The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (132 page)

1–JMM,
Keats and Shakespeare
(1925).

TS
Vichy

5 October 1922

The Criterion
, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Mr Larbaud,

You will receive on or about the 16th a copy of the first number of the
Criterion
containing the translation of your lecture on
Ulysses
. Of this there are two things to be said. I was obliged to my great regret to omit the part of your lecture which dealt with the other works of Joyce, although these parts are not only of equal interest but of equal importance, for the understanding of the last part. But I found that several of our contributors had considerably exceeded the number of words allotted to them, and it was necessary to keep the size of the review within certain limits on account of the expense.

My other point is the cause for an apology. The translator who was to have taken charge of your lecture, who is an eminently competent person, disappointed me at the last moment, so that I had no alternative but to set to work under great pressure and translate it myself. This I was extremely loth to do, because I had never attempted any translation before, and in consequence I am afraid that you will find that the translation hardly does justice to the original. This is only one of the unhappy unforeseen accidents that arise during the preparation of the first number of a new periodical.

You will shortly receive from the publisher the scanty emolument.

While the
Criterion
is greatly honoured by the inclusion of this essay I want to speak rather of an indefinite promise with which you excited me.

[incomplete]

MS
Texas

6 October 1922

The Criterion
, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Sanderson,

I will let you have press list by Monday. Wrapper is
excellent
. I see nothing wrong with dummy exc. cover as discussed and a few corrections already shown in
page proofs
returned to Aylesbury. Don’t send new dummy to my office; I couldn’t look at it till evening anyhow – send them here.

Everything very good so far.

Yours ever
T. S. Eliot

TS
Texas

Friday [6 October 1922]

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Mary,

Vivienne has been very ill this week with bronchitis, which her doctor was afraid would turn to bronchial pneumonia. He has been every day; thinks she has strained her heart in some way, and is keeping her in bed and very quiet, trying to reduce the blood pressure. So it will be quite impossible for her to see anybody for several days. She is very depressed and disappointed. Will you and Jack do me the honour of dining with me at the Café Royal instead,
Monday
at 8. I want very much indeed to see you, both – don’t disappoint me – I will wait at the Regent St entrance for you.

Yours ever aff.
Tom.

TS
Houghton

11 October 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

My Dear Henry,

I have of course been meaning to write to you for a very long time; and I am painfully aware that my recent letters have been concerned mainly with my own business, or with the barest mention of events, and that they may have seemed cold and fatigued. You will have understood, I hope, why this has been, and if you do not know now I can never explain to you
better. I have not had the leisure to write a satisfactory and personal letter for years, and it is a recreation at which I am painfully out of practice.

Thank you very much indeed for the welcome cable. It was very good of you to telegraph the news. The dividend will of course be exceedingly welcome to me myself, under present conditions, but I am still more glad because it somewhat relieves my anxiety about mother. For myself, the important point is that Hydraulic should rise and give me an opportunity to sell when Sterling is low: it looks as if Sterling might fall a few points before very long. Do you think that Hydraulic will continue to pay dividends for the next year or so? if so, it ought to have reached a good point for selling by the middle of next summer. I have seen a few days ago a late Harvard friend of mine, whom you may remember – Howard Morris
¹
– who is now a very successful Bond Broker in New York. His opinion is that Industrial Securities will rise for the next nine months or so and that then there will be another slump. So I want to look out for an opportunity to dispose of the Hydraulic Stock by next summer.

What is its present quotation after the dividend?

I hope that you will use this slight prosperity as an argument to encourage mother to look forward to another visit to England in the Spring. You must know how anxious I am that she should come once more and also how valuable it is for her to be encouraged to look forward to another visit. I am sure that the next visit would be an even greater success than the last from every point of view. We should also keep her much quieter, and should take her into the country for a longer time and under proper conditions. Vivien’s diet is so very exacting for her that we have very high standards of hygiene, much higher as you must know yourself than the family have at home. I also feel convinced that a Summer in England under our care would be very much safer for Mother than a Summer in Cambridge. So do keep reminding her that she is to come.

I have been very anxious lately about her health. She mentioned in a very vague way some ailment, of which she made very light, but which, knowing the family ignorance in matters of health, I cannot take so lightly. She has not even told me what it is so that until I have definite news from somebody I shall continue to be very uneasy.

Thank you very much for the book by Cabell
²
which you have sent me. I have read nearly all of it, and am very much more favourably impressed than I was by some quotations from his work, which I have seen in
Reviews. I got the impression that his style was extremely stilted, derivative, literary and affected. I still think it somewhat literary and pompous, but I find him extremely agreeable. I also think that there is a good deal to be said for the theory of romance which he expounds; largely because of the abuse to which the word ‘realism’ has been subjected in our generation. Cabell’s argument is of course rather an exaggerated persuasion to the other extreme; but if he put the matter in a wholly balanced and judicial manner not two dozen people would care to read his book or weigh his opinions. I have sometimes thought of taking up myself in a much drier and more legal style, the only style that I can muster, these questions of the cant words ‘realism’ and ‘impressionism’. It would be possible to do so in connection with James Joyce, about whom I have to write an article for the
Dial
; but I do not intend to let myself go on this highly contentious subject at the present time; people who admire Joyce to excess would only abuse me, and the people who detest him would only abuse both Joyce and myself.

