The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922

by T. S. Eliot

3–In ‘A Romantic Patrician’ (A., 2May 1919), TSE had written: ‘We should not gather from [George] Wyndham’s essay that the “Phoenix and Turtle” is a great poem, far finer than “Venus and Adonis”.’ TSE borrowed Shakespeare’s ‘defunctive music’ for ‘Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar’. RA wrote to Amy Lowell on 1 Apr. 1922: ‘there is a craze for the “Phoenix and the Turtle” just now and I am very much looked down upon because I suggest that it is only the divine William making fun of Donne’ (Richard Aldington: An Autobiography in Letters, 67).

  4–The poems of Henry King (1592–1669), Bishop of Chichester, had been included in Saintsbury’s Minor Poets of the Caroline Period, III (1921). TSE, in ‘The Metaphysical Poets’, hailed King’s ‘Exequy’ as ‘one of the finest poems of the age’. His paper on King was never written.

  5–See, for example, TSE’s articles ‘The Minor Metaphysicals: From Cowley to Dryden’, Listener 3 (9 Apr. 1930), 641–2; and ‘A Note on Two Odes of Cowley’, in Seventeenth Century Studies Presented to Sir Herbert Grierson (1938), 235–42.

  6–RA, ‘Et Ego in Arcadia’, C. 1: 3 (July 1923), 409–40.

  TO Ezra Pound

  MS Lilly

  Wednesday [15 November 1922]

  [London]

  Dear Ezra

  As you want me to reply about Bel Esprit, I will now make time to tell you exactly how the matter is with me.

  1. Of course I want to leave the Bank, and of course the prospect of staying there for the rest of my life is abominable to me. It ought not to be necessary to say this.

  2. Of course I have not got the money from Lady Rothermere, and of course I have never spoken to her about it. I understood that you and Richard were the agents in the matter. There is more reason why I should ask you why you didn’t get it from her. I can’t go about passing the hat for myself – besides, I could hardly go to her and say ‘I hear you have 10000 fc. for me: please give it to me’.

  3. I am not thinking of buying the Criterion, but it will be a great disaster to me if it comes to an end. Thank you for writing to Lady Rothermere on my behalf, but if you call her answer an insult, I don’t think you know what insults are: I should like you to see a few of her notes to me.

  Now about Bel Esprit. What I have to say has always seemed to me so obvious that there was no need to say it … but perhaps I was wrong. In the case of you and Dorothy this situation has never come up, so perhaps your imagination has not stretched so far. Dorothy has comparatively good health, a family who can help her, and prospects of enough money to live on afterwards. Vivien has none of these things. Her father’s property, such as it is, is practically all tied up in Irish real estate, which has never paid much, now pays less, and can’t be got rid of; which will be an encumbrance to her and her brother for the rest of their lives. Finally, at the most optimistic view, she will never be strong enough to earn her own living. If I had only myself to consider, I should not bother about guarantees for a moment: I could always earn my own living. But I am responsible toward her in more than the ordinary way. I have made a great many mistakes, which are largely the cause of her present catastrophic state of health, and also it must be remembered that she kept me from returning to America where I should have become a professor and probably never written another line of poetry, .

  At the end of five years, unless all the guarantees are renewed, where should I be? I should have to start all over again. I couldn’t even get a job in a bank – who would want a man of forty? – and if I did I should have to start again at the bottom, at £150 a year. And if I died meanwhile, what then? In the bank, I am assured £500 a year and perhaps more, and in case of death a widow’s pension increasing according to the size of salary.

  I will leave the Bank as soon as I have such guarantees – for my life or for Vivien’s life – as would satisfy a solicitor. If the contributors cannot give such guarantees, then they are people who ought not to be in such an enterprise at all; but I think that if my situation were clearly put to them, they would consider me an imbecile not to require the guarantees.

  Although I have much more to say to you, I am very tired and it is after 1 o’clock. I have not yet seen Lady R. I am looking forward with horror to seeing her tomorrow and will write to you afterwards.

  Yours ever

  T.

  PS You might send any reply dealing with this subject to me at Lloyds Bank Ltd., Information Dept., 71 Lombard Street, London e.c.3.

  TO Mary Hutchinson

  PC Texas

  [Postmark 16 Nov 1922]

  Yes my dear thank you. I shall write to you tomorrow. In great haste

  T.

  TO Richard Aldington

  TS Texas

  18 November 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gardens, N.W.1

  My dear Richard,

  I am enclosing a copy of a cutting from the Liverpool Post1 which I received tonight as you ought to see it at once. This is not altogether a surprise to me as I have suspected for some time that something of the sort might happen. I am putting the matter into the hands of my solicitors to take immediate action and I am sure that you will support me by your testimony in this very serious matter. I need not point out to you how calamitous such falsehoods might be for me if allowed to pass uncontradicted. I will write to you again after I have seen my solicitors.

  Yours ever,

  Tom.

