The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (111 page)

1–This date was interpreted as 24 Dec. 1921 in
Letters of Ezra Pound
, 1907–1941 (1951), ed. D. D. Paige, which was followed in the first edition of TSE’s
Letters
. However, given the calendar that EP published in the
Little Review
(Spring 1922), Hugh Kenner reinterpreted it (‘The Urban Apocalypse’, in
Eliot in His Time,
ed. Walton Litz [1973], 44n). EP wrote to H. L. Mencken, 22 Mar. 1922: ‘The Christian Era ended at midnight on Oct. 29–30 of last year. You are now in the year 1 p.s.U [post scriptum
Ulysses
].’

2–The superfluities run to seventeen pages in all (
TWL: Facs
, 90–123). Of these, EP annotated three typescripts, ‘Song [for the Opherion]’, ‘Exequy’, and the two pages of ‘The Death of the Duchess’, plus one manuscript, the fair copy of ‘Dirge’. This letter mentions the first two, and EP’s enclosed poem ‘Sage Homme’ alludes to ‘Dirge’, so these were probably the ‘last three’ still being considered for inclusion by TSE. However, EP’s annotation, ‘cadence reproduction from Pr[ufrock] or Por[trait of a Lady]’, suggests that it was perhaps ‘The Death of the Duchess’ that did not ‘advance on earlier stuff’.

3–A marginal bracket by EP on the typescript of ‘Song [for the Opherion]’, interpreted by Valerie Eliot as covering four lines, perhaps spanned only ‘When the surface of the blackened river / Is a face that sweats with tears?’ (10–11):
TWL
:
Facs
, 98–9.

4–‘Exequy’ at one time ended ‘SOVEGNA VOS AL TEMPS DE MON DOLOR’ (‘be mindful in due time of my pain’,
Purg
. xxvi, 147;
TWL
:
Facs
, 100–1). TSE retained Dante’s next line (
TWL
, 427), and quoted this passage in the Notes and elsewhere.

5–TSE had proposed to use an epigraph from Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness,
ending ‘The horror! the horror!’ (
TWL
:
Facs
, 2–3).

6–
TWL
, 111.

7–Presumably in a letter not preserved.

8–‘Wise man’; but also a pun on ‘
sage femme’,
meaning ‘midwife’.

9–‘Poet with a fistula (or ulcer)’.

10–He typed ‘in the The’.

TS
Houghton

[26? January 1922]
¹

[London]

Cher maitre,

Criticisms accepted so far as understood, with thanks.

What does THENCE mean (To luncheon at the Cannon St Hotel)???
⁶

Would D[orothy Pound]’s difficulty be solved by inverting to

1. Do you advise printing Gerontion as prelude in book or pamphlet form?
   
2. Perhaps better omit Phlebas also???
   ⁸
   
3. Wish to use caesarean operation in italics in front.
   
4. Certainly omit miscellaneous pieces.           
   Those at end
   
5. Do you mean not use Conrad quot. or simply not put Conrad’s name to it? It is much the most appropriate I can find, and somewhat elucidative.
   

Complimenti appreciated, as have been excessively depressed. V. sends you her love and says that if she had realised how bloody England is she would not have returned.

I would have sent Aeschyle
⁹
before but have been in bed with flu, now out, but miserable.

Would you advise working sweats with tears etc. into nerves monologue; only place where it can go?
¹⁰
Have writ to Thayer asking what he can offer for this. Trying to read Aristophane.

[unsigned, perhaps incomplete]

1–Tentatively dated [24? Jan. 1922] in the first edition of these
Letters
, but evidently a reply to EP’s letter of that day. EP added the comments in bold and returned the letter, presumably with the next, which answers the remaining points.

2–This version of
TWL
78–80, which does not exactly match the surviving drafts or printed text, is probably a response to EP’s comment on the typescript ‘3
lines
Too tum-pum at a stretch’ (
TWL
:
Facs
, 10–11). ‘Wherefrom’ appears in the unpublished typescripts in Thayer’s papers (Beinecke) and Watson’s papers (Berg), and in
C
., though not in the
Dial
, Boni & Liveright or Hogarth Press printings.

