Read The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 Online
Authors: T. S. Eliot
The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (69 page)
1–‘“Cathay” will, I believe, rank with the “Sea-Farer” in the future among Mr. Pound’s original work’ (
Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry,
27;
To Criticise the Critic,
181).
John Rodker
MS
Virginia
9 July 1919
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Rodker,
I have the new poem I spoke of – about seventy-five lines – which will not have appeared anywhere – but I am withholding it until I know you want it, as I may make alterations. It is also quite possible that I may have another about the same length by August 1. So I hope that the book may be more nearly what you had in mind. I think you have all the newer poems: beside the Woolf volume there is a French poem in
L. Review
(‘Dans le Restaurant’), ‘Bleistein’ and ‘Sweeney Erect’, ‘Cooking Egg’ – of which I enclose revised version
with
quotations – and this new one, ‘Gerontion’.
I hope you are getting on well with the Lewis.
1
Yours ever
T. S. Eliot
What’s this latest row of
L.
Review
with American censorship?
2
1–WL,
Fifteen Drawings
(Ovid Press, 1919).
2–In June 1919, the US Post Office determined that the
Little Review
was in violation of Postal Laws and Regulations, due to the ‘obscene’ content of
Ulysses
which it had started to serialise after the
Egoist
was unable to continue doing so (for similar reasons); it refused to distribute copies
John Quinn
TS
NYPL (MS)
9 July 1919
18 Crawford Mansions
Dear Mr Quinn,
Thank you very much indeed for cabling to me. I enclose the additional MSS. The four poems can go, I think, in the order given. Unfortunately I have lost my list giving the order in which the various poems and articles were to be printed. But I think that these should be put at the head of the new poems – the ones not in the Prufrock volume; and if I have put the new poems in front of the Prufrock ones, then these should head the new book.
The articles enclosed are a selection of what I consider the best of those I have been contributing to the
Athenaeum
, and might
follow
those already in your hands. I have arranged them in the order I thought the best. The two entitled ‘A Romantic Patrician’ and ‘A Sceptical Patrician’ I want to go under one heading: ‘Two Types’ as I and II with the sub-headings as above.
I thought that the Elizabethan article would be suitable because of the American interest in War poets; and that the popularity of Adams’s book ought to lend an interest in that essay. I wonder what American opinion would think of my article on Adams, but it is a type that I
ought
to know better than any other. And the article on American literature seemed to me appropriate.
In each case the title of the book reviewed ought to go below as a footnote instead of where it is, at the top.
Also of course I ought to acknowledge obligation
for various poems: to
Poetry, Blast, Art & Letters, The Little Review.
for prose:
The Egoist, The New Statesman, The Little Review, The Athenaeum.
If there is enough material otherwise, I should prefer to withdraw the Eeldrop and Appleplexes, which seem to me to be crude stuff. But I don’t feel certain about this and I should like to leave it to your judgment whether it is better, even if the stuff is poor, to have some prose which is not purely critical.
I wish that I were anywhere near satisfied with the book.
But of course I don’t know yet whether the book has been accepted by Boni or by anyone else, or whether your cable only means that someone wants to see more material. Anyway, I leave it in your hands in all confidence, but with the always stronger feeling that you ought not to accept or have forced upon you so much disinterested labour. My only justification is that I do not know anyone else with either the influence, the
intelligence, or the generosity necessary to undertake it. It is quite obvious that without you I should never get anything published in America at all.
I hear that several weeks ago the
New Republic
1
referred to me in very flattering terms. I have not seen the paper and do not know the date, but it ought to be of influence with a publisher.
* * *
As for my plans over here, John Rodker has undertaken to print for private circulation a limited edition of some of my poems, rather expensive, this summer, with designs by Edward Wadsworth. I shall see that you are sent a copy.
I have had some correspondence with Sir Algernon Methuen (Methuen and Co.), who asks to discuss my next book with me when he returns to town. I do not know what he wants, but I shall propose either a complete edition of poems, or to write a book on Tudor literature, which I have had in mind for a long time. If he does not want the poems, the
Egoist
will print a complete edition next spring, as the Prufrock is sold out;
2
and in any case Miss Weaver wants to reprint some of my essays as a book. Martin Secker has also suggested that I should write a book on Stendhal, which would be very interesting to do, but according to his offer I should only get about £25 out of it which does not seem to me enough for so much fresh work.
I find it very difficult to keep in front of me the things I want to do most and not be distracted by many things that turn up. As it is I must always live under pressure – at least until I have enough income so as not to worry over all of the details of existence. I have greatly appreciated your comments from time to time upon this matter of wasting energy.
