by T. S. Eliot
TO Robert McAlmon
TS Beinecke
22 May 19211
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Bob,
I was glad to hear from you. I will go through your poems2 at leisure if I may, and write you about them in due course. I’m glad to hear that you like Paris; the right way of course is to take it as a place and a tradition, rather than as a congeries of people, who are mostly futile and timewasting, except when you want to pass an evening agreeably in a café. The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulus, and like most stimulants incites to rushing about and produces a pleasant illusion of great mental activity rather than the solid results of hard work. When I was living there years ago I had only the genuine stimulus of the place, and not the artificial stimulus of the people, as I knew no one whatever, in the literary and artistic world, as a companion – knew them rather as spectacles, listened to, at rare occasions, but never spoken to. I am sure Julien Benda is worth knowing and possibly Paul Valéry. But Paris is still alive. What is wonderful about French literature is its solidarity: you don’t know one part of it, even the most contemporary, unless you know the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and more too, in a way in which Pound and [Clive] Bell don’t – Pound because he has never taken the trouble, and Bell because he couldn’t. Bell is a most agreeable person, if you don’t take him seriously, but a great waster of time if you do, or if you expect to get any profound knowledge or original thought out of him, and his Paris is a useless one. If I came to live in Paris the first thing to do would be to cut myself off from it, and not depend upon it. Joyce I admire as a person who seems to be independent of outside stimulus, and who therefore is likely to go on producing first-rate work until he dies.
I should not worry at all about what Thayer says. I thought his witticisms in the May number very tasteless and pointless.3 Why do our compatriots try so hard to be clever? Furthermore, his language is so opaque, through his cleverness, that it is unintelligible gibberish. Cummings has the same exasperating vice.
But Joyce has form – immensely careful. And as for literary – one of the last things he sent me contains a marvellous parody of nearly every style in English prose from 1600 to the Daily Mail.4 One needs a pretty considerable knowledge of English literature to understand it. No! you can’t generalize, in the end it is a question of whether a man has genius and can do what he sets out to do. Small formulas support small people. Aren’t the arty aesthetes you mention simply the people without brains?
Write to me again soon, yours,
Tom
1–Misdated 2 May in the first edn. of these Letters.
2–Robert McAlmon, The Portrait of a Generation (1926).
3–In an unsigned ‘Comment’, Thayer sniped at William Carlos Williams’s suggestion that Alfred Kreymborg should be given ‘one hundred thousand dollars’: ‘one hundred thousand dollars! O Hieronimo! Robert Menzies McAlmon, where are you now? Matrimony always was a roundabout way to arrive at anything.’ He explained in a footnote that ‘Mr McAlmon recently took to wife a young British woman’ – on 14 Feb., McAlmon married Winifred Ellerman (1894–1983), daughter of a shipping magnate – and ‘forthwith dispatched himself and her to the British capital’ with ‘the notion of buying print-paper in her country cheap’. The implication was that McAlmon’s need for cheap paper for his magazine Contact ‘antedated’ his wedding (Dial 70: 5, May 1921, 606–10).
4–The first part of Episode xiv of Ulysses (‘The Oxen of the Sun’) had appeared in Little Review 7: 3 (Sept.–Dec. 1920), 81–92. JJ wrote to Weaver on 23 Apr. 1921, asking her to ‘pass on to Mr Eliot when you have read them the two episodes Mr Pound sent and also the typescript of Oxen of the Sun’ (Letters of James Joyce, III, ed. Richard Ellmann, 1966, 41).
TO Dorothy Pound
TS Lilly
22 May 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Dorothy,
So you are living at Vivien’s old hotel!1 I am delighted to have your address at last, in an official channel, and to know that you are installed so near the ghost of Rémy.2 Yes, Vivien was in bed for eight or nearly nine weeks, and then had a bad attack of gastric influenza when she got up. I think that not only the anxiety, but the standing so much by her father’s bed precipitated internal displacements.
I shall be in Paris for some time in October – probably not before then. Presumably you will not move south until December. My mother will be here in June. I don’t suppose that you will betray your mysterious movements, but I shall go to your hotel in October and at least enquire after. Postcards with no address are not really very good means of tracing people.
In October I shall be ready for a little mountain air, after I have finished a little poem which I am at present engaged upon. I see that the mountain air is about to produce Ulysses, which I am mightily pleased to know, as the unpublished manuscript is even finer stuff than the printed. Tell Ezra that I am awaiting a testimonial to the ozone in the shape of some considerable opus from his Corona [typewriter], and that the Dial appears to be in need of a Paris letter from him.
Yours ever affectionately
T.S.E.
1–Hôtel du Pas de Calais, 59 rue des Sts Pères, Paris VI.
2–Rémy de Gourmont (1858–1915), French novelist and critic, had lived at No. 73.
TO Herbert Read
TS Victoria
2 June 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Read,
I am humiliated, after such a long silence, to be writing to you on a purely practical subject – but circumstances all this winter and spring – a great deal of anxious illness, not my own – have been very unfavourable to the correspondence I had hoped for. To come to the point, I am looking for a bed-sitting room in this neighbourhood, (Baker Street Station) for my brother, who is to arrive from America next week, and I know that you once, before your marriage, dwelt in Nottingham Terrace, next to Tussaud’s.
