The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (92 page)

1–LW’s review of
SW
appeared as ‘Back to Aristotle’,
A.,
17 Dec. 1920.

2–TSE had visited the Woolfs at Rodmell on 18 Sept. VW records in her diary for 19–20 Sept.: ‘He is a consistent specimen of his type, which is opposed to ours. Unfortunately the living writers he admires are Wyndham Lewis & Pound. – Joyce too … We had some talk after tea … about his writing. I suspect him of a good deal of concealed vanity & even anxiety about this.’ TSE ‘wants to write a verse play in which the 4 characters of Sweeny act the parts. A personal upheaval of some kind came after Prufrock, & turned him aside from his inclination – to develop in the manner of Henry James. Now he wants to describe externals. Joyce gives internals’ (
Diary
, II, 67–8).

Published 28 October 1920

Sir,

I hope that I am not too late in raising one or two questions suggested by the important article in your issue of September 30 entitled ‘A French Romantic’.
¹
I have been delayed by personal preoccupations; I am excused for writing now, if I am excused at all, by the importance of the subject, the interest of the article, and the fact that no other correspondent has anticipated me.

I willingly concede the point, contested by Mr Cyril Falls, that M. Maurras is a ‘romantic’.
²
M. Maurras has been handled very competently by M. Julien Benda in an appendix to
Belphégor
.
³
So much for M. Maurras. It is in attempting to apprehend your critic’s definitions of the terms ‘romanticism’ and ‘classicism’ that my intellect is confused and my serenity disturbed. We are told that Lamartine ‘floundered in romanticism’ partly because ‘the sense of the mystery of things remained with him.’ Later we learn that ‘Romanticism is an excess of emotion’; but we are not informed what balance can be struck between excess of emotion (which is surely a fault) and a sense of the mystery of things (which cannot be altogether a bad sense to have). The writer treats Romanticism on the whole with disapproval until he suddenly declares that the period of classical production in France was also ‘a great romantic period’. This period is not the 17th century, which is dismissed as a period of ‘formalism’: it is a period which is represented by the Cathedrals and by
Jeanne d’Arc (but not, apparently, by Agnes Sorel). I should be interested to know how the ‘cathedrals’ are more classical, or more romantic either, than Vézelay, St Benoît-sur-Loire, or Périgueux; but that is not the point: the point is, what is meant by applying
both
terms to their elucidation?

I suggest that the difficulties which veil most critics’ theories of Romanticism (and I include such writers as Pierre Lasserre
⁴
and Irving Babbitt) are largely due to two errors. One is that the critic applies the same term ‘romantic’ to epochs and to individual artists, not perceiving that it assumes a difference of meaning; and the other is that he assumes that the terms ‘romantic’ and ‘classic’ are mutually exclusive and even antithetical, without actually enforcing this exclusiveness in the examination of particular works of art.

Another difficulty is that these writers do not always appear to distinguish between
definitions
and
propositions.
Again, your critic introduces unexpected terms which are not defined. I cite ‘intellectual and emotional integrity’, ‘spiritual purpose’, and ‘larger integration’. The alternatives are to elaborate a rigidly deductive system, or to employ the terms ‘romantic’ and ‘classic’ merely as convenient historical tags, never stretching their meaning beyond the acceptance of the intelligent reader. And it would perhaps be beneficial if we employed both terms as little as possible, if we even forgot these terms altogether, and looked steadily for the intelligence and sensibility which each work of art contains.

I am, Sir, your obliged obedient servant,

T. S. Eliot

1–[Basil de Selincourt], ‘A French Romantic’, a review of Albert Thibaudet,
Les Idées de Charles Maurras
(Paris, 1920),
TLS
, 28 Oct. 1920.

2–Charles Maurras (1868–1952), French poet, critic, political philosopher and polemical journalist, was founding editor of the reactionary and extreme monarchist paper,
L’Action Française
(1908–44). Building on ‘three traditions’ – classicisim, Catholicism, monarchism – the thrust of Maurras’s ideology was to become increasingly right-wing, authoritarian and anti-democratic. TSE later wrote ‘The
Action Française
, M. Maurras and Mr. Ward’, in
NC
7: 3 (Mar. 1928), an issue that included his translation of Maurras’s essay ‘Prologue to an Essay on Criticism’. TSE said he had been ‘a reader of the work of M. Maurras for eighteen years’, and, far from ‘drawing him away from’ Christianity – in 1926 Maurras was condemned by the Pope, with five of his books being placed on the Index – it had had the opposite effect. In a later essay, TSE named Maurras as one of the ‘three best writers of invective of their time’ (
SE
, 499). Cyril Falls, in a letter to the
TLS
(7 Oct.), defended Maurras against the charge of political extremism: he is ‘a convinced classicist’ who has written ‘many denunciations of romanticism’.

