The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (108 page)

MS
Houghton

7 décembre 1921

Cuverville, par Criquetot l’Esneval,
Seine Inférieure

Monsieur,

Permettrez-vous à un lecteur attentif du
Sacred Wood
de vous faire une proposition:

La rubrique des
lettres anglaises
, à la
Nouvelle Revue Française
se trouve à présent sans titulaire. Accepteriez-vous de nous envoyer régulièrement une chronique, qui renseignât les lecteurs français sur l’état de la littérature de votre pays, qui l’éclairât sur la valeur des oeuvres nouvelles et ne lui laisse rien ignorer d’important? – une chronique enfin qui ne permît plus aux Anglais de juger cette époque inférieure à celle de Matthew Arnold.

Jacques Rivière, le directeur de la
Nouvelle Revue Française
se propose de vous écrire, si vous acceptez en principe, au sujet des conditions matérielles, et de la question de traduction.

Je vous fais adresser d’autre part un petit volume de morceaux choisis, où vous reconnaîtrez, je l’espère, ma pensée souvent voisine de la vôtre.

J’apprends indirectement, par Lytton Strachey qui me donne votre adresse, que vous venez d’être souffrant et qu’un repos complet vous est prescrit. Mais il dit aussi son espoir en votre très prochain rétablissement. Je m’autorise de cet espoir pour vous écrire ainsi, tout en m’excusant de venir troubler votre convalescence. Le moindre mot de vous, qui ne serait
pas un refus, nous permettrait de patienter en attendant votre guérison complète.

Croyez à mes sentiments bien cordiaux.

André Gide
²

1–André Gide (1869–1951), French essayist, critic, novelist and dramatist. Founding editor of
NRF
, 1909. Nobel Prize for Literature, 1947.

2–
Translation
: Dear Sir, Would you allow an attentive reader of
The Sacred Wood
to make you a proposal:

At the moment,
La Nouvelle Revue Française
has no established contributor dealing with English literature. Would you agree to send us a regular Letter from London, informing the French reader about the state of literature in your country, enlightening him as to the quality of new works and keeping him up to date with all important new developments? – a Letter, in short, that would make it no longer possible for the English [French?] to think the present age inferior to that of Matthew Arnold.

If you agree in principle, Jacques Rivière, the editor of
La Nouvelle Revue Française,
proposes to write to you about the material arrangements and the question of translation.

I am sending you, under separate cover, a little anthology of my writings from which you will recognise, I hope, that my thoughts are often akin to yours.

I learn indirectly, from Lytton Strachey who has given me your address, that you have been ill and have been ordered a complete rest. But he also expresses his hope of your very early recovery. I take advantage of this hope to write to you, while apologising for troubling you during your convalescence. The merest response from you, provided it were not a refusal, would allow us to bide our time until your complete return to health.

With my most cordial regards, André Gide.

TS
Alan Clodd

9 December 1921

18 Cambridge Sq, Hyde Park,
W.2

My dear Vivienne,

Please forgive a typed letter but I want to answer your letter at once and if I don’t do it in this way I am afraid I shall not get to it.

I am delighted that you like
Elinor Colhouse
and am greatly pleased at what you say about it. It is very encouraging to have a spontaneous expression of feeling like yours and I really am grateful.

Violet will reply to your interesting letter to her. I do not think you are wrong when you say that the people who matter most to you in London are ourselves (and another).
¹
I put the other in brackets because I am not competent to form an opinion but I dare say you are right. I know those sorts of impressions one gets when one has been with people who are malicious and I do not think I am much surprised that you have found the particular people you allude to inclined to be spiteful but why they should feel so towards Lady R[othermere] I really cannot understand as she has been extraordinarily kind to them and for that matter to everybody else.
It has been my experience though that kindness is no shield against vicious propensities.

This short letter is no indication of my thought of you and of Tom. I value you both very much and care greatly that you shall both fulfil your destinies and express yourselves as you have a right to. Incidentally if you can get happiness all the better, but I do not think I quite know what happiness is. Certainly it is not a static condition and the term is so loosely used that I always hesitate to employ it.

I have had a long characteristic letter from K.M. [Katherine Mansfield] which gave me pleasure for it is full of her personality and her personality is a fascinating one. She talks of getting away from Switzerland but I think she alludes to her soul rather than to her body for, poor little thing, her health will not allow her to escape from the mountains which I dare say by now weigh rather heavily upon her. However she and J.M.M. seem to be mutually pleased with each other and that, after all, is a very important consideration.

By the way, your letter reads exactly as though you were talking, which is a very good sign. Your natural sincerity is one of your fine qualities.

Believe me with much affection

Yours always
Sydney S.

We have no
Lit. Sup.
here at the moment but have ordered a copy and will send you a cutting on.

1–MH: see VHE’s letter to MH, [20? Dec. 1921], below.

TS
Houghton

12 December 1921

1037 Rush St, Chicago

Dear Mother:

The New York Edison Co. First Lien 6½%’s are O.K. Moody rates them Aa. They are certainly sound. They yield you 6.1% (current yield) at the price of 106½. I have not wired you because I doubt if they will go higher right away, at least not before the new year; yesterday’s paper quotes them at 106. Try to get them at 106 – though after all that is only $10 difference on the two bonds, and not worth haggling over.

I enclose clipping on Liberty bonds. The 6 Liberty 2d’s that you bought in September at about 90 are now 96.82. The three Liberty 3d’s which you bought at 93 are now 97½. The Western Unions that you bought at something like 102½ (plus accrued interest) are now 107¼, and the Edison Brooklyns must have gained the same number of points, though I do not
see them quoted in that paper. It is pleasant to make a profit so quickly – about $750 in two months.