I have forgotten the address you had then, but is that a place that would be suitable for a single gentleman, bed and breakfast, by the week?
I have been looking at ‘Apartments’ in the neighbourhood, and find them all dilapidated, and the proprietors unprepossessing.
Are you writing at all now, or only reading? Or do you find that the Treasury work is too exhausting? You have, from what I have heard, been making such a success as a civil servant, that you may find no time or strength left to serve the Muses. I hope that is not so. It would be a great pleasure to hear from you again.
Yours always
T. S. Eliot
On 10 June, TSE’s mother, brother and sister Marian arrived in London for a two-month visit. His mother and sister were to occupy the Eliots’ flat in Clarence Gate Gardens until 20 August, while TSE and Vivien rented Lucy Thayer’s smaller flat at 12 Wigmore Street.
TO Leonard Woolf
MS Berg
15 June 1921
(post address)
9 Clarence Gate Gdns, N.W.1
My dear Woolf,
I am very sorry to hear that your wife is not well, and hope that it may be nothing serious. I was disappointed that your dinner did not take place. I must apologise for the delay – your card arrived after we had moved out and my mother was moving in, and I only discovered it, among others, two days ago: otherwise I would have accepted for us at once. I hope you will be able to have another and will ask us again, and I hope you can both go to Bartholomew Fair on the 26th.1
Please give your wife our sympathy and tell her I hope she will soon be well.
Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot
1–The first performance of Jonson’s play since 1731, by the Phoenix Society at the New Oxford Theatre.
TO Mary Hutchinson
MS Texas
[Postmark 16 June 1921]
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Mary,
I have spotted a telephone at 41 Gordon Square under the name of Alix.1 Of course it
may have been turned off while in Vienna but I rang up Vanessa2 and arranged to look at the room tomorrow afternoon. If the telephone works the place seems ideal. Do you think the neighbourhood of Oliver Strachey would have a good or bad influence upon young Henry [Eliot]?3 Henry, a low name in this country, Henery, but still current in America. In any case, I want to get a room at Birrell’s for my unhappy brother in July – reply reply, to whom should I apply: Francis Birrell Esqre.? Or Garnett?4 or someone else.
I do not feel that I have really seen you for many weeks, or know about you. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the other evening very much. —
Always affectionately
Tom.
1–Alix Strachey (née Sargant-Florence, 1892–1973), psychoanalyst, had married James Strachey in 1920. They had a flat at 41 Gordon Square, but were currently in Vienna for analysis with Freud.
2–Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant lived at 37 Gordon Square.
3–Oliver Strachey, a musician and civil servant, brother of Lytton and James, lived at 42 Gordon Square.
4–The critic and journalist Francis Birrell (1889–1935) and the novelist David Garnett (1892–1981) ran the Bloomsbury Bookshop in Taviton Street.
TO Ottoline Morrell
MS Texas
21 June 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Ottoline,
We are waiting anxiously to hear how you stood the journey and how you are now. I did sympathise with your desire to get away from the nursing home, but it seems to me that you must have been very weak for a journey. In fact, we were quite frightened.
I hope you will be thoroughly rested before you have my mother and me. May we fix on a date now? If it is possible, I should like to bring her early in August (the 6th or the 13th?) but that is only if it makes no difference to you – I believe you mentioned the 9th of July to Vivien and if that suits you better I easily can arrange it. I should bring my mother over from Oxford or else take her there on Sunday evening.1 But do let me know what suits you best, and at the same time say how you have been.
My mother is very excited at the prospect of Garsington and of meeting you whom she has heard so much about!
Vivien is very tired again and can do nothing at all. She sends quantities of love and sympathy.
Affectionately yours
Tom
1–They visited OM at Garsington on 7 Aug.
TO Richard Aldington
MS Texas
23 June 1921
Address still 9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Aldington,
I trust you know me well enough by this time to believe that I would have written to you long ago but for circumstances of an unusual character (as my circumstances usually are!). We have moved for the summer to 12 Wigmore Street (but address letters for security as before) in order that my mother and sister, whom I have not seen for six years, might have our flat. My brother is here also. These new and yet old relationships involve immense tact and innumerable adjustments. One sees lots of things that one never saw before etc. In addition my wife is here for their benefit against the express command of her specialist, who told her that it was very wrong for her to be in town at all this summer. So I shall not rest until I have got her away again.
I was very distressed by your previous letter. I hope that this can be arranged without its imposing the whole financial burden on you. If so, it is unspeakable. I have no idea whether your sisters are children or grown. You must get them into practical occupations or trades if or as soon as they are old enough, because they will be happier.
I felt on the contrary that it was I who did not support you adequately with Balderston,1 particularly about Manning. 2 Will B. give him any work? All it seems that I can do is to write to MacCarthy – shall I do that? I do not know the Nation people who run the Athenaeum now. If however there is anyone else you think it would help if I wrote to, let me know.
