The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (137 page)

1–In the epigraph to
The Waste Land
‘άποθανει∧ν’ was printed ‘άπο θανει∧ν’.

2–EP,
Dial
, Nov. 1922, partly about Bel Esprit.

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.

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.

PC
Texas

[Postmark 16 Nov 1922]

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

T.

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 Post
¹
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.’

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. 

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. 

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 préface
²
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]