by T. S. Eliot
y on the afternoon of Sat-
urday the First. Alas, I must
go where I was invited fust,
because that is considered yet
15
a rigid rule of etiquette.
So on that day I have to hurry
to Mr. Morley’s house in Surrey—
the reason being, strange but true,
he was born on the same day as you.
20
But still I find it very vex-
ing not to be in Middlesex
at Hampton in the street called High
among the Tandy family.
At least, I’m glad that I shall be
25
with you on Sunday next for tea
and in the Tandy family buzzim,
and sign myself, with love, your
Possum.
To the seven-year-old Alison Tandy, 23 Dec 1937, on Criterion notepaper (Valerie Eliot photocopy).
9–11 Yankee Doodle Dand-| y to the family of Tand- | y: “Yankee Doodle Dandy · · · Miss Alison Tandy”, Mr. Possum wishes that his name was Tristram Shandy 3–5 (likewise apologising for absence because of a previous engagement with Morley).
26 family buzzim: to Eleanor Hinkley, 26 July 1914: “Here I am, safely out of harm’s way, settled in the bosom of the family of the Lutheran Pastor.”
Chandos Clerihews
Mr. Philip Mairet
Crossed the Styx in a beret
Remarking to Charon:
“I must keep my hair on”.
Mr Maurice B. Reckitt
Followed Thomas A. Becket;
But he found the Church so pokey
That he went to Le Touquet
To practise his croquet.
Mr. Hilderic Cousens
Ordered oysters by dozens,
And after fifteen Guinnesses
Resembled Epstein’s Genesis.
Written c. 1937. Transcribed in Valerie’s Own Book, without title, except in the list of Contents at the end of the first exercise book.
The first of these was printed in 1958 by Philip Mairet in Braybrooke ed., where he recalled meetings of the “Chandos Group” (associated with New English Weekly), which met fortnightly at the Chandos Restaurant, St. Martin’s Lane. “The other most regular members of this circle were Maurice Reckitt, V. A. Demant, Geoffrey Davies, Hilderic Cousens and, later, T. M. Heron · · · T. S. E. once lampooned us all in clerihews.” (Braybrooke printed “Explaining” for “Remarking” and “must” for “must”, with three punctuation errors.) Inaccurate versions of the first two lines of Mr. Philip Mairet and the last two of Mr. Hilderic Cousens were printed by Thomas Dozier in Month Oct 1972.
For the clerihew form, see notes to Clerihews II.
1 1 Mr. Philip Mairet (1886–1975): successor to A. R. Orage as editor of NEW in 1934 and later dedicatee of Notes Towards the Definition of Culture.
2 1 Maurice B. Reckitt: Maurice Bennington Reckitt, editor of Christendom, 1931–50, and of Prospect for Christendom (Faber, 1945), to both of which TSE contributed. Like this verse (not strictly a clerihew), TSE’s letters to him emphasise the form of name he preferred. In that of 6 May 1941, “Dear Reckitt, My firm is interested in your suggestion that the series of broadcast talks in which we were recently engaged might be collected into a small book” is emended by hand to read “Dear Reckitt, My firm is interested in Mr. Maurice B. Reckitt’s suggestion · · ·” See note on the title The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Ricks 1988 2–3.
2 2 Thomas A. Becket · · · Church so pokey: the 12th-century Archbishop of Canterbury was the subject of Murder in the Cathedral (1935). Becket: Valerie’s Own Book 1st reading: “Beckett”.
2 4 croquet: for Alice in Wonderland, see note to Mr. Apollinax 13, 19.
3 1 Hilderic Cousens: author of New Policy for Labour: An Essay on the Relevance of Credit Control (1921). In Valerie’s Own Book, TSE wrote “Cousins” (perhaps through confusion with the trade union leader Frank Cousins).
3 2–3 oysters by dozens, | And after fifteen Guinnesses: TSE to Virginia Woolf, 5 Mar 1933, from Harvard: “if I · · · were back in England now consuming a dozen of Whitstable Natives and a Pint of Guinness I should be heaps happier”. See Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter on eating oysters by dozens (Through the Looking-Glass ch. IV).
