The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (77 page)

1–Margaret Morris (1891–1980), dance teacher.

2–J. W. N. Sullivan (1886–1937), popular scientific writer and literary journalist; a close friend of JMM, and his assistant editor at A.

3–Iris Tree (1897–1968), daughter of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, had married in 1916 the American artist and photographer Curtis Moffat.

4–George Hyde-Lees, who had wed WBY in 1917, was the stepdaughter of Dorothy Pound’s uncle. She was also a close friend of Dorothy Pound.

5–TSE called Iris Tree’s contribution to
Wheels: A Second Cycle
(1917) ‘the most mature of the lot’ (‘Verse Pleasant and Unpleasant’,
Egoist
, Mar. 1918, 43–4). Her
Poems
were published in 1920.

MS
Houghton  

[Postmark 18 December 1919]

[London]  

My dearest Mother,  

This letter will, I fear, not reach you till after Christmas. I sent you an advance copy of my portrait in order that you might have it by Christmas. I will send you a finished copy if you will return that one, as Vivien wants to keep one. I wonder where and in what form Knopf intends to publish it!  

I have been at home for a few days with a cold on the chest, but shall be out tomorrow. Also, my doctor has given me a special spray for my nose. I have apparently the same trouble that you had, and he says that if this spray does not cure it I ought to have the membrane cauterized. I always sleep on my left side because I breathe more easily.  

I have just finished two articles, one for
Art & Letters
¹
and one for the last issue of the
Egoist
,
²
both of which I will send you when they are printed. Murry has been called to Italy to see his wife and I have promised to do two articles for the
Athenaeum
while he is away. But my New Year’s Resolution is ‘to write a long poem I have had on my mind for a long time and to prepare a small prose book from my lecture on poetry.’ I have one or two other schemes but they are more in the air.  

It will be Christmas in a very few days, and I wish that this letter might reach you by Christmas day. I shall think of you all day and Christmas eve. We shall spend Christmas here, and dine with Vivien’s family in the evening. The following day I shall go to Wiltshire to stay until Monday with the Waterlows. Vivien did not want to go, but she wanted me to go in order to get a change of air. I think I have often mentioned Sydney Waterlow, whom I have known for the past four years. He is a very important official in the Foreign Office now, and was decorated with the Legion of Honour at the Peace Conference.

The peace treaty seems to be held up indefinitely in America.
³
I hope it will not prevent America from helping in Central Europe; the destitution, especially the starvation in Vienna,
⁴
appears to be unspeakable. I suppose Americans realise now what a fiasco the reorganisation of nationalities has been: the ‘Balkanisation’ of Europe.  

I am praying to hear that you have sold real estate, and that affairs in America improve. I wish you were here now, for we could certainly keep you warm. You
must
come in the spring.  

How do you like the photographs that Vivien sent?  

She is in
fairly
good health, but sleeps very badly. We both send New Year’s thoughts and much love.  

Very affectionately
Your son
Tom.

1–‘
The Duchess of Malfi
at the Lyric: and Poetic Drama’,
Art & Letters
3: 1 (Winter 1920), 36–9.

2–‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ [II],
Egoist
6: 5 (Nov.–Dec. 1919, 72–3;
SW
).

3–The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, was not ratified by the USA until Dec. 1921.

4–Lord Haig and others had just written to the newspapers on behalf of the
government-backed
‘Vienna Emergency Relief Fund’, appealing for financial donations: ‘The prospect of a city of 2½ million inhabitants being left without adequate means of keeping its women and children alive, or in health, must appeal to every human heart.’
N
. reported on 20 Dec. that ‘the task of saving Vienna, one of the first cities of the world, from the horrors of starvation is urgent’.  

MS
Houghton

5 January 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

Dear Mrs Eliot

First I must thank you very much for sending me such a generous Xmas present (£3). I was surprised and delighted. It was so kind of you. Tom was very touched at your sending him so much, too. I have not written to you for a long time, as I have had a more than usually busy time lately, and a good deal of worry owing to my aunt’s death and my Father’s very bad health. Thank you for writing to me after the death of my aunt. I appreciated your kind letter. It was so extremely sudden that the shock of it was too much for my Father. His health has been failing very much the last year, and this trouble made him so much worse that we have all been most anxious about him. He had three sisters, all younger than he. And now they are all dead. They were all unmarried. I have very very few relations in the world, scarcely any. It is different to Tom, he has so many. The day before yesterday we had Abigail Eliot to tea. She is the
first
of Tom’s relations I have ever seen – it does seem strange, after 4½ years. We both liked her very much. She seems a nice girl, and I hope we shall see more of her.

