The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (130 page)

TS
copy NYPL

12 September 1922

[New York]

Dear Seldes:

I have yours of the 8th and it is understood between us that we are not to publish
The
Waste Land
previous to its appearance in
The Dial
and that the retail price will not exceed $2.00.

I don’t think that we’ll publish it before January, so you need have no worry about this. I also think that it would be a good idea to number the copies in the first edition whatever its size may be. Naturally, I’ll be glad to take back copies of the book as I need them.

Faithfully,
Horace B. Liveright

MS
Texas

13 September 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns,
N.W.1

Dear Mary,

I was really dreadfully sorry to have to upset the picnic last Saturday. There was a bungalow to be sold which seemed exactly what we wanted.
¹
I went in the morning to see it and found there would be no one there till late in the afternoon, and then only for an hour or two. I felt we must see it, as we were leaving the next day, and we are so anxious to get something permanently in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, it was no good, for it wanted a great deal of money to put it into repair, and also the price was absurdly high. We were both disappointed. Vivien wanted to move right in somewhere. She hated leaving the country. She says she will send you back the book tomorrow.

We look forward to seeing you in London as soon as the country releases you. It was a shame we had no picnics this year. If we could only get a cottage in the neighbourhood!

Affectionately
Tom.

TS
Lilly

15 September 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

My dear Ezra,

The fact that I have not written for some time or made any comment on your letter is no evidence of dilatoriness. I have a great deal to say but for reasons which I do not pretend are reasonable, I prefer to wait until after you have seen Richard as I presume you will on his way back from Rome. Richard has not recently been (using the word in the most exact sense) sympathetic; for that matter I do not think that Richard and yourself have much more in common than a disapproval of my way of life up to the present. I, or both of us, may be in Paris in October; this is not absolutely certain as I may not want at that time to go so far for so few days; but if I do come, I may wait and discuss matters with you fully in person. If not, I will write you fully as early as possible. Please do not mention to Richard what I have said as I do not want to widen the breach or to have any quarrel with him.

Your contribution is quite admirable and will form a conspicuous adornment of the second number.
¹

Please give my apologies and regrets to Dorothy. As it happened I went to the country on Friday and got leave at the last moment to stay over until Monday night. I wired to her on Tuesday but my wire was returned undelivered with the report that she had already left for Paris. We shall see her I trust if we come to Paris in October.

Yours ever,
Ts.

Liveright’s proof is excellent.

TS
Texas

15 September 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dearest Ottoline,

I was dreadfully sorry to miss you when you were in London, as I am so anxious to see and talk to you. I came back just after and I was very sorry to leave the country, but I had to give up the cottage then. I feel more and more that I should like to live in the country, London is so horrible.

Thank you so much for your letter and for what you say about the ‘Bel Esprit’ scheme. I have a lot to say on that subject, more than I can write in a letter at present. As for giving you a list of names of people who would be likely to be interested, I do not know of one person outside of those who have already been approached (or who I suppose have been approached) who would be likely to take the slightest interest in the scheme. Anyhow, I do so long for T. to have a freer life and a less ugly one.

T. had dinner with Murry the night before last and enjoyed seeing him again. I certainly do wish that there was not so much hatred, and when one gets right away from everybody one cannot see what it is all about.

I do wish you were in better health – you must have had a horrible summer. I am feeling very ill again just now but I hope it will pass.

With so much love to you, dearest Ottoline,

Your affectionate friend,
Vivien

TS
Real Academia de la Historia

16 September 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gardens

Cher Monsieur,

Merci de votre aimable lettre, et de vôtre bénédiction! Je vous envois
ciinclus
une annonce corrigée avec la liste des principaux collaborateurs. Le premier numéro contiendra:

TS
NYPL (MS)

21 September 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

My dear Mr Quinn,

I am quite overwhelmed by your letter,
¹
by all that you have done for me, by the results that have been effected, and by your endless kindness. In fact, the greatest pleasure of all that it has given me is the thought that there should be anybody in the world who would take such an immense amount of pains on my behalf. The thought of this will be a permanent satisfaction to me.

Of course I am entirely satisfied with the arrangements that you have made. It is exactly what I should have liked; only I did not see how it could be done, if it was to be done at all, without calling upon you once more, which, after all you had already accomplished, I was absolutely determined not to do. I also feel that it would be in the nature of asking a favour from Liveright, and also I was loath to ask you to do this on my behalf. I gather that Liveright is quite satisfied that the arrangement will be ultimately to his advantage, and certainly the
Dial
have behaved very handsomely.

