The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922
Page 23
From the 9th to the 22nd April my address will be c/o J. K. Clement Esq.,3 Wayland, Mass. U.S.A. Otherwise, I have a new London address which you see above.
Yours faithfully,
T. Stearns Eliot
1–The New Poetry: An Anthology, ed. Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson (New York, 1917). TSE discussed it in ‘Reflections on Contemporary Poetry’ [III], Egoist 4: 10 (Nov. 1917).
2–The Dial had been attacking Monroe and her anthology, and in its issue of 25 Nov. it condemned her for being negligent in allowing TSE’s ‘plagiarism’, in ‘Cousin Nancy’, of George Meredith’s line ‘The army of unalterable law’.
3–James Clement (1889–1973), Harvard Class of 1911, had married Marguerite C. Burrel in 1913. In later years TSE visited them annually in Geneva.
Henry Ware Eliot TO J. H. Woods
MS Professor David G. Williams
7 April 1916
Hydraulic-Press Brick Company,
Central National Bank Building,
St Louis, Mo.
My dear Sir:
I thank you for your kind letter of the 3rd. Mrs Eliot and I will use every effort to induce my son to take his examinations later. Doubtless his decision was much influenced by Prof. Russell who cabled to me as follows:
‘STRONGLY ADVISE CABLING TOM AGAINST SAILING UNDER PRESENT PECULIARLY DANGEROUS CONDITIONS UNLESS IMMEDIATE DEGREE IS WORTH RISKING LIFE.’1
The day following, Tom cabled final decision. I was not greatly pleased with the language of Prof. Russell’s cablegram.
I shall send Tom a copy of your letter, which has comforted me much.
Yours truly,
H. W. Eliot
1–BR had also written to OM on 29 Mar. that VHE’s nerves were ‘all to pieces. It is the worry of his going that upset her. She was afraid he would be sunk by a submarine’ (Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 56). TSE had been due to sail on 1 Apr.
TO J. H. Woods
MS Professor David G. Williams
3 May 1916
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, London w.
Dear Dr Woods
I must apologise for not having written to you before, after my cable. I need not say how disappointed I was not to be able to come, after the winter of work, and after you had made all the arrangements for me. Transportation has been so irregular during the war that I might have foreseen what occurred – my boat postponed for five days at the last moment. Coming on top of all the difficulties I had encountered, this was a crushing blow and I could not bear for some time to let myself think about it. I am still in a state of mental confusion, but am trying, after a few days in the country, to settle down to writing an article and a review, for which I got the opportunities through Sydney Waterlow and P. E. B. Jourdain. Our holidays were taken up, first with the details of a necessary emigration from one flat to another, and then with a much needed week in the country for both of us.
I hope you will let me know 1. whether my thesis was satisfactory 2. whether it will still hold good at my next opportunity for taking the examinations 3. if satisfactory, with what margin or by what squeak.
I shall come at the first opportunity. I hope that the war will be over, as naturally I do not like to leave my wife here, or venture the waves myself, while it is still on.
I do not know whether to urge you to persist in coming to England next winter. I hope that you will – but I should be sorry not to be examined by you in Cambridge. I hope that Mrs Woods’s health is not such as to prevent your both coming.
Do accept all my thanks, and my deepest regrets at not being able to see you in Cambridge this April. I hope I shall see you there within a year, unless you will grant me your presence here. Please also thank all the faculty for their kindness in writing to me, and for giving me the chance of taking my degree at an irregular time.
Very sincerely yours
Thomas Stearns Eliot
TO Scofield Thayer
MS Beinecke
7 May 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear Scofield
Can it be that a year ago you and I were charming the eyes (and ears) of Char-flappers1 from one virginal punt, I by my voracity for bread and butter and you by Sidneian showers of discourse upon Art, Life, Sex and Philosophy? Yes! I recognise the Scofield of Magdalen, the connoisseur of puberty and lilies, in the Scofield of Washington Square, about to wed the Madonna of the mantelpiece,1 whose praises from your lips I have not forgotten. – So you have hit upon the Fountain of Eternal Youth, not in Florida, but Troy. ‘Only the soul can cure the senses, and only the senses can cure the soul’.2 And the century of sonnets?3 And have I not St Praxed’s ear to pray horses for you, and brown Greek manuscripts?4 … to pray that domestic felicity may not extinguish the amateur, to pray that possession of beauty may not quench that ardour of curiosity and that passionate detachment which your friends admired and your admirers envied.
And I hope that within an interior of dim light drifting through heavy curtains, by a Buhl table holding a Greek figurine, and a volume of Faust bound in green and powdered with gold, with a bust of Dante, and perhaps a screen by Kōrin,5 a drawing by Watteau – a room heavy with the scent of lilies, you will enshrine such a treasure as that with which you rightly credited me, – a wife who is not wifely.
