The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (114 page)

1–Valery Larbaud (1881–1957), French novelist and man of letters, whose lecture ‘The “Ulysses” of James Joyce’ would appear (in part) in C. 1: 1 (Oct. 1922), 94–103.

MS
Beinecke

12 March 1922

1, Habsburgergasse 2, Vienna.

Dear Tom,

I have received from you a wire as follows, ‘Cannot accept under 856 pounds – Eliot’.

I presume there is some error upon the part of the telegraphic service.

Were you to let me see the poem and to know why it is you feel that
The
Dial
should make an exception in this case to its general rule, I should be happy to consider the matter further. But in the meantime I have had to notify The Dial that we are apparently not to receive the poem. 

I presume you know that Mr Watson and I are running
The
Dial
with a very large annual deficit: we have had to make personal sacrifices to keep it going. It would not be possible for us to pay higher rates than we already pay to our contributors and to continue in existence. I thought you would be in sympathy with us in our attempt to pay all contributors famous and unknown at the same rates.

I trust your review of Miss Moore and your London Letter are now arriving in New York.

Salutations!
[unsigned]

TS
Schiller-Nationalmuseum

13 March 1922

12 Wigmore St, London w.1

Monsieur,

Pendant un voyage récent dans la Suisse j’ai fait la connaissance de votre
Blick ins Chaos
,
²
pour lequel j’ai conçu une grande admiration. J’ai porté ce livre à la connaissance d’un ami d’ici, M. Sydney Schiff, qui a dans la suite écrit à votre éditeurs, visant à une traduction anglaise.
³

Maintenant, je suis chargé de l’initiation d’une nouvelle revue sérieuse, à Londres, qui sera, en tout cas, plus importante que les revues existantes, et beaucoup plus accueillante à la pensée étrangère. D’abord, je me suis proposé de demander une ou deux des parties de
Blick ins Chaos.
Malheureusement, le ‘Karamazof’ est trop long pour un seul numéro (qui ne comportera que quatre-vingts pages) et puisque la revue ne paraîtra que tous les trois mois, nous ne pouvons guère découper. Et le ‘Muishkine’, je pense, ne devrait pas être séparé de l’autre. Mais je suis certain que vous aurez beaucoup d’autres choses, également importantes, que je voudrais bien être le premier à présenter au public anglais.
⁴

Je peux vous assurer que dans cette revue vos écrits atteindraient l’élite des lecteurs anglais. A présent, nous ne pouvons offrir aux contribuants que la somme de £10 les 5000 mots, et proportionellement; seulement un article ne devrait pas dépasser les 5000 mots environ.

Je veux que la pensée allemande soit bien représentée dans cette revue, et je voudrais bien me renseigner sur les écrivains allemands d’après-guerre qui jouissent de votre approbation.

Je trouve votre
Blick ins
Chaos
d’un sérieux qui n’est pas encore arrivé en Angleterre, et je voudrais en répandre la réputation.

Vous ne me connaissez pas du tout: je me présente comme collaborateur au
Times Literary Supplement
, ancien collaborateur de l’
Athenaeum
, et correspondant anglais du
Dial
de New-York et de la
Nouvelle Revue Française
; en outre l’auteur de plusieurs volumes de vers and d’un volume de critique.

Je n’ai pas parlé ou écrit l’allemand depuis huit ans; par conséquent je n’osais pas vous adresser dans cette langue; mais je le lis encore très couramment. J’espère bientôt revisiter l’Allemagne.

En esperant de reçevoir de vos nouvelles, je vous prie, monsieur, de croire à mes hommages sincères.

T. S. Eliot
⁵

1–Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), German novelist and poet; Nobel laureate 1947. TSE would visit him at Montagnola, near Lugano, on 28 May 1922.

2–Hesse,
Blick ins
Chaos
(Berne, 1920). TSE’s copy, dated by him ‘Berne Dec. 1921’, is at King’s. He quoted from the novel in his Notes to
TWL
, ll. 366–76.

3–See
In Sight of Chaos
, trans. by SS as ‘Stephen Hudson’ (Zurich, 1923). Thanks to TSE, the Dial ran passages from SS’s translation in June and Aug.

4–Hesse contributed ‘Recent German Poetry’ to C. 1: 1 (Oct. 1922), 89–93.

5–
Translation
: Dear Sir, During a recent visit to Switzerland, I came across your book
Blick ins Chaos,
which filled me with admiration. I brought it to the attention of a friend of mine here, Mr Sydney Schiff, who subsequently wrote to your publishers about the possibility of an English translation.

