III 15–19 underground · · · stations: during both world wars, hundreds of thousands of Londoners took nightly shelter from air-raids, on the platforms of the Underground until trains stopped running, and then on the tracks and escalators too. (During the Great War, TSE and his wife sheltered in a cellar; see her letter to Charlotte Eliot, 22 Oct 1917, in Letters 1.) One of Henry Moore’s “Shelter Drawings” appeared in Britain at War (1941), along with TSE’s Defence of the Islands.
III 23 wait without hope: for “being separated · · · even from Hope” and “a recognition of the fact that one can do without all these things”, see letter to Geoffrey Faber [18 Sept 1927] quoted in note to The Dry Salvages II 42–47. “Without haste without hope without fear”, In silent corridors of death 6.
[Poem I 188–89 · Textual History II 497]
III 24 hope for the wrong thing: “Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things”, The Dry Salvages II 58. “Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things”, The Church’s Message (1937). To Frank Morley, 4 Aug 1938: “Coleridge cannot mean very much for one, or is likely to mean the wrong things, unless one knows a fair amount of what Coleridge knew”. “Radicalism then proceeds to organize the ‘vital issues’, and reject what is not vital · · · In short, while liberalism did not know what it wanted of education, radicalism does know; and it wants the wrong thing”, Modern Education and the Classics (1933). “Unless society can exercise some unconscious pressure upon its members to want the right things, the right life, the opportunity given may be merely the opportunity to follow false lights”, Education in a Christian Society (1940) (“fancy lights”, II 42, and see note to III 40–41). To Egon Vietta, 23 Feb 1947: “we have largely learned the wrong things”. “how many of those who call themselves ‘conservative’ · · · are concerned with conserving the right things”, “The Conservative Mind” by Russell Kirk, reader’s report (1954).
III 26–34 all in the waiting. | Wait without thought · · · You say I am repeating | Something I have said before: to George Barker, 24 Jan 1938: “from time to time · · · inspiration is exhausted · · · you either repeat yourself, or stop writing · · · A few men · · · simply could not repeat themselves · · · nothing is worth doing twice · · · in these periods of sterility one has to have recourse partly to patience and waiting” (see headnote to Four Quartets, 4. “NOT MERELY MORE OF THE SAME”). Shakespeare had “the gift of never doing the same thing twice”, The Development of Shakespeare’s Verse (1950 text). “critical ability, that power of self-criticism, without which the poet will do no more than repeat himself to the end of his life”, Goethe as the Sage (1955).
III 29–30 winter lightning, | The wild thyme unseen: John Day: “winter lightening or Christmas thunder”, Law-Trickes act V (for Day, see note to The Waste Land [III] 197). A Midsummer Night’s Dream II i: “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows”. TSE: “The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning”, The Dry Salvages V 26. For A Midsummer Night’s Dream, see note to I 28–33.
III 33–35 You say I am repeating | Something I have said before. I shall say it again. | Shall I say it again?: “I may often repeat what I have said before, and I may often contradict myself”, The Music of Poetry (1942). Whitman: “If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing? · · · Do I contradict myself? | Very well then I contradict myself”, Song of Myself 1324–26 (both Musgrove 20–21). TSE: “The debt of every poet to his predecessors and contemporaries is a scent eagerly sniffed and followed by every critic; but the debts of poets to their own earlier work are apt to be overlooked. Yet any intelligent psychologist ought to see at once that any poet, even the greatest, will tend to use his own impressions over and over again. It is by no means a matter of poverty of inspiration. Every man who writes poetry has a certain number of impressions and emotions which are particularly important to him. Every man who writes poetry will be inclined to seek endlessly for a final expression of these, and will be dissatisfied with his expressions and will want to employ the initial feeling, the original image or rhythm, once more in order to satisfy himself”, Poets’ Borrowings (1928). To Montgomery Belgion, 19 July 1940: “As for repeating myself, I am not sure that I have your meaning clear. I only meant repeating just at that point (for several lines the imagery is very suggestive of Burnt Norton): because the whole subject matter (so far as there is any) of the total poem I thought was pretty different, only not so firmly grasped.” For “certain images recur”, see note to Journey of the Magi 23–27. To H. Warner Allen, 12 Dec 1949: “One has to take account of the fact that to many people, every writer on mystical subjects appears not only to be saying the same things as other writers, but himself to be saying the same things again and again. So I think he needs to be clear in advising people on the matter that is coming.” On two aims in lecturing: “One is, to avoid saying anything that I have said before; the other is, to avoid saying anything that somebody else has said before—and probably said better · · · some of us devote our later years to trying to express the same ideas better”, The Three Voices of Poetry (1954; preliminary remarks omitted from On Poetry and Poets). “this poet of torrential imagination recognized many of his best bits · · · saved them, and reproduced them more than once”, Christopher Marlowe (1919).