3 4 Genesis: Jacob Epstein’s marble sculpture of a heavily pregnant woman, exhibited 1931. Epstein was to make a bust of TSE in 1951.
————
The authorship of three further clerihews, headed Memoria Obstetrica, is unknown.
I
F. V. Morley,
Suddenly took poorly,
Was delivered of a still-born ditty,
In the middle of the Book Committee.
II
Geoffrey Faber
Had a difficult labour:
But being left in the dark,
Brought forth a passable lark.
III
T. S. E., being multiparous,
And confined in a Chapter House,
At last produced something germane—
Without apparent effort or pain.
Carbon in Geoffrey Faber’s papers (Faber archive). Half of the Geoffrey Faber verse was originally typed beneath the numeral I (two lines and the first character of the third), before being typed over, with the Morley verse substituted. The “passable lark” of Faber’s was probably the sonnet For F. C. G. L, addressed to Falconer Larkworthy, dated 1 Feb 1939 (see McCue and Soden 2014). Frank Morley left Faber and moved to the US in July 1939, so these verses were probably written between those dates. TSE had published no new poetry since Burnt Norton appeared within 1936. The “something germane” that he finally now produced was Abschied Zur Bina, which was received by Hayward on 31 Jan 1939 (in time for his birthday on 2 Feb). This became the German finale to Noctes Binanianæ, to which all three men were contributors.
Title Obstetrica: see Pound’s “obstetric effort” Sage homme, quoted in headnote to The Waste Land, for his role in “the Caesarean operation” during its “Difficult birth”. See How to Pick a Possum 39, “upsetrical”, and note (Noctes Binanianæ).
I 4 the Book Committee: a Wednesday afternoon fixture for the directors at Faber (a house of many chapters). To Hayward, 25 Sept 1943: “I always have the T.L.S. for Book Committees, but confine myself to the list of recommended books and the crossword, which is insoluble, and therefore helps me through the duller parts of the session.”
III 1 multiparous: OED: “Bringing forth many young at a birth” (usually of animals), citing “the multiparous Opossums” (1839–47).
III 2 Chapter House: from late 1934 until 1937 TSE lodged in the presbytery of Father Cheetham at 9 Grenville Place, Cromwell Road.
The Whale that leapt on Bredon
The Whale that leapt on Bredon
When roselipt girls were leaping,
Now hangs his tail in Ludlow gaol
Where whales that sleep are sleeping. — A Shropshire Lad.
First of two verse entries in Whalebones from the Cetacean Anthology, a typed sheet playing upon Frank Morley as the Whale, so probably dating from the late 1930s (Geoffrey Faber papers, Faber archive). For the entry that ends Whalebones, see note to Ode to a Roman Coot 43–48.
Heading Whalebones: 1st reading: “Flowers”.
1 on Bredon: A Shropshire Lad XXI, BREDON HILL: “In summertime on Bredon” (with Housman’s note: “Pronounced BREEDON.”)
2–4 roselipt girls were leaping · · · Where whales that sleep are sleeping: A Shropshire Lad LIV: “By brooks too broad for leaping · · · The rose-lipt girls are sleeping | In fields where roses fade.”
3–4 hangs his tail in Ludlow gaol · · · are sleeping: A Shropshire Lad IX: “They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail · · · There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night.” A Shropshire Lad LVIII: “Ned lies long in jail, | And I come home to Ludlow”.
Possum now wishes to explain his silence
Possum now wishes to explain
his silence
And to apologise (as only right is);
He had an attack of poisoning of some violence,
Followed presently by some days in bed with laryngitis.
5
Yesterday he had to get up and dress—
His voice very thick and his head feeling tetrahedral,
To go and meet the Lord Mayor & Lady Mayoress
At a meeting which had something to do with repairs to
Southwark Cathedral.
His legs are not yet ready for much strain & stress
10
And his words continue to come thick and soupy all:
These are afflictions tending to depress
Even the most ebullient marsupial.