3–The first appearance in final form of
TWL
, l. 107.

4–The first appearance in final form of this phrase in
TWL
, l. 136. EP had written ‘1880’ against the anachronistic ‘closed carriage’ in the TS (
TWL: Facs,
12–13), but TSE wished to keep ‘the human engine waits / Like a taxi throbbing’, 216–17.

5–The first appearance in final form of
TWL
, l. 181. No TS of ll. 173–82 survives in the drafts, but EP had presumably objected to the manuscript reading, ‘Departed, and left no addresses’ (
TWL
:
Facs
, ll. 24–5).

6–‘To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel / Followed by a weekend at the Metropole’ (
TWL
, ll. 213–14. EP must have written ‘THENCE’ on a draft that is now lost. On both the TS and its carbon, EP had objected to the word ‘perhaps’ in ‘And perhaps a weekend at the Metropole’ (
TWL
:
Facs
, 30–1, 42–3).

7–
TWL
, ll. 273–4. No pertinent TS survives among the drafts, so Dorothy Pound’s difficulty is unknown, but these lines were restored to their original order.

8–EP had cut eighty-two lines of ‘Death by Water’, leaving only the ten lines about Phlebas (
TWL
:
Facs
, 62–9).

9–It is not clear what ‘Aeschyle’ refers to, but possibly EP and TSE had thought to make a translation. In an earlier year, EP had written on ‘Aeschylus’ in
Egoist
6: 1 (Jan.–Feb. 1919) and 6: 2 (Mar.–Apr. 1919): see ‘Translators of Greek’,
Literary Essays of Ezra Pound,
ed. with an Introduction by TSE (1954), 267–75. See also EP, ‘Jean Cocteau Sociologist’,
New English Weekly
, 10 Jan. 1935, repr. in EP,
Selected Prose 1909–1965
, ed. with an Introduction by William Cookson (1973), 405–6: ‘As to Greek drama, before Cocteau had published any, Eliot and I looked over the ground. This is no place to say what we thought of it. But it is, permissably, a place to register the fact that we did nothing about it, except possibly form a few critical opinions that we wouldn’t have had, if we hadn’t prodded and poked at Father Aeschylus.’

10–TSE is asking what to do with the lines bracketed by EP in ‘Song [for the Opherion]’: ‘When the surface of the blackened river / Is a face that sweats with tears?’ (
TWL
:
Facs
, 98–9). 

####160
###TS
Houghton

[28? January 1922]
¹

[Paris]

Filio dilecto mihi:
²

I merely queried the dialect of ‘thence’; dare say it is o.k.
³

D. was fussing about some natural phenomenon, but I thought I had crossed out her queery. The wake of barges washes , and the barges may perfectly well be said to wash.

I shd. leave it as it is, and NOT invert.

I do
not
advise printing Gerontion as preface. One dont miss it AT all as the thing now stands. To be more lucid still, let me say that I advise you NOT to print Gerontion as prelude.

I DO advise keeping Phlebas. In fact I more’n advise. Phlebas is an integral part of the poem; the card pack introduces him, the drowned phoen. sailor, and he is needed ABSoloootly where he is.

Do as you like about my obstetric effort.

Ditto re the Conrad; who am I to grudge him his laurel crown.
⁴

Aeschylus not so good as I had hoped, but haven’t had time to improve him, yet.

I dare say the sweats with tears will wait.

Aristophanes probably depressing, and the native negro phoque melodies of Dixee more calculated to lift the ball-encumbered phallus of man to the proper 8.30, 9.30 or even ten thirty level now counted as the crowning and alarse too often katachrestical summit of human achievement.

I enclose further tracings of an inscription discovered recently in the buildings (?) outworks of the city hall jo-house at Charleston S.C.
⁵

May your erection never grow less. I had intended to speak to you seriously on the subject, but you seemed so mountany gay while here in the midst of Paris that the matter slipped my foreskin.  

You can forward the Bolo to Joyce if you think it wont unhinge his somewhat sabbatarian mind. On the hole he might be saved the shock, shaved the sock.