3–Benda wrote, ‘The eulogies bestowed daily on the high-priest of the
Action Française
for “returning to the manners of the classic style” make us smile when we consider his enthusiasm for his own doctrines, the violence of his arguments, and especially the virulent, contemptuous tone he uses towards his adversary’ (
Belphégor
, trans. S. J. I. Lawson [1929], 156).

4–Pierre Lasserre (1867–1930), literary critic; director of L’École des Hautes-Etudes; author of the first study of Maurras,
Charles Maurras et la Renaissance classique
(Paris, 1902). Lasserre was a friend of Péguy and a disciple of Sorel, who broke with Maurras and the Action Française in 1914.

PC
Texas

[Postmark 30 October 1920]

18 Crawford Mansions

I am so sorry about these postponements. Vivien’s father is dangerously ill and was operated upon last night .
¹
We were up all night and V. has to be with him most of the time: so we simply cannot arrange any plans at all at present.

aff.
T. S. E.

We cannot predict from hour to hour.

1–His second emergency operation.

TS
Houghton

31 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

My dearest mother,

I am afraid you will be anxious on account of my not having written for so long. I do not think that I have ever had so many difficult things on my mind at once. For the last ten days Vivien’s father has been very ill. It appeared at first to be ptomaine poisoning from some tinned sardines, but they finally decided that the poisoning was only the occasion of something more serious. I was called over Friday afternoon. The specialists had a consultation at half past six, and at quarter past eight they operated in the house. After the operation the surgeon said that he would have been dead in another five or ten minutes. There was an enormous abscess in his abdomen, which was just beginning to break. They were not certain even after the operation that he would live through the night, and none of us got to bed at all.

He had suffered very great agony for days, and was very weak indeed. We had two nurses, but of course there was work all the time for everybody. So far, he has recovered wonderfully well, and in spite of the discomfort of having to sit up in bed with a tube in the wound to draw out the suppuration, is in very good spirits. He has not been told that although the surgeons were able to get out the abscess, they confess themselves quite at a loss to know the cause of the abscess. They say that they will have to operate again, but they hope to be able to postpone it until he is over the shock of this operation and is stronger.

Vivien is now nearly prostrated. The news that the operation was necessary was very sudden, and the doctors held out very little hope of his surviving it. She held out through the night, so long as there was work to do, but she has been in bed with a terrible migraine yesterday, and [is] now very weak. To add to the difficulty Mrs Haigh-Wood’s servant (she has only one now) was taken with a bad cold and fever Friday, and had to go home. We have lent them our Ellen for a few days, as Vivien’s mother cannot do all the work, help with her father, and cook for the family and two nurses as well. So we are doing our own work and are to go out for meals.

Her father is not strong and we fear a sudden relapse at any time. We are not on the telephone here which makes Vivien very uneasy, as they could not get at us at night, and with the nurses there is nowhere in the house for Vivien to sleep. We shall not be able to breathe freely for weeks; but it is almost miraculous that he should have lasted up to this point.

I should be very grateful to you if you would write to Mrs Haigh-Wood and give her your sympathy.

Vivien is particularly fond of her father; she takes more after him and his side of the family, and understands him better than the others . He has no living relatives except very remote ones. He is a sweet, simple man, perfectly happy when he is in the country painting and drawing. I saw him when he was almost unconscious, but he immediately recognised me and asked when my book was coming out, and when I saw him for a moment yesterday he said he wanted a copy at once.