The next thing is for you and Marion to come! Do try hard. If you could come in
April
, just in time for the most beautiful time of the year in England. You would love the climate then, and the voyage would be less trying. Tom is longing for you. He
could
, we think, get leave from the Bank to come over to you within the next three months, but for so terribly short a time. He would not get more than three weeks altogether, and it would have to be instead of a summer holiday. Now that he is in a more
responsible
position in the Bank it is harder for him to
get away
, although the
work
is easier and more interesting for him.

The pyjamas you sent him are beautifully made. And so very nice. In the winter he really ought to wear rather warmer pyjamas. He has had three pairs of
flanelette
ones, but they are pretty well worn out now. He had to have a new overcoat this winter. It cost £10.10/-and is a very
very
 
good one. The best cloth, and lined with wool. Would that be dear, or cheap, in America?

With much love from Vivienne.

MS
Houghton

6 January 1920

[London]

My dearest Mother,

We are shivering in a cold spell that came immediately after the Christmas holidays. Your cheques arrived on Christmas eve, and I thank you very very much for my generous present. I shall save up for a suit in the spring. There are many things to tell you about. We had Christmas at home with stockings and a tiny growing tree as usual. It was very difficult to find anything for Christmas presents this year, everything was either very expensive or non-existent. On the day after Christmas I went to Wiltshire to stay with the Waterlows. Vivien did not go because she knew that she would get very tired going such a distance for a short time; besides, Mrs W. is not very interesting. I am fond of Sydney: he has been very kind to me in the past. Lowes Dickinson was there: I never liked him much, he is very common, at bottom. But the rain held off just enough for walks, and the country there is beautiful, and Desmond MacCarthy,
¹
who was living there, is good company. I don’t know that it did me very much good, but it is a good thing to get out of town once in a while.

My salary has been raised £65, and as the salary of the bank has been raised all round, it brings my total to about £500. That would have seemed a fortune to me four years ago, but it is worth about what £250 was then. It takes all one’s toil, nowadays, to earn enough more money every year to keep in the same place. The doctors have all raised their fees, and I am just paying a dentist bill of £14. Yet I am very fortunate in having got into the bank and being so highly thought of there – not only for the acquirements which they overestimate (I am supposed to be a profound economist, and a special scholar in French, German, Spanish and Norwegian) but in being liked. I was told by a high official that when some of the men who returned from the war presented a petition against the advancement of newer men over their heads, they made an exception of my case.

And then the difficulties of living are universal. The American professors must be having a very bad time. I wonder if America realises how terrible
the condition of central Europe is. I can never
forget
quite put Vienna out of my mind. And I have seen people who have been in Germany and they are most pessimistic about the future, not only of Germany, but of the world. They say that there is no hope unless the treaty is revised. I believe by the way that J.M. Keynes:
Economic Consequences of the Peace
[1919] is an important book, if you can get hold of it.
¹

Abigail Eliot came to tea Saturday, and we were both much taken with her. She seems intelligent, and has a sense of humour, and charming manners. She and Vivien found each other very congenial. Vivien had always longed to meet an Eliot, and I believe she thinks every day about you.

I shall have to stop this letter soon, so I want to put the most important thing of all. I want you to let me know as soon as you can whether you are going to be able to come with Marian to England this year. Because if
not
, I will come to America
early
, for a
very
short
visit
, instead of a summer holiday. But I must know in
good
time
, in order to arrange. The physical difficulties in my way are, so far as I can see, these: 1. passages are difficult to get, and must be taken long in advance, 2. ships are at present very slow. I should want to come when I could get a fast ship both ways, or else I should have no time at all. I should also prefer to come when you are settled in the East, incidentally saving four days on the train. Also, it is at present much
cheaper
for you to come than for me to come to you, as the pound is worth only about $3.75; you get many pounds for your dollars, but I get few dollars for many pounds.

These are the considerations, but this is the issue: I want
so very much
that you should see us in England some time.
The sooner you come the better.
For
I
can come to America as well next year, or any year, or every year, as I can this. And for the reasons stated, I could come better next year.

But think it out carefully, mother dear, and then write to me fully. I am thinking of it constantly.

With very much love from us.

Your devoted son
Tom.

I am sending a complete photograph. Will you then send me the other one back, for Vivien?

I have not heard from Henry for
months
.

 1–Desmond MacCarthy (1877–1952), literary and dramatic critic.

MS
Houghton

6 January 1920

[18 Crawford Mansions]

Dear Henry,

It is several months since I have had a word from you. Please send me a line of explanation, if no more, before I write to you. I feel as if this was going out into empty space. I depend on hearing from you oftener, and I have been anxious.

Always affectionately
Tom.

MS
Texas

7 January 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

Dear Mr Knopf,

This is merely to thank you for your two letters – one acknowledging the proof – and to reciprocate your New Year’s wishes.

I have no doubt the portrait has reached you by this time. Hoppé took two: the one I chose is very good.

I am glad to hear that the book will be out by March 15,
¹
and thank you for the name of the press bureau.

Faithfully yours
T. S. Eliot