The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (107 page)

 1–WL’s short story ‘Bestre’,
Tyro
, Mar. 1922 (repr. in
The Wild Body
, 1927).

2–SS’s novel,
Elinor Colhouse
(1921).

MS
Beinecke

16 November 1921

9 Clarence Gate Gardens

Dear Mr Westcott,

Thank you for your kind letter, which gave me great pleasure. It is a great disappointment not to see you now. I have had a nervous breakdown and have just returned from the east coast, and am leaving tomorrow for Switzerland. If on your way you pass that country, remember that I shall be in Lausanne, and that a letter in good time to the address above will reach me. I shall be here again by the middle of January.

Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot

1–Glenway Wescott (1901–87), American novelist, lived in Germany, 1921–2, and was to become a prominent figure in the literary community in Paris, 1925–33. He was the model for ‘Robert Prentiss’ in Hemingway’s novel
The Sun Also Rises.
Although he began his career as a poet, he became best known for later novels inc.
The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story
(1940) and
Apartment in Athens
(1945).

TS
Texas

17 November 1921

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

My dear Richard,

Your letters find me in transit between Margate – which I was very sorry to leave! – and Lausanne. We leave London tomorrow morning.

Now about your sister. I have been trying to think whom I know might be useful to her; but unfortunately I have only the most casual musical acquaintances, and none who could be likely to help. As to Edith, the situation is this. The only connexion that she has with music and musical people is through her companion, Helen Rootham,
¹
an appalling woman who trains and launches young singers. Edith may assist in some small degree in the launching, but I am sure that the only way to enlist that assistance (for what it is worth) is for your sister to take lessons from Helen Rootham. So, although I enclose herewith an introduction, I can hold out no hopes, and do not believe that it is worth your sister’s while to make use of it. I am awfully sorry about this.

I should think it would be better if you could first issue a book of criticisms in
London
: what I should like to see would be a fairly heavy
work including ancient and modern, showing some historical continuity. Is that not possible? Please discuss with me the problem of publishers: you should certainly not give a scholarly work of that sort (such as I have in mind) to Miss Weaver, but should (under the auspices of the
Times
) get some fairly big publisher, Cape or Collins at least. If you can show reason why this should not be carried out, then do it in America; but I should prefer it to be done here first. I do not know Methuen personally, and I do not know what value a letter from me (merely on the fact of his having published my book), would have. I don’t even know what he thinks of me (I hope he has seen that Saintsbury and Birrell have spoken well of me). But I am at your disposal.

By the way, have they sent you the
Little Review
(quarterly) in which Ezra (in an otherwise irritating attempted-funny article) speaks of me as the ‘Dean of English Letters’?
²
He refers to you also in a common condemnation.

I did not conceal from you that I think you overrate H. D.’s poetry. I do find it fatiguingly monotonous and lacking in the element of surprise. I mean that this last book is inferior to her earlier work; that many words should be expunged and many phrases amended; that the Hellenism lacks vitality; and also morally, I find a neurotic carnality which I dislike. (I imagine you dislike equally the Prudentianism of myself and Mr Joyce, and expect you to abhor the poem on which I have been working and which I am taking away with me!) But our correspondence would be irreparably injured if I did not deliver my opinions. I wish, on the other hand, you would let me know at some time your final opinion on my verse, and tell me frankly why you dislike it.

I think you have said about Waller exactly the sort of thing that there is to be said, and I only wish that the article could have been of a good length (two or three times as much, with quotations).
³
I do think it is worthwhile discussing these questions of derivation, neglected in English criticism, but important for the ‘tradition’. I should like to know, however, why it should be Waller, rather than Denham, who seems to me just as smooth and gives a deal more pleasure, who should have had the influence. Can you tell?

Of course I agree with you about Amy Lowell.

I must stop now. Good luck to you, and I will write and send you my address from Lausanne. And please will you get me a copy of the
Times
 
with Ronsard
⁴
in it, as I shall be away, and send it to me later? Do you not agree that Bellay is rather the greater poet of the two?
⁵

If you come to Paris, my wife will probably be there and will be glad to see both or either of you.
⁶
I shall be there for two or three days only in January.

yours affectionately
Tom

PS On second thoughts, I address the letter to Miss Rootham. I believe, by the way, she is a good teacher, and a very pushing and successful
launcher
. Perhaps your sister could not do better.

I am writing to Edith Sitwell also.

1–Helen Rootham (1875–1938), Edith Sitwell’s governess and subsequently companion. Osbert Sitwell thought her ‘perhaps the finest woman pianist it has ever been my good fortune to hear’. Her translation of Rimbaud’s ‘Les Illuminations’ was set to music by Benjamin Britten (1939).

2–EP, ‘Historical Survey’,
Little Review
8: 1 (Autumn 1921), 39–42. EP disagreed with TSE’s statement that ‘the greatest poets have been concerned with moral values’, and was sarcastic about RA’s
English Review
article on JJ.

3–RA, ‘A Note on Waller’s Poems’,
To-Day
8: 48 (Dec. 1921), 245–8.

4–[RA], ‘Pierre de Ronsard’ (leading article),
TLS
, 2 Mar. 1922, 129–30.

5–As members of the Pléiade, Ronsard (1524–85) and Joachim du Bellay (c.1525–60) led a renaissance of French poetry.