[Poem I 189 · Textual History II 497]
III 35 again?: this reading was changed on a late ts to “here and now?” and twice printed so. But when Frank Morley objected, TSE wrote to him, 5 Apr 1940: “I will think about ‘again’ instead of ‘here and now’ and I tend to believe that you are right”. (The words “here and now” appear at V 30.) The reading “again?” was restored in time for Faber’s pamphlet, EC.
III 35–46 In order to arrive there · · · where you are not: Hayward and Sweeney 1941 point to St. John of the Cross:
In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything,
Desire to know nothing.
In order to arrive at that wherein thou hast no pleasure,
Thou must go by a way wherein thou hast no pleasure.
In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not,
Thou must go by a way that thou knowest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou possessest not,
Thou must go by a way that thou possessest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou art not,
Thou must go through that which thou art not
Ascent of Mount Carmel I XIII 1
[Poem I 189 · Textual History II 497]
William James had quoted the passage in “Saintliness” in The Varieties of Religious Experience. TSE mentioned St. John of the Cross to his brother in connection with the epigraphs to Burnt Norton (see note), and wrote in the same month to Bonamy Dobrée, 17 Apr 1936: “The doctrine that in order to arrive at the love of God one must divest oneself of the love of created beings was thus expressed by St. John of the Cross, you know: i.e. a man who was writing primarily not for you and me, but for people seriously engaged in pursuing the Way of Contemplation. It is only to be read in relation to that Way: i.e. merely to kill one’s human affections will get one nowhere, it would be only to become rather more completely a living corpse than most people are. But the doctrine is fundamentally true, I believe. Or to put your belief in your way, that only through the love of created beings can we approach the love of God, that I do believe to be UNTRUE. Whether we mean by that domestic and friendly affections, or a more comprehensive love of the ‘neighbour’, of humanity in general. I don’t think that ordinary human affections are capable of leading us to the love of God, but rather that the love of God is capable of informing, intensifying and elevating our human affections, which otherwise may
have little to distinguish them from the ‘natural’ affections of animals. Try looking at it from that end of the glass!” (For St. John of the Cross, see note to Sweeney Agonistes second epigraph. For “the coupling of animals”, see note to I 44.) On Paul Elmer More: “What is significant to me · · · is not simply the conclusions at which he has arrived, but the fact that he arrived there from somewhere else; and not simply that he came from somewhere else, but that he took a particular route. And conversely, the point at which he has arrived gives an importance to the stages of the journey”, Paul Elmer More (1937). Pater: “For the way to perfection is through a series of disgusts”, Studies in the History of the Renaissance ch. VI (scored in TSE’s copy).
Reluctantly granting permission for performance of a musical setting using East Coker, TSE explained to the Master of Magdalene Sir Henry Willink, and the Pepys Librarian Francis Turner, 9 Nov 1962, that he was making an exception: “it is not one of the parts which I would normally allow a composer to make use of. The passage he wants is, of course, based on St. John of the Cross; unfortunately it is from St. John’s prose and not from his verse.” (For the letter, see “This Edition”, 6. TSE ON TREATMENTS OF HIS POEMS.)
III 36–41 To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not · · · In order to possess what you do not possess | You must go by the way of dispossession: Whitman: “To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it · · · To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you · · · To see no possession but you may possess it”, Song of the Open Road XIII 170–74 (Musgrove 54). where you are not: Baudelaire, tr. Stuart Merrill: “It always seems to me that I will be better where I am not”, Anywhere Out of the World in Pastels in Prose.
III 38–39 to arrive at what you do not know | You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance: Pascal: “The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance which is conscious of itself”, Pensées 327. TSE: “By being ‘educated’ I mean · · · being able to allow for all the books one has not read and the things one does not understand—it means some understanding of one’s own ignorance”, Revelation (1937). Clough: “I also know not, and I need not know · · · Come all to this true ignorance and thee”, The Questioning Spirit 46–50 (Murray).
III 40–41 In order to possess what you do not possess | You must go by the way of dispossession: “the way leads towards possession | Of what you have sought for in the wrong place”, The Cocktail Party II.
III 44 And what you do not know is the only thing you know: Socrates: ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα [I know that I know nothing], quoted by Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers bk. II §32.
IV
Raymond Preston reported discussing the lines of “the Good Friday poem in East Coker” in 1951 with TSE, who said he was “occupied with the craftsman’s problems · · · he then added that he thought they were probably influenced by the practice of the rosary and in particular by the Sorrowful Mysteries”, Braybrooke ed. The five Sorrowful Mysteries are five divisions of the rosary, suitable for prayer and meditation: the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging of Christ, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion. On the rosary, see the note to Burnt Norton V 13–22.
