The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922
Page 99
J. W. N. Sullivan: The Literary Papers of Galileo
Ernst Curtius: Balzac and the Occult Tradition
Stephen Hudson: The Thief
Antonio Marichalar: Spanish Literature of To-day
Ezra Pound: Impressionism
T. Sturge Moore: Tristram and Iseult, II.
T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land, III–V.
Gómez de la Serna: Bric-à-brac.
et ainsi de suite!
Recevez, Monsieur, l’assurance de ma sympathie loyale.
T. S. Eliot2
1–EP’s essay was renamed ‘On Criticism in General’, and Gómez de la Serna’s story became ‘From “The New Museum”’. J. W. N. Sullivan’s piece on the papers of Gallileo never appeared, but Pirandello’s ‘The Shrine’ and Roger Fry’s ‘Mallarmé’s “Herodiade”’ were added.
2–Translation: Dear Sir, Thank you for your lovely letter, and your blessing! I am sending you enclosed a corrected announcement of the list of the main contributors. The first number will contain [etc].
The second number (probably) [etc]. and so on!
Please accept, Sir, my loyal affection. T. S. Eliot
TO John Quinn
TS NYPL (MS)
21 September 1922
9 Clarence Gate Gdns
My dear Mr Quinn,
I am quite overwhelmed by your letter,1 by all that you have done for me, by the results that have been effected, and by your endless kindness. In fact, the greatest pleasure of all that it has given me is the thought that there should be anybody in the world who would take such an immense amount of pains on my behalf. The thought of this will be a permanent satisfaction to me.
Of course I am entirely satisfied with the arrangements that you have made. It is exactly what I should have liked; only I did not see how it could be done, if it was to be done at all, without calling upon you once more, which, after all you had already accomplished, I was absolutely determined not to do. I also feel that it would be in the nature of asking a favour from Liveright, and also I was loath to ask you to do this on my behalf. I gather that Liveright is quite satisfied that the arrangement will be ultimately to his advantage, and certainly the Dial have behaved very handsomely.
My only regret (which may seem in the circumstances either ungracious or hypocritical) is that this award should come to me before it has been given to Pound.2 I feel that he deserves the recognition much more than I do, certainly ‘for his services to Letters’ and I feel that I ought to have been made to wait until after he had received this public testimony. In the manuscript of The Waste Land which I am sending you, you will see the evidences of his work, and I think that this manuscript is worth preserving in its present form solely for the reason that it is the only evidence of the difference which his criticism has made to this poem. I am glad that you at least will have the opportunity of judging of this for yourself. Naturally, I hope that the portions which I have suppressed will never appear in print and in sending them to you I am sending the only copies of these parts.
I have gathered together all of the manuscript in existence.3 The leather bound notebook is one which I started in 1909 and in which I entered all my work of that time as I wrote it, so that it is the only original manuscript barring of course rough scraps and notes, which were destroyed at the time, in existence. You will find a great many sets of verse which have never been printed and which I am sure you will agree never ought to be printed, and in putting them in your hands, I beg you fervently to keep them to yourself and see that they never are printed.
I do not think that this manuscript is of any great value, especially as the large[r] part is really typescript for which no manuscript except scattered lines, ever existed. It is understood that in the valuation you speak of The Waste Land is not to be included and the rest must be valued at its actual market value and not at any value which it may (or may not) acquire in course of time.
I think it is very good of you to have subscribed for three copies of the Criterion, and I also appreciate to the full your action in writing to [Richard Cobden-]Sanderson. Your letter is wonderfully concise and to the point, and there is certainly nothing in it which could possibly give offence. About the American agencies, I want to put the question before you. I am publishing The Waste Land in two sections in the first and second numbers in the hope that it might bring in a few more readers, and because I thought it wiser not to appear myself as a prose essayist in the early numbers. It would therefore have been extremely ungracious to Liveright (although we gave him only the book rights) and now much more so to the Dial, if these two first numbers were circulated in America. I therefore propose to wait until copies of the first number or two can be sent to American Agents or Publishers as specimens.
Sanderson I may say in confidence, desires to approach Liveright on the subject to see if Liveright would undertake to have say two or three hundred copies regularly in the form of sheets to publish in America under his own name. He has had dealings with Liveright before and suggested Liveright to me before he knew that I had any relations with him myself. It is hardly necessary to say that whenever you can spare the time I should be extremely grateful for any suggestions or advice from you in this matter.
