by T. S. Eliot
For this – I feel very strongly that Journalism is bad for Tom. It is. If he was not a poet it would be excellent for him. He loves it. But I am sure and certain that it will be the ruin of his poetry – if it goes on. For him – he ought never to have to write. For you – I daresay it would not be at all a bad thing for you to have to write. I believe too, that you would be infinitely happier, doing journalism.
This brings me to what I had decided to speak to you about. After Tom got your last letter, he and I have talked about you, and thoroughly discussed the whole matter of you and your work and your life!! I hope you don’t mind. But even if you do I am going to tell you what conclusion Tom and I came to. Now please this is quite serious, and it is Tom’s just as much as my idea. Well, we want you to come and live in England. You are not doing well in your business – in America. It is a business you could do here – you might do much better here, – anyhow you couldn’t do much worse. You would have references and could get introductions. But, chiefly, you could fill out your life by writing. You say you long to write, and we believe you. We both think you could do well at journalism. Now directly Tom gets sufficient lectures1 to keep us, he will do no more journalism. He will keep on writing for The Monist, and will certainly write on Philosophy. He is, by the way, more interested in Philosophy than he was a year ago. The reaction against it is passing. But all his journalistic work you could take over. He could put you in to more than you could do, even now. I must stop now, and will continue again before you answer this. So wait. But Tom said he thought your life would be much more worth while if you were living earning less than you are now, and writing, and living over here – than it can ever be as you are. You could risk it – you have no one to keep. Tom took on a much larger risk than that would be – a year ago – and I can swear he has never regretted it. Of course he has had me to shove him – I supply the motive power, and I do shove. If you were here I should shove you! Tom is writing to you about this.
I arrived here yesterday. I hate it. It is poisonous. I shall leave as soon as I decently can.
Until the next instalment –
Yrs.
Vivien
1–Concurrently with his Yorkshire lectures, TSE had begun the first year (at £60 with £3 expense allowance) of a three-year course in Modern English Literature at Southall, Middlesex. The classes were held on Monday evenings for twenty-four weeks in the autumn and winter. Each session lasted for two hours, divided between a lecture and a discussion. The sixteen-part syllabus had been published in Sept., under the auspices of the University of London Joint Committee for the Promotion of Higher Education of Working People. TSE actually devoted all the classes to Victorian literature: see Schuchard, Eliot’s Dark Angel, 32–9. During the first term he continued to teach at Highgate School.
TO Alfred Zimmern1
MS Bodleian
27 October 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Mr Zimmern,
I find that I owe you a great debt of gratitude: Ramage of the W.E.A. [Workers’ Educational Association] said that you have mentioned my name to him not long ago. The result is a tutorial class at Southall, which promises to be a success. I had already decided that both my health and my interests advocated resigning from my school, and this windfall supplies me with more justification. It is therefore, you see, a very important event to me and I am deeply indebted to you.
I must also thank you for the introduction to Graham Wallas:2 I went to see him not long ago, and hope that I may be able to see him often.
Again with my warmest thanks
Sincerely yours
T. Stearns Eliot.
Perhaps when you – and myself! – have some leisure, I may have the pleasure of seeking you out again? I am doing about fourteen hours work a day at present, including Sundays, with the Oxford Extension work, the W.E.A., and various reviewing.
1–Alfred Zimmern (1879–1957), classical scholar, and co-founder in 1919 of the Institute of International Affairs. Knighted in 1936. Later first Secretary General of UNESCO, 1945.
2–See letter to Wallas of 23 Mar. 1917.
TO Henry Eliot
MS Houghton
5 November 1916
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Henry
As usual, I cannot write more than a page, but I am looking forward to acknowledging your generosity more adequately after Christmas with letters of respectable size. I don’t think Vivien and I would ever get used to this sort of kindness – every new act recalls all the past. I have certainly reason to be proud of my family: the way they have accepted the responsibility of helping me, without a single murmur, has been wonderful. You don’t know how keen Vivien is to meet mother and father and you, and how bitterly she regrets the separation in space. We do long for you to come to London.
I hope that a year from now I may be self-supporting. I am basing most of the hope on lectures, of course. You know that I am giving up the school at Christmas, as I find that I am losing in every way. I have not time to pursue my literary connections, and overwork is telling on the quality of my production. After Christmas, I hope to see people and drum up trade.