[Poem I 189–90 · Textual History II 497–98]
IV 1–12] Hayward: “In this pastiche of a 17th-century ‘metaphysical’ poem on the Passion, the ‘wounded surgeon’, ‘the dying nurse’, and ‘the ruined millionaire’ are metaphorical allusions to Christ crucified, the Church, and Adam after the Fall, respectively. East Coker was written for Good Friday 1940” (see IV 25). Noting the French translation of “dying nurse” as “l’infirmière moribonde”, the German translator of Four Quartets, Nora Wydenbruck, wrote to TSE, 8 May 1953: “I took both the surgeon and the nurse to mean Christ · · · What disturbs me is the implication that the Church is moribund”. TSE, 19 May: “The majority of the authorities on the subject whose work I have consulted, seem to hold the opinion that the ‘dying nurse’ is the Church. On this subject I can throw no light myself, but we will have to think of some justification for the phrase. This happens to be one of the cases in which an uninflected language has an advantage—there are, of course, other situations in which the lack of inflection is distinctly disadvantageous.” Helen Gardner:
In his book “Four Quartets” Rehearsed (1946), Mr. Raymond Preston provided an allegorical interpretation of the lyric, identifying the “wounded surgeon” with Christ, the “dying nurse” with the Church Militant, and the “ruined millionaire” with Adam; and in a footnote reported that he had originally thought “that the ruined millionaire was the Fallen Angel” and that he was “indebted to Mr. Eliot for the correction”. In The Art of T. S. Eliot (1949) I contested this interpretation, in spite of Mr. Preston giving the author as his authority, on the grounds that to endow a hospital is an act of charity hardly to be compared with endowing the world with Original Sin. I took all three figures, surgeon, nurse, millionaire as types of Christ.
[Footnote:] I have to own that Hayward · · · gives the same allegorical interpretation as Mr. Preston · · · I regret that I never summoned up the nerve to ask Eliot whether I was wrong to query at some length the identification of the millionaire with Adam. But he would probably have evaded siding with either of his readers.
Composition FQ 43–44
[Poem I 190 · Textual History II 498]
IV 1 the wounded surgeon plies the steel: Thackeray: “The wounded writhe · · · The out-worn surgeon plies his knife”, The Due of the Dead 19, 21 (Marcia Karp, personal communication). Isaiah 53: 5: “he was wounded for our transgressions · · · and with his stripes we are healed” (Cook). Luke 4: 23: “Physician, heal thyself.” OED “physician” 2: “One who practises the healing art, including medicine and surgery” (as distinguished from 2b: “One legally qualified to practise the healing art · · · esp. as distinguished from one qualified as a surgeon only”). Andrewes: “The Physician slain, and of His Flesh and Blood a receipt made that the patient might recover”, Sermon of the Nativity 1612 (Grover Smith 269–70) (TSE: “receipt”, II 27). Herbert: “his condition | Though it be ill, makes him no ill Physician”, The Church-Porch 443–44. Valéry compared himself to a surgeon: “j’ai coutume de procéder à la mode des chirurgiens qui purifient d’abord leurs mains et préparent leur champ opératoire. C’est ce que j’appelle le nettoyage de la situation verbale. Pardonnez-moi cette expression qui assimile les mots et les formes du discours aux mains et aux instruments d’un opérateur” [I generally proceed like a surgeon who sterilises his hands and prepares the area to be operated on. This is what I call cleaning up the verbal situation. You must excuse this expression equating the words and forms of speech with the hands and instruments of a surgeon], Poésie et pensée abstraite (tr. Denise Folliot as Poetry and Abstract Thought in The Art of Poetry, 1958). TSE: “I am convinced of the capital importance of a preliminary nettoyage de la situation verbale”, UNESCO and Its Aims (1947). But in his Introduction to Valéry’s The Art of Poetry: “it may be the fact that I cannot identify, under the disguise of this metaphor, any experience of my own, that makes me suspect that ‘cleaning up the verbal situation’ is, in plain English, eyewash.” For “la plaie et le couteau!” [the wound and the knife!], see note to I am the Resurrection and the Life 4–5, “the victim and the sacrificial knife”.
IV 1–2 surgeon plies the steel | That questions: in 1934: “‘the hereditary body of religious faith and moral practice.’ And, in order not to limit my instances to theology, I will quote from another contemporary Liberal practitioner, a literary critic this time: ‘· · · exposing them with the scalpel of a surgeon rather than that of a philosopher’”, After Strange Gods 22–23, quoting V. F. Calverton, Contemporary Literature: A Study in Pathology in Our Neurotic Age ed. S. D. Schmalhausen (1932). Benlowes: “here lance me, Lord · · �
� piercing blade”, Theophila’s Love-Sacrifice XIII lxxiii, lxxv (see note to IV 16–24). In a ts submitted to TSE, Keith Douglas wrote of a swordfish that “yielded to the sharp enquiring blade”, The Marvel 1–4. TSE, on Douglas’s ts (in 1941?): “the surgeon’s blade is ‘enquiring’, but I am not sure about this word” (BL Add. mss 53773).
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 137