I think it might be possible for The Criterion to secure a small circulation in America and I do not see why it should interfere with the success of the Dial. Of course I should not want to compete with the Dial in any way but I think that the two papers will be so different in form and appearance that there should be no risk of this. I wish that the Dial could secure some circulation in this country, but that seems to me a much more difficult matter. For one thing it is a monthly and the more often periodicals appear the less easily they can be transplanted. For another thing it contains a great deal of local matter and in order to make it really successful in another country, the editors would have to give it form which perhaps would make it less valuable at home. If the Criterion were a monthly, we could of course work a good deal together in exclusive fields, but of course it would be impossible for me to edit a monthly magazine unless it were to provide enough income for me to devote myself to that and no other regular work. I may say that at present I am not taking a penny from it except a fee for my poem. If it succeeds I shall of course receive a corresponding remuneration. As it is I think I can say that it will look a much more expensive production than it is.
I have been extraordinarily successful in getting hold of the people whom I want to write for it and in order to do justice to these people if for no other reason, I should like to have the paper secure an adequate circulation and publicity. I have no doubt that the paper will appear too conservative to some and too radical to others, but I have gone on the principle of trying to secure the best people of each generation and type. I think that the trouble with the Little Review at its best was that its second-rate stuff was so appallingly bad; and my theory is that the best of the most advanced writing of our time (which of course means a very small number of writers) will really appear to better advantage among the really respectable and serious writers of the older type than among their own third-rate and vulgar imitators.
I am very glad to hear that you have had even a month of rest. I know so very well all of the symptoms that you describe that I know you should have had much more time. Whenever I get very tired or worried I recognise all the old symptoms ready to appear, with half a chance, and find myself under the continuous strain of trying to suppress a vague but intensely acute horror and apprehension. Perhaps the greatest curse of my life is noise and the associations which imagination immediately suggests with various noises. It is abominable to live in a town flat unless one can afford a very expensive one, for the reason that one can never forget the lives and disagreeable personalities of one’s neighbours; but I find myself in the position where a house in London is just beyond my means.
I must stop this very long letter. Thanking you again and again.
Sincerely yours,
T. S. Eliot
I am dissatisfied with this letter, it does not express either my gratitude or the great interest I have in your health and affairs. I dictated it with a bad headache and under stress of haste to catch the first mail. I will write again.
T.S.E.
1–On 7 Sept., Quinn wrote that he had invited Seldes and Liveright to his office that morning, and they had come to an agreement. Liveright would allow the Dial prior publication of the poem, without notes, in return for which the magazine would buy 350 copies of the book and give its $2,000 award to TSE. ‘So everything is all right … it was a pleasure to do this little job for you today.’ Instead of quarrelling about the manuscript of The Waste Land, Quinn would accept it ‘as a mark of friendship’, on condition that he would allowed to purchase the manuscripts of the early poems that TSE had mentioned. TSE eventually received $140 (£29 14s 10d) from Quinn.
2–EP did not receive a Dial award until 1928.
3–These materials were to be posthumously published in IMH (1996).
TO F. S. Flint
MS Texas
22 September 1922
Dear Flint,
Can you manage to return this1 to the printers, getting it off by Monday night? I am very sorry to press you but there have been delays. The printers are
Hazell, Watson and Viney Ltd
Aylesbury
Bucks
I am instructing them to add your name (unless you prefer not I prefer to have it).
In haste,
apologetically
T. S. Eliot
1–The proofs of Hesse, ‘Recent German Poetry’, translated (though unsigned) by Flint.
FROM Virginia Woolf
MS Valerie Eliot
25 September 1922
Monks House, Rodmell, Lewes
Dear Tom,
I hope you will forgive me for what I feel to be an impertinence on my part, but circumstances compel me to risk annoying you.
I think it best to explain to you openly that Ottoline asked me some time ago to join Mr Aldington’s Committee for what they call the Eliot Fellowship Fund. I did not altogether agree with their proposals, particularly as I could not make out that they knew what your views were. But I agreed to join. From what you said on Sunday I gathered that – as I had thought – the scheme was impracticable from your point of view. Today Ottoline has sent me a revised version of the scheme which is still less satisfactory than the first. I feel therefore that I must explain the position to her and must ask you therefore whether I am right in understanding you to say that
1) £500 a year is the least sum that would make it worth your while to leave the Bank.
2) that you do not consider the pledges to pay a yearly contribution are a sufficient security to warrant you in giving up your present work.
If you simply put ‘Yes’ on a postcard I shall take it to mean that I am right on both points.
(Perhaps I may add that Leonard and I entirely agree with you, if these are your views).