* * *
I have just received from Pound in France a copy of your admirable defense of
Ulysses
(May
L. R.
)
3
with the suggestion that it should be printed in the Egoist when and if I receive permission from you. I hope to
get this permission. The affair is only one more episode in a national scandal. I should like to do everything I can about it over here. The part of
Ulysses
in question struck me as almost the finest I have read: I have lived on it ever since I read it. You know the trouble the
Egoist
came up against with printers in attempting to print
Ulysses
here.
I am sorry to say that I have found it uphill and exasperating work trying to impose Joyce on such ‘intellectual’ people, or people whose opinion carries weight as I know, in London. He is far from being accepted, yet. I only know two or three people, besides my wife and myself, who are really carried away by him. There is a strong body of critical Brahminism, destructive and conservative in temper, which will not have Joyce. Novelty is no more acceptable here than anywhere else, and the forces of conservatism and obstruction are more intelligent, better educated, and more formidable.
* * *
As for the
Egoist
, the ladies who run it have decided to suspend publication, after the next two numbers, till further notice. I think that from a financial point of view they are right, and if they devote the money at their disposal to book publication, as they propose to do, it may turn out for the best. It robs Pound and me, of course, of any organ where we can express ourselves editorially or air any affair such as this of Joyce. On the other hand, other publications cut in to the
Egoist
to a certain extent, and the public which
I
could bring to it now reads the
Athenaeum
every week. There I am a sort of white boy;
4
I have a longish critical review about three weeks out of four; but don’t write editorials. It has brought me a certain notoriety which I should never have got from the
Egoist
. I had always the most pleasant relations with Miss Weaver. I have only met Miss Marsden once, and then (in strict confidence) frothed at the mouth with antipathy. The fact that the paper was primarily a means for getting her philosophical articles into print, and that its appearance was at irregular intervals owing to the length of time it took her to write them, I think militated against the success of the paper with many people who did not want to read them.
I have taken a great deal of your time – if you have read this far – and I ought to apologise for relieving myself at your expense. I can only end by thanking you again and again for all your kindness.
Sincerely yours,
T. S. Eliot
1–Conrad Aiken, ‘The Ivory Tower’, a review of Louis Untermeyer,
The New Era in American Poetry,
in
New Republic
19 (10May 1919), 58–60; reprinted in
Scepticisms: Notes on Contemporary Poetry
(1919).
2–In fact, the final copies of
Prufrock
were sold, autographed, at 10s 6d in 1921.
3–The May issue of the
Little Review,
containing episode IX of
Ulysses,
‘Scylla and Charybdis’, had been stopped by the US Post Office. Judging by his experience of the censorship of WL’s ‘Cantleman’s Spring-Mate’, Quinn felt it was pointless to go to court, so instead he sent a brief to the solicitor of the Post Office department in Washington. He sent a copy of this brief to EP, who wrote to him on 6 July that it was ‘the best apologia for J. that has been written. It shd. be printed. I am sending it to Eliot with instructions to publish in Egoist
when
he receives your permission’ (
Selected Letters of Ezra Pound to John Quinn
1915–1924
, 176). Quinn did not grant permission.
4–
White boy:
‘A favourite, pet, or darling boy: a term of endearment for a boy or (usually) man’ (OED, citing this letter).
His Mother
MS
Houghton
10 July 1919
18 Crawford Mansions
My dearest Mother,
I have lately received several parcels from you, and the care and beauty of the packing almost made me cry. What a time it must have taken you! First the books – the set of Dickens which is now on my shelf, and the beloved Rollo books. Then the bathrobe, which is just what I need for this time of year, and the little picture of the carthorse, and the medals; and finally the
beautiful
pen, which you had so nicely engraved – that I shall prize – the medal of the Latin prize, which I should have preferred
you
to keep. Father gave me $25 for winning that, and I stole $2 out of it to buy a copy of Shelley’s poems, and no one ever knew it. Also the handsome watch fob and the two spoons. But doesn’t the watch fob belong to
Henry
? I seem to remember years ago Henry’s being given a fob with a scarab, and a discussion of the best way to mount a scarab. I want to be sure about this. I almost hated to unpack the parcels, I wanted to preserve them because of the care that had gone into them. The spoon was given me by Aunt Cathie, wasn’t it? It is odd – I can’t remember her married name – what the L. stands for.
1
You must not think that it bores me to hear about your business affairs; I could just as well say that my literary affairs were tedious to tell about. I had a cable from John Quinn in New York to send him some more poems and articles so I suppose he has arranged finally for my book to be published. Quinn has been very kind to me as he is to all artists and men of letters. He is a successful Irish American lawyer – counsel for the National Bank of Commerce in New York. He interested [himself] on my behalf and prevented my poems from being ‘pirated’ in New York about a year ago. He tried to get a publisher last summer, and it was a great disappointment to me that they did not come out then. The trouble was that there was not enough verse to make a big book, and publishers are scary about printing books containing
both
verse and prose.
