The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (28 page)

MS
Houghton

3 October 1915

Trinity College, Cambridge

Dear Madam,

I am venturing to write to you, because your son has been consulting me on the subject of his prospects, and I thought you might wish to know what I had said to him. He was one of my best pupils when I was at Harvard a year ago, and already then I felt him a friend as well as a pupil. Since he came to England, I have come to know him better, and have been struck by the seriousness of his moral purpose and his strong wish to live up to every duty. He has asked me what I think of the financial outlook for him if he stays in England. I do not, of course, know what reasons there may be against his staying in England, but on this one point I felt bound to say that I thought the outlook for him in England just as good as in America. His Oxford tutor [Harold Joachim] is, I know, prepared to recommend him warmly, and owing to the war the openings are much more numerous than usual at present, and are likely to remain so for many years. Practically all educated men of military age, except the physically unfit, have felt it their duty to join the army, so that the supply of teachers is at present extraordinarily short. Of those who have gone to fight, a very large proportion, I fear, are sure to be killed or disabled, so that the deficiency will by no means cease with the cessation of the war. Under these circumstances, I think he may rely with considerable confidence upon obtaining suitable work when he has taken his Ph.D.

I inquired carefully into the work he still has to do for his Ph.D., which was all the easier as I had taught him. So far as I can judge, his work at High Wycombe will not prevent him from getting through the necessary preparation, and I understand that the school is willing to let him be absent during the summer term.

I have taken some pains to get to know his wife, who seems to me thoroughly nice, really anxious for his welfare, and very desirous of not hampering his liberty or interfering with whatever he feels to be best. The 
chief sign of her influence that I have seen is that he is no longer attracted by the people who call themselves ‘vorticists’, and in that I think her influence is wholly to be applauded.

He seems to me to have considerable literary gifts, and I have hopes of his doing work which will bring him reputation as soon as he is free from worry as to ways and means.

I remain
yours very truly
Bertrand Russell

MS
McMaster

11 October [1915]

[High Wycombe, Bucks]

Dear Mr Russell

I wrote to Waterlow
¹
as you suggested, and he asked me to dine with him last Sunday evening. The consequences were so gratifying to me that I wanted to write and tell you. He has given me Balfour’s book
²
to review, and will let me have two thousand words on it. I was quite unprepared for such an important review, but of course snapped at it, and took on another book too. He gives me a month for the Balfour and another month for Wolf’s
Nietzsche
.
³
I think that it is worth my while to put in all my time on this reviewing until I have got these two books, at the expense of the thesis. Do you agree with me? It is not worth doing at all unless I do my best: if I do a good review I can afford to do no more for some time; and if I don’t put all my strength on it, it’s a plain waste of time. Besides, it will (if good) impress the people at Harvard much more than the same amount of work added to put in upon the thesis. And my family will merely know that I have passed the examination; whereas this they will see.

So I wanted to thank you again for introducing me to Waterlow. I find the school work taking less time: this is due chiefly to an adaptation of my
ideals of scholarship. I find that it’s useless to try really to learn anything just now, that I must make the best of what I do know: if I make the boys work I don’t have to work so hard myself; and where work really shows (in the eyes of a headmaster) is in working the boys hard, keeping discipline, and making the red tape run smoothly – as well as being ready to do any odd jobs for him like superintending games or taking a scripture class at five minutes notice.

At the same time, it makes this sort of work much easier to have at the same time some work to do which I can feel justified in putting my best abilities upon, such as they are. The reviewing has cheered me up very much.

I am planning to see you at Garsington,
⁴
when I come to Oxford, or better on a separate expedition; as I shall probably not try to stay the night at Oxford.

Always yours gratefully
Thomas Stearns Eliot

1–Sydney Waterlow (1878–1944), scholar and diplomat, was on the editorial committee of
The International Journal of Ethics
, 1914–16.

2–Arthur Balfour (1848–1930), Conservative politician, Prime Minister 1902–5, was made First Lord of the Admiralty in May 1915; Foreign Secretary in 1916. See TSE’s review of his Gifford Lectures,
Theism and Humanism, in International Journal of Ethics
26: 2 (Jan. 1916), 284–9. TSE described the volume as ‘a protest against the aesthetics, the ethics, and the epistemology of “Naturalism”’; a ‘brilliant book’ that would be ‘a noteworthy philosophical event at any time’.

3–See TSE on A. Wolf,
The Philosophy of Nietzsche
(1915), in
IJE
26: 3 (Apr. 1916), 426–7. TSE praised the work as ‘an admirable piece of simplification’, while regretting the ‘omission of Nietzsche’s views on art, with the interesting pessimism with respect to the future of art …’

4–The Elizabethan manor house bought in 1913 by the Liberal MP Philip Morrell and his wife, Lady Ottoline. 

MS
Houghton

17 October 1915

3 Compayne Gdns [London
N.W.
]

Dear Miss Monroe

I have received the cheque for £3, as well as the two copies of
Poetry
, and wish to thank you.
¹

I am much pleased that you should have liked my ‘Portrait of a Lady’.
²

Sincerely yours,
T. Stearns Eliot 

1–Payment for ‘The Boston Evening Transcript’, ‘Aunt Helen’ and ‘Cousin Nancy’,
Poetry
7: 1 (Oct. 1915).

2–
Others
I: 3 (Sept. 1915). 