Vivien was afraid that you might be offended by what she wrote to you about coming to London. I am sure that you won’t be, but I am not sure that you will realise quite how seriously we meant it, or that we had thought a good deal about it before it was mentioned. It wasn’t just a momentary fancy, or expression of sentiment, nor is it completely chimerical. Of course I don’t propose dropping something for nothing, or simply walking about the streets of London. But I do think that if one makes up one’s mind what one wants, then sooner or later an occasion will come when it is possible to seize it, for I think everybody gets the kind of life he wants, and that if he doesn’t know, or doesn’t want strongly enough, he will never get anything satisfactory. The only recklessness, I think, consists in taking a risk when your will is not strong enough in that direction to carry you through. But at least, if you really made up your mind that you hated your present life, and wanted to come here, then when an opening did appear, if it were only a pinhole, you would be prepared to perceive it. Whereas if you were not sure what you wanted, you would not even see the opportunity when it came. I am becoming more and more superstitious about luck and fortune – or rather, I call it the deeper reality behind ordinary superstition.
Father writes very despondently about finances. I suppose it is partly because of the doubtful election prospects. I am doubtful myself – though in ignorance – whether the election of Hughes1 would make so much difference to his affairs as he thinks; but I should also like to know whether these are as bad as he thinks. He was speaking of my life insurance, and warned me that this was probably all that there would be for Vivien. Of course I am very anxious about her future in the event of my death. $5,000, (insurance), at any possible interest, would not be enough to keep her. While I hope soon to be self-supporting, I don’t know whether I shall ever earn enough money to leave her to live upon after my death. What do you know about his affairs at present?
It is another superstition of mine that if you don’t face any possibility of disaster it is much more likely to happen. Besides your own interest, and besides the comfort it would be to have you here, it would be a great deal to me to know that there was someone near who would look out for Vivien in case I died. It is very hard, and harder for her than for me, to have all my family at a distance. I want her to seem quite real to you, literally one of my own family, and I should not trust her care to anyone but one of my own family.
I must stop now. Always affectionately
Tom.
But whether you were here or not, I should like you to be the person to make yourself responsible for her in my stead. Will you do that?
I want all of my family to take the sort of interest in her which would persist after my death; but I depend especially on you.
1–Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948), an Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court, was the Republican candidate for the US Presidency. On 7 Nov., he was defeated by Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, by 277 electoral votes to 254.
1917
TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
1 January 1917
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Mrs Hutchinson
I am glad to be able to accept your invitation for Twelfth Night,1 and will come with great pleasure. Thank you for the map. I am very dependent upon such aids; it was only by a lucky accident that I found the house before.
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
1–A Twelfth Night party, 5 Jan.
TO His Father
MS Houghton
Monday 5 February 1917
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear Father,
In view of the present circumstances I shall write this letter now for the Wednesday boat and again by the Saturday boat. At present I am particularly concerned over possible interruption of mails. I wrote to ask you a week or two ago whether you could send six months rent. I should like, if it were possible, to have a year’s rent now, as it may become very difficult and precarious to send any communication from America to England. It would be a safeguard, I think, if you can spare the money. The rent has got to be paid anyhow, and I have calculated that absolutely nothing would be saved – supposing that we ran short – by sub-letting the flat (furnished) and boarding in rooms. The cost of boarding would be so great, at best, as to eat up the slight profit on sub-letting, we should merely be depriving ourselves to no advantage. So that if the rent were not forthcoming we should be in a very awkward position.
I suppose that the boats will sail regularly for the present. The situation has unsettled and disturbed me. I thoroughly approve of Wilson’s action,1 and support it with full sympathy. I am waiting for the occasion of actual declaration of war, as nothing seems to be gained now by any other course. I don’t think it necessary yet to consider what America would attempt to do. If she put an army into the field (impractical as this seems to me) I should have to think over my position carefully. Altogether, one does not know what to look forward to. At present, I simply want to protect ourselves as far as possible against risks, and knowing that the rent can be paid will go a great way. In case the mails seem to be going to be seriously imperilled, I shall wire you asking you to wire money.
I will write a short letter to Mother, and again by Saturday’s boat.
Your loving son
Tom
1–On 3 Feb. 1917, the United States had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany.
TO His Father
TS Houghton
1 March 1917
18 Crawford Mansions
My dear father,
My last letter, a week ago, was broken off rather abruptly to catch the mail. Since then you have cabled me $100, and Tuesday came a number of letters from mother, one of them including the cheque for $75. I had had no letters from America for over a month, and of course had no means of knowing that a draft had been sent. It is a great relief to me to have the money, as I had got down to the end of my current account, and was about to draw on the $250 which I have laid aside in a deposit account.
