The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (45 page)

1–Henry James,
The Sense of the Past, The Ivory Tower
and
The Middle Years.
The ‘Henry James’ number of the
Egoist
(Jan. 1918) was to open with TSE’s ‘In Memory of Henry James’.

2–Lalla Vandervelde (1870–1964), wife of Emile Vandervelde, Belgian Socialist politician.

3–Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967), poet and memoirist, had joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1915, but returned to England to convalesce in Apr. 1917, and published his war poems,
The Old Huntsman
, in May. With BR and JMM, he then drafted a public statement denouncing the war which was circulated in July. As a result he was sent to Craiglockhart sanatorium in Scotland, where he befriended and encouraged Wilfred Owen.

TS
Beinecke

31 October 1917

[London]

My dear Ezra,

I return the enclosed card or memo. Would you oblige with further particulars? WHO is Lynch? Irish? WHAT female talent, besides Weaver?

MR Pallister’s communication shall be used. I had overlooked the Anglo-French Society, Ltd., you read the papers more thoroughly than I do. Burnham is a Jew merchant, named Lawson (
sc
. Levi-sohn?)
¹

Upward
²
answers on Club paper and asks me for the one day when I said I could not come. Businesslike?

I have been invited by female VANDERVELDE to contribute to a reading of pOETS: big wigs, OSWALD and EDITH Shitwell,
³
Graves
⁴
 
(query, George?) Nichols, and OTHERS. Shall I oblige them with our old friend COLUMBO? or Bolo, since famous?

or

After all, you say nothing about the Dear old Men,
⁵
so I suppose you want to get Out of it.

Yrs ever
TSE

1–In the
Egoist
(Dec.), T. H. Pallister recorded the founding of the Anglo-French Society in London. Its president was Harry Levy-Lawson (2nd Baron Burnham, 1916; Viscount Burnham, 1919), proprietor of the
Daily Telegraph
, whose grandfather, Joseph Moses Levy, had originally been the newspaper’s printer.

2–Allen Upward (1863–1926), barrister, author of
The Divine Mystery
(1913).

3–Between 1916 and 1921, the Sitwells – Edith (1887–1964), and her brothers Osbert (1892–1969) and Sacheverell (1897–1988) – each published their poems in the annual
Wheels
anthologies.

4–Robert Graves (1895–1985), poet, novelist and critic. Having joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1914, he was convalescing in England after being wounded in France in June 1917.

5–EP’s ‘I Vecchii’ (‘Moeurs Contemporains’ VII) opens: ‘They will come no more, / The old men with beautiful manners’, and alludes to Henry James. TSE is reminding EP of his promise to review
The Middle Years
.

MS
Houghton

15 November 1917

The Egoist
, Oakley House,
Bloomsbury St,
W.C.

My dearest Mother,

I have your letter of October 22, and feel very sad at not having written on your birthday [22 Oct.]. And I can hardly believe that you are seventy-four. No one would know it. You are certainly the most wonderful woman of seventy-four I have ever heard of, and I am very proud of you. I should be glad to think of having half your force and youth at that age. You don’t know how much satisfaction it has been to me through the last two years to think that I have parents whom I can be so convincedly proud of, who represent to me absolutely the best that America can produce; and by right of whom I feel that I can claim equality with anybody. Just to have ordinary good commonplace parents would be inconceivably depressing – would destroy one’s confidence in all directions.

Vivien has been trying to get a place (against my wishes) in a government office, and she has failed; they tell her that having married an American is a complete bar. I am only sorry because I am afraid she will now want to
look elsewhere, and would take something where the people are less agreeable and the hours longer than in a Government office. I do not think she could stand the sort of work she would be given to do in a Bank; the hours are too long, she would have to arrive at the same time, 9, every day in spite of sleepless nights and headaches, work probably in a noisy office. It would be much harder on her than on me, even if she had my health; I am in a particularly nice department where I am rather petted. She is possessed with the idea that she ought to earn money, and if she had average health and could find congenial work, I should not object. But I should be very much alarmed, as it is.

I don’t think I have anything else of importance to mention this time. I am writing at the Bank, having hurried back from Lunch to do so.

I am much interested in the letter you have from the Mayor of Remilly.
¹

Your very loving son
Tom.

1–CCE’s letter does not survive.

MS
Texas

15 November 1917

18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St,
W.1

Dear Mrs Hutchinson,

I have been meaning to write to tell you about your ‘War’, but I had looked forward to seeing you on Sunday, and so postponed it. The Weaver found that she did not have room, and printed a rather bad story instead.
¹
It turns out that your story is longish and will occupy about three pages, so we are taking the liberty of printing it in December; when there will be more room, as
Tarr
is at an end this month.
²
The number will be sent you ‘in due course’. We are very grateful to have your story for the December number, as it is otherwise vacuous; and the January number is devoted to Henry James, and after that we hope to have some of Joyce’s new novel on hand.
³

I am looking forward to discussing the story with you in detail.

Vivien is very anxious about a ‘shabby old pin’ which she thinks she left at your house. It was given her by a Russian anarchist, and precious by
associations. A sort of flat oblong head and the pin part very bent. If you find it she would like you to keep it until she sees you again.

Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot

I will ask Weaver to send you the proofs, but it usually demurs – however I shall insist. But if you make changes besides corrections, Weaver will have fits, as all changes have to be paid for.

