Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922

by T. S. Eliot

  Let us hope that on a future occasion, if I survive to write another poem, no such difficulty will arise.

  Believe me, with all best wishes,

  Yours very sincerely,

  T. S. Eliot

  1–Watson had telegraphed from Paris on 18 Aug. that he had not received TSE’s second letter, but that communications ‘addressed Steamship La France touching Plymouth Saturday night will reach me’. The next day, he sent a letter: ‘I hope we shall be able to have the poem at your terms. Please let me know in care of the Dial 152 W. 13th St, etc. I am eager to start persuading Mr. Liveright and also to settle the matter of the Dial award.’

  TO Edmund Wilson

  TS Beinecke

  21 August 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Sir,

  Referring to my letter of the 14th, I have spoken to the Secretary of Mr E.O. Hoppé, the photographer, who has promised to send you a photograph of me immediately. If you do not receive it perhaps you will let me know.

  Sincerely yours,

  T. S. Eliot

  TO Herbert Read

  TS Victoria

  23 August 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Read,

  Thank you for your postcard with a nice window. I should have returned your brief with comments before, but have been so very busy. What I have written on it are therefore only jottings which I intended to make into a letter, and may be largely unintelligible, but take them for what they are worth to you. I am looking forward to the article with great interest, but you don’t need to feel pressed for time.1 My great difficulty, I find today, is that contributions are too long for my ninety-six pages; I overestimated the capacity of ninety-six pages, and I am having to postpone one or two things for the first number. So if you can be under 5000 words an embarrassed editor will appreciate it. I think your essay will be a good one!

  Yours ever,

  T. S. Eliot

  1–HR’s ‘The Nature of Metaphysical Poetry’ was to be held over to C. 1: 3 (Apr. 1923). TSE’s jottings on HR’s typescript draft included the two observations: (i) ‘Some philosophies are in themselves incoherent & emotional (e.g. B. Russell) and therefore useless for poetry. Bradley more useful than Russell.’ (ii) ‘Function of poetry is to express as a whole of feeling a digestion of all experiences in a mind. The more complicated & comprehensive the mind the better. Also the mind should be continuous with all (or as much possible) previous mind. Peel the onion.’ (Victoria

  TO Richard Aldington

  PC Texas

  [Postmark 23 August 1922]

  I will be in Monday evening 28th by 9 – is that convenient for you? Let me know.

  T.S.E.

  TO Dorothy Pound

  PC Lilly

  [Postmark 23 August 1922]

  [London]

  I am delighted to hear you are back.1 I am rushed this week, may I come in on Tuesday afternoon and see sketches?

  Yrs. ever

  T.S.E.

  1–She had been on holiday on Dartmoor

  TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson

  PC Texas

  [Postmark 23 August 1922]

  [London]

  I will answer yr. letter in a day or two – I have my hands full trying to get the French translation finished.1 Excuse delay.

  T. S. Eliot

  1–TSE’s translation of Larbaud’s lecture, ‘The “Ulysses” of James Joyce’.

  FROM His Mother

  TS copy Valerie Eliot

  23 August 1922

  24 Concord Avenue, Cambridge [Massachusetts]

  Dearest Son:

  Aunt Susie was here last evening with Eleanor and I read to them the prospectus of The Criterion. Aunt Susie said she would subscribe, so will you have the prospectus sent to her? and will you fill out the address on all copies sent to America, for I do not think just Holborn is enough from this side of the water. Have you sent to any of the Harvard professors? And do you think it would be well to do so? I have sent to the University for a list of the professors in the Department of Literature, and will forward to you to use or not as you think best. I do not know whether you would send them to Harvard University or to their residences. There is Professor Lowes, he is lovely. I gave him a copy of your Sacred Wood, and Mrs Lowes brought a copy to me of his Convention and Revolt in Poetry.1 Henry read it when at home and was delighted with it. He talked of sending you a copy. If you would like it I will send you my copy.

  Professor Lowes’s address is: John L. Lowes, 983 Charles River Road, Cambridge, Mass. Professor Kittredge’s is: Prof. George L. Kittredge, 8 Hilliard St, and Professor Grandgent’s: Charles H. Grandgent, 107 Walker Street.

  I would also like another copy of the prospectus, two or three copies, with address filled out.

  I suppose Vivien is still at Bosham. I addressed to her my note of thanks to Clarence Gate Gardens, and you will take to her as I suppose she will not leave Bosham for a while yet. I judge from the tone of your last letter she was better. It was very sweet in her to send me the lavender. Barbara thought she looked far from well, and said she felt very sorry for her. But I hope she will soon be better. I am glad to hear you say you are well, and hope you will remain so. Let me know what I can do for The Criterion.

  Ever yours with love,

  Mother.

  1–John Livingston Lowes, Convention and Revolt in Poetry (1919).

  TO E. R. Curtius

  TS Bonn

  28 August 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns, N.W.1

  My dear Herrn Curtius,

  Thank you very much for your kind letter. I shall look forward toward having your Essay by the 1st November, and later, I hope for something on some subject in contemporary, or nineteenth century, German literature. But my purpose is not so much to give the readers information about German literature, as to give them a direct acquaintance with German writers; so that you will see that almost any subject about which you care to write will suit us equally well.

