The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (88 page)

1–At a later date, TSE has written at the head, ‘This memo was sent to TSE by CCE just before she moved from St Louis to Cambridge in 1920 and was returned by him to her, checked.’ * = checked by TSE; † = marked by TSE as ‘sent’; § = ticked by TSE.

2–Corrected to ‘4’ by TSE.

3–Frank M. Chapman’s
Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America
is quoted in the note to
The Waste Land
, l. 356 (misnumbered 357). TSE’s copy of the 6th edn (1902) is inscribed ‘A much coveted birthday present on my 14th birthday T. S. Eliot. 18 June 1928’ (King’s).

4–
The Story of Archer Alexander
(1885) by TSE’s grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, tells the story of an escaped slave who came to work for him. Charlotte C. Eliot wrote, in
William Greenleaf Eliot:
‘Dr Eliot declared that there is nothing in all the scenes of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
to which he himself could not find a parallel in all he had seen and known in St Louis previous to the war of secession. To such books as
The Life of Archer Alexander
the student of history must turn for reliable information regarding “the peculiar institution”.’ 

MS
Houghton  

9 August 1920

18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St,
W.1
 

My dearest mother,  

I hope that you have recovered from your little trouble by this time. I am sure you are well taken care of. I hope you will have a resting spell and enjoy the country before you begin to work. Cambridge can be very hot and oppressive in September, and lovely in October. I am delighted with the situation you have chosen. I wish you had a photograph of the house to show me.  

I shall of course send you a copy of my book as soon as it is out – in October or November, but you shall not send me a draft for it. I have posted the Manuscript today – I have been working on it up to now. There will be several things in it that you have not seen before. It is a great relief to have finished it. Methuen is going to offer Knopf the American rights, but it will hardly be published in America for another nine months.  

Having got this off, we spent the weekend at Eastbourne, visiting some friends called Schiff – very nice Jews. They had, besides ourselves, an Italian named Emanueli, an important editor in Rome, a Lady Tosti, whose husband was a noted musician,
¹
and Wyndham Lewis. So we all talked several languages at once, and went motoring along the cliffs, and the weather was very beautiful. We will send you some photographs of the party.
²
The weather has been hot and brilliant. I am taking two weeks holiday on Saturday. I am going to France, and Wyndham Lewis is to come
with me if he can get a passport in time. If he comes we shall go to the coast, as he wants to paint there, and I shall bathe. Later, in October, I shall have ten days more, and Vivien and I will go away somewhere. I will send you cards from France.  

I have cashed the dividend. I find that when the dividend is sent, the bank
sells
it, and puts it to my account
less
income tax at six shillings in the pound. But if your income is small, you can get back part of this from the Government later. So that the only disadvantage of your sending the dividend itself instead of a draft, is that I do not get about £9 of the money for a year! But if it was a draft, I should only have to pay the
smaller
amount of tax myself, later on. This is hard to explain in a few words.  

I have never taken much interest in [Robert] Frost’s poetry, although I know he is much better than most others.  

I am sending enclosed some photographs of Vivien taken by Lady Ottoline Morrell at Garsington, near Oxford. They do not really show her face, but I think they give a very attractive general impression. Lady   Ottoline wants Vivien to come and stay with her while I am away.

Abby has been in town, and we took her to the theatre last week. She is a nice girl. She seems very young for her age.
³

Dear Mother, I am looking forward to seeing you.  

Your loving son
Tom

1–Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846–1916), Italian composer and music teacher.

2–Now at King’s.

3–Writing to CCE on 3 May, HWE reported seeing Abigail Eliot’s parents, who said that ‘Abby enjoyed tremendously seeing Tom and Vivien, thought she [VHE] was lovely, and that they were so hospitable and delightful and had such charming friends, interesting people’ (Houghton).

MS
Beinecke  

[9? August 1920]

[London]  

Dear E. P.  

Many thanks – extraordinary promptitude. Davray
¹
has sent pass and a most amiable letter – I shd like to drop in on
Thursday evening
if convenient, with pictures and map and
suitcase
. It is possible that I may change my destination. Vivien has been worrying a good deal about my health and my going walking so far away alone. This question arose also at Schiffs on Sunday and it transpired that Lewis (who was present) wants
to go over about the same time and suggested company if I would come to the coast as he wants to work there. I shd not have thought of going with him if it had not occurred in this way; but in case he misses the train, fails to get a passport in time etc. I want the other plan ready, liking the itinerary suggested.  

Please give me Joyce’s address.  

Yrs.
T.  

1–Henry D. Davray (1873–1944), French author, journalist and translator, was responsible for foreign literature at the
Mercure de France.

MS
Beinecke  

10 August 1920

18 Crawford Mansions  

Dear Scofield  

I hope you will pardon this long silence, as I have from week to week intended writing at some length. I have finally given Pound two contributions which he seems to think acceptable and if so has forwarded by this time. I have been engrossed (in such time as I can spare from banking, flat-i.e. apartment-hunting, income tax and such petty matters) in a book I have been preparing for Methuen to publish in the autumn.  

I think Pound has been doing wonderfully well with his French campaign. The Gourmont stuff is a great scoop,
¹
and Benda’s book is ripping. I hope you can print it in full.
²
There is nothing like the
Dial
here and I see no reason why it should not have an appreciable English circulation. It is unfortunate that there are not so many good writers here as in France, but there is no reason why you should not get what there are.  

