The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (39 page)

MS
Houghton

18 April 1917

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear father

Yes, your clippings arrived, and give much pleasure; one doesn’t see much of that sort of picture here. I remember the Emmons as a topic of
conversation in the family; I seem to remember that the family used to come to the office and pester the life out of you. Wasn’t there a boy at Eton, and various expenses of that sort?

I am very busy now as I wrote in my last. In a fortnight’s time I hope to be somewhat less so, as my working class will be over. That usually takes Saturday afternoon and Sunday in preparation, especially lately, as I am doing Ruskin and have to read up economics. I amused the class last time by reading out a passage of Ruskin in which he cursed out America, because he said he detested liberty.
¹
He was a great friend of Charles Eliot Norton,
²
who I imagine was equally crusty. Did you ever have anything to do with him? One of the class is a middle-aged woman who is quite cracked, and keeps writing me letters (which I do not encourage) beginning ‘dear teacher, philosopher and friend’. She wants to cast my horoscope – I declined.

I am absorbed during the daytime by the balance sheets of foreign banks. It is a peaceful, but very interesting pursuit, and involves some use of reasoning powers. The system is this: the annual reports are entered (by me) on large cards, with spaces: ‘Cash in hand’, ‘Correspondents’, ‘Investments’, ‘Advances’, ‘Discounts’ etc., so that by looking at the card one can get an idea of the banks’ progress for some years past. Foreign banks give much fuller reports than American banks, some of them almost volumes; some of the balance sheets much more subdivided than others, and a great variety of items. I get, let us say, the report of the Crédit Foncier d’Algiers, and I find a large item called ‘Property acquired by expropriation’. The question is, should this be classed under our heading ‘bank premises’. I find after enquiry that the chief business of this bank is lending money to farmers on real estate, and that much property falls into their hands by the failure to meet these obligations. Therefore this property (to be sold at auction) must have a separate column. Or an Australian bank has an item ‘Advances under Government Wheat Scheme’, and I must find out whether this is an ordinary advance, or the money guaranteed by the Government. Or the Russian-Asiatic bank holds a large capital for the Chinese Government, and I want to find out whether this is to be classed as part of the capital of that bank. All this has made me want to find out something about the theory of banking, and especially Foreign Exchange. Incidentally, tea is served at four.

At the Embassy, everyone is very busy, but no one knows anything about America’s plans. The stars and stripes over the Smith Premier Building is the only sign of our activity. I hope fixedly for the war to end in the autumn. We keep well, and fairly cheerful. Vivien is pretty tired, from doing the housework and cooking. She is a good cook.

I must do a bit of reading now. There is nothing important in this letter, I find: I like your letters, short and often. Do write every week. I shall write to mother by next mail, and thank her for the prescription.

With much love

Your devoted son
Tom

1–
Time and Tide
(1867), Letter xxii, para. 141: see the library edn of Ruskin, ed. E. T. Cook and A. D. O. Wedderburn, Vol. xvii (1905), 432, n.3.

2–Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908), co-editor of the
North American Review
1864–8; a founder and co-editor of
The Nation,
1865; and Professor of the History of Fine Art at Harvard, 1873–98.

MS
Houghton

30 April [1917]

18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, London w.1 (
one
)

Dear Mrs Eliot,

At 12 o’clock last night I asked Tom how much longer his work would take him – and he said about two hours. ‘And then’, he said, ‘I am going to write to my mother’. He looked so tired that I begged him to let me write to you this week instead. I said I knew you would prefer it rather than that he should curtail his sleep still more. And so he agreed to let me, although he wanted very much to write to you himself.