How splendid it would be if you could have sold the real estate this summer and could come across at once. I would gladly do without
any
holiday for three years if that were possible. On the other hand, ocean travel will probably not be easy till next year. One plan would be for me to come across and to bring you and Marian back with me – then we could have such a long time together at once.
I must stop now. I am taking a short holiday in the middle of August, and if I find that the Government’s put no obstacles in the way, I intend to go to France. I hear that there is a man in Paris who wants to import my books.
Always devotedly
Your son
Tom
1–A christening present from TSE’s great-aunt, Caroline Eliot (Lackland by her second marriage).
Mary Hutchinson
MS
Texas
[11? July 1919]
[London]
Dear Mary,
What a charming letter – so that I must write at once – having written nineteen letters in the last two days – to explain that mine was despatched six hours before yours arrived. I am so pleased – I mean something more important than feeling flattered.
I was so glad you had the sail together.
1
What you say will certainly reach Vivien. Your neighbourhood has made a vast difference to her at Bosham – and I think you are the only woman who really interests her. Besides, I think we are both grateful to anyone who is intelligent enough to take us as two individuals – not as one, or the other, or a neutral composition. But perhaps I will reserve this point for conversation. I have a good deal to say which would simply appear as an illegible mass of blottings and scratchings and revisions, on paper.
Perhaps I will say civilised instead of cultivated. I certainly do not mean a mass of chaotic erudition which simply issues in giggling. You can supply instances of this easily enough. And I loathe ‘amusing’ information. Culture, if it means anything decent, means something personal: one book or painter made one’s own rather than a thousand read or looked at. Some people really read too much to be cultivated. I think everyone must estimate his own powers of assimilation. What I feel about much contemporary taste is that people have merely assimilated other people’s personal tastes without making them personal – tastes which are essentially personal. One could make a short list
Byzantine (a little out of date).
Polynesian, African, Hebridean, Chinese, etc. etc. say savage and Oriental art in general, by people who have not the training to know what these have in common with our traditional art –
Stendhal.
Mozart, Bach etc.
Flaubert (yes!)
Russian ballet (when liked by people who know nothing of the art and its relation to Italian).
Russian novels.
Laforgue (really inferior to Corbière at his best).
I think this comprises modern culture. As I like most of these things I am annoyed. They mostly begin as personal enthusiasms
or convictions
of people who know and can give reasons. But in the ordinary mind they are completely unorganised.
I have now got started on a long subject which I have not now either time or energy to carry out – instead of replying simply to a question of civilisation and culture. I think two things are wanted – civilisation which is impersonal, traditional (by ‘tradition’ I don’t mean stopping in the same place) and which forms people unconsciously – I don’t think two or half a dozen people can set out by themselves to be civilised – though one can insist on
not
relaxing what civilisation one has in favour of people who are incapable of appreciating it. I mean the ‘shouting and bad manners’ need not be tolerated – and culture – which is a personal interest and curiosity in
particular
things – I think it is largely the
historical sense
,
2
which is not simply knowledge of history, a sense of balance which does not deaden one’s personal taste, but trains one to discriminate one’s own passions from objective criticism. It seems that one ought to
read
in two ways: 1) because of particular and personal interest, which makes the thing one’s own, regardless of what other people think of the book 2)
to a certain extent
, because it is something one ‘ought to have read’ but one must be quite clear that this is
why
one is reading. Although my education is very fragmentary I believe I shall do no more of this.
Also, as I said once, I think there are two kinds of intelligence: the intellectual and the sensitive – the first can read a great deal because it schematises and theorises – the second not much, because it requires to
get more out of a book than can immediately be put into words. Don’t you think you belong to the second? I read very little – and
have
read much less than people think – at present I only read Tudor drama, Tudor prose, and Gibbon – over and over – when I have time to read at all. Of course I don’t count the countless books I have had to skim for lectures etc.
I don’t know whether I think you more complicated than you are – but I have fewer
delusions
about you than you think – but no doubt a great deal of
ignorance
. I certainly don’t recognise the portrait you hold up as painted by me. But remember that I am a
metic
– a foreigner, and that I
want
to understand you, and all the background and tradition of you. I shall try to be frank – because the attempt is so very much worthwhile with you – it is very difficult with me – both by inheritance and because of my very suspicious and cowardly disposition. But I may simply prove to be a savage.
But don’t think that my ignorance makes me wholly unappreciative – even the ignorant can have a sense of values.
Yes, I should like some Flaubert.
Yrs.
Tom.
It would be lovely to come Aug. 1st. I shall consult V. There are only two objections possible 1) time 2) I have been down so often, and we are engaged to go to Eastbourne next week: the
expense
. This, I am afraid, weighs with me seriously at present.