Treasure me in thy heart, and remember that when Mr and Mrs Scofield Thayer come to visit London, Mr and Mrs Stearns Eliot will be outraged if they are not the first to entertain them.
Yours always
Thomas Stearns Eliot
1–He married Elaine Eliot Orr on 21 June. After their divorce in the 1920s, she became the first wife of E. E. Cummings.
2–‘To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul!’ (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray [1891], ch. 16).
3–‘Rafael made a century of sonnets … Else he only used to draw Madonnas’ (Browning, ‘One Word More’, 5–8).
4–‘And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray / Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, / And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?’ (Browning, ‘The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church’, 73–5).
5–Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716), Japanese artist whose Matsushima screen is in the Boston Museum.
Vivien Eliot TO Scofield Thayer
MS Beinecke
8 May [1916]1
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Scofield,
How nice that you are going to be married! Nothing could be better! Try black silk sheets and pillow covers – they are extraordinarily effective – so long as you are willing to sacrifice yourself.
I was never more delighted than when I heard that you have an orange wallpaper. We have one, in our dining room.
Do come and see us when you bring her to see Europe. You can do us and the Tower of London on the same day.
With congratulations of the most fervent.
Vivien S-E.
1–The envelope was ‘Opened by the censor’.
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
14 May [1916]
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Bertie,
Vivien told me about the books. I did not quite know how to thank you, at first. I was awfully touched. This sort of gift is a peculiar sort of symbol, and its position in a future when no one can guess what will have become of all of our lives renders it much more of an attachment, somehow, than if you were ninety and at death’s door. There is more kindness in it than people will ever see.
Affectionately
Tom
Vivien has been quite ill all today. She must have eaten something which disagreed with her last night, as she was very ill in the night, and was not fit to do anything today. She meant to write to you, but will write tomorrow. She seems very overdone.
Charlotte C. Eliot TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
23 May 1916
4446 Wes
tminster Place [St Louis]
Dear Mr Russell,
Your letter relative to a cablegram sent us, was received some little time ago. I write now to thank you for the affection that inspired it. It was natural you should feel as you did with the awful tragedy of the Sussex1 of such recent occurrence. Mr Eliot did not believe it possible that even the Germans, (a synonym for all that is most frightful,) would attack an American liner. It would be manifestly against their interest. Yet I am aware there is still a possibility of war between Germany and America. The more we learn of German methods, open and secret, the greater is the moral indignation of many Americans. I am glad all our ancestors are English with a French ancestry far back on one line. I am sending Tom a copy of a letter written by his Great-great-grandfather in 1811, giving an account of his grandfather (one of them) who was born about 1676 – in the county of Devon, England – Christopher Pearse.
I am sure your influence in every way will confirm my son in his choice of Philosophy as a life work. Professor Wood speaks of his thesis as being of exceptional value. I had hoped he would seek a University appointment next year. If he does not I shall feel regret. I have absolute faith in his Philosophy but not in the vers libres.
Tom is very grateful to you for your sympathy and kindness. This gratitude I share.
Sincerely yours,
Charlotte C. Eliot
1–On 24 Mar. 1916, the London Brighton and South Coast Railway cross-Channel steamer, Sussex, was torpedoed off Dieppe with a loss of some fifty lives. Three Americans were among the injured. The sinking of the Sussex led to President Wilson’s ultimatum to the German government on 18 Apr., condemning Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic.
Vivien Eliot TO Henry Eliot
MS Houghton
1 June 1916
18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, London w.
Dear Henry
I got your letter from New York only two days ago – so you see I am losing no time in answering. We both wish that you would write to us more often – please do! Make a rule of writing once a fortnight, and we will do the same – it is the only way to keep in touch. And I think we all ought to keep in touch – don’t you? I am going to buy some films for my camera today, and then we shall send you some photos of ourselves and our flat. We are very proud of this flat. It is the tiniest place imaginable – just a dining room – a drawing room – a large bedroom – a kitchen and a nice bathroom. We have constant hot water, which is a luxury in England, and as this building is quite new, we have ‘every modern convenience’! I chose all the papers, and we have some rather original effects. We have an orange paper in our dining room, (which is also Tom’s dressing room and study!) and black and white stripes in the Hall.
I don’t know if all these details interest you I’m sure!
We were both interested in your descriptions of the Preparedness procession.1 But, as Tom says, what are they preparing for? – do they know? He says they just don’t want to feel out of it! There is a good deal of bitter feeling about America, over here. It is horrid, I hate it. I am afraid it will take years before it calms down. People talk in a slighting way about America.
I am enclosing to you a letter from my brother – the latest I’ve received, just so that you can see the manner of boy he is. And also, his tone is typically English – army English. And of course England is all army now. The letter is full of foolish little family jokes and references – but you will understand that. You will return it, won’t you?
