The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (124 page)

TS
NYPL (MS)

19 July 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Mr Quinn,

Thank you very much for your letter of the 22nd ultimo. By this time you will have my letter of explanation, as I have yesterday a mild letter from Liveright which sounds as if he would come to terms. As it is now
so late I am enclosing the typescript to hand to him when the contract is complete, or to hold if he does not complete. I had wished to type it out fair, but I did not wish to delay it any longer. This will do for him to get on with, and I shall rush forward the notes to go at the end. I only hope the printers are not allowed to bitch the punctuation and the spacing, as that is very important for the sense. I am not sure that you will approve of the punctuation, but I very much hope you will like the poem, as it seems to me the best I have ever done, and I am anxious to hear.

I did get your draft for £10,
¹
and am distressed to hear that I did not acknowledge it and thank you at the time. Rodker owed me £5 so I kept the whole and discharged his debt, with which he was quite satisfied. I should like to present you the manuscript of
The Waste Land
, if you would care to have it – when I say manuscript, I mean that it is partly manuscript and partly typescript, with Ezra’s and my alterations scrawled all over it.

It is true that I had three months leave from Lloyds Bank in the winter, and was in Lausanne under a nerve specialist, a very good man. Physically, I was in very poor shape even after that, until I had two weeks holiday in Lugano (and a visit to Pound in Verona), and since then I have been very much better. My wife also has been very ill with colitis, and has only just found a treatment which seems to be doing her some good.

I expect to write to you again within a fortnight, on other matters, and meanwhile I pray that my affair with Liveright will not give you a great deal of trouble. And meanwhile you will be spared the nuisance of a long letter from me.

Yours always gratefully,
T. S. Eliot

1–Quinn sent the money on 25May 1921 as payment for a copy of
Ara Vos Prec
on vellum.

TS
Lilly

19 July 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Cher Ezra,

I have seen Dorothy this afternoon and she has handed me the draft for Lir. 4246.50 on Rome.
¹
As I have no immediate crying need to spend the money and havnt time for a three days debooch, I shall bank it or invest 
it temporarily in some appreciable security. As you have not mentioned the address of the Club and as Dorothy says that you beg me to do nothing more than acknowledge formally without consulting you, I await your further advices.

I hear good report of the progress of Cantose. If the
Dial
refuses please let me inspect, but probably unwise to make the paper too conspicuous at first, if the rape of the bishop is an integral part. I have decided not to put any manifestoe in the 1st number, but adopt a protective colour for a time until suspicion is lulled. What do you think of ‘The Possum’ for a title?

The reason why I did not send Vivien over to Paris is that first she is extremely run down, at a very low point where all weak spots break out – neuralgia, neuritis, eye trouble etc., and second that she has just been started on a new diet for colitis (of the colitis there is no doubt whatever) which involves great care in the preparation of food – all meat to be minced in a machine three times, milk to be the best sealed medical milk, certain proportions of vitamines and proteids daily; the diet seems to be the best so far and really doing her good. I didnt want to run the risk of upsetting her improvement at the start by letting her break the diet by Duval or even the Voltaire. But if Berman comes to London I should be delighted. Ask him does he know of a man named Hogben who is writing a book on hormones, in England. What I want to know and what I do not get from Berman’s book is what treatment he gives after he has diagnosed. Both of the doctors Vivien has seen lately have examined her teeth with great care and were disappointed to find nothing wrong. I should like to put her into your hands but think that from present appearances Paris should be postponed till October.

I have just had a little difficulty with Richard over an article he contributed, and which I ventured to criticise mildly (at his request) and which he immediately sent to the
XIXth Century
²
without asking permission. As he has not proposed to send me anything else to take its place I am annoyed. He improved the occasion to (1) reprove me for ‘expressing contempt (in the Dial) for eminent writers in language so defective’ (2) say that the
Criterion
is a very dangerous title and ‘somewhat pretentious’: ‘I wonder’ he says ‘if you quite understand the profound english repulsion for everything which seems to be assuming superiority? It is a very subtle thing.’ (3) says that everyone says that I am getting bitter and hypercritical.

Insultos

Also evidently regards Bel Esprit as entirely a personal favour toward me. I dont want personal favours, I want it to be purely a question of the production of verse, a small, a very small, but still a public utility of work.

I Dont think 300 a year however is a living income for me, especially with vagueish guarantees, unless some very definite way is shown me of getting another 300 by not too close or bestial labour. I shall not stand in the way of your finding out just how much money can be got and how many people will give it for the arts in any form,
only
I do not at present find 600 a penny too much and cannot accept one bed room as being liberty in comparison with my present life. I only say this not to pledge myself now and finally to accept the terms when they are finally drawn up in black and white: while the matter has been in this nebular state I should have been a fool if I discouraged it but also fool if I pledged myself … however have met Orage1 and liked him

Lady Rothermere is coming to Paris and wishes to meet you. She will be there next week at Hotel Westminster. I like her. You might put Berman on to her after a time, but I dont think he would find many weak glands. I shall give her your address and she will probably communicate with you.

I trust Quinn is not having too much trouble with Liveright.

Good fucking, brother.

[unsigned]

1–From ‘Bel Esprit’ funds.

2–RA’s article was not published.

TS
Bonn

21 July 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

My dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of the 14th inst., I am very much delighted at the prospect of receiving an early contribution from you and at having the distinction of being the first editor to introduce your work in this country. I should like very much to have from you, not simply a ‘chronique’ of contemporary literary activity in Germany, but a piece of your individual criticism, whether dealing with modern literature or with the writers of the nineteenth century. The subject which you suggest of fixing
contemporary
valuation of the older writers is very attractive.