I am very sorry to know that you think that as one grows older the affections seem less important. I find myself that the reverse is true. I do not find that young people are capable of any real affection, just as they are incapable of any real understanding. They are interested only in themselves and they care only for people who affect them in the way they like to be affected. They enjoy their own feelings and are indifferent to the individuality of the people for whom they care. As one grows older one clings more and more – so I find – to the few genuine affections which it is possible to have, and one does not become any more indifferent or insensitive to difficulties in the way of understanding and affection.

I could go on very much longer, but in another letter, but I can write no more now. The
Criterion
is to appear next Monday, and you will doubtless receive your copy almost as soon as this letter. It has been a heavier undertaking than I anticipated, but I think that the result, so far as the first number is concerned, is satisfactory. And whatever you think of my Poem, which appears there and also in the
Dial
, I do not think that you can have wholly the same opinion of it that you have of my last work.

Always affectionately,

Your brother,
Tom

If mother comes next Spring, it would be tremendously worth your while to come too,
even if
you could get
only
four weeks holiday. You must come.

1–Howard Morris (1887–1954). They met at Milton Academy and shared rooms in their second year at Harvard.

2–James Branch Cabell,
Beyond Life: Dizain des Démiurges
(1919). 

TS
Beinecke

13 October 1922

The Criterion, 9
Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Cobden-Sanderson,

I have your letter of today which I imagine was written before I telephoned to you. I shall be writing to Lady Rothermere shortly.

Thank you for the circulars and for the proof of the
Times
advertisement which I return. You will see that unfortunately several of the most important names were omitted because of their having been given higher up in the circular and they are so important that it is essential that they should be added. As I left word on the telephone,Middleton Murry’s name is also to go in. Otherwise the advertisement looks very neat.

I am sending you herewith your periodical list marked for review copies. But if you notice the omission of any papers to which it is desirable to send, please send to these papers also.

Yours ever,
T.S.E.

TS
Northwestern

13 October 1922

The Criterion
, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear John,

I am very happy to have your promise to write, and have immediately written off to see that your name shall go to distinguish the advertisement of the
Criterion
. I appreciate your undertaking the promise so cheerfully, especially considering the fact that your mind is at present engrossed by a book. (May I ask what it is?) I had hesitated to ask you, knowing so well that it is only the review, and not yourself, that will be the gainer by your contributing.

January 31 will be just right; I will not bother you about the matter again until Christmas. Your support will certainly be of the greatest value; and I think I am safe in believing that you will be in sympathy with the paper’s aims (which are partially expressed in this circular). I am sure that you will have a flow of fresh ideas immediately this book is off your mind.

I should like very much indeed to spend a weekend with you. I am going away for ten days or a fortnight at the end of next week for a rest, and until I come back my plans are unsettled. But I shall choose a weekend to suit your convenience, considering the work you are engaged upon. My wife wants me to thank you very much; she would have liked to come too, and
wants me to explain that she is under such a strict regimen, including a very severe diet, that it is impossible for her to visit, travel, or stop at hotels, and so I must regretfully decline for her.

The Waste Land
will appear (without notes) in the
Criterion
No. 1 and in the
Dial
; it will be published as a book, with notes, in January or February, by Liveright in New York
¹
and by the Hogarth Press
²
here. I will send you a copy; and I should like to show you the notes first, after you see it in the
Criterion
. I particularly want you to get a fair impression of it, as I am anxious to know your opinion.

I hope the necessity of getting a book done to time does not worry you too much; I look forward to seeing it.

yours ever,
T.S.E.

1–
The Waste Land
(New York: Liveright) was published on 15 Dec. 1922, in an edition of 1,000 copies at $1.50.

2–The Hogarth Press edition was to be issued on 12 Sept. 1923, in an edition of 460 copies at 4s 6d.

MS
Beinecke

15 October 1922

The Criterion
, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Cobden-Sanderson,

I rang you up on Saturday, simply to know whether there was anything to discuss, but you had gone. You will of course be sending Lady Rothermere at least one copy at once, and unless she has already asked, will you ask her how many she wants?

Will you please send a copy to:       

        Ecc. Sig. Giovanni Papini,
¹
                    Via Colletta, 10
                          Florence, Italy.

Unless it is now too late, I should like his name to be added to the list of contributors in the advertisements in which the names are given; you will have added those I mentioned in my letter of Friday night.
Will you also send a copy to

The Editor,
          
The Dial
,
                  152 West 13th Street,
                          NEW YORK CITY

marked for ‘Review’. Would it not be a good idea to have a few slips printed with the words ‘For Review’ on them, for future press copies?

Yours ever,
T. S. Eliot