I think your inscription is beautiful. It is poetry. I hope you or he will send it right on. When will the tablet be made?

I do not think Tom’s work has deteriorated, though I think his later poems much less inspired than his earlier ones. I attribute that, however, to a too great consciousness of his audience. I think that what he needs, both for his mental health and for the sake of his poetry, is solitude for a while. Tom seemed to me last summer to be going on his nerve. In the first place, he was overworking; in the second place, he had three interests – the bank, the magazine, and his own writings, which are properly two separate interests, the critical and the poetical. All the time what weighed on his mind was a craving for the last of these – poetical composition – and a sort of frantic state of mind at never being able to get around to it. If he could rest thoroughly, and then get a little time to gratify his desire to do creative writing, he would get over his nervous state. I am afraid he finds it impossible to do creative work (other than the critical) at home. Vivien demands a good deal of attention, and I imagine is easily offended if she does not get it well buttered with graciousness and sympathy. She has a keen sense of the practical side of getting ahead in the literary world, or as she puts it, ‘what is the use of being famous after you’re dead?’ in which she may be partly right, but it can be overdone. Tom had a heavy social correspondence to write sometimes in the evening after getting back from Clarence Gate. The strain of going out among people who after all are foreigners to him, and, I believe, always must be to an American – even Henry James never became a complete Englishman – has, I think, been to him pretty heavy. I remember a year or more ago, in a letter to me, he spoke of always having to be keyed up, alert to the importance of appearances, always wearing a mask among people. To me he seemed like a man playing a part. He has got to relax. I almost think it would be well for him to come to this country for a short while, for the sake of the change. The two weeks on the water would do him good.

I thought the essay on the Metaphysical Poets excellent, and so wrote him. I think I will write him another letter. Is it Poste Restante, Lausanne, Switzerland? or shall I send it to the rue des Saints Pères? or c/o Lloyds? I will send it to you to forward.

Your affectionate son,
Henry

MS
Houghton

13 December 1921

[Hôtel Ste Luce] Lausanne

My dear Henry,

This is a Christmas letter – I dare say you may be in Cambridge, but you will find this on your return. I do not appear to have answered your letter of October 20 which is
shameful
, as you enclosed a cheque for £25 which was
very
useful and comforting in this emergency. I only worry whether you spend what money you have wisely – i.e. upon yourself. I have never known anyone who had less notion of hygiene, of taking care of health, than you – Vivien says you are worse than I in that respect – at least now that she has taught me – and I do things like taking cod liver oil in winter, and cure a cold at once etc. And I find that I worry less about my health, as a result of looking after it, so that is time saved.

I have not gone into any details with mother about my health, so do not do so yourself. It is not in fact serious. The great thing I am trying to learn is how to use all my energy without waste, to be
calm
when there is nothing to be gained by worry, and to concentrate without effort. I hope that I shall place less strain upon Vivien, who has had to do so much
thinking
for me. I realise that our family never was taught mental, any more than physical hygiene, and so we are a seedy lot. I should like to
talk
about these things with you. I felt that I got, or was beginning to know you better – when there exists any difficulty in speaking, it is never so great as between near relatives. I only hope that we can keep the new connexion alive by writing, and at least begin where we left off, when we meet again.

I am very much better, and not miserable here – at least there are people of many nationalities, which I always like, and I like talking French better than English, though I think English is a better language to write in. I am certainly well enough to be working on a poem!

Do write to me to London (I shall be there before the middle of January). Don’t forget England, even if it makes you miserable. If you keep it in mind, you will come back.

With much affection
Tom.

MS
Mme Catherine Gide

14 December 1921

Hôtel Ste Luce, Lausanne

Monsieur,

Je viens de recevoir votre gracieuse lettre, que vous m’avez adressée à Londres. Puisque vous saviez déjà que j’ai été souffrant, j’espère que vous aurez tiré la conclusion – en attendant une réponse – que je n’étais plus chez moi: donc, que vous ne m’en voulez pas à cause du délai.

Certes, je tiens votre proposition pour un compliment du premier ordre, et je serais ravi de collaborer à
La Nouvelle Revue Française.
A ce moment, malheureusement, je ne suis pas à même de vous donner la réponse que je voudrais. Jusqu’à ce que je reprenne ma vie normale, je ne sais pas ce que seront mes forces ou mes loisirs. Je rentre à Londres vers le
15 janvier.

Ce n’est pas à moi de poser des conditions – si la
N.R.F
. est content d’attendre, je serai bien interessé de continuer des pourparlers (Je voudrais bien savoir 1. combien d’articles par an 2. l’étendue de chaque article – S’il s’agit seulement de livres de quelque valeur littéraire, je ne crois pas qu’il y ait de quoi rédiger un article tous les mois). – Si la
N.R.F.
ne peut pas attendre, je n’ai qu’à exprimer mon regret trés vif.

Je passerai plusieurs jours à Paris vers le 5 janvier. Si vous ne serez pas à Paris, je pourrai peut-être voir M. Rivière. Mais j’espère me pouvoir donner le plaisir de faire votre connaissance un de ces jours.

Je serai bien content de recevoir le livre, quoique je connais de vos oeuvres depuis onze ans. Si vous ne me connaissez que par le
Sacred Wood
j’aurai envie de vous envoyer mes poésies, qui sont au moins supérieures à mes proses!

Je quitte Lausanne à Noël; après, la seule adresse que je puisse vous donner c’est Hôtel du Pas de Calais, 59 rue des Sts Pères, Paris jusqu’à ce que je rentre à Londres.

Je vous prie, Monsieur, d’accepter l’expression de mes sentiments les plus distingués.

T. S. Eliot
¹