The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (21 page)
Read The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 Online
Authors: T. S. Eliot
1–‘Relativism’,
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods
, 11: 21 (8 Oct. 1914), 561–77.
2–‘On a Method of Rearranging the Positive Integers in a Series of Ordinal Numbers Greater than That of Any Given Fundamental Sequence of Ω’,
The Messenger of Mathematics
43 (May 1913–Apr. 1914), 97–105.
3–‘The Highest Good’,
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods
11 (10 Sept. 1914), 512–20.
4–‘Studies in Synthetic Logic’,
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
18 (1914), 14–28.
5–‘A Simplification of the Logic of Relations’,
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
17 (1914), 387–90.
6–‘A Contribution to the Theory of Relative Position’,
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
17 (1914), 441–9.
7–‘He said, this universe is very clever / The scientists have laid it out on paper’ (
IMH
, 71).
8–Though Santayana wrote literary as well as philosophical essays, and his
Three
Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante and Goethe
(1910) moves between literature and philosophy, he did not actually speak of philosophy as literary criticism. In 1922 he wrote, ‘Criticism is something purely incidental – talk about talk – and to my mind has no serious value, except perhaps as an expression of the philosophy of the critic’ (quoted in John McCormick,
George Santayana: A Biography
[1987], 247).
Eleanor Hinkley
TS
Houghton
[Postmark 27 January 1915]
[Merton College, Oxford]
SCENE I
1
Miss Elizabeth Biddy, her tiring woman
B
: And saw you Master Frederick at the ball, miss?
E
: Ay, that I did, Biddy, and I vow I believe there was none there to match him. With what an easy grace did he enter the room, dextrously advancing one foot before the other; how magisterially did he glance about him, as one who knew himself formed to set all female hearts in commotion, and yet aware of his own excellences and perfections would not acknowledge himselfawaresensible that he was observed; how punctilious was his manner; how exact his dress; how informing his discourse; how aimiable and condescending his smile; how gay and sprightly his sallies, and yet all the while with a kind of sad gravity about him, as one accustomed to consideration of weighty matters, and who knew how to reprove and check any unseemly levity. I confess that when he did summon me to the Sir Roger de Coverly, my knees would scarce sustain me.
B
: Fye, my lady, I do perceive your ladyship has taken a fancy to the gentleman.
E
: Ah, Biddy, how shrewdly do you devine my thoughts! Tis true he has taken my fancy hugely.
B
: I beseech you, miss, bestow not your heart so lightly. Tis not five years that he hath smiled upon you, and men are ever fickle creatures.
E
: Tis justly you advise me Biddy. I have indeed some comeliness of feature; but whether he deems me worthy for his spouse, or whether he but toys with me, that I cannot tell. Blame rather the weakness of my sex, than the impetuosity of my blood, or the defect of my understanding, when I avow that I look upon him with aspiration of holy wedlock.
Enter Footman.
F
: Master Frederick waits below, miss, and he bid me request of you that you dally not, for tis but fifteen minutes he can give you.
E
: (aside) Oh my heart, how it flutters … Tell him I descend forthwith.
SCENE II
Miss Elizabeth Master Frederick
* * * * * * * * *
E
: Oh la, Master Frederick, you men are such dissemblers, I vow there’s no believing a one of you. Will you never ha’ done a-plaguing a poor maid?
F
: Miss Elizabeth, the devotion and ardour of my flame in the past is sufficient earnest and token guarantee of my constancy in the future, and any further hesitation upon your part would argue not that natural coyness and timidity which in the female appears so seemly, but rather a coldness of complexion and a defect of appreciation of my merits. Conscious as I am, and as I ought to be, of the honour I bestow, and of the exalted and difficult post which I propose that you should occupy, I yet am fully minded to make you my wife.
E
: Then, Master Frederick, I will make no further conditions but own myself your willing slave and adorer. And still I admire much whether you have not learnt these blandishments and cunning wiles which bespeak such knowledge of the female heart, at the cost of those victims of whom perhaps your Elizabeth is not the last.
F
: (
on one knee
) My Elizabeth!
(
Sensation among the old ladies in the front row
)
He rises, his boots creaking as he does so
. ‘There, that’s settled’.
Looks at his watch
. ‘Now I must be off to address a meeting of the Church Lads Brigade in Arlington’.
Starts to put on his rubbers
. ‘Oh, I forgot’.
Advances f.c..
‘Permit me’.
Kisses her decorously in exact centre of left cheek
.
CURTAIN
1–This
jeu d’esprit
was prompted by the announcement of the engagement of his cousin the Revd Frederick Eliot to Elizabeth Lee.
J. H. Woods
MS
Professor David G. Williams
28 January 1915
Merton College, Oxford
Dear Professor Woods,
I have not forgotten. I am sending you under separate cover the notes on Joachim’s
Ethics
for the first term, including all that he has to say
up to
Book V. In script are the more important marginal notes, and the references of course are to Burnet’s text.
1
I hope to send you Collingwood’s notes within a fortnight. I hope that some small part of the notes will be of use to you.
My notes on the
Post-Anal
. and on Zabarella on the
de An
. are brief and marginal, or on interleaves, but I will put them in order for you.
I have written, at Mr Joachim’s suggestion, to Mr R. P. Hardie of Edinburgh, who knows the resources of Italian booksellers, but have not yet had an answer.