But he would like to come to tea
One day next week (not a Wednesday)
15
If that can be arranged
And to finish off this letter
Hopes that you are no worse and that Leonard is much better.
To Virginia Woolf, 3 Feb [1938] (Berg).
Published in New York Times 31 Jan 1974 (with “Lord Mayoress”) and in facsimile in Other People’s Mail ed. Lola L. Szladits, who tentatively suggested the date 1940, although TSE’s laryngitis occurred in 1938.
13–14 tea · · · Wednesday: for this rhyme see note to WLComposite 237–38.
16–17 And to finish off this letter · · · better: Swift: “Over and above, that I may have your Excellencies’ Letter, | With an Order for the Chaplain aforesaid; or instead of him a better”, The Humble Petition of Frances Harris penultimate couplet.
17 are no worse … is much better: attrib. Alfred Austin: “Across the wires the electric message came: | ‘He is no better, he is much the same’”, On the Illness of the Prince of Wales, Afterwards Edward VII (see note to Amaz’d astronomers did late descry 3)._
Be sure that Possums can’t refuse
Be sure that Possums can’t refuse
A tea with Mrs. Woolf on Tues.
And eagerly if still alive,
I’ll come to tea with you at five.
5
I’d like to come at half past four,
But have a business lunch before,
And feel responsibility
To do some work before my Tea.
But please don’t let the kettle wait
10
And keep for me a cup and plate,
And keep the water on the bile,
A chair, and (as I hope) a Smile.
To Virginia Woolf, probably 1938.
Published by Leonard Woolf in Beginning Again (1964) 244, giving no date: “The following is his letter accepting an invitation to tea, new style.” The original letter is untraced. A later typed copy headed “From T. S. Eliot” (Valerie Eliot collection) gives the address “The Vestry, St. Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, S.W.7.”, which indicates 1934 onwards (Woolf’s Diary for 11 Jan 1935 tells of TSE suggesting fortnightly teas). With the typed copy is a letter (apparently unpublished) from Woolf headed only “52 T[avistock] S[quare] Sunday” asking whether he would “come to tea, finding me alone, on Tuesday week, which is the 8th—at 4.30 sharp? so that we may have time for a gossip”. A typed copy of a similar letter from TSE to Woolf apparently dates from Aug 1935, but their other correspondence and her Diary suggest that there was no Tues. 8th before 1938 when they could have had tea together.
1 Be sure that: “Whatever you think, be sure that it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that it is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that it is what you feel”, Address by T. S. Eliot, ’06, to the Class of ’33 (1933).
11 bile: boil pronounced in an 18th-century manner (as in the rhyme “conjoined … mind”, Long may this Glass endure 4–5).
Miss Mary Trevelyan
Miss Mary Trevelyan
Is like Godfrey of Bouillon.
For his name means pottage
And her name means cottage.
5
(Remove, if you will,
The elegant varnish
Provided by Cornish,
It means “public house under the hill”.)
Presentation card (Texas) accompanying—and now pasted into—a copy of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939). Reproduced in Sackton 257. Presumably dating from around the time of publication, 5 Oct 1939. A letter of 15 Sept 1942 ends with a list of appointments and:
I have an uneasy feeling that in November I have to do a talk, chat or reading, I forget which, for
Miss Trevelyan’s
Tatterdemallions
And sundry rapscallions.
1, 4, 7 Trevelyan · · · cottage · · · Cornish: her Cornish surname derives from trev, a homestead + the personal name Elian.
2 Godfrey of Bouillon: Godfrey de Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, 11th-century; hero of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, tr. Edward Fairfax as Godfrey of Bouillon (1600).
2–3 Bouillon · · · pottage: OED, “bouillon” 1a: “Broth, soup.” (Fr. potage = soup) “Esau selleth his birthright for a mess of potage”, Genesis ch. 25 chapter heading (Geneva Bible, 1560). TSE: “idealism, having sold his mess of pottage for a birth-right, is perhaps beginning to show signs of inanition”, The Relativity of Moral Judgment (1915).
