The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (57 page)

1–The
Daily Mirror
reported how on 11 Nov., Armistice Day, ‘Bells burst forth into joyful chimes … bands paraded the streets followed by cheering crowds of soldiers and civilians and London generally gave itself up wholeheartedly to rejoicing.’

TS
Professor David G. Williams

20 November 1918

18 Crawford Mansions

Dear Professor Woods,

I am extremely grateful to you for your kindness, both in writing a testimonial for me, which I shall prize, and for writing to my mother. The whole affair is now, happily let us say, a dead issue. The Armistice was the conclusion of three very trying months for me. I at least did my best to get into some service. I was graded as unfit for active service, and wanted to
secure a post in the Intelligence. The Army Intelligence involved making a collection of opinions; I levied eighteen letters of recommendation from English friends, and then had to have a few American ones as well. Just as I received yours I was offered a post in the Navy Intelligence, but after making all my arrangements I found that they did not have the proper authority to enroll me! The affair dragged on for some weeks, and finally I returned to my work at Lloyds Bank, as there seemed to be no prospect of the Navy’s reimbursing me for the time I was losing. The Armistice was signed immediately after.

I hope to return to America for a visit in the summer or autumn, as soon as conditions are normal for travel and I can be spared for a time from my Foreign Exchange work. I look forward to seeing you then. I am aware of still having the
Organon
which I will now finish for you with all possible expedition. I hope you will forgive the delay. I shall also see that you get a copy of a small book which I expect to publish in the spring.

I suppose that you have either been doing war work of some kind or else the Department has been so depleted that you have been over-worked, and in either case have had no time for any independent scholarship. You never sent me Patañjali, but I am not in a position to reproach you! I should like to know what work you have in mind to do. It is a great pity that the life of a Harvard Professor is so engrossed with executive work and committees that he has scant time for writing. Oxford dons complain of this too, but they really don’t know how bad it can be.

I should like to have news of Lanman sometime. Will you give him my affectionate regards?

With best wishes for Mrs Woods and yourself

Gratefully yours,
Thomas S. Eliot

MS
Houghton

21 Nov[ember] 1918

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear Henry

Thank you
ever
so much for sending me (us) that £20 which arrived two days ago. It was a shame you had to cable it – it costs so much. I expect the mails will be safer now. It was a very unexpected present, and I have reason to thank you, for Tom says I am to get my winter clothes out of it. Having been out of London for
six months
at a stretch, and too ill to think of such things I have also lately arrived at my last rag. Now, the weather
is cold, and the prices of clothes and materials are very high, higher than they have been at all up till now. I have got a suit in hand already, and shall now be able to get all I need, thanks to you.

How are your ears at present? Your mother wrote that your good ear had been giving trouble as well. That is really sickening, but I hope there is nothing in it. Tom gets very deaf, at times, but when he gets the doctor to blow the wax out he is all right again. I think there is nothing actually
wrong
with T’s ears, as with yours. My father is
quite
deaf with one ear, but he hears very well with the other, so it doesn’t matter much.

The day before yesterday I had a tooth extracted, with gas. I have a great loathing of gas, and am terribly cowardly about it. I scream the whole time! It upsets me very much, but I had a splendid anaesthetist this time and it was not so terrifying. I had an abscess this size 
at the end of my tooth. It had been giving me great agony at times. My teeth now seem to have gone all to pieces again. There are endless fillings to do, and I think another
might
[have] to come out. Isn’t life a hell with bad teeth?

On the morning I was to go and have this done Tom started to have flu, so I went with a heavy heart. He has not been very bad, so far, I am glad to say. I think we took it in time – he is up, but not out, today. Tom takes cold very much more easily than I do. Most of
my
colds are caught from him. I think he would be better if he had one side of his nose cauterised, as our doctor advised.

I really have not been able to rejoice much over Peace! In the abstract I do, and I try to make myself
realise
it. But conditions here will be so hard, harder than
ever
, perhaps, for a long long time, and I must say it
is
difficult to feel anything at all. One is too stunned altogether.

Poor Tom’s disaster over his Navy job very nearly did for both of us. It was indeed the last straw. I don’t
know
how we have weathered that storm. The first thing I am trying to realise is that as soon as I can, I
really must
, I
ought to
, go to America. I say I, but I mean we. Only, of course now again, there are such difficulties about Tom. Had he got into the Navy it would have been easy, it would have followed. But now, back at the Bank, and with the Bank’s
amazing
kindness and tolerance behind him, he can scarcely begin agitating about something else at once. I should think he could manage to get a
month’s
holiday during next summer, if he explained the circumstances, and that could just give time for a flying visit. I think your parents can count on that, and perhaps something will turn up to make a longer visit possible. I should like to stay rather longer myself, for unless my great friend Lucy Thayer has come to Europe by that time I shall want to spend some time with her, as well as seeing all Tom’s family. 