That strange Bodenheim has been in London and has now disappeared. I was anxious to help him, but it proved very difficult, as you may imagine, to persuade the English of his merit. Finally, as a result of our missing each other at an appointment, he became suspicious of my good intentions and dropped me altogether. I am very sorry about it, and if you see him, I hope you will persuade him that I am not a crook and was only anxious for further opportunity to assist. He did, as a matter of fact, run up against one or two people who treated him rather shabbily, but even without that London is a tough nut to crack.

I am just off for a holiday and hope to be able to offer you some verse later. When are you coming?  

Yrs ever
T.S.E.  

1–Rémy de Gourmont, ‘Dust for Sparrows’, trans. EP,
Dial
, Sept. 1920, 219–24; the first of seven sections.

2–‘Bélphegor: An essay on the Aesthetic of Contemporary French Society’, a translation of Julien Benda’s book, was serialised in four parts in the
Dial
(Sept.–Dec. 1920).

MS
Buffalo  

11 August 1920

18 Crawford Mansions  

Dear Mr Joyce,  

Ezra Pound has given me a package for you. I shall be in Paris Sunday the 15th and shall be leaving on Monday. I shall be at the Hôtel de l’Élysée, 3 rue de Beaune, where Pound was.
I hope you can dine with me that evening. Please.
Can you meet me there about 6.30, or up to 7? You can take the parcel and I should very much like to meet you, at last.
²
 

You won’t have time to answer. But please come.  

Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot  

1–James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet: see Glossary of Names.

2–The parcel, which TSE had toted all the way from London, contained a pair of old brown shoes: EP thought JJ had need of them. See WL,
Blasting and Bombardiering
(1937), 270–6.

MS
Beinecke  

Saturday [14 August 1920]

18 Crawford Mansions  

Dear Mr Jepson  

Thank you for your note. I should very much like to know what you think of the book, when you have had time to decide, and in comparison with EP’s previous volume.
¹
 

I shall be sending you a copy of my own prose book in the autumn. I don’t expect you to like it – I seem to have an entirely different public for my prose. Still, I wanted to do a prose book, and now I’ve done it, and Methuen has undertaken to publish it and perhaps I shall try
²
some verse now.

We should have enjoyed very much coming to tea tomorrow – but I am off to France this afternoon for my holiday. I hope we can arrange to meet after my return; I have wanted to see you for a long time.  

Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot  

I am sorry there isn’t time to let you know about tomorrow – your letter came in the middle of the morning while I was out. Please remember me kindly to Mrs Jepson.  

1–EP,
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
(1920). EP’s
Quia Pauper Amavi
had been issued in 1919.

2–TSE wrote ‘try to’, then changed ‘to’ to ‘do’.

MS
Valerie Eliot  

Monday night [16? August 1920]
¹

[18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St]
W.1
 

My dear  

I had not time to
write
to Nantes, so am wiring so that you will get a letter at Vannes (?) Just to say, that you
must
keep me posted (well in advance) of addresses,
so that I can get at you.
I
must write.
I am not very well, but will be allright if I can keep in touch with you, and not have uncertainty and upsets. Don’t worry,
cos
I am not ill.
I am going to Eastbourne tomorrow, almost certainly.
²
So you see its allright. (I will wire tomorrow to Vannes
in case
I do
not
go to E.)  

I had a most incredibly horrible migraine on Sunday, and that has left me so dreadfully shaken and prostrate and unnerved. I think I shall be
better
at E. – I am
glad
to go, and glad it was arranged. If only you will keep me posted and do not let me get upset dearest I shall be
allright
.  

Write to Schiff
– very nicely. Must not let him fall into K. M.’s
³
hands.  

Yr. most adoring.  

V.  

Take care.

 1–TSE left on 14 Aug. for Paris, from where he set off the following day for a walking tour with WL, visiting Nantes and Vannes in Brittany, and then going on to Saumur and Tours in the Loire.

2–She was going to stay with Sydney and Violet Schiff while TSE was away.

3–Katherine Mansfield. 

MS
Valerie Eliot

20 August [1920]

Berrow, Carew Road, Eastbourne

My dearest Wonkypenky

I have had, in all, two wires from you and one postcard. The first wire was in duplicate and getting it made life possible. The second wire has come this morning, and we are all surprised that you are going to Tours, and away from the coast.
¹
Why is this? I’m sorry about you missing the sea dear. Well my darling I have been
most
ill but am now
much
better so
dont worry.
I am having an extremely
gay
time, and must say I rather like it, altho’ it is too much for me. Still, it makes me realise things, and see how out of things I have become, and see that the less one does the less one can do. Yesterday I felt so ill and despairing that I went to my room and cried and called yr. name. Today I am so much better.

Saturday
.

It was impossible to finish this yesterday. One gets not a minute to oneself, and I simply cannot really write to you at all. So just do what I ask and get the utmost pleasure out of your holiday. And the last ounce of health. Do not think about me at all. You know I am like a cat with nine lives. I shall be perfectly happy and content if you come back
absolutely
well, and having enjoyed it. But now you
must
keep me
posted in address.
Directly you get this please
wire to the flat
and give me an address so that I can write and have
time
to write. I fear this wont get you. If only you wd. write a postcard
every
day, and not miss, how much happier for me, and all this wiring saved. Write to old Schiff
just a postcard.
Your loving

Wee