You tempt me to undertake more than I can, perhaps – there is so much that one would like to do or be glad to do, and it is so easy to postpone the most important thing. But I will keep in mind what you say, and am grateful to you. My Dryden was not good, because only a series of unconnected scraps.3 How are you now? I am very tired and can hardly drive this pen. With kind regards to your wife.
Yours ever
T.S.E.
Harriet Weaver has just published a book of Marianne Moore’s verse.4 Have you had it? Can anything be done about it? Can you do anything about getting a good review in the Times?5 I am glad if you are going to do something on Cowley. Should like to help with Jackson later.6
1–John Lloyd Balderston (1889–1954), American playwright and screenwriter; editor of the Outlook (which had published RA’s ‘The Poetry of T. S. Eliot’ on 7 Jan.).
2–Frederic Manning (1882–1935), Australian novelist and poet.
3–TSE’s review of Mark Van Doren, John Dryden, TLS, 9 June 1921 (SE).
4–Moore, Poems (Egoist Press), was edited without the author’s approval by H. D. and ‘Bryher’, pseud. of Winifred Ellerman (1894–1983), wealthy English writer, philanthropist, and patron of many writers ranging from James Joyce to Edith Sitwell.
5–[Harold Child], TLS, 21 July 1921. TSE discussed the book in ‘Marianne Moore’, Dial 75: 6, Dec. 1923.
6–Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948), editor and literary historian, founder-editor of To-Day, 1917–23.
TO Richard Aldington
TS Texas
6 July 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Aldington,
We very deeply appreciated the kindness of you and your wife in offering us your house for the time you are to be walking, and had circumstances been favourable I should certainly have accepted. I recall it as a Paradise. But I was just getting my wife away to a place in the country on Chichester harbour which I hope she will find agreeable enough to stay in till the end of July, and meanwhile I must be in town to be with my mother. I am going to Warwick (where I have never been) with them on Saturday – my mother proceeding to Stratford and Kenilworth from there. She is terrifyingly energetic for seventy-seven.
Anxieties of several kinds; and the strain of accommodating myself to people who in many ways are now strangers to me, have consumed my time and energy. I have also had another matter to deal with, which I may want to discuss with you at a later opportunity. I am sorry for the pain you must have, as well as for the practical anxiety. Is it clear how much financial, as well as parental, responsibility will fall upon you if no arrangement can be made with your mother? How much more money will you have to make, and how are you going to make it? How much sacrifice is required?
I shall be glad to accept credit at the Poetry Bookshop instead of payment for the Notes:1 will you signify this to Monro? I have asked several persons to buy their books there.
I am not as much impressed by Manning’s Scenes and Portraits2 as I expected to be – it seems to me rather derivative as literature. But I think he is undoubtedly one of the very best prose writers we have, and if literary journalism won’t support him it ought not to support anybody. I am writing tonight to MacCarthy, and am also mentioning Miss Moore’s poems to him. Do you know what can be done to get the book some favourable reviews? I presume that Miss Weaver has sent you a copy – if not, ask her for it.
I shall be glad to send something to Jackson, as soon as the pot has settled down and I can look through the steam and count my chickens.3 It might fit in well with my general programme of literary criticism which must by this time be fairly obvious to you, and I hope and believe fairly congenial: I mean that any innuendos I make at the expense of Milton, Keats, Shelley and the nineteenth century in general are part of a plan to help us rectify, so far as I can, the immense skew in public opinion toward our pantheon of literature. But I should like to discuss this with you in conversation.
I do hope your holiday will be a happy one. Write to me when you return.
Yours ever
T.S.E.
1–TSE, ‘Prose and Verse’, Chapbook, Apr. 1921.
2–Frederic Manning, Scenes and Portraits (1909).
3–September’s To-Day published ‘Maxims and Precepts’, a page of excerpts from TSE.
TO Ottoline Morrell
MS Texas
14 July 1921
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
(for letters, but still at Wigmore St)
My dear Ottoline,
I have been wondering for a long time how you have been and should so much like to know. It seems almost incredible that you should really be as well as you appeared the last time I saw you – after such a terrible ordeal.1 But I have been involved in the most trying complications since then, which have exhausted my time and strength completely. There has been a project for the revival of Art&Letters, or rather as it now appears, a quarterly of similar size under a new name. It has undergone various transformations and passed through various hands since it was first broached to me – Schiff has taken part in it, but the person to provide the money is Lady Rothermere.2 I found myself in a very difficult situation in it, and I am sorry to say was obliged to call Vivien back from the country to help me out. It has called for exceptional tact. Even now Lady R. has not placed the project on a definite basis, and we are no further forward than we were when we started. It is not, in its present form, a scheme that could possibly replace the bank, and indeed what little I should get out of it would be no more, I imagine, than any other contributors. But it is something that, once started, one feels could be made something of, in time, and would be an interesting attempt just now when there is nothing in London. But I cannot tell you how very exhausting and difficult the business has been – at least, I can tell you better when I see you, and the most fatiguing thing is the lack of definite progress.