I can’t help feeling it is almost absurd to be writing this, and that I never shall get to America really.

Do write to me soon.

Yrs. ever
Vivien

I am going to enquire if photographs can be sent now. It
has
been forbidden all this time or I should have sent you some.

__________________

You see all your drafts
did
arrive, it was dreadful that you should have been left in doubt. We were off our heads all the summer.

MS
Virginia

2 December 1918

18 Crawford Mansions

I sent you the books several days ago to deal with as you think fit. Could you let us have article some time next week. Don’t need to mention all of them – do as you please. I waited to write because I hoped to suggest a meeting, but I have been ill and now my wife is, so my plans are all suspended.

Yours ever
T.S.E.

CC
NYPL (MS)

3 December 1918

[New York]

Dear Mr Eliot:

I received your letter of the 13th of November this morning.

I am sorry you had the worry between the Army and the Navy matter. I am glad that you were able to return to the bank and that your maximum loss was a month’s time.

You at least have the satisfaction of knowing that it was not your fault that you were unable to make yourself useful to the country, and that you were willing to go. That is the main thing.

Personally, I am very sorry for the armistice. I should like to have had the war go on until half a million Germans were captured in warfare or killed. I think there has been a complete misunderstanding of the German psychology. A Hun does not understand kindness or generosity or
magnanimity. A blooded horse or a blooded dog does, but not a Hun or a hyena.

What I did for you about the Army was done cheerfully of course, and was very little at that.

I have heard nothing from Knopf about your book. He possibly will talk to me about it. If he decides against it, and if I can be of any help to you in looking for another publisher, I shall be glad to do it. Personally, I think you could do a little better than Knopf, with possibly some such house as Scribner’s or the Macmillan Company, for, after all, your work is not quite as revolutionary and as explosive as E. P.’s.

You say that you ‘wonder why
The Little Review
does not gain subscriptions in America’. The answer is that ‘gaining subscriptions’ is a business matter, and that the two women that run
The Little Review
know nothing about business matters, that they are wholly lacking in tact and what I once called the minor amenities of life, what a stenographer transcribed as ‘minor nonentities of life’. They have no business sense and no judgment. I wrote to Pound a year ago that they would never make a success of it from the subscription and financial point of view.

I think you quite aptly describe the present condition of
The Little Review
as that of a ‘Coalition Government, satisfying nobody’. But I imagine there will be a dissolution very soon, as to which you may consult E. P., to whom I am writing sending him a copy of a letter declining to make any further financial contributions. Two thousand dollars in two years is quite enough. But Pound can tell you that part of it.

The Dial
has been moved to New York, and while it is pseudo-socialistic and pseudo-ethologistic and pseudo-Freudistic and pseudo-philosophistic and pseudo-a-lot-of-things, even pseudo-litho literature, it cannot pay much, if anything. But it does not stink as much as the pseudosities of
The New Republic
. I occasionally buy
The New Republic
, but I think too much of my person to use its sheets in the toilet. The New Republic reminds me of the story that a friend of mine used to tell of the proper reply to an insulting letter:

     ‘Dear Sir:                   

             Your letter of such-a-date is before me. In a moment it will be behind me.’

The Atlantic Monthly
is of course academic, but within strictly academic lines it has published some pretty lively things during the last year.
The North American Review
occasionally has an article or two devoted to literature or art, but for the most part the things in it are mere journalism. 

Again let me say that if Knopf is not interested in your book I shall be glad to do what I can to get another publisher for it here.

With kind regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]

MS
Houghton

8 December 1918

18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, w.1

My dearest Mother,

I was very much relieved to hear from you at last that father had got my first letter and my cable. I had been worrying very much over not having written to either of you during that trying period.

Since the armistice we have had a round of illness. First Vivien had her tooth out and I at the same time had a light attack of what I think must have been influenza, as it left me so very weak afterwards. As soon as I was out again V. caught it in earnest from a friend, was in bed for over a week, and has not been out of doors yet. The worst is that it has affected her nerves so that she can hardly sleep at all. She wanted to get some Christmas presents to send to you in America, but she can’t tell when she will be able to do shopping.

Today I thought I was going to have influenza again, having all the symptoms including a splitting head. However, it has quite left me this evening, but I feel very very weak, and have written to postpone my lecture.

I have £360 a year salary now, so that I ought to be practically selfsupporting, which would be a great relief to me. It is certainly a great improvement. What I aimed at was to earn enough from the Bank so that I could devote my evenings and Sundays to literary work without thought of gain. There will probably be a number of new periodicals in London soon, and with my extended connections, and becoming more and more well known in London I could keep myself busy with contracts the whole time. But I have come to the conclusion that it would be frittering my mind and energy away. Also, at present I am very tired from a most exhausting year, alarms, illness, movings, and military difficulties. I want first a rest. So I am not going to write for several months, except perhaps a little

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