As I am very much pressed both for time and for space with the first number I should be very glad if you could promise me an article by the first
of November at the latest, for the second number, in which I shall be able to give you the full space of 5,000 words if you wish it.

You ask about the programme of the review. The first number will contain contributions by myself, Mr George Saintsbury, Mr T.
Sturge-Moore
, Miss May Sinclair and Mr Richard Aldington in this country, and two or three foreign contributions – Gómez de la Serna, Valery Larbaud, and Hermann Hesse.

In general it will consist of a small number of critical and reflective essays and an occasional poem or story. We are also publishing a translation of a Plan of a novel by Dostoevski.

Its great aim is to raise the standard of thought and writing in this country by both international and historical comparison. Among English writers I am combining those of the older generation who have any vitality and enterprise, with the more serious of the younger generation, no matter how advanced, for instance Mr Wyndham Lewis and Mr Ezra Pound.

Now that I know you are an English scholar I shall have pleasure in sending you a book of critical essays [
SW
] of my own, which although it contains many statements which I have come to question or even repudiate, is still representative.

I am also interested to know that you live in Marburg, where I was myself living in 1914, and of which I have the pleasantest memories.

Be assured that any contributions you send will be highly appreciated and the sooner you send them the better I shall be pleased.

With many thanks, believe me,

Sincerely yours,
T. S. Eliot

TS
Beinecke  

28 July 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns, London n.w.1  

Dear Sir,  

I cabled you to the effect that I had sent you my letter on the 24th saying that it amounted to about 1,000 words. I did this in the hope that it would enable you to publish the letter in your September number if you were depending upon it.  

I have had it very much on my conscience that for some time my letters have only reached you at the last possible moment. What is more important, as I told you in my last letter to you, is that I am quite aware that they have not been very good stuff. This is not only my own opinion but that of others. I do not like to think that I have been providing you
with poor material, and I should always like to do my best work for the
Dial
; I now feel that the sort of letters which I have been sending you, are not only damaging to myself, but perhaps also to the
Dial
. This has been due to unfortunate circumstances and pressure of a great deal of business of other kinds. I therefore wish to say frankly that I think it would be to your interest to have some other correspondent, one who would have time both to get about more and know what is going on in London, and also to produce a more finished article. I therefore offer you this opportunity of changing your correspondent, as I am sure you must concur with me in my opinion of the work I have been doing.

I have two pieces of work still to do for you which I have undertaken, and I shall always prefer contributing to the
Dial
than to almost anything else, but I do not like contributing anything but the best I can do.

Yours very truly,
T. S. Eliot

ts Lilly

28 July 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Ezra,

I have this evening your letter with the typed script of the prose of your unknown friend which I shall peruse carefully over the weekend, hoping that I shall see the point to which you refer. Your letter, as frequently, is extremely obscure; I do not understand the point of the pug dog nor the apparently more significant allusion of the storming of the bastille. Perhaps you will kindly explain this latter point to me as it might prove a useful piece of knowledge?

I will let you have a copy of the
Waste Land
for confidential use as soon as I can make one. Of the two available copies, one has gone to Quinn to present to Liveright on completion of the contract, and the other is the only one I possess. I infer from your remarks that Watson is at present in Paris. I have no objection to either his or Thayer’s seeing the manuscript.

As for the circular I do not suppose that you wish any comments from me and I suppose that it is already in circulation. If so I trust that it will, as it requests, be circulated privately only; if I was doing such a thing myself I should have omitted the name of Lloyds Bank.
¹
The other point
that occurs to me is that the less of my private circumstances that need be issued, so much the better; even when such private circumstance are accurately reported. Particularly I do not want any rumour to get into circulation, especially in America, to the effect that I have a family which
should
be providing for my support. As I have already informed you what my Mother’s means are, you will be in a position to deny any such rumor. I do not know why the suspicion should have come into my head, but I do conceive that it is the sort of sensational falsehood which might well be supported by hysterical and sympathetic persons in the United States.

The presenting of Neophytes however commendable they may be will not absolve you from the liability of contributing yourself. I have put your name down in the circular and I think that the second number will be a suitable time for you to make your appearance. That number should be out early in January, and therefore we must fix November 1st as the last date on which you should send it, and it will be more preferable for me to have it locked up in my care long before even that date. I do not want to concentrate the jailbirds too much at the beginning and I think that if the
Waste Land
bursts out in the first number and you contribute to the second, that Lewis must remain behind the scenes until the third. Of course one can throw in always a few people whose names are entirely unknown.

I wait in hope that Berman is coming to this country.

I understood from Dorothy that a translation of Rémy’s
Physique
with either an essay or supplement by yourself was soon to appear in New York.
²
Am I to receive a copy or am I to order it myself through Messrs. Jones and Evans in Cheapside?

I am glad that you have lunched with my friend and that she has your approval.

Yrs. fraternally
T.

If this Circular has not gone out, will you please delete
Lloyds Bank
, to the mention of which I
strongly object.
If it is stated so positively that Lloyds Bank interfered with literature, Lloyds Bank would have a perfect right to infer that literature interfered with Lloyds Bank.
Please see my position
– I
cannot
jeopardise my position at the Bank before I know what is best. They would certainly object if they saw this. If this business has any
more publicity I shall be forced to make a public repudiation of it and refuse to have anything more to do with it.