7 Cornish: a rhyme for “varnish” if spoken in a Cornish accent.
Put on your old grey corset
Put on your old grey corset
To drive down to Dorset:
We will hitch up Dobbin to the shay.
We will tarry for a while
5
In the pleasant vyle of Ryle
Before next Lammas Day.
To Polly Tandy, 17 June 1939 (BL).
1–3 old grey · · · Dobbin: “The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be”, trad.
American song.
4–5 tarry · · · pleasant vyle: TSE alluded to 2 Kings 2: 16–19, “into some valley · · ·
he tarried at Jericho · · · this city is pleasant”, in a scrap of verse (Houghton):
Who tarried in Jericho
Until their beards did grow?
Judas Iscariot, Captain Marryat
And Harriet Martineau
5 vyle of Ryle: Ryall, a village in Dorset that looks across Marshwood Vale.
6 Lammas Day: (loaf-mass day) 1 Aug.
Lift her up tenderly
Lift her up tenderly,
Treat her with Care,
Poor Jeanie Kennerley,
Young and so Fair!
Who’ll break the news to her? 5
Who’s going to tell her
What it’s like to be in for
A spell of Rubella?
Typed on a folded leaf below a drawing of an ailing Jean Kennerley in bed, drinking and apparently smoking; on the facing page, a drawing of Old Possum in a hat, pointing to the patient’s bed, with “What you should envy me is my morning Eno’s—says Old Possum.” Signed in pencil “To Jean from T. S. Eliot”. (For “Eno’s”, see A Practical Possum 39 and note.)
To Hayward, 8 Feb 1940 (King’s): “Jean Kennerley has German measles [Rubella]. I never know what to write to Jean, so I did a drawing, with some verses to the tune of the Song of the Shirt (no, it isn’t that, but the other one, you know, about the girl who jumped off the Embankment)—Puir Jeanie Kennerley | Young & so fair etc. which apparently worked all right, as she mentioned it to Morley on the telephone.”
Thomas Hood was the author of The Song of the Shirt and also The Bridge of Sighs, with its repeated lines “Take her up tenderly, | Lift her with care; | Fashion’d so slenderly, | Young, and so fair.”
Clerihews II
To Hayward, 8 Feb 1940 (King’s):
For three days I slept most of the time; and in the short intervals of consciousness read the Psalms (which are very good reading in such a state, being not too closely knit for an addled pate to follow. St. Paul is quite out of the picture) and composed clerihews, another good pass time for the addlepated. I could not do you a
nything better than
Mr. John Hayward
Is froward and wayward.
I think it’s untoward
To be quite so froward.
But then what can you do with a name like that? FABER, on the other hand, is almost inexhaustible. After you have worked through all the normal rhymes, so to speak (the last of which, so far as my researches have gone, is Lochaber) you start afresh with macabre, slobber, and such variants; and after that you work into the adjectival form Fabrous, which has considerable possibilities, and I have still to explore the resources of Galfridius Fabricius. Faber himself is a-bed with flu, and so is a ready victim. I believe my most pungent was on a bird named Davies, who I believe is active in local government reform in Watford, viz.:
Mr. Geoffrey Davies
Takes an interest in slaveys—
By which I mean, of course,
That he’s a second Wilberforce.
(Galfridius = Geoffrey (L.), as Galfridius Fontibus, the 12th-century hagiographer Geoffrey of Wells.) OED “slavey” 1: “A male servant or attendant.” 2: “A female domestic servant, esp. one who is hard-worked”.
The mention of St. Paul invokes one of the most famous of clerihews:
Sir Christopher Wren
Said, “I am going to dine with some men.
If anybody calls
Say I am designing St. Paul’s.”
(See headnote to Choruses from “The Rock”, 4. COMPOSITION.) TSE may have known that the inventor of the Clerihew, E. C. Bentley, was educated at St. Paul’s School. Bentley’s third and last collection, Baseless Biography, had been published in 1939 with pictures by his son Nicolas, who during 1940 was at work on drawings for the illustrated edition of Practical Cats (pub. Nov).