1–Iris Barry, ‘Pay Agatha Penrhys …’,
Egoist
4: 10 (Nov. 1917), 157–8.

2–The
Egoist
was to serialise
Tarr
, by WL.

3–The
Egoist
published episodes II, III, VI and X of
Ulysses
.

MS
McMaster

Sunday [November 1917?]

The Dolphin Hotel, Chichester

Dear Bertie

Have just found that they have two single rooms at this hotel, so thought I had better book them. I found I could let you know by post instead of wiring, as post leaves at 10 p.m. If you object to this better wire at once. V. has quite worn herself out trying to find a place – there is not an inch of room anywhere. Fearful crowds.

Yrs
Tom.

MS
Houghton

22 November 1917

The Egoist
, Oakley House,
Bloomsbury St, London,
W.C.

My dear Father,

I have just half an hour now at the end of the day, and can write a letter I should have written last night had I not had to finish an article I was writing. We were as a matter of fact supposed to go to a small dance last night, but when the time came Vivien had caught a chill and I had other things to do, and we did not go. H. G. Wells and a lot of people of that sort were to be there. Vivien has not been very well ever since she got back from the country. She was very anxious to get into a government office; and she had applied, and had an interview with a Board which asked her all sorts of questions, then kept her in suspense some days and then flatly rejected her. She was very much disappointed. But I disapproved of the plan from the first, as I am sure she could not stand it. She is ever so much healthier in the country, and I should be delighted if we could find a small cottage, such as she and Miss Thayer had before quite near town at 8/-
(eight shillings) a week. And of course at the present time she is very nervous in town.

I suppose everyone is busy at home with knitting. After reading the poem you sent, I suggest that you should do what my old head master Mr Kelly
¹
at Highgate did. He had a small lathe, and turned crutches beautifully, and you could make just as good ones. He made them long, to be cut to size afterwards. The wood (old broomsticks) was provided by some red cross agency. Other people made splints, and bedtables, and other things. However, I think you have done as much as anyone can be expected to do in one lifetime.

I must stop now, or I shall be turned out of the Bank by the cleaners. You mentioned money. I find I have had £55 from you this year, and if I could have the other £10 of the rent I should be very grateful. I shall run pretty low shortly (on my current account) and the rise in my salary and the first instalment on my lectures does not come until January. I have a sneaking hope they may raise me more than they said they would; the manager told me the other day that I had done extremely well with a difficult job; but reason tells me that the larger increase will not be for another six months.

With very much love
Your devoted son
Tom.

Will you cable the money?

1–E. H. Kelly was Master of Highgate Junior School, 1903–23.

MS
Houghton

Thursday 22 November 1917

18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St,
W.1

Dear Mrs Eliot

At last I can send you an account of the money you sent for T.’s underclothing. I waited for Mother to be able to go with me, and so far the weather has been, and is, so unusually warm that neither Tom nor I have made any change in our underclothing since the summer! It is a good thing in a way, but it is
very
damp and enervating at present. I hope you will not be disappointed that the money only reached to so few things. The fact is that
woollens
of all kinds are just double (at least) what they were, and are getting ever more expensive. We went carefully thro’ all Tom’s winter underwear, and found that the
vests
he has are very much thicker and also much less worn than the pants. (I think you call them ‘underdrawers’ – Tom
objects to the word ‘pants’, but it is always used here!) The vests, with some more darning are quite good for another winter, but the pants are all thin and almost beyond further mending. So we thought we had better get just two good pairs of pants – and have done so. They are very thick and good quality.
I enclose receipts
. There was just 6d over – and it was no use getting one of anything, so Mother advised getting this chest protector – as Tom always has a tickling cough in the winter. The chest protector is quilted satin, and fits round the neck and has a double breasted chest part. It is particularly valuable for when he goes out in evening dress – which leaves the chest much less protected than in day clothes. My father has one of these, and Maurice did when he wore civilian clothes – (‘civvies’, as they are called).

So I hope you will think the money was made good use of. Tom has a good stock of socks, for I bought him some a few months ago, and many of his old thick ones are still very good. He is still worse provided with pyjamas than anything, although I got him two pairs in the summer. The others, the old ones, are now nearly all in rags. He is very rough with his pyjamas, and shirts – tears them unmercifully! I should have liked him to have a new winter suit, but he is wearing his old dark brown one, and altho’ very shabby it is still intact. His overcoats are very shabby too. However, he need not be
cold
this winter.

I was so sorry when I heard that I had missed your birthday. I should have liked to send you something. For Xmas I shall send you a little crochet lace I have made myself – I am afraid it is rather useless –

I cannot find a country cottage anywhere. The rush out of London has been incredible. It is a pity, as B. R. has promised to go shares with us in the rent of it, as he needs some quiet place of refuge himself. We did not intend it
instead
of living in town. Tom finds it essential to have his headquarters in London, we simply longed for a refuge, somewhere we
could
go to at any time when things are bad in town. For weekends, too. But I am afraid the scheme must be abandoned. I have already spent more money than I could spare on going about to look for such a place.

I do so often wish we were in America. The very minute the war is over we shall do our utmost to come, but the ‘end of the war’ seems further off than ever.

Tom has told you that I tried to get work but was refused on account of my ‘nationality’.

With love to you and Mr Eliot,

Affectionately
Vivien

I hope you received my letter from the country, a few weeks ago.