The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (4 page)

1918
JANUARY
– In New York Knopf publishes
Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry,
after the subject has supplied the title and made three deletions in the text. It is issued anonymously because, Pound tells Quinn, ‘I want to boom Eliot and one can’t have too obvious a
ping-pong
match at that sort of thing.’ 9
JUNE
– The Eliots at 31West St, Marlow. 2
AUGUST
– TSE cables Henry to inquire about his chances of a military or naval training commission if he returns to America. 5
AUGUST
– Tells Lewis that he is trying to get into US Navy. 25 august –Writes Henry that he has had a medical examination and been passed fit for
limited
service. As Washington has forbidden ‘any more commissions over here’ he is applying to be an officer in the Quartermaster’s or Interpreters’ Corps, and has been collecting testimonials. ‘It was a shock to both of us that Tom was graded so high in the medical exam,’ Vivien writes earlier to Mary Hutchinson. ‘I did not realise until then how much I had
counted
on his being passed quite
UNFIT
. I can’t understand it. He took a very strong certificate from our doctor, and had been
fearfully
ill over the weekend so that he was obviously in a wretched state.’ 8
SEPTEMBER
– Tells his father that he now needs three American testimonials. 11
SEPTEMBER
– Afraid that TSE ‘was likely to be took fer the Army’, Pound tells Quinn that he went to the Embassy ‘to point out that if it was a war for civilisation (not merely for democracy) it was folly to shoot or have shot one of the six or seven Americans capable of contributing to civilisation or understanding the word’. 11?
SEPTEMBER
– Pound sends Knopf TSE’s manuscript of poems after putting it into shape, as TSE has no time. He thought early publication ‘could strengthen TSE’s position with the authorities’. Mid-
SEPTEMBER
– The Eliots let their Marlow house ‘at a good rent’.
OCTOBER
– TSE begins his final Southall course on Elizabethan literature.
c
. 26
OCTOBER
– Leaves bank as US Navy Intelligence has sent for him. 9
NOVEMBER
– Returns to bank after official muddle and confusion. 10
NOVEMBER
– Tells Jack Hutchinson ‘this ends my patriotic endeavours’. 11
NOVEMBER
– Armistice Day. 15
NOVEMBER
– Visits Leonard and Virginia Woolf at Hogarth House to discuss the publication of his
Poems
. 27
NOVEMBER
– TSE sent Order of Induction into Military Service of the United States from St Louis, and told to report to the Headquarters European Forces in London. 18
DECEMBER
– Pound writes Quinn that he is afraid that TSE is ‘in a bad way, back in his bank, but health in very shaky state. Doctor orders him not to write any prose for six months.’

1919
3
JANUARY
– Henry Ware Eliot tells his brother that TSE is ‘getting along now and has been advanced at the bank so that he is independent of me’. 7
JANUARY
– TSE’s father dies. 12
MARCH
– He has been invited to become the Assistant Editor of
The Athenaeum,
TSE tells his mother. 6
APRIL
– He informs Henry that he has declined the post. 4–14
MAY
– TSE stays at the Hotel Constance, 23 Lancaster Gate,
W
.2. 11
MAY
– The Eliots at Garsington. 12
MAY
– Hogarth Press publishes
Poems
. 19
MAY
– TSE is sent on a tour of the provinces by the bank ‘for some weeks’, returning at intervals. 9
JULY
– TSE writes Quinn: [This] ‘part of
Ulysses
[Scylla and Charybdis] … struck me as almost the finest I have read: I have lived on it ever since I read it.’ 22
JULY
– The Eliots accompany the Sacheverell Sitwells to the first night of Falla’s
Three-Cornered Hat,
performed by Massine and the Ballets Russes. 9
AUGUST
– TSE leaves for a walking tour in the Dordogne with Ezra Pound, returning on 31
AUGUST
. Vivien records that he was ‘very nice at first, depressed in the evening’. 29
SEPTEMBER
– TSE meets Bruce Richmond, editor of the
Times Literary Supplement
, who admires his critical prose and invites him to write leading articles. 28
OCTOBER
– Lectures on ‘Poetry’ under the auspices of the Arts League of Service in the Conference Hall, Westminster. 13
NOVEMBER
– His first contribution, ‘Ben Jonson’, appears in the
TLS
.
DECEMBER
–
The Egoist
ceases publication.

