The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (54 page)

1–President Charles William Eliot of Harvard; see letter of 25 July 1919.

MS
NYPL (MS)

8 September 1918

c/o Lloyds Bank, 17 Cornhill, e.c.3

Dear Mr Quinn,

Pound told me yesterday that he was cabling to you about me, so I am writing now to explain the circumstances. It seemed to me a pretty considerable favour to ask of you, but he was quite sure that it was the thing to do, and I know that your word would carry as much weight as anyone’s.

I am trying to get a commission in the Intelligence Department of the Army. Although of draft age (thirty) I am graded as unfit for
active
service (fighting) on account of a hernia, and furthermore my wife (who is an invalid) is entirely dependent on me, which I believe makes a difference. But I should like to get into the service in some way in which my brains and 
qualifications, such as they are, would be useful, if I could have a rank high enough to support me financially. The Intelligence Department needs men who know Europe and England well, and I
think
there is a chance for me to be very useful there. From what enquiries I have made the work seems comparatively undeveloped yet and there are great possibilities of work for Anglo-American understanding. Major Turner, whom I saw three days ago in the matter, was very much pleased with my English testimonials, but said that it was an invariable rule for an applicant to have at least three American ones as well.
¹

I have been very busy with these and other personal anxieties for several months past – in fact I have had such a busy year in the effort to make a living under wartime conditions, that I think I shall have more leisure for serious work and freedom from anxiety in the Army than out of it. I have not answered your delightful letter of April 19th as I ought to have done. I deeply appreciated your kindness over the Boni affair. I am all the more grateful as it arose at a time when you were just recovering from a serious operation.

I have a book ready for Knopf, not a very big one, but I think big enough – miscellany of prose (mostly criticism) and verse including
Prufrock
and everything of any merit since
Prufrock
, the manuscript of which is almost ready to go over. It is not the book I should have liked. I should prefer to keep the prose and verse apart; and the former, I fear, bears marks of haste in the writing in many places. But it is time I had a volume in America, and this is the only way to do it; and Pound’s book
²
will provide a precedent.

I hope you will not find the book a wholly journalistic compilation. I hope the
Little Review
is really gaining subscriptions in America. It must be a great burden to you in certain ways, and it does not seem to me that it could be permanently run on its present constitution, though this is doubtless the only way possible at present.

I hope you are much stronger now, though I gather that you are still under a regimen. No doubt you find it very hard to preserve yourself from claims. I can understand what you say about that – so well that I hate troubling you with
my
personal affairs – here I have written a long letter about nothing else. Forgive me.

Yours very sincerely
T. S. Eliot

1–Quinn wrote to Turner on TSE’s behalf.

2–EP,
Pavannes and Divisions
(Knopf, June 1918).

TS
Valerie Eliot

19 October 1918

Hogarth House, Paradise Road,
Richmond,
S.W.

Dear Mr Eliot,

My wife and I have started a small private Printing Press, and we print and publish privately short works which would not otherwise find a publisher easily. We have been told by Roger Fry that you have some poems which you wish to find a publisher for. We both very much liked your book,
Prufrock
; and I wonder whether you would care to let us look at the poems with a view to printing them.

Yours very truly
Leonard Woolf

I should add that we are amateurs at printing but we could, if you liked, let you see our last production.
²

1–Leonard Woolf (1880–1969): writer and publisher; see Glossary of Names.

2–Katherine Mansfield,
Prelude
(Hogarth Press, 1918).

MS
Houghton

[Postmark 27 October 1918]

Dear Henry,

I
have
tried to write to you over and over. I feel awful at not having written to any of you for so long. It is largely that I am
always
now in such wretched health, and I am simply ashamed of it.
I don’t want them to know.
And then there is a lot we can’t tell, and life is so feverish and yet so dreary at the same time, and one is always waiting, waiting for something. Generally waiting for some particular strain to be over. One thinks, when this is over I will write. And then there is something else. For
months
now, I have waited for T. to be settled. I believe that has nearly come, and you will get a cable before this. I am also waiting to be well. I wish something would bring you over here. I do wish it.

Yr.
V.

MS
Houghton

27 October 1918

Write 18 Crawford Mansions,
London W.1 permanently

My dear Henry

Thank you very much for your kind letter of Oct. 3d. I am just writing this to say that I have cashed
all
the remittances
viz
.

The last was drawn on Lloyds Marlow, but I cashed it at Cornhill. I am cabling to this effect tomorrow. Will write by next mail.

Affy yours
Tom.

TS
Houghton

4 November 1918

18 Crawford Mansions

My dearest father,

You will have wondered very much and I fear worried. I have thought most constantly of you and mother and wanted to write every day, but at the same time I have been so paralysed by rapid occurrences and the suspense that I could not write. Also, I kept hoping from day to day that I should have some final definite piece of news to cable you. Now it has not ended yet, so I am writing.