I have now been entrusted with the founding, in London, of a new, serious review, which will, at any rate, be more important than the existing ones, and much more welcoming to ideas from abroad. My first thought was to ask for one or two sections of
Blick ins Chaos.
Unfortunately, the ‘Karamazov’ section is too long for a single issue (only eighty pages in all), and since the review is to appear only once every three months, we can hardly subdivide the text. And the ‘Muishkine’ section, I think, should not be separated from the other. But I am sure that you must have many other equally important writings, that I should very much like to be the first to present to the British public.

I can assure you that, through this review, your writings would reach the élite of British readers. For the time being, we can pay contributors only at the rate of £10 per 5000 words; but no article should exceed 5000 words approximately.

I want German thought to be well represented in the review, and I should very much like to know about those post-war German writers who meet with your approval.

I find in your
Blick ins Chaos
a seriousness the like of which has not yet occurred in England, and I am keen to spread the reputation of the book.

Since I am quite unknown to you, let me introduce myself as a contributor to
The Times Literary Supplement
, a former contributor to
The Athenaeum,
and English correspondent to the New York
Dial
and the
Nouvelle Revue Française;
in addition, I am the author of several volumes of poetry and a volume of criticism.

I have not spoken or written German for eight years; consequently, I have not presumed to address you in that language; but I still read it very fluently. I hope to visit Germany again soon.

Hoping to hear from you soon, I beg you, Sir, to be assured of my sincere admiration. T. S. Eliot.

TS
Beinecke

13 March 1922

12 Wigmore St

Dear Cobden-Sanderson,

Forgive me for not having acknowledged your supplementary estimate, which arrived just as I was going to see Lady Rothermere. I have been overwhelmed with the labours of moving, for the last two weeks, having let my flat for two or three months, and am now at the address above, irritable and exhausted.

Lady Rothermere was quite pleased with the paper, the form and the type, and agreed to the figures which I submitted to her. The next step is of course the throwing out [of] hooks to desirable contributors, which I am now engaged in doing. That will occupy some days before I can get a good idea of the probable amount of support on that side, especially as some of my letters are to people abroad. If the returns are fairly satisfactory I will let you know as soon as possible and arrange a meeting with you. I will then give you some notes for a letter to Liveright.

Sincerely yours, and thanking you for all the trouble you have taken,

T. S. Eliot

CC
Lilly

14 Mars [1922]

70 bis, rue Notre Dame des Champs
Paris vi
^e

Cher T:

Willing to do anything I can for you personally, but do consider the following points: I have not the slightest interest in England. I have published nothing there since I left (a year and a quarter ago). I know absolutely nothing to England’s credit. The
Morning
Post
is the real voice of England, and the most concentrated and persistent will toward evil in Europe.
¹

I am not the least interested in the fortunes of any writer in England save yourself, and you omit to mention the essential point: What salary are you receiving as editor?

I absolutely refused to have anything to do with another projected English review (only last week) unless they wd. guarantee to provide you with enough to get you out of your bank. I am not the least interested in any scheme which has not that for its aim.

No Englishman’s word is worth a damn, I dont know whether the ladies are any more precise. When Hueffer sold the old
English Review
to Mond
² 
it was with the understanding that he was to remain Editor, as he was dealing with the titlocracy he didn’t bother to get the matter in writing, and Mond turned him out at the end of four months.

Do remember that I know nothing whatever about Lady Rothermere, save that she, by her name, appears to have married into a family which is NOT interested in good literature. I am interested in civilization, but I cant see that England has anything to do with any future civilization. I consider it a waste of my time to write Paris letters for the
Dial
, but the
Dial
pays from £10–£15 per cent letter, and takes the rest of my stuff, when there is any at a rate which, taking the lot, permits me some mental ease during the year.

I dont, demme, see why I should write a letter to London for £3/. It certainly will not serve to put up my rates. I am not sure, since you cite a contemporary case of injustice, that it is fair to Thayer to sell the same stuff elsewhere at a third of the rate he pays.

Remember I have beggared myself, and kept down my rates for years by contributing to every free and idealistic magazine that has appeared.

Also I dont see what claim Lady R. has to my free services as unpaid foreign editor and scout. Thayer paid me for just that sort of work during a year and a half.

I cant see that England deserves a good review.

Of course if Lady R. is willing to cooperate with me in a larger scheme which wd. mean getting you out of your bank, and allowing you to give up your whole time to writing, I might reconsider these points.