1920
Early
FEBRUARY
– The Ovid Press publishes
Ara Vos Prec.
Late
FEBRUARY
– Knopf issues
Poems
in New York. 15
AUGUST
– TSE meets James Joyce in Paris, and the following day leaves with Lewis for a painting and cycling holiday in northern France. 20
SEPTEMBER
– The first mention of
The Waste Land
to his mother: ‘I want a period of tranquillity to do a poem I have in mind.’ 4
NOVEMBER
– Methuen publishes
T
he Sacred Wood.
The current
Dial
contains his first contribution, ‘The Possibility of a Poetic Drama’. Later that month the Eliots move to 9 Clarence Gate Gardens,
N.W
.1. 2
DECEMBER
– Tells his mother that he is ‘rather tired of [the essays] now, as I am so anxious to get on to new work, and I should more enjoy being praised if I were engaged on something which I thought better or more important. I think I shall be able to do so, soon.’

1921
SUNDAY
20
MARCH
– TSE dines with the Woolfs and accompanies them to the Phoenix Society production of Congreve’s
Love for Love
at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and on 24
APRIL
, with Edgar Jepson, sees Sybil Thorndyke in
The Witch of Edmonton.
9
MAY
– He tells Quinn that he is ‘wishful to finish’ a long poem which is now ‘partly on paper’. 10
JUNE
– His mother, Marian and Henry arrive on the SS
Adriatic
, and occupy 9 Clarence Gate Gardens. TSE and Vivien move to 12 Wigmore Street.
JULY
– TSE and Scofield Thayer wonder if they can interest Lady Rothermere in establishing an international review, comprising the
Dial
in America and a new magazine edited by TSE in London, but by the beginning of August she has decided, partly for financial reasons, to confine herself to an English review. 16
AUGUST
– TSE confides to Richard Aldington ‘
in strict confidence
that there is a possibility of a new literary venture’ [
Criterion
]. 20
AUGUST
– TSE’s family return to America. Towards the end of
SEPTEMBER
TSE’s health breaks down. He sees a specialist who orders him to have three months’ complete rest and change, and the bank gives him leave. 15
OCTOBER
– Goes to the Albemarle Hotel, Margate. Vivien joins him for part of the time. While there he decides to become a patient of Dr Vittoz in Lausanne. 12
NOVEMBER
– Returns to London. 18
NOVEMBER
– The Eliots go to Paris, and Pound sees some drafts of
The Waste Land.
22?
NOVEMBER
– TSE leaves for Lausanne. Vivien remains in Paris.
DECEMBER
– TSE continues working on
The Waste Land.

1922
2
JANUARY
– TSE rejoins Vivien in Paris. Pound writes Quinn, ‘Eliot came back from his Lausanne specialist looking O.K.; and with a damn good poem (19 pages) in his suitcase; same finished up here; and shd. be out in
Dial
soon, if Thayer isn’t utterly nutty … About enough, Eliot’s poem, to make the rest of us shut up shop’ (21
FEB
.). 12
JANUARY
– TSE returns to London alone and succumbs to flu. Vivien goes to Lyons for about a week and plans to spend a few more days in Paris before following him. Mid-
MARCH
– Disturbed by reports from Aldington that TSE ‘was going to pieces’, Pound revives an earlier scheme to enable TSE to leave Lloyds Bank. Called ‘Bel Esprit’, the aim is to find thirty guarantors of £10 a year. 17
MAY
– The Eliots at the Castle Hotel, Tunbridge Wells. TSE writes Ottoline Morrell that his forthcoming visit to Italy ‘will just save me from another breakdown, which I felt was impending’. 20
MAY
– TSE tells Gilbert Seldes that his mind is ‘in a very deteriorated state, due to illness and worry’. Goes to Lugano for a fortnight. 11
JUNE
– TSE dines with the Woolfs; Virginia records in her diary that he read
The Waste Land.
‘He sang it & chanted it, rhythmed it. It has great beauty&force of phrase: symmetry;&tensity.’
JULY
– He receives $200 from the Carnegie Fund of the US Authors’ Club. Ottoline Morrell launches the Eliot Fellowship Fund which involves Virginia Woolf and Aldington. It continues, on and off, until December 1927.
AUGUST
– TSE judges the Lloyds Bank Short Story Competition, and a Satirical Poem on the Housing Problem or the Cost of Living. 7
SEPTEMBER
– Quinn arranges with Seldes and Liveright that TSE will get the
Dial
award of $2,000. 15
OCTOBER
– First number of the
Criterion
. It contains
The Waste Land,
which also appears in the Dial. 16
NOVEMBER
–
Liverpool Post
accuses him of accepting £800 raised by admirers to enable him to leave Lloyds Bank, and then refusing to do so. 30
NOVEMBER
–
Liverpool Post
publishes TSE’s reply and apologises. 15
DECEMBER
– Boni and Liveright publishes
The Waste Land
in New York. TSE inscribes a copy ‘For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro
’ [the better master].