You know I had been trying every quarter to see what I could get into. At first it was the navy, but after saying that they wanted me they told me that I could only come in for the Intelligence work by enlisting as a seaman and taking an examination in a variety of subjects. As this was slow and precarious, and the examination would be difficult and pure waste of time, and also as I could not live for any time on a seaman’s pay, I tried the army. The first thing suggested to me was the Quartermaster Corps – my physical rating precludes me from
active
service, and I found that I should have to get testimonials. I gathered in time about sixteen excellent recommendations from various English prominent official people of my acquaintance,
¹
and just as I was ready to put them in with an application
I met a man who was a Lieutenant engaged in starting a Political Intelligence section for extremely interesting work, and he was quite sure that I was the man he wanted and asked me to wait and see his chief who was coming to town in a few days. Then after a week or so he told me that this was called off, as some department in Washington had interfered and the Intelligence section was not to be started at all. A few days after that I was introduced to a Major in charge of the ordinary Army Intelligence, whose work appeared interesting. He said he thought he could get me a commission, but that I must have at least three
American
testimonials as well as my English ones. Of course I had difficulty there, as I did not know any Americans here whose names would be immediately recognised as carrying weight. Then I cabled to you and Shef. Finally I found a Captain in the Embassy whom I knew slightly at Harvard;
²
I also found the Ex-Dean of Harvard, who finally gave me a very stiff little letter, which was of no use. So I had to wait. Then President Eliot’s kind letter came. And the Harvard Certificates, which were not what I wanted at all; I
meant
personal letters from professors, but Shef did not understand. So I had to wait again. Then I ran across an old Harvard Professor
³
here in a government capacity who gave me an enthusiastic letter, and later a letter came from Professor Woods, to whom I had cabled. So I was all ready.

Just then, when I was finally after long delays going to put my application in, the Navy Intelligence
sent for me
. The Commander was very polite, said he had heard of me and thought I was just the man he needed very badly; that unfortunately they were not allowed to give commissions straight off, but that they could make me a Chief Yeoman, with a fairly good salary – enough, with ration allowance, to live upon – put me at an interesting piece of work here in the London office, and that I would probably be given a commission in a few months’ time. He asked me if I would come and how soon. So I went to the bank, explained that the Navy wanted me very badly as soon as possible. They were very nice to me at the bank, as they always have been, and said that in consideration of the importance of the work and my fitness for it they would make no objection to my going, and would have my place for me when the war was over. So I arranged to go in two weeks, after I had trained another man to do my work, and told the navy when I was coming. About a week later I went to the navy for the slight medical examination required for the work, 
and then learned that they had to cable to Washington for approval of the appointment. I was told that this was done in every case and was merely a formality.

At the appointed time I left the bank, as the other man was doing my work and the bank had no further need for me unless I could stay on. But the approval had not yet come, and I could not be enrolled. Finally, two weeks after the cable had been sent from here to Washington, I had a telegram from the navy

‘Approval received as requested – no further difficulty’.

So I went in to be enrolled. They had started to enroll me when they discovered that the cable from Washington read

‘Appointment approved … if not registered selective service …’

They had assumed here that I was
not
registered. But I pointed out to them that under the Convention
every
American of draft age is registered in England, and that Americans who had failed to register are automatically
liable for service in the British Army
, and the American Government has no further claim upon them; that therefore, the cablegram was incomprehensible. They then applied to our Army here, who could cast no light on the matter, and said they had no claim upon me. So then they said they must cable again.

I then pointed out: ‘You
sent for
me, asked me to come as soon as possible, and led me to believe that the matter was quite settled. I took you at your word, and arranged accordingly. Through the delay in your cable (and I was not even told that cabling was necessary) I have already been out of work a week, a luxury which I can ill afford. If this cable takes as long as the other, and I wait for it, I shall have been out of work and without pay for a month. Why should I suffer for your mistakes? You made me a definite offer, and you have not fulfilled it’.

However, they cabled very urgently. Last Thursday they received an answer, saying that the matter would have to be referred to the Provost Marshal General in Washington, and asking for my registration number, address of local board, etc. The Navy has cabled back, and there it is. Meanwhile I have been out of work for two weeks, through no fault of my own. Had they even told me that there might be delay I could have arranged otherwise with the bank, instead of teaching another man in a hurry, and might still be at the bank drawing pay.

I was very angry about their having invited me to leave my work without having previously informed themselves accurately as to the conditions on which they could take me. So I cabled to you to try to get an introduction to the Admiral to lay the matter before him personally and explain the 
injustice. I have tried to get an introduction to him here but not yet succeeded. Lady Cunard gave me a letter to the Chief of Staff. He however was called out just as I came in and turned me over to the chief of the personnel department.
He
was very nice to me, perhaps as an effect of the effect of the letter on the chief of staff, but he could do nothing except through Washington. He was not the person who made the mistake which has been so costly to myself, in any case. Of course it has
not
got through to Washington that I was actually promised the post, nor is it likely to. There might perhaps be a case for a reprimand, if it got very far. The man who first saw me and offered me the job has told me that it was his fault, but that does not do very much good. My losses are:

1. At least two weeks pay, which I shall stand to lose in any case.

2. I have abandoned the attempt to get an army commission. That would take two months, I was told. I cannot wait two months without work, and I cannot ask the bank to take me back for that time. If the bank takes me in now the least I can do is to let them appeal for me and not attempt to get into the army.

3. My Questionnaire had come from St Louis. The Local Board will soon be wondering why they have not heard from me. I cannot fill it in until I know whether I am to be in the navy or not. When I can get it off I shall cable to you to let them know that it has been delayed and is on the way, and why it has been delayed. But I do not think they are likely to call me up before it comes, as the physical examiner recommended me for six months exemption straight off. So that is all for the present. I have not heard from you for a long long time, and am waiting anxiously. But perhaps the letters have gone to Marlow and will come here deviously.

I am so tired with this long explanation that I cannot write more now. I hope now you know the story you will forgive me for not having written. You see at each step it was either a question of cabling, or else I expected to be able to cable and say that I had got something. This constant deferment for three months has told on me very much; I feel years older than I did in July! I feel now that perhaps I am much more useful in the bank than in the army, and that I would have done better not to have bothered about it.

With very much love to both of you, and to all of you,

Your very affectionate son
Tom

I shall simply have to have this settled or go back to the bank this week or I shall be bankrupt. The financial end of it is the most important of all, now.