  You should realise as well as I what has made possible the appearance of such a libel and you ought TO know as well as I from what source it is likely TO have emanated. As I want TO track it down and not merely secure an apology FROM the L’pool Post, please DO NOT MENTION THIS TO A SINGLE PERSON until I have seen my solicitor and written you again. I pledge you TO secrecy. I shall write you again immediately I have seen my solicitor.

  1–Brother Savage, ‘Books and Bookmen’, Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, 16 Nov. 1922: ‘The first number of a quarterly review, The Criterion, just issued by Mr. Cobden Sanderson, includes a long poem by Mr. T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, which is attracting considerable attention. Despite that Mr. Eliot’s friends endeavoured strenuously to keep the affair a secret, it has come to light (by way of America) that the author of “Mr. Prufrock” is the first beneficiary under a unique scheme through which a co-operation of English, French, and American enthusiasts, known as “Bel Esprit,” pledged themselves to give $50 per year for life or as long as the author needs it. The only gift we can make to an artist, their private manifesto declared, is leisure in which to work, leisure, moreover, while he is young enough to profit by it. The practicability of the scheme is assured by the fact that, with backers to the number of ten and upwards, the dangers arising out of individual patronage are eliminated;and there is sufficient difference of taste assured to prevent any single subscriber from trying to force the artist’s work into any mould or mode not his own.

  ‘Until quite recently Mr. Eliot was earning his livelihood in a London bank. Attempts had previously been made by his admirers to persuade him to give himself up to literature, and they pointed to his poetry and The Sacred Wood, a book of criticism, as work which substantiated their claim for him as an author with a future. Actually, as the amusing tale went at the time, the sum of £800 was collected and presented to Mr. Eliot there and then. The joke was that he accepted the gift calmly, and replied: “Thank you all very much; I shall make good use of the money, but I like the bank!” That was two years ago, and he held out until last spring, when he suffered a severe nervous breakdown which necessitated a three months’ leave of absence. Thereupon the society of “Bel Esprit” was hatched in secret and carried through, the poet’s own wishes not being consulted. The poem in The Criterion is the initial result of what must be regarded as a considerate and generous scheme, with excellent possibilities.’

  TO Ezra Pound

  MS Lilly

  18 November 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns


  Dear Ezra,

  I am enclosing a copy of a cutting from the Liverpool Post which I have received tonight and which I shall place in the hands of my solicitors for immediate action. I may say this is not a surprise to me and I have suspected for some little time that something was on foot. You should realise as well as I what has made possible the appearance of such a libel and you ought to know as well as I from what sources it is likely to have emanated.1 You will of course support me in any statements which it is necessary to make. I do not propose to let this matter rest with an apology from the Liverpool Post, but to track them to their source.

  Yours,

  T.

  I need not point out how calamitous these statements may be for me. Please be thinking this over but do not make any investigations and do not reveal this to a single person until I have seen my solicitor and written you again. Keep absolutely quiet about it.

  1–TSE was referring to RA.

  TO Richard Aldington

  MS Texas

  Monday [20 November 1922]

  [London]

  Look here, my dear Richard, why do you never give me the benefit of the doubt? You know perfectly well that I would never refuse permission to you and give it to Read, and that if I had any notion that Read was going to write about the Criterion I should have warned him. I don’t want anyone to write of me as the editor, and am very angry that he has done so.1

  I am seeing my solicitor and have nothing more to add at present except that this libel business is still a secret and confidential.

  Yrs.

  T.S.E.

  1–HR wrote about C. in a paragraph at the close of his ‘Notes from England’ in Écrits du Nord 1: 2 (Nov. 1922), 35–8. The same issue carried an advertisement for TSE’s new periodical, naming the contributors but not the editor.

  TO Daniel Halévy1

  TS Alan Clodd

  27 November 1922

  The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Monsieur,

  Je vous remercie de votre lettre du 20 courant. Je pense bien que la préface2 dont vous me notifiez serait bien intéressante pour nous. J’entends de ce que vous me dites que la traduction est déjà en train et qu’elle sera faite en peu de temps. Voulez-vous bien me dire vers quelle date vous pourriez me l’envoyer et à peu près combien de mots cette préface contient?

  Je crois avoir déjà expliqué à Monsieur Benda que les conditions pécuniaires sont £10 les 5000 mots et que l’article ne devrait pas dépasser par beaucoup cette longueur.

  Est-ce que le dialogue avec préface va paraître à Paris dans une revue ou dans une volume?

  En attendant de vos nouvelles, je vous prie, Monsieur, d’agréer l’expression de mes sentiments très distingués.

  T. S. Eliot

  Pardonnez la dactylographe –3

  1–Daniel Halévy (1872–1962), French social historian, essayist and biographer; acute and dispassionate chronicler of the Third Republic; the editor of the Cahiers Verts in which Julien Benda’s novel La Croix des Roses (‘The Cross of Roses’) appeared. See Alain Silvera, Daniel Halévy and His Times (1966).

  2–Julien Benda, ‘A Preface’, appeared in C. 1: 3 (Apr. 1923). This was written in the form of a dialogue with Benda’s La Croix des Roses, which had just appeared in the Cahiers Verts edited by Halévy.