Yours ever
Virginia Woolf1
1–On the same day, VWwrote to OM: ‘I wired to you to day to stop sending out the circular because I cant agree to the scheme which is now proposed, and – what is far more important – I find that Tom himself, (who was here yesterday) is not ready to accept the original scheme, let alone this one … Anything less than £500 would, he says, throw him into journalism, and he prefers the Bank. But now I see from the revised circular that we are trying to get only £300 a year for a period of not less than five years, and this depends upon pledges to contribute yearly … It is a thousand pities that Pound and Aldington didn’t get Tom to explain his views before they launched the scheme. Let alone the worry to Tom himself – and I’m afraid he takes it all much to heart and feels his position most awkward – the scheme once muddled will be very hard to start again’ (Letters, II, 561).
TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson
MS Beinecke
Tuesday [26 September 1922]
The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Sanderson,
I enclose proof. Saintsbury, Miss Sinclair, and Flint (Hesse) I told to return direct to [the printers at] Aylesbury. I hope that was not wrong. I will send you cover copy and final note tonight.
In haste
T.S.E.
TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson
TS Beinecke
27 September 1922
The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Sanderson,
I am returning herewith your letter of the 22nd., of August to Lady Rothermere, which I understand you will alter, in respect of the one point of responsibility for payment, and send to her in duplicate at Claridges Hotel, Paris. I am also sending you the manuscript and the Proof of the first part of my poem, so that you may have a record of the undesired alterations made by the printers. You will observe that the translator’s name is given only in the case of the Dostoevsky, and that it should be in brackets underneath. Finally I enclose a note re manuscript etc.
I am to send you in a day or two the copy for advertisements, and a list of Periodicals in order; also the copy of a new circular for insertion.
Lady Rothermere is to send you from Paris, some names of people to whom circulars should be sent.
Yours
T. S. Eliot
TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson
MS Beinecke
28 September 1922
The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns
Dear Cobden-Sanderson,
Enclosed circular. I do not think I can abbreviate much, I suppose that if a somewhat smaller type is used than for the last it can be brought down to the size to fit into the Review?
Enclose also advert. Only question: can it all go in to the small size space in daily papers? If not, list of contributors must then be omitted, but these should go into Times Lit Supp double advert.1 I give list of papers in what seems order of importance. Will you let me know how many can be done for £40?
I tried to telephone three times in afternoon. I will ring your office up at 12 tomorrow in case there is anything pressing.
Times Lit. Supp
Times
Morning Post
Observer
Nation
New Statesman
Manchester Guardian
Yorkshire Post
Birmingham Post
Southport Guardian
I don’t of course suppose all of these can be done, but this is the order, subject to your judgment; and perhaps some are comparatively cheap?
Yrs. ever
T. S. Eliot
1–The two-column announcement of the Criterion (TLS, 19 Oct. 1922) listed the contents of the first number, including The Waste Land, and future contributors including E. M. Forster, Roger Fry, WL, JMM, EP, Marcel Proust, HR, Paul Valéry, CW and VW.
FROM Virginia Woolf
TS Valerie Eliot
30 September [1922]
Monks House, Rodmell
My dear Tom,
Of course I understand how difficult your position is, and only regret that I was forced to open the question again, for it must be a torment to you.
I have had a very reasonable letter from Ottoline, and no harm has been done. She will wait until she hears from me again.
Please come and see us, for that will be much better than writing. We go back on Thursday. Will you dine on Sunday, (the 8th, I think.) Dinner is at seven thirty, but come earlier if you will, for we shall be in anyhow.
I am extremely sorry to hear such bad news of your wife. Please give her my sympathy. I can’t imagine any fate more odious. Indeed, you have had a frightful time of it.
Ever yours,
Virginia Woolf1
1–On the same day, VW wrote to OM: ‘I have just heard from Tom who writes – “I should like to be able to answer your questions as you ask them, but when I force myself to put my mind on it I know that the whole matter is or has become so very difficult and complicated that I cannot without going into it from top
to bottom. I have had to keep my mind off this matter as much as possible and concentrate on what I must do from hour to hour. It has been an incessant strain, knowing that this business was going on; I have been assailed from all sides, and the situation has been made in some quarters very difficult. When no definite offer has been made one cannot let one’s imagination run on what one might do in one set of circumstances or another. I find the only way to live at all is to fix my attention on the particular work of the moment. If I may come and see you as soon as you get back to Richmond, I should like to discuss every aspect thoroughly with you, and I think I can make clear why it is so difficult. I am sure however that you will understand my present attitude; so do you mind waiting until I see you? I hope it will not put you in a difficult position.” So we have asked him to come next week, and I will let you know whatever I can make out from him … I should like to be able to tell Tom exactly how the matter stands so that he may not be in the dark any longer. So could you let me hear before Sunday … And he says that Mrs Eliot has now been ordered to undergo treatment at some remote place for several months – another expense I suppose’ (Letters, II, 563–4).
TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson
TS Beinecke
1 Oct[ober] 1922
The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns, London N.W.1