You will remember (or if not remind me of) the occasion when the whole company arose as one man and burst out singing ‘Gawd save the Queen’. The ante-lynch law (postlude of mediaeval right to scortum ante mortem)
⁶
has I see been passed to the great glee of the negro spectators in the congressional art gallery.
⁷
 

Dere z also de stoory ob the poker game, if you hab forgotten it.  

[unsigned, perhaps incomplete]

1–This letter was tentatively dated ‘[27? Jan. 1922]’ in the first edition of these
Letters
. ‘Say early in 1922 TSE’, is written in crayon at the head in TSE’s hand.

2–‘Hic est Filius meus dilectus in quo mihi conplacui’: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3:17).  

3–EP writes as though ‘thence’ had been TSE’s word, not his own. In the TS of ‘Death by Water’, he had changed ‘descends / Illicit backstreet stairs, to reappear’ to ‘descends / Illicit stairs, thence to reappear’ (
TWL
:
Facs
, 62–3), but those lines were cut.  

4–Valerie Eliot remarked, in a BBC broadcast (2 Nov. 1971): ‘Pound left the decision to him, so he omitted the passage, a fact which he later regretted.’  

5–Enclosure no longer present.

6–‘Whoring before death’.

7–The House of Representatives had passed an anti-lynching Bill, but Southern Senators blocked it with a 21-day filibuster. 

MS
Beinecke  

29 January 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns,
N.W.1  

Dear Mr Cobden-Sanderson  

If you are free on
Thursday
or
Friday
evening could you come to Lady Rothermere’s after dinner and discuss matters with her directly? I have shown her your letter and she is much interested. I hope one of these nights is possible. I will let her know as soon as I hear from you which.  

Sincerely yours T. S. Eliot  

She lives at 58 Circus Road which should not be far from you?

MS
Beinecke

29 January 1922

1, Habsburgergasse 2, Vienna

Dear Tom,

It is good to know that you have again taken up the old-fashioned custom of answering letters. I hope I shall not have to await another case of influenza before receiving another letter. I also hope you have now recovered from this case of influenza.

You seem to take ill my frankness in re the lad Hutchinson. I informed you of the details merely because I felt that unless you knew
The Dial’
s grounds for not publishing you would in conjunction with Mr Hutchinson in all probability judge this delinquency upon
The
Dial’
s part harshly. The shareholders of
The Dial
are happy to be able after protracted deliberations to inform you that provided you are agreeable to receiving $25 more than you otherwise would receive for your next London Letter the Board of shareholders on its part will be agreeable to the deduction from this sum of $25. Then you and Mr Hutchinson and
The Dial
and Mr Seldes and the mad hatter will no doubt be
tutti contenti.

I note that the next Letter possible from you will be for the April number and therefore take this opportunity to beseech you to endeavour, the god of influenza permitting, to get off this Letter soon. Mortimer, in sending me a copy of his London Letter spoke of his profound admiration for you and of his hesitation at supplying so exalted a position even for one Letter. ‘I feel it a presumption to replace Eliot, whom I admire greatly, even for an instant.’ Also allow me to state that you are
The Dial’s
favorite foreign correspondent not excepting the indefatigable Ezra. Write about what you damn well please.

Yes we await your ‘few words’ à propos Miss Moore.

Of course I am most interested to hear about the long poem. I thought you were aware that we pay fixed rates always and that therefore it is not for us to bargain. We pay for prose that has been unpublished anywhere 2 cents the word. We pay for verse that has been unpublished anywhere $10 the page which is something more than double our rates for prose. Four hundred and fifty lines will take something more than 11 pages.
The Dial
allows itself when dealing with famous writers to offer round sums rather than split figures. Can we have the poem?
The Dial
would pay $150. The fact that the poem has been sieved three times by your great colleague should sufficiently ensure against any impropriety which might otherwise have got by your own censor. Can you not send me here a copy of the poem?

Dr Schnitzler is acquainted with your name though not inappropriately enough with your
longest
and most shall I say Viennese poem.

Poor Murry! With London, Paris and Vienna all out to get him one wonders what the future holds for this sparse husband of England’s latest short-story prima-donna!

Valentinian love to Vivien and yourself!

[unsigned]