My only regret (which may seem in the circumstances either ungracious or hypocritical) is that this award should come to me before it has been given to Pound.
²
I feel that he deserves the recognition much more than I do, certainly ‘for his services to Letters’ and I feel that I ought to have been made to wait until after he had received this public testimony. In the manuscript of
The Waste Land
which I am sending you, you will see the evidences of his work, and I think that this manuscript is worth preserving in its present form solely for the reason that it is the only evidence of the difference which his criticism has made to this poem. I am glad that you at least will have the opportunity of judging of this for yourself. Naturally, I hope that the portions which I have suppressed will never appear in print and in sending them to you I am sending the only copies of these parts.

I have gathered together all of the manuscript in existence.
³
The leather bound notebook is one which I started in 1909 and in which I entered all
my work of that time as I wrote it, so that it is the only original manuscript barring of course rough scraps and notes, which were destroyed at the time, in existence. You will find a great many sets of verse which have never been printed and which I am sure you will agree never ought to be printed, and in putting them in your hands, I beg you fervently to keep them to yourself and see that they never are printed.

I do not think that this manuscript is of any great value, especially as the large[r] part is really typescript for which no manuscript except scattered lines, ever existed. It is understood that in the valuation you speak of
The Waste Land
is not to be included and the rest must be valued at its actual market value and not at any value which it may (or may not) acquire in course of time.

I think it is very good of you to have subscribed for three copies of the
Criterion
, and I also appreciate to the full your action in writing to [Richard Cobden-]Sanderson. Your letter is wonderfully concise and to the point, and there is certainly nothing in it which could possibly give offence. About the American agencies, I want to put the question before you. I am publishing
The Waste Land
in two sections in the first and second numbers in the hope that it might bring in a few more readers, and because I thought it wiser not to appear myself as a prose essayist in the early numbers. It would therefore have been extremely ungracious to Liveright (although we gave him only the book rights) and now much more so to the
Dial
, if these two first numbers were circulated in America. I therefore propose to wait until copies of the first number or two can be sent to American Agents or Publishers as specimens.

Sanderson I may say in confidence, desires to approach Liveright on the subject to see if Liveright would undertake to have say two or three hundred copies regularly in the form of sheets to publish in America under his own name. He has had dealings with Liveright before and suggested Liveright to me before he knew that I had any relations with him myself. It is hardly necessary to say that whenever you can spare the time I should be extremely grateful for any suggestions or advice from you in this matter.

I think it might be possible for
The Criterion
to secure a small circulation in America and I do not see why it should interfere with the success of the
Dial
. Of course I should not want to compete with the
Dial
in any way but I think that the two papers will be so different in form and appearance that there should be no risk of this. I wish that the
Dial
could secure some circulation in this country, but that seems to me a much more difficult matter. For one thing it is a monthly and the more often periodicals appear the less easily they can be transplanted. For another thing it contains a
great deal of local matter and in order to make it really successful in another country, the editors would have to give it form which perhaps would make it less valuable at home. If the
Criterion
were a monthly, we could of course work a good deal together in exclusive fields, but of course it would be impossible for me to edit a
monthly
magazine unless it were to provide enough income for me to devote myself to that and no other regular work. I may say that at present I am not taking a penny from it except a fee for my poem. If it succeeds I shall of course receive a corresponding remuneration. As it is I think I can say that it will look a much more expensive production than it is.

I have been extraordinarily successful in getting hold of the people whom I want to write for it and in order to do justice to these people if for no other reason, I should like to have the paper secure an adequate circulation and publicity. I have no doubt that the paper will appear too conservative to some and too radical to others, but I have gone on the principle of trying to secure the best people of each generation and type. I think that the trouble with the
Little Review
at its best was that its second-rate stuff was so appallingly bad; and my theory is that the best of the most advanced writing of our time (which of course means a very small number of writers) will really appear to better advantage among the really respectable and serious writers of the older type than among their own third-rate and vulgar imitators.

I am very glad to hear that you have had even a month of rest. I know so very well all of the symptoms that you describe that I know you should have had much more time. Whenever I get very tired or worried I recognise all the old symptoms ready to appear, with half a chance, and find myself under the continuous strain of trying to suppress a vague but intensely acute horror and apprehension. Perhaps the greatest curse of my life is noise and the associations which imagination immediately suggests with various noises. It is abominable to live in a town flat unless one can afford a very expensive one, for the reason that one can never forget the lives and disagreeable personalities of one’s neighbours; but I find myself in the position where a house in London is just beyond my means.

I must stop this very long letter. Thanking you again and again.

Sincerely yours,
T. S. Eliot

I am dissatisfied with this letter, it does not express either my gratitude or the great interest I have in your health and affairs. I dictated it with a bad headache and under stress of haste to catch the first mail. I will write again.

T.S.E.