You may show her this letter. In fact that is the simplest way for you to present the matter to her. I am willing to do anything I can to further your own production. I cant see that editing a quarterly will give you any more leisure to write poetry.

I have absolutely no animosity against Lady R. whom I have never laid eyes on; but I have an absolute mistrust of anything English, particularly of any ‘upper class’ english interest in literature. I can not use the term ‘aristocracy’ of a lot of illiterate motor owners, whether English or other. In the main I think these people like to talk, to express sympathy, and then to waste the artist’s time. As I think I have told you, I found it less interruption to my work to write for the
New Age
at £1/1 an article, than to keep up ones intercourse with Mayfair.

I have published nothing in England since I left, the last book of mine to be printed there was printed privately.
³
(In a few days you will say ‘yes,
but there is an article of his in the
New Age
’.
⁴
That one exception is made because I wanted to get the matter recorded in print, before a rather indiscreet letter of mine reached someone in the U.S…. but no matter. )

I dont want to appear in England. I have no belief in their capacity to understand anything. They still want what I was doing in 1908. They want immitations and dilutations.

I dont see what company I should be in, apart from your own, and if you try to do editorials as well as spend your days in Lloyds, I dont know that they will be very enlightening.

Dont think I am writing an ultimatum; I am only trying to be clear.

(1) I consider any participation in the proposed review would be a waste of my time; the rates are not high enough to buy one any leisure, they wd. merely pay ones expenses while one was doing a hurried piece of hack work.

(2) I want definitely to know that you have an agreement in writing re/

(3) I want to hear direct from Lady Rothermere, that she will help me in my endeavour to get you out of Lloyds and to make proper arrangements for providing you with suitable leisure for writing.

It is rather odd your writing at just this time. I had not intended to say anything to you about the scheme until I had got it working. However … Exhibit B. detailed refusal to another magazine proposition recd. week before last. (Please return)

Whereas illiterate motorists have never been averse from wasting the time of artists and writers, and recognizing that persons of ‘social standing’ usually want a writer to stop doing his own job in order to amuse them and that when they buy pictures they usually buy those of people who have invented nothing etc. n.b. during the war they went in for this sort of thing; and noting that they usually find out five years later that they’ve been ’ad, and then forswear the arts. Also noting that practical men have never been averse from exploiting men of letters (or anyone else) remembering that ‘England’ means Gifford against Keats,
⁵
that the Fleet St system means the union of as many mediocrities as possible against the man with even a spark of genius; remembering the history of English literature as shown in her exiles: Landor in Italy, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Beddoes out of England, Browning in Italy and Tennyson in Buckingham Palace; and having no reason to suppose that anything is yet altered in that Island. I set down the following as the minimum conditions for my collaboration in proposed ‘review’:

1. That T. S. Eliot be endowed for life, at such rate per year as will enable him to leave his job in Lloyds bank, and give his entire time to literature, and that this shall imply no lien whatever on his time.
      Note: the problem before the writer in our time is how to live without turning out rubbish that will sell. The greatest waste in ang-sax letters at the moment is the waste of Eliot’s talent; this wd. not be remedied if he left Lloyds and were compelled to spend his time doing journalism, or to review books etc. etc. He must have
   complete
   liberty.
       Note continued: I have no reasons to suppose that anyone in England is interested in literature or in anything save their own personal aggrandisment. I place this condition re/Eliot as a minimum test of the sincerity on the part of promoters.
   
2. The review is to have an Editor, who shall receive a salary, not necessarily large, but guaranteed to be regular.
   2a. That he shall be at liberty to choose the contents of the section of the review, say 50% of its pages, placed in his care.
   
3. That there be a board of associate ‘editors’ who shall have no voice in choosing the contents of the main editor’s part of the magazine, but who shall have complete liberty to write and print
   whatever
   they like in their own sections.
   3b. that these associates be not more than ten in number, and that so far as possible they shall not be selected from the idiot, cretin, or myxodemic sections of the community.
   
4. That I shall have complete liberty to fill ten pages per month, as I see fit, with no interference from any one. That it shall not be considered a breach of contract if I do not fill these ten pages, or any part of them. That I be paid at a rate not less than current rates of the
   Dial
   .
   
5. That there be a business and make-up editor, who shall receive a proper salary, and be responsible for regular appearance of the review.
   

Rider: I imagine that this project will go the way of similar projects in England; that it will end in there being a new periodical devoted to mediocrity, and that good men of business like Bennett and W. L. George
⁶
will net a certain profit; that free speech will remain, as at present, in abeyance; and that good writers will gain neither cash nor leisure from the enterprise.

[unsigned]