6–HWE wrote to his mother on 1 Dec. 1921: ‘I sent you Vivien’s cablegram giving her address, 59 rue des Saints Pères. It must be a literary street. I saw in a book that Ernest Renan lived there once. I showed the cablegram to a man named Sherwood Anderson, who was over there this summer, and he said Ezra Pound lived on that street. Vivien does not say how long she will be there, so that one does not know how long to continue sending letters there’ (Houghton).

MS
Texas

[17 November 1921]

[London]

Dear Mary,

This is a farewell note, to tell you how very much I enjoyed seeing you yesterday – it gave me
great
pleasure – and also to thank you again for your sweet and beautiful present.

Au bonheur! 
Tom

Published 24 November 1921

Lausanne

Sir,

In your last issue I have read a review of an anthology of
Modern American Poetry
;
¹
from this review I gather that certain of my verses
appear therein. I should be grateful to you if you would make public the fact that I had no knowledge that any of my verse was to be used in this way; that I was not consulted in the choice; and that, in short, the whole production is a surprise to me.

This statement in itself may interest but few of your readers. But I should like to remark that I should have much preferred
not
being included in this anthology. On previous occasions, when compilers of such works have asked my consent, there have always been personal reasons for my willing compliance: here there would have been none.

Some months ago I discussed the general question of anthologies with a poet (of a very different school and tradition from mine) whose name is much more widely known than mine is. We agreed that the work of any poet who has already published a book of verse is likely to be more damaged than aided by anthologies. I hope that other writers may be encouraged to express their opinions.
²

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. S. Eliot

1–
Modern American Poetry
(1921), ed. Louis Untermeyer, included TSE’s ‘Morning at the Window’ and extracts from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and ‘Preludes’.

2–TSE was supported the following week (1 Dec.) by Robert Graves – possibly the poet mentioned – who wrote to ‘commend heartily’ TSE’s ‘courageous letter’. But Adam L. Gowans, who had not heard of TSE until he read the review, said he would ‘certainly purchase his poetical works’ if any of his poems in the anthology appealed to him (8 Dec.); and John Haines (15 Dec.) had bought
Prufrock
‘entirely on account of the poems from it contained in
Catholic Anthology
’.

MS
Texas

30 November 1921

Hôtel Ste. Luce, Lausanne

My dear Ottoline,

This is just to tell you that I am here, in your room (so they tell me) and under Vittoz; and that I am very much pleased, with Lausanne, with the pension (the food is
excellent
, and the people make everything easy for one – ordering milk etc.) and with Vittoz. I like him very much personally, and he inspires me with confidence – his diagnosis was good and in short he is, I am sure much more what I want than the man in London. I never did believe in ‘nerves’, at least for
myself
! He is putting me through the primary exercises very rapidly – so that I seem to have no time for any
continuous
application to anything else. I shall be here till Christmas. So thank
you
very much for Vittoz, and for the pension. Of course I can’t tell
much
about the method yet, but at moments I feel
more calm than I have for many many years – since childhood – that may be illusory – we shall see.

Yours always affect.
Tom

PC
Cornell

[Postmark 3 December 1921]

Hôtel Ste. Luce, Lausanne

I wish you wd. send me the criticism you said you would write, please.
¹
I shall be here till Christmas. Good doctor.

Yrs.
T.S.E.

1–WL had perhaps offered to write a critique of drafts of
TWL
, which TSE may also have shown to SS in London (letter of [4? Nov]).

PC
Texas

[Postmark 4 December 1921]

Hôtel Ste. Luce, Lausanne

This is [a] very quiet town, except when the children come downhill on scooters over the cobbles. Mostly banks and chocolate shops. Good orchestra plays ‘The Love Nest’.
¹
A horse fell down yesterday; one cannot see the mountains, too foggy. How are you? Yrs. aff. T.S.E.

1–From the musical comedy
Mary
, with music by Louis A. Hirsch, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, which opened at the Knickerbocker Theater, New York, in Oct. 1920.

MS
Texas

5 December 1921

Hôtel Ste. Luce, Lausanne – Suisse

Dear [?] Monsieur,

Je viens de recevoir votre aimable lettre qu’on m’a expediée de Londres. Je rappelle bien ma promesse, et j’aurais dû vous prévenir de ma situation. Je suis ici jusqu’à Noël, au moins, pour un traitement de psychasthénie – sous la direction d’un célèbre médecin d’ici. Je n’ai rien écris depuis longtemps, et avec la meilleure volonté du monde, je ne crois pas pouvoir
un article, si petit que ça soit, pendant deux mois encore.
²
Je suis comblé de regret, et je vous fais toutes mes excuses, et vous prie d’accepter l’expression de mes sentiments les plus cordiaux.

T. S. Eliot
³

1–Jacques Rivière (1886–1925): French critic, cultural arbiter, novelist, and director, 1919–25, of
NRF
, which he made into the premier French intellectual review.

2–TSE’s promised letter from England was deferred until the spring, as agreed when he met Rivière in Paris in Jan.; it was published as ‘Lettre d’Angleterre’,
NRF
18 (1 May 1922).  

3–
Translation
: Dear Sir, I have received your kind letter which has been sent on to me from London. I remember my promise very well, and I should have warned you about my situation. I am here till Christmas, at least, for treatment for psychoasthenia – under the direction of a celebrated doctor here. I have written nothing for a long time, and with the best will in the world, I don’t believe I could do an article, however little, during the next two months. I am extremely sorry, and send all my apologies, and ask you to accept the expression of my warmest regards. T. S. Eliot