I ended the last letter in telling you how the war had blocked the best possible opportunities and openings. If anything else had done it I might not feel justified in going on; if there had been no opportunities or openings, or if I had proved incompetent to make the most of them. But this has not been the case; setting the war aside, I have succeeded in what I have undertaken. And the opportunities are still there, and I feel justified in waiting for them, and not chucking away all the capital of work that I have put into them, and which will remain good to my credit if I can hang on to it. This is why I feel justified in hanging on through the rest of the war with any employment I can get. In fact, I should feel wrong in giving up now what I have already gained. I hope to get some sort of employment before long which enables us to face out the rest of the war with some security.
I am sorry that it is impossible to send you my contributions as they appear in the papers. I have an article in the New Statesman,1 I believe coming out on Saturday. Such articles and reviews as appear in the Monist and [International] Journal of Ethics you can see in America.
I shall write to mother by the next mail and answer all her sweet letters. I have never been so glad to get letters; the interval seemed as if it would never end.
Vivien is a little better, and is gaining, but worries over our affairs have pulled her down held her back a great deal. When she worries she bleeds internally, in a metaphorical sense, as well as other internal pains, like migraine and stomach trouble, in a literal sense. It is some comfort to think of our difficulties as impersonal – that is, that thousands of other people, in a good many countries, are suffering worse from the same cause, and that the whole world is going to find living harder after the war.
I anticipate that there will be at least one beneficial change, however, and that is that there will be much more activity in the Workers Educational Movement after the war. There is much discussion of educational reforms now, and this is one of the branches which ought to profit. If so, I ought to be in on the rake off, for I am giving the only literature class now going in the whole London district, and the authorities seem to be very well pleased with it. One of the class told me that I was the best literature tutor they had ever had in that class. I enjoy it immensely, and the Monday evening is one of the moments of the week that I look forward to. The class is very keen and very appreciative, and very anxious to learn and to think. These people are the most hopeful sign in England, to me.
We had a very nice letter from Charlotte, and two photographs which Henry took at Christmas of the children. Chardy must be very pretty now, though of course I should like to see Theodora more.2 They are very nice children.
I must post this now.
Always your devoted son
Tom
1–‘Reflections on Vers Libre’, NS 8 (3 Mar. 1917), 518–19.
2–TSE’s sister Charlotte and her husband George Smith had two daughters, Theodora and Charlotte (Chardy).
Vivien Eliot TO Charlotte C. Eliot
MS Houghton
8 March 1917
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Mrs Eliot,
At last I am replying to your two nice letters of Jan. 30 and 31. I am so glad you understand the sort of brain that needs a great amount of sleep – you say my temperament must be like your own, and I believe it is. I worry a great deal, and my brain is always restless and active. Often when I lie down to sleep I feel that a wheel is going round in my head, and although my body is dead tired my brain gets more and more excited.
We are not sleeping quite so much now – but I still am doing about eight or nine hours – but my migraines are coming back and I dont feel nearly so well. Tom sleeps about seven or eight hours – he did not get over that influenza for weeks – in fact, I can say that it is only for the last five or six days that he has seemed like himself. Up till then he was most gloomy and depressed and very irritable and I knew he felt that life was simply not worth going on with. It is hard not to feel that here, when every day the strain and difficulty is a little increased, and the screw turned a little tighter. First it is one thing, then another. Now we are threatened with ‘no papers’1 (from Tom! if that comes it will just ruin all literary men) and there are no – perhaps I had better not continue this subject.
Tom did not get a new suit, or new flannels. I am ashamed to say it. His old underwear is still thick and in fair condition however, but it needs incessant darning. Darning alone takes me hours out of the week. He needs a suit, and I think must have one. His pyjamas too are all very old and want constant mending. I often wish we were in America, there are very heavy storms yet in front of us – and we are a bit worn down by all that has been already.
With love to you and Mr Eliot. Affectly Vivien
N.B. New postal a
ddress is – 18 Crawford Mansions Crawford Street. London. W.1
I would get Tom some new vests myself but I really do think the old ones are quite good for the rest of this winter – and he is wearing his flannel shirts all the time – under protest!
1–On 23 Feb., The Times reported that, in response to paper shortages, the government was considering restricting halfpenny newspapers to four pages, and penny newspapers to eight.