He was working all yesterday and last night on his last lecture to the working people – it is the last one today, of this course. The lecture is on George Borrow. Tom has made a great success of his Class, and has kept up the numbers so well that it has been a surprise to everyone. Most of the other classes of the same sort have fallen off dreadfully in numbers this year. Of course it has been almost impossible to prevent it. But Tom has done really well – and he feels it I know. His people are most obviously fond of him. I have wished he could get more of the same sort of work. But I am not sure
now
that he is particularly anxious to – although of course he will be glad to have this same class for two years more. (When he took it up, it was to be for
three winters
). Now that Tom has taken so extraordinarily to the City (we call the business and commercial part of London ‘the City’) he is considering, to my
great
astonishment, taking up Banking as his
money-making
career! We are all very much surprised at this development, but not one of his friends has failed to see, and to remark upon, the great change in Tom’s health, appearance, spirits, and literary
productiveness since he went in for Banking. So far, it has obviously suited him. He is
extremely
interested in finance, and I believe has a good deal of hitherto unsuspected ability in that direction. If he can push on in Banking, and in the course of a year or two secure a sufficient income from it, there is no reason why he should not obtain through it his greatest ambition: viz: a congenial and
separate
money-making occupation –
of a sort
that will leave his mind and brain fresh enough to produce good literature, and
not to have to depend on writing for money at all
. This is what he has always been hoping for – he has never altered. The difficulty has been to
find
the money-making career which would not exhaust his brain and faculties. So far, the Bank
seems
to be the thing. No one could be more surprised than I am. I shed
tears
over the thought of Tom going into a Bank! I thought it was the most horrible catastrophe. Most of Tom’s friends agreed with me. We all wrung our hands and lamented. And it took more than Tom’s protestations to convince us that it was no tragedy. Only when he began to be more bright and happy and boyish than I’ve known him to be for nearly two years, did
I
feel convinced – and only when he has written
five
, most
excellent
poems in the course of one week, did Ezra Pound and many others, believe it possible.

As far as I am concerned of course I have never had the remotest connection with business in my life – I mean all my family and most of the people I’ve known have always been professionals, so I had no idea at all what it was like! I imagined that Tom would either have to stand behind the counter – or else sit at a desk in a room with lots of others, doing drudgery all day.

Will you please tell Mr Eliot that Tom was
very
much pleased and stimulated by the cheery little letter Mr Eliot wrote saying he was pleased about T’s Bank work. It is nice that he approves.

I have had a most awful cold, and it has left me with one of the worst coughs I’ve ever had. I feel
full
of catarrh – nose – chest – everywhere. There are many things I should like to write about, but one is never sure as to what is allowed. But we
both hope that you will take
every opportunity of finding out all you can of how we are getting on.

With much love,
Vivien

MS
Houghton

13 May
¹
1917

18 Crawford Mansions

My dearest Mother,

I have had a very busy week, and the sudden hot weather which has suddenly given London the atmosphere of a conservatory – after the frigid spring – has been rather upsetting to both of us. You will be glad to know that I have ordered my suit – a very pretty grey, and of very substantial material.

Lately, having brought up to date the piece of work I was doing at the bank, I have been set to watch another man and have him explain his work to me. I have had about a week of this. On Thursday morning he was reading me a letter from his brother in France, when someone came in and said that a lady wanted to speak to him outside. He was out of the room for about five minutes, and when he came in said briefly ‘My brother’s been killed’. He was awfully cut up about it, and was absent from the office for the rest of the week. Meanwhile I had to do his work for him, and as it is rather important, I felt the responsibility rather heavy on me. However, I referred all doubtful points to a superior, and I think I got through without making any mistakes; if so it ought to redound to my credit. But coming so suddenly it was quite exhausting.

My review of the work on Wilson came out in the
Statesman
on Saturday.
²
As my proof had been sent to Ireland by mistake, it was not revised, and the form did not quite satisfy me. I often make substantial alterations in the proof. I also sent off a batch of reviews to Jourdain.

I am going to undertake a ‘contributing editor’ job with a monthly paper called
The Egoist
³
– the same which is publishing my poems (next week, I hope).
⁴
It will not take much time, and accordingly will not bring in much money – not more than a pound a month, but it will add to my notoriety. At present it is run mostly by old maids,
⁵
and I may be a beneficial 
influence. This is due to Ezra Pound. How I can find time to take up Spanish, which I am anxious to do both for its own sake and for its use in banking, I don’t know.

I am hoping to get two weeks holiday this summer, as we both need it, and Vivien isn’t willing to go away alone. If I get a fortnight, however, I could send her away a week or so earlier, and join her. We have neither of us been out of town since September, and we need a change very badly.

I hope you will not let the war interfere with your going to Gloucester. I cannot see the slightest reason for fearing the seaside, if you have that in mind. You cannot realise what it is to live in the midst of alarms of war! Besides the brother of the man I mentioned, there was killed last week the fiancé of one of Vivien’s friends, and the next day I heard that one of my Oxford friends – the man who went to the seaside with me that Christmas – was critically wounded and may not live.
⁶
If the war goes on I shall be losing American friends too. I should like to know where Leon and Harold Peters are stationed now.

I have had no news from Henry since he went to Chicago. How does he like it?

I am glad to say that Maurice is still in England.

I must go to bed now, and get ready for another week.

With much love to both of you

Your devoted son
Tom

1–His mother has altered April to May.

2–TSE, unsigned review of H. Wilson Harris,
President Wilson: His Problems and His Policy, NS
9: 214 (12 May 1917), 140.