  I am very much pleased by your wanting to reciprocate by a German book. I do not know what books you have published, except the Literarische[n] Wegbereiter which I already possess, but if you have published any other, that would be my first choice. And if you have not, then I should prefer you to choose something which you think I ought to become acquainted with. Beyond your book and that of Hesse, and a few things of Spengler and Keyserling,1 I know almost nothing of German literature since 1914.

  The problem of selling the Criterion in Germany is at the moment a very difficult one. It will be sold here at 3s 6d, for export we might reduce it to the bare cost of printing, that is 2s, which with the mark at eight thousand to the pound, would be eight hundred marks per copy, to say nothing of the profit wanted by whatever German bookseller, of course, who might act as agent. I should like to know, at your leisure, at what price you think such a review could be sold in Germany to the public.

  There is another point on which I beg your tolerance. I should like to exchange copies with foreign reviews, with a view, later, to having a ‘revue des revues’ in each number, as soon as the Criterion can be enlarged to that extent. What German reviews do you think would do this with me? I have noted the names of Die Neue Rundschau, Die Neue Markur [sc. Merkur], Der Sturm and Die Aktion. I want, of course, reviews as nearly as possible of similar aims, limitations, and sympathies as our own. Are these suitable? Like books, the German reviews are difficult to obtain here and expensive.

  I want to thank you also most heartily and appreciatively for your generous offer to notice the Criterion in the Frankfurter Zeitung.

  Always yours cordially,

  T. S. Eliot

  1–Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), philosopher of history; author of Der Untergang des Abendlandes (‘The Decline of the West’, 1919). Hermann Keyserling (1880–1946), cultural philosopher.

  TO Herbert Read1

  PC Victoria

  [Postmark 29 August 1922]

  [London]

 
; I agree that there is both in Guido and the others, and Italian poetry seems to me to retain a debased form of the metaphysics after the psychology is gone. But I think the distinction, in one and the same author, is worth drawing … But I do not know these early Italians well – only in selections. You may know them a good a deal better than I.

  Also important not to confuse the ‘literary’ with the ‘philosophical’ senses of Metaphy. and Psych.

  yours,

  T.S.E.

  1–The advice concerns HR’s ‘The Nature of Metaphysical Poetry’, for C. 1: 3, Apr. 1923. ‘Guido’ is Guido Cavalcanti (c.1255–1300), friend of Dante.

  TO Ezra Pound

  TS Lilly

  30 August 1922

  The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns, N.W.1

  Cher Ezra,

  Yes, it is quite true that one does not want to write any prose, and I never feel quite justified in doing so myself, nevertheless one does. I can’t myself see what good it does, and the effort of persuading oneself that it is worthwhile writing at all is only just about enough to cover one’s verse and nothing over. 99%of the people who ‘appreciate’ what one writes are undisguisable shits and that’s that. Your notes, epistolary, telegraphic, etc. are cordially appreciated and after I have corrected the speling will in due time appear and in due time be paid for. With most grateful thanks yours always sincerely, faithfully. I received a letter from your friend Watson most amiable in tone

  For below a voice did answer, sweet in its youthful tone,

  The sea-dog with difficulty descended, for he had a manly bone.

  (From ‘The Fall of Admiral Barry’).1

  offering $150 for the ‘Waste Land’ (not ‘Waste Land’, please, but ‘The Waste Land’, and (in the strictest confidence) the award for virtue also. Unfortunately, it seemed considerably too late, as I had the preceding day got the contract, signed by Liveright and Quinn, book to be out by Nov. 1st, etc.) I can’t bother Quinn any more about it, I don’t see why Liveright should find it to his advantage to postpone publication in order to let the Dial kill the sale by printing it first, and there has been so much fluster and business about this contract that I don’t want to start the whole thing up again, so I see nothing but to hope that the Dial will be more businesslike with other people. Watson’s manner was charming, if Thayer had behaved in the same way the Dial might have published it long ago, instead of pretending that I had given him the lie as if he was ehrenfähig [capable of honour] anyhow. Anyway, it’s my loss I suppose; if Watson wants to try to fix it up with Liveright I suppose he can, that’s his affair. I suppose the move was entirely due to your beneficent and pacific efforts, which are appreciated. Dam but why don’t they give the prize to you?

  More presently.

  King Bolo’s big black basstart kuwheen,

  That plastic and elastic one,

  Would frisk it on the village green,

  Enjoying her fantastikon.

  T.

  1–See letter to EP of 22 Oct. 1922 and note.

  TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson

  TS Beinecke

  31 August 1922

  The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Cobden-Sanderson,

  Thank you for your letter of to-day’s date, which I have been working over this evening. The plan suggested has certain disadvantages; it limits the foreign contribution to one (short one), it reduces the number of contributions to six, and it provides proportionately too large a space to be filled by editorial matter. Also, by leaving the Larbaud over as well as the Spaniards I shall be faced with the same difficulty in the following issue.