MS
Houghton

18 November 1915

Sydney Cottage, Conegra Road,
High Wycombe, Bucks

Darling Mother,

I have had a busy week or so. I finished the review of Balfour’s book and got it off to Waterlow. He found it a bit too long, but seems pleased 
with it, and hopes to get it into the January issue. Russell was in town just before I sent the review away, so I showed it to him, and he liked it very much. As for the book on Nietzsche, I have finished it, and now am reading some of Nietzsche’s works which I had not read before, and which I ought to read anyhow before my examinations. The book I am to review is rather slight and unsatisfactory – it is neither a guide to Nietzsche’s works for beginners, nor a commentary for advanced students.

Maurice
¹
was home for five days leave this week. It was really the first time I had seen anything of him, as he had been away, first at Sandhurst and then with his regiment, almost all the time until he left for France, which was the very day we were married. I was awfully pleased with him, and feel a strong affection for him now, so that I can understand the way his family feel while he is away. He is a very handsome boy, with a great deal of breeding – very aristocratic, and very simple too. It seems very strange that a boy of nineteen should have such experiences – often twelve hours alone in his ‘dug-out’ in the trenches, and at night, when he cannot sleep, occupying himself by shooting rats with a revolver. What he tells about rats and vermin is incredible – Northern France is swarming, and the rats are as big as cats. His dug-out, where he sleeps, is underground, and gets no sunlight.
²

I saw him several times. His family had their Christmas dinner when he was here, as he may not be home for another five or six months. It was awfully touching, and a bit melancholy – everyone trying to be gay and cheerful – the immediate family and a few aunts. But everyone was at their best and kindliest, and kept up the usual Christmas diversions. There was cranberry sauce in my honour – they did not know that it ought to be served with the turkey! and had it as a dessert! but I pretended it was right, as they had taken pains with it. The pudding came in blazing properly, with an American flag on it. Mrs Haigh-Wood did everything to show that she was fond of me. I rather expected, naturally, to take a back seat when Maurice was at home, but they all treated me with more cordiality than ever, and I felt very fond of them. The presence of Maurice, his loveableness and goodness, made the evening different from what family parties usually are. I was glad not to see him off – it was more painful than
his first leavings: there were many, I heard both officers and men, at the station, returning: the men mostly drunk, and their women crying; the officers and their women very quiet. Vivien was pretty well knocked out by it, and has had neuralgia in consequence. And unfortunately one of Maurice’s best friends was killed just after he had returned from leave.

The weeks seem to go by very quickly now, and I begin to measure the time – four weeks until Christmas. The holidays are nearly five weeks. I love to be in London, especially as I begin to know more people there. I want to know all sorts of people – political and social as well as literary and philosophical.

You will be having Thanksgiving dinner soon – I shall think of you on that day – it is next Thursday.

Always your loving son
Tom

1–Maurice Haigh-Wood, VHE’s brother: see Glossary of Names.

2–Colonel H. C. Wylly’s
History of the Manchester Regiment
(1923), II, 131, records that in this month, ‘Another party went out from No. 26 Fire trench, composed of Second Lieutenant Haigh-Wood, Corporal Herbert, and three men. On two bombs being flung into the enemy sap, a heavy fire commenced and Corporal Herbert was at once hit, and was only brought in with great difficulty by his party.’  

TS
Cornell

[November? 1915]

Sydney Cottage, Conegra Road,
High Wycombe, Bucks

Dear Lewis,

Will it suit you equally well to come in Sunday night instead of Saturday night at the same hour, about 8.30? I find we have got to go and dance on Saturday. I hope very much that Sunday will do for you equally well. Let me know and please don’t disappoint me. I want to hear about the preface.
¹

I shall be at 34 Russell Chambers, Bury Street,
W.C.
on Saturday morning.

Yours ever
Eliot

1–WL’s preface to H. E. Clifton and James Wood,
Mayvale
, in
Cambridge Magazine
5: 8 (4 Dec. 1915), 173. 

MS
Houghton

3 December 1915

34 Russell Chambers, Bury Street,
London
W.C.

Dear Mrs Eliot

Please accept my very best thanks for your kindness in sending me your biography of Dr William G. Eliot, which has arrived safely, and which I am most glad to possess.
¹
I am sending you my
Philosophical
Essays
[1910] though I fear most of them are rather uninteresting.

I have continued to see a good deal of your son and his wife. It has been a great pleasure having them staying in my flat, and I am sorry to lose them now that they have a flat of their own. She has done a great deal of work for me, chiefly typing, and consequently I have come to know her well.
²
I have a great respect and liking for her: she has a good mind, and is able to be a real help to a literary career, besides having a rare strength and charm of character.

Tom read me his review of Balfour’s Gifford Lectures, which I thought
admirable
, and so did the Editor of the
International Journal of Ethics.
I am glad he is joining the Aristotelian Society.
³
It is a good thing for him to be moving to Highgate,
⁴
as, besides a slight increase of salary, it makes it easier for him to get to know philosophical people in London. I hope to introduce him to several during the Christmas vacation. It seems to me that he would have every reason to hope for a distinguished philosophical career in this country if it were not for the worry and the great fatigue of his present struggle to make both ends meet. I have an affection for him 
which has made it a happiness to be able to help him, and I hope opportunities may occur again in the future.
⁵

Wishing you the compliments of the season,

I remain
Yours very truly
Bertrand Russell