3–On RA’s departure for military service, EP had suggested that TSE should replace him as Assistant Editor from June, and secretly provided a third of the £36-a-year salary.

4–
Prufrock and Other Observations
was published in June at 1s, in an edition of 500 copies. Without TSE’s knowledge, EP put £5 towards the printing cost, and was repaid later: see Jane Lidderdale and Mary Nicholson,
Dear Miss Weaver: Harriet Shaw Weaver
1876–1961 (1970).

5–Dora Marsden (1882–1960) and Harriet Shaw Weaver (for Weaver, see Glossary of Names). Marsden had founded and edited the
New Freewoman
, ‘an individualist review’, which appeared twice monthly from 15 June to 15 Dec. 1913. In Jan. 1914 the name was changed to
The Egoist
, and Weaver succeeded her as editor in mid-year.

6–Karl Culpin, a second lieutenant in the Gloucestershire Regiment, died two days after this letter was written. TSE was to recall, in a letter to the secretary of the Merton Society, 24 June 1963: ‘My closest friend at Merton, whose name was Culpin, was taken late because of bad eyesight and was killed, I think, on his first day in the trenches.’

MS
Houghton

Sunday 20 May 1917

18 Crawford Mansions

My dearest Mother,

We have plunged from winter into August weather, and the close damp heat is most trying, though to me any kind of heat is stimulating and agreeable. The streets are filled as always at this time of year with spring 
flowers for sale, narcissus, daffodils, tulips, lilac, roses, all for a few pence – about the only things which remain at the same price.

I am going to have a sort of promotion tomorrow – whether it will bring any immediate rise of salary I don’t know. I said that I had been put on to help another man at his work. Now he is to do something else, and I am to do what he was doing. It is quite an interesting post, and involves the handling of bills and cheques often for very large amounts, and receiving and sending of money by cable. The work during the day is rather irregular – often for an hour or more in the morning there is nothing to do at all, and I pull out a Spanish grammar which I keep by me and study away at that (when I get to read Spanish easily I think I will take up Danish or Portuguese). Then from half past one things begin coming in, and as all the money has to be ‘cleared’ by three o’clock, there is a rush. After that there is the cabling, and the letter writing, and after four one can usually take it easy again. I don’t know that it is etiquette for me to go into any further details. The bank is so shorthanded now that there is a good chance of moving about the office and learning various branches of the business.

Another article of mine came out in the
New Statesman
on Saturday.
¹
It is inferior to the other, but I will send it to you. My third article is not yet finished. I am now fully established as assistant editor of the
Egoist
. I will send you the June issue when it comes out, though I don’t know whether it will have anything of mine in it or not. My colleagues are a Miss Weaver,
²
a funny little spinster, but quite nice, and I believe quite intelligent, and a Mrs Aldington, better known as ‘H. D.’, a poetess, who like most, or a good half of the world of art and letters in London, is an American. I went to see her this afternoon for the first time, and found her very agreeable and disposed to look upon me, for some reason, as a great authority upon Greek language and literature. London is an amazing place – one is constantly discovering new quarters; this woman lives in a most beautiful dilapidated old square, which I had never heard of before; a square in the middle of town, near King’s Cross Station, but with spacious old gardens about it.
³

I am expecting my book to be out in a few days. An offer came from a rich man in New York named John Quinn,
⁴
a patron of letters, to print it
at his own expense in case the
Egoist
did not have funds. Of course it was unnecessary, but it was pleasant, nevertheless; and he will probably review it in
Vanity Fair
,
⁵
which, whatever else may be said for the paper, would bring notoriety.

The air is full of thunder and lightning this evening. Vivien is like Marion and Grandma Faraway
⁶
with thunderstorms – or I believe Marion used to be until the house was struck.

I am glad you are going to Gloucester after all. I could not bear to think of your not being there in the summer. When I come home after the war I should like to be able to go straight to Gloucester – though that will be May, I presume. This year I do not expect to get any holiday until late in the autumn. The Haigh-Woods are going away soon for a fortnight and we are to have the house for that time – they will keep the servant there and pay her and pay for her food. It is very nice of them. They live in Hampstead, which is on the edge of London, and the air is better than it is here. Besides, there is a garden, at the back. Vivien needs a holiday badly.

I must stop now. I had a letter from Henry from Chicago. He did not say what he was paid, but apparently is not so hard worked as in New York. I hope his employers are as pleasant as mine.

Always with very much love

Your devoted son
Tom

All your news of St Louis always interests me.