  3–Translation: Sir, Thank you for your letter of the 20th inst. I definitely think the preface you mention would be of interest to us. I understand from what you say that the translation is already under way and that it will be completed shortly. Would you please tell me what date you could send it to me by and about how many words this preface contains?

  I think I have already explained to M. Benda that the pecuniary conditions are £10 per 5000 words and that the article should not go much beyond this length.

  Is the dialogue with the preface going to appear in Paris in a review or volume?

  While waiting news from you, please accept this expression of my deepest respects, T. S. Eliot

  Forgive the typist [added in pen as postscript to typed letter]

  TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson

  TS Texas

  27 November 1922

  The Criterion, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Sanderson,

  I should have rung you up to discuss your last two letters with you but have been far too busy. I have carefully gone over the terms of Hachette which you sent me.1 It is not quite clear to me just what advantages the Criterion gains in compensation for the rights given but I shall get you to explain that to me when we next meet. I return to you the circular which I have altered only to the extent of adding a few names which of course should be inserted in alphabetical order. It seems to me that Hachette ought to print this circular at their own expense and it seems to me still more cheeky of them if they suggest that the Criterion should pay for the insertion of an advertisement in a paper which is merely an organ of their own house. Do you not agree with me?

  I hope I can find time to come in one afternoon this week and discuss these questions with you.

  Does Lady Rothermere propose to have a proper contract with Hachette and if so for how long does she propose to commit the paper to this arrangement?

  I think it would be worthwhile to try to get Gyldendal2 as well for distribution in Denmark and Norway. I have the names of two or three good Swedish publishers which I will give you for that country, as I do not suppose that Gyldendal are very powerful in Sweden.

  I do not in the least understand what Lady Rothermere means by wanting my photograph and Miss Sinclair’s and Saintsbury’s and I am not at all sure that the latter will care to have their photographs in the Daily Mirror. I will try to ring you up for a word tomorrow and hope to see you later in the week. I am writing to the two people in question to remind them about the copy.

  Yours ever,

  T.S.E.

  1–Hachette was the French distributor.

  2–Denmark’s largest publisher, founded 1770.

  TO Scofield Thayer

  TS Beinecke

  27 November 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Scofield,

  I am very glad to see from your letter that your peregrinations have brought you back again to Vienna which seems a more suitable habitat for your subtle and cynical spirit than the commercial turmoil of New York. I am glad to hear that the succession of the London Letter is to fall upon Mortimer whose single essay in that line exhibited a knowledge of events which put me into shade. I am sure that everybody will be satisfied with the transference, and I hope to be able to present The Dial with specimens of the heavy sort of work of which I am less incompetent.

  I must congratulate you upon the maintained quality and increasing reputation of The Dial. The issues up to date certainly constitute an achievement of which you and your colleagues may well be very proud. I think that the Viennese stuff you have had is first-rate and I think you have made a particularly good stroke in securing the collaboration of Hofmannsthal.1 I am trying to dig out a few good writers in various parts of Europe for The Criterion and I hope that if any of them strike you as interesting you will share them with me.

  The Dial is gradually establishing itself in London but so far only among the people who make it their business to find out what is good. I think that if you could have a London office or even simply a London Agency to which English subscribers could address themselves, and if you could advertise a bit in some of the best English papers, that your circulation would be greatly increased. For example, two of my friends who order The Dial regularly from a London bookseller were unable to get a November number, and were actually informed by the bookseller that The Dial had collapsed and ceased publication.2 If you had a London office or an active business agent here such mistakes would not happen.

  Sincerely yours,

  T.S.E.

  1–Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), Austrian playwright, poet, essayist, and librettist for Richard Strauss. The Dial had printed stories by him
(July and Aug.), and a ‘Letter from Vienna’ (Oct.).

  2–The previous day, HWE had written to Charlotte Eliot: ‘Did you say you had the New York Times’ review of The Waste Land? I have one if you would like it. The Dial sends a postal asking subscribers to return copies and offering them the next two copies (Dec. and Jan.) in exchange, the demand for the November number having been tremendous. I think they said they had about a thousand unfilled orders.’

  TO The Editor of The Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury

  Published 30 November 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns, N.W.1

  Sir,

  My attention has been called to two paragraphs about myself in the issue of the Liverpool Post of the 16th of this month. The two paragraphs contain a number of statements which are quite untrue.

  No such collection or presentation as that mentioned ever took place, and I never made the statement attributed to me. I have not received £800 or any part of such sum, nor have I received any sum from ‘Bel Esprit’, nor have I left the bank. The ‘Bel Esprit’ scheme in the manifesto referred to by your correspondent is not in existence with my consent or approval. Finally, the appearance of my poem in the Criterion is not the result of any scheme whatever.

  The circulation of untrue stories of this kind causes me profound astonishment and annoyance and may also do me considerable harm. They are a reflection on me and on my dealings with my friends. I trust that you will take immediate steps to put this matter right.