I am continuing with Joachim’s and Smith’s lectures, and with Joachim’s
Post-Anal
., and am taking up a class in Plotinus with Stewart. I shall go to Smith’s and I expect Stewart’s informals as well. For Joachim I am now writing papers on Plato, and shall later write on Aristotle. He is much better on historical problems than on constructive philosophy I think, and is really almost a genius, with respect to Aristotle. In general philosophical discussion I did not often really ‘get anywhere’ with him, though this failure was due no doubt as much to my fatal disposition toward scepticism as to his Hegelianism. I find that I take so much keener enjoyment in criticism than in construction that I propose making a virtue of a vice and recasting my thesis with a mind to this limitation; as I find satisfaction only in the historical aspect of philosophy. I had great difficulty, even agony, with the first draft, owing to my attempt to reach a positive conclusion; and so I should like to
turn it into a criticism and valuation of the Bradleian metaphysic – for it seems to me that those best qualified for such tasks are those who have held a doctrine and no longer hold it. It is possible that I may prefer to remain here for the spring term, as I shall not be done with the commentaries within the next six weeks.
Very sincerely yours
Thomas S. Eliot
1–TSE’s annotated copy of
The Ethics of Aristotle
, ed. John Burnet (1900), is in his library.
Professor L. B. R. Briggs
MS
Harvard
28 January 1915
Merton College
My dear Dean Briggs,
In accordance with the instructions of my letter, I offer respectfully this account of my work. I was in residence at this college for the first term of eight weeks from the 5th October to the 5th December. During this period I attended three sets of lectures, one on logic, the other two explanations of texts of Aristotle; I also participated in a small class reading the
Posterior Analytics
of Aristotle under my tutor Mr Joachim; and I attended the weekly discussion class of Professor J. A. Smith. I also brought once a week to Mr Joachim a short paper dealing with some one of the questions considered in the thesis which I hope to present for the degree of Ph.D. at Harvard; this paper we discussed always in detail; and I hope that at the end of the year Mr Joachim will be able to give a satisfactory report of this work and also of the work in his class. I have spent a large part of my time studying certain Italian commentaries upon Aristotle which he has recommended to me.
During the vacation I continued my reading, both during a fortnight in the country, and the rest of the period in London, where I devoted my time to the use of another commentary preserved in the British Museum.
The present term will continue much the same routine. Instead of one of the lecture courses (now completed) I pursue a class under Professor Stewart, reading Plotinus, and the essays which I carry to Mr Joachim are to be devoted to questions of criticism of Plato and Aristotle.
I had had some purpose of removing to Gottingen or Berlin for the spring term (from the latter part of April); but as I have become engrossed in the work I am doing here in Greek Philosophy, I shall probably continue as before. I have consulted Professor Woods upon this matter, and have been in communication with him throughout. Last summer was to have been spent in Germany, but soon after the outbreak
of war the impossibility of securing money made it necessary to return to London.
I have the honour to remain
Very sincerely yours
Thomas S. Eliot
Ezra Pound
1
MS
Beinecke
2 February [1915]
Merton College
My dear Pound,
I am very glad to hear from you, and
2
it is certainly very kind of you to make these efforts
3
on my behalf. I enclose a copy of the Lady,
4
which seems cruder and awkwarder and more juvenile every time I copy it. The onlyenrichmentenhancement which time has brought is the fact that by this time there are two or three other ladies who, if it is ever printed, may vie for the honour of having sat for it. It will please you, I hope, to hear that I had a Christmas card from the lady,
5
bearing the ‘ringing greetings of friend to friend at this season of high festival’. It seems like old times.
I must thank you again for your introduction to the Dolmetsch family
6
– I passed one of the most delightful afternoons I have ever spent, in one of the most delightful households I have ever visited. You were quite right – there was no difficulty about the conversation, and I made friends with the extraordinary children in no time, and am wild to see them again. As for the dancing, they all danced (except the head of the family) for about an hour, I think, while I sat rapt. I have corresponded with [Wyndham] Lewis,6 but his puritanical principles seem to bar my way to Publicity. I fear that King Bolo and his Big Black Kween will never burst into print.
I understand that Priapism, Narcissism etc. are not approved of, and even so innocent a rhyme as
… pulled her stockings off
With a frightful cry of ‘Hauptbahnhof!!’
is considered decadent.
7
I have been reading some of your work lately. I enjoyed the article on the Vortex (please tell me who Kandinsky is).
8
I distrust and detest Aesthetics, when it cuts loose from the Object, and vapours in the void, but you have not done that. The closer one keeps to the Artist’s discussion of his technique the better, I think, and the only kind of art worth talking about is the art one happens to like. There can be no contemplative or easychair aesthetics, I think; only the aesthetics of the person who is about to do something. I was fearful lest you should hitch it up to Bergson or James or some philosopher, and was relieved to find that Vorticism was not a philosophy.
I hope that your work is progressing satisfactorily. I probably shall not be in town again until March. I hope that Yeats will still be there. Please remember me to Mrs Pound.
Sincerely yours Thomas S. Eliot
I enclose one small verse. I know it is not good, but everything else I have done is worse. Besides, I am constipated and have a cold on the chest. Burn it.
9
She lay very still in bed with stubborn eyes
Holding her breath lest she begin to think.
I was a shadow upright in the corner
Dancing joyously in the firelight.
She stirred in her sleep and clutched the blanket
with her fingers
She was very pale and breathed hard.
When morning shook the long nasturtium creeper in
the tawny bowl
I passed joyously out through the window.