We are glad you have gone to New York – there was no future in St Louis. Tom is wonderful. I have never met a man who gets so much pushing and helping and who impresses people so much with the feeling that he is worth helping. Just now we are faced with a problem. If he goes on teaching – it means that he must throw away innumerable chances and openings for writing, and just do the little scraps that he has time, and energy, for – after school. And school tires him very much – and chances don’t come twice. If he leaves school-mastering (for which he is too good, and not fitted) – it is a gamble, at first. He would win in time, but in the first year or two – how should we live?
I can’t write more now. T. will write soon. Please write, as soon as you can.
Vivien
My brother is not one of K[itchener]’s army (which by the way, were mostly put in Khaki directly they joined). He is of the regular army – and of course there is some feeling of ‘class distinction’.
1–Preparedness parades were held across the USA in the summer of 1916, to demonstrate America’s readiness for war. The Sunday Star reported on 27 May that 80,000 people processed through Boston: it was the biggest parade in the city’s history.
TO Harriet Monroe
MS Chicago
7 June 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Miss Monroe,
Your letter to me sent to the American address has just reached me. I deeply regret not having got it before. But the misadventure was not to be foreseen.
As for the ‘Prufrock’: you see, I shall probably have a small volume coming out just about the same time as your anthology, in the autumn, in New York. If it were much before or much after I should probably be quite glad to enter ‘Prufrock’ in both, but it seems to me that to synchronise would be inadvisable. It is so much longer and confessedly so much better, than anything else I have done, that I cannot afford (or so I think) to scatter my forces. If there is anything else that would do, I hope you will accept a substitute; the ‘Portrait’, or perhaps the ‘Figlia che piange’ which I believe Pound has sent you. Will you forgive me?
I shall indeed be delighted to contribute a morsel to your prose section whenever you will let me. Would you like (1) comments on some of the theories in Pound’s Gaudier-Brzeska,1 or (2) a few comments on several 17th C writers who seem to me of importance for contemporaries (e.g. Webster, Ford) or (3) comments on a few poets whom the age neglects (e.g. Malherbe, Swift, Voltaire, as poets). I should be glad to review any new versifier when you want it done. – You see I want to find out what you would be willing to endure.
With all best wishes
believe me
sincerely yours
T. Stearns Eliot
Let us then leave the Dial to posterity.
1–EP, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir. Including the published writings of the sculptor and a selection from his letters (1916).
TO Bertrand Russell
MS McMaster
7 June 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Bertie
Thanks awfully for the books – the second lot arrived today. They will come in most usefully, and I shall be extremely grateful for them. Jourdain wants another article on Leibniz first – monads again – by July 15, so I shall have to shelve the idealists for a time – He will lend me your book, and Latta and Montgomery1 (the latter I have however). Do you know of any books – chiefly historical – dealing with Leibniz other than those I am acquainted with, which I could get anything out of?
I am glad to hear you like the Nietzsche review. It seemed to me rather inferior at the time. Have not yet heard from the N. Statesman as to whether they want the reviews I sent them.2
I rejoiced to hear such good accounts of your defence.3 It must have been a great success, in the only way in which you expected or wished it to succeed.
I am glad your term is nearly over. I hope I shall see you next week.
Affectionately
T. S. E.
1–BR, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (1900); G. W. Leibniz, The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings, trans. Robert Latta (1898); G. W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, Correspondence with Arnauld, and Monadology, trans. George R. Montgomery (1902).
2–TSE’s reviews of Paul Elmer More, Aristocracy and Justice (24 June), and Charles Sarolea, The French Renascence (1 July).
3–In Apr. 1916 the No-Conscription Fellowship had issued a leaflet in protest at the
sentence of two years’ hard labour passed on a conscientious objector, Ernest Everett, for refusing to obey military orders as a member of the Non-Combatant Corps. When six men were imprisoned for distributing the leaflet, Russell wrote to The Times (17 May), saying he was the author and if anyone was to be prosecuted he was the person primarily responsible. On 5 June he was tried before the Lord Mayor of London on a charge of making, in a printed publication, ‘statements likely to prejudice the recruiting discipline of His Majesty’s forces’. Russell defended himself and, according to Lytton Strachey who was present with OM, ‘spoke for about an hour – quite well – but simply a propaganda speech’. Found guilty, Russell was fined £100 with £10 costs, with the alternative of sixty-one days’ imprisonment. When his appeal failed on 29 June he refused to pay the fine so the authorities seized some of his books for public auction, at which a group of his friends bid £100 for the first volume offered and so settled the debt.
FROM J. H. Woods
TS Harvard
23 June 1916
Department of Philosophy and Psychology, Harvard University
Dear Eliot,
The Division of Philosophy has accepted your thesis without the least hesitation. Prof. Royce1 regards it as the work of an expert. Prof. Hoernlé2 has written a criticism which I will send you later. Meantime we will keep the MS. here.3 I hope that we can arrange some time which will make it more convenient for you to take the rest of the examination. In any case, please let us be reassured that your interest in Philosophy is as strong as before.