Previous to this, I have been engaged as I told you, in negotiations over my new flat. The negotiations proved to be much more trying and complicated than there was any reason to expect, and in the end Mr Haigh-Wood (just before he fell ill) had to help me straighten them out. I took the flat over from a very selfish, cranky, and insanely suspicious grasping old spinster, who insisted on all sorts of formalities, made her solicitors draw up elaborate documents to be signed, then objected to the way they were drawn up and began all over again, then stipulated that I should pay her solicitors’ fees, charged a prodigious price for the oilcloth and fittings of the flat, which we had to buy, insisted on the money down before signing the lease, insulted us when she left, and maliciously had the electricity, gas, and telephone cut off so as to put me to the trouble of putting them on again. Of course, in the circumstances, I had to employ solicitors too. So the whole thing has come very expensive. But it is a very nice flat, and the actual rent of it will be only £15 more than the rent of Crawford Mansions will be on a new lease. It is a much better block, very respectable looking and in a good neighbourhood. It has one more room than this flat, and the rooms are rather bigger. It will do beautifully for you when you come, it is only one flight up, and there is a lift as well, and anthracite stoves which you can keep going all the time to provide a constant temperature, and constant hot water supply.

Of course I wanted to throw it up on account of the old lady’s insolence, but I reasoned that we had lost six months already in hunting, and that it would pay me better to be swindled on the price of the lease, and get settled at once, than to start the hunt anew and not be able to work for several months more. You see, we began looking for a flat in June, and since then I have simply not had the time to do a single piece of work, and when one has in mind a great many things that one wants to do, that irritates the nerves more and more.

Before I embarked on this flat of which I speak, I had very nearly taken another one – not nearly so good – and dropped it finally because I was
convinced that the landlord was asking about twice as much for it as he was entitled to. But to prove that and get him punished would have been difficult, and I should have had to take the flat first.

My book is ‘out’ on Thursday,
¹
and I have just received six copies from Methuen. I am sending you one tomorrow. I am pleased with the form they have given it. Knopf, who published my poems in New York, has bought 350 copies, and I suppose it will be reviewed in American papers at the same time.

I have promised to write occasional ‘London Letters’ for the
Dial,
and also letters of some sort to a weekly called
The Freeman
in New York. I have been asked to send a contribution to the
Evening Post.
Then there is the
Revue de Genève
, and Bruce Richmond, of the
Times
(London), wants something from me when I have time. Wyndham Lewis is projecting a small Art and Literature paper and wants my help. So if I would undertake it, I should have my hands very full. But I want to get to work on a poem I have in mind.

My new address is 9 Clarence Gate Gardens, London,
N.W.I.

But anything that comes here will reach me, as we have not quite moved out yet, and I think a friend of Vivien’s, Lucy Thayer whom you have met, will be here soon and will occupy it. Her mother died of cancer after several years of torment, and Lucy who looked after her the whole time is to come abroad for a rest.

If you have not yet sent the dividend, you can send it to the new address, but
Registered
mail had better go to the Bank, as there is always a chance of its being delivered when no one is in, and taken away again. The Bank address you know is Lloyds Bank Limited, Information Department, Head Office, 71 Lombard Street, London
E.C.3.

I
of course
want the Insurance continued, and I suppose you will pay the Policy out of the dividend before sending it. If I died, this money would be most important for Vivien. She would get £60 a year from the Bank; and I depend on leaving her Insurance, what money I save if I live long enough, and what I may eventually inherit from you (that will, I pray, be a long time ahead) to live upon. What money she will eventually get from her father’s
estate will not be enough for support. The death duties in this country are very heavy indeed, and the estate is divided equally between her and Maurice. Again, Vivien and Maurice get nothing until
both
her father and her mother are dead; so I have to plan for the contingency of Vivien and one of her parents surviving me. If she had to try to support herself even partially, there is not much she could do; her eyes are so weak that the oculist says she must never again subject them to any continuous strain, either reading, writing or sewing, for more than two hours a day. At one time, before our marriage, she was very successful in tutoring backward children, individually; but young unmarried women always find it easier to obtain such work. Therefore I should not for a moment consider letting the insurance drop.

To add to the confusion, Harold Peters and his friends have been here for a week, their yacht is at Southampton, and they are going to cruise in the Mediterranean. I am very fond of Harold, but this visit has been much more of a strain and a responsibility than a pleasure. I want them to enjoy their stay, but they know no one in London, and could not be combined with the sort of intellectual society that I know, and it would mean giving up a great deal of time.

I must stop now, I have so much to do –

You have not written for some time, I suppose because you did not know where to write. But you can always write to the bank, although I prefer to get letters at home. I am anxiously waiting to hear your latest news.

With very much love,

your devoted son,
Tom