recognition, implicit in the expression of every experience, of other kinds of experience which are possible’ (
SE
, 303).
MS
BL
3 April 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Schiff,
I hope this note will catch you before you leave Roquebrune. I would have acknowledged your letter before, but besides several pieces of work I had undertaken, I have been occupied with Vivien’s illness. You probably have not heard of this, but she was so ill – after her father was out of danger she nearly collapsed, that the only thing was a thorough treatment. So she has been in bed for the last five weeks, at first in a nursing-home, and lately, on account of the expense, at home. We have had a specialist treating her for nervous exhaustion and for her stomach trouble, which became very alarming; and also massage etc. She has not been allowed to see any one,
except myself, or to write letters. When she is up again she will go to the country for a month. I
think
she is better, but of course the immediate effect of taking to bed, and relaxing from the strain, was to increase the symptoms, so that I have had some very anxious moments. In any case she cannot expect to be really well for a year or two, but I hope that with careful living – and occasional treatment – she will improve steadily.
Please explain to Violet that Vivien has been unable to write even a card.
My poem has still so much revision to undergo that I do not want to let anyone see it yet, and also I want to get more of it done – it should be much the longest I have ever written. I hope that by June it will be in something like final form. I have not had the freedom of mind. I have done an ‘Andrew Marvell’ (just appeared in the
Times
) one or two things for the
Dial
, one for the
Chapbook
, and something for Lewis. I believe the paper is now in the press. He has been doing much painting, and I am looking forward to his exposition next week;
1
I have seen a few canvasses which I liked very much. I like the drawing you gave me more and more; it seems to me one of his best.
2
I am so sorry to hear of Violet’s continued ill health. I suppose of course she will not be able to stand the strain of a journey to Berlin but will remain in Switzerland. You have had, I fear, an unfortunate winter. But I certainly hope you will be able to return to London for a time, this summer.
We both send love.
Yours ever
T.S.E.
1–‘Tyros and Portraits, Drawings by Wyndham Lewis’, at the Leicester Gallery.
2–Reproduced in Vol. 2 of these
Letters
.
CC
7 April 1921
[9 Clarence Gate Gdns]
My dear Aldington,
Thank you very much for your letter. The flowers will be a continuous pleasure for days. Of course she would be very happy if you could send some next week, and even a few kingcups buds might last long enough to give delight, as she is very fond of them.
I hope you will write for the
Statesman.
With the downfall of the
Athenaeum
and its more and more complete extinction in the
Nation
,
1
the
Statesman
has been coming up in the popular estimation (I mean in the estimation of the ‘intellectuals’) and is the ‘thing’ to write for. MacCarthy has a good chance to make something of it.
2
I have known him off and on for some years. I don’t know what they pay now, but I believe as well as any weekly; I got Lst.5 each for a couple of articles years ago.
3
I think more intelligent people would see your work in the
N. Statesman
than in any other weekly.
Although we cannot in the least afford it, we are frightfully keen to get a tiny country cottage. It would be very good for both of us. I should be extremely grateful to you if you would find out all you can about any vacant cottages and let me know as soon as you can; rent, price, habitability, size, garden, plumbing, distance from a town or station, whether isolated, terms of tenancy etc. A country cottage might be just the saving of my wife’s health. So I should be infinitely grateful to you for the trouble – and I know how much trouble it is.
I fear that in a day or two our communications will be stopped by the strike, for god knows how long.
4
Having only contempt for every existing political party, and profound hatred for democracy, I feel the blackest gloom.
Whatever happens will be another step toward the destruction of ‘Europe’. The whole of contemporary politics etc. oppresses me with a continuous physical horror like the feeling of growing madness in one’s own brain. It is rather a horror to be sane in the midst of this; it is too dreadful, too huge, for one to have the comforting feeling of superiority. It goes too far for rage.
Yours sincerely
[T. S. E.]