  My alternative is this, if my calculations are not quite incorrect. I find that the original estimate with which your printers provided you gives the cost of 600 copies of 96 pages as £59 2s, and the cost of 600 copies of 128 pages as £75 2s 6d. I therefore assume that 600 copies of 112 pages would cost around £67.

  I calculate also that with the matter on which the printers have furnished this last estimate of space, and the rest of The Waste Land, we should almost fill the 112 pages, leaving the one to three pages probably for editorials, and I do not want more than four. (ten out of ninety-six would be far too much a one-man show).1 That is, the number would include

  Saintsbury

  Dostoevski

  Sturge Moore

  May Sinclair

  Hesse

  Eliot

  Larbaud

  (Editorials)

  I enclose the rest of The Waste Land again, and would be grateful if you would find out from the printers (1) cost of extra sixteen pages (2) estimate of space the rest of Waste Land needs. If there were in the end a few pages over I suppose they could be left blank as fly-leaves.

  Of course, the sooner we can get the material into galley-proof, and get it to the printers and back again, the better.*

  I am still waiting for Lady Rothermere’s address, but if the 112 pages can be done I undertake it on my own responsibility.

  Yours ever

  T. S. Eliot

  * Saintsbury has returned completed the copy I sent him. So that’s all ready.

  1–Parts I and II of The Waste Land ran to six pages. (In the event, the poem took up fifteen of the 104 pp. of the first issue of C.; the contents were as listed, with no editorial.)

  TO J. M. Robertson1

  TS Valerie Eliot

  31 August 1922

  The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Sir,

  I take this opportunity of acknowledging an indebtedness, extending over many years, to your work, in connexion with the Elizabethan studies which have always formed one of my strongest interests. It is with the justification of paying this tribute that I venture to solicit from you the honour of a contribution, at any time within the next six or nine months, of any piece of unpublished manuscript.

  The enclosed circular gives some description of this quarterly. Besides general literary contributions, I am anxious to secure occasionally contributions from writers who have both literary distinction and more exact scholarship than the majority of those whose names you see. From my point of view anything from you on the subject of Elizabethan or Jacobean literature would fill a place which cannot be supplied by anyone else, and I hope that your point of view will not be unfavourable to mine. I am aware, of course, of the favour I am asking from anyone so preoccupied as you must be; I only hope that you may have, or may at some time wish to write, something which would appear more suitably in this review, and find a more select and judicious audience, than elsewhere.

  We are at present limited to essays of about 5000 words in length; the present rates of payment are insignificant, being only £10 the 5000 words.

  I fear that my name may be known to you only in a connexion which will hardly dispose you in my favour. I must say that I am quite aware that certain critics have chosen to make you responsible, in a way, for theories of mine which were certainly encouraged by your arguments, but which are by no means the inevitable conclusion from your arguments.2 I am sorry that this has involved you in attack, and even abuse, which was primarily aimed at myself. They have thoroughly mistaken my meaning and perverted my words, as they have yours; but I am afraid that persons who are incapable of following an argument, or of distinguishing an argument intended to prove one thing from a theory intended to suggest the possibility of something on a wholly different plane, and who are guided entirely by their emotions, would be impenetrable to any explanations which I could give.

  I am, Sir,

  Your Obliged Obedient Servant,

  T. S. Eliot

  1–J. M. Robertson (1856–1933), Scottish critic, rationalist and politician, whose books included Elizabethan Literature (1914) and Shakespeare and Chapman (1917).

  2–TSE’s ‘Hamlet and His Problems’, which began as a review of Robertson’s The Problem of ‘Hamlet’ (1919), had been met with some adverse critical comment. Robert Lynd, in ‘Buried Alive’, N. 18 (4 Dec. 1920), spoke of TSE comin
g to ‘bury Hamlet, not to praise him’. Likewise, Arthur Clutton-Brock took TSE to task for his account of Hamlet as ‘an artistic failure’. TSE’s arguments, said Clutton-Brock, ‘are partly taken from Mr Robertson, though not stated with his accuracy, and partly Mr. Eliot’s own’ (‘The Case against “Hamlet”’, in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ [1922], 14–32).

  Gilbert Seldes TO James Sibley Watson

  CC Beinecke

  31 August 1922

  152 West 13th St, New York

  Dear Doctor:

  Quinn is out of town and the enclosed is my letter to him. You have already received Eliot’s letter, but I think that we are doing the right thing to go ahead. With Liveright I have arranged as follows. We pay them nothing and we publish the poem without the notes in our November issue. They bring out the book after our date of publication and we send them an order for 350 copies of the book at our usual discount (about 40%) and in connection with our advertising contract with them. We take the financial settlement by that time. (The idea, of course, is that we will push the book mightily in connection with our subscriptions. The book sells for $2 so that if it remains a total loss on our hands we will be paying about $350.) I have suggested that they number all the copies of the first edition, giving a bibliographical value to it, and they have promised to use no publicity mentioning the award until we release it. They do not ask for a refund of the first publication rights payment, and we can, as a matter of fact, pay Eliot our regular rate if that is considered necessary. That I did not mention to Quinn, as you notice.