The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (89 page)

1–TSE and WL had planned a holiday on the Brittany coast at Vannes, but it was so cold when they arrived on 19 Aug. that they retreated to Saumur, eighty-five miles away in the Loire.

MS
BL

22 August 1920 Saumur

My dear Sydney,

I have intended to write to you ever since I got to France, but as you will have gathered, we have moved about more than we anticipated, and also I wanted to wait until I was a bit rested. I have been somewhat anxious about Vivien, as she looked – and was – very tired and ill – the day
I left; but I have every confidence that the stay with you and Violet will have done her good.

We dined with Joyce in Paris, as you will I am sure be interested to know. Fritz Vanderpyl,
¹
a friend of Pound and myself, was also present, and I enclose a sketch (by me) of the party. Joyce is a quiet but rather dogmatic man, and has (as I am convinced most superior persons have) a sense of his own importance. He has a sort of gravity which seems more Protestant than Catholic. He is obviously the man who wrote his books – that is, he impresses you as an important enough personage for that. We will talk about him later.

 

Paris was a great relief after many months of London.

W. L. has been sketching a bit here and I have been roaming about. We are both, I think, a great deal better. I have enjoyed Lewis’s company very much, and have had a great many conversations with him – I do not know anyone more profitable to talk to.

You will I hope be back in London by the middle of September, and then I look forward to a long talk with you. There are very few people in London whom one can talk to – you are certainly one of them.

But on a holiday like this I feel too physically tired to write a good letter – just as at other times I am too mentally tired and have too little time – so I suppose that I shall never write any letters!

With kindest regards to Violet.

Yours affectionately
T.S.E.

1–Fritz Vanderpyl, Belgian poet and novelist; art critic of the
Petit Parisien,
1919–40.

Telegram Valerie Eliot

23 August 1920

Eastbourne

WELL AND HAPPY WRITE FLAT VIVIENNE =

1–Delivered to ‘Eliot Poste Restante Tours’.

PC
Houghton

[Postmark 24 August 1920]

Tours

Have been having a fortnight in France with Wyndham Lewis. Visited the Breton coast, Nantes, and Saumur. The weather is very cool – too cool for the coast. Dined in Paris with one or two French friends and Jas. Joyce, the Irish novelist; and have enjoyed myself very much. I will write a letter when I get back, in a week.

Much love,
Tom.

MS
Texas

Wednesday [25? August 1920]

Flat [18 Crawford Mansions]

Mary dear, I could not write from Eastbourne. It was quite impossible, there, to write or to think. I had rather a peculiar time, on the whole, so
unlike
my usual life, so different that I was bewildered, and lived like a child, without ever taking stock. I liked it. Now I am ill. I have got influenza: the minute I got back. I am writing this flat on my back, and with a very bad headache. I have just had Jack’s letter, but I don’t know if he had better come here because of infection. I caught it myself from someone I was with just before I left Eastbourne. I wd. love him to come and eat here if he wd like but anyhow it wouldn’t do for him to see me.

I send the films. For God’s sake don’t lose
one
or let any bad or careless person handle them.

As to Tom – a lot seemed to happen in that time between my leaving Bosham and his going to France. I had rather an affair with him, for one thing. It began when we were staying with the Schiffs for the Peace weekend. Don’t you yourself find that staying in people’s houses together is very conducive to reviving passion? I am sorry about his unsatisfactory
letter to you. I did not see it, or know of it. In future I am going to simply wash my hands of Tom and refuse politely to explain him or interpret him or influence or direct him. I mean to have some sort of individual existence, and Tom must manage his own muddles. This does not mean that I shall be above talking [about] him with you Mary, because that is an exciting joy that I wouldn’t be without. And you do stand alone. And I shall see you very soon I hope. I am coming to Bosham next Wednesday, if I am well enough, and I am really counting on a lot of talk with you. I think I can explain everything.

Has Tom enemies? You ask me but I think you know that better than I. Anyhow it doesn’t matter, for I think enemies stimulate him. The important point is – friends. I must say I felt rather disillusioned after those three weeks of the ‘going out more’ and ‘seeing more people’ attempt. But I must
speak
to you. I can’t and won’t write any more.

I
swear
the films shall follow this. I haven’t been acting piggishly, I’ve just been giving way (letting out my stays, so to speak) Good-bye darling Mary. I shall not expect Jack unless I hear again.

Sneezing violently –

Vivien

PC
¹
Beinecke

[Postmark 26 August 1920]

[Tours]

This is the best thing I have found, such as it is. Amboise has some of the best Renaissance Gothic I have ever seen if one likes that, and the river there is superb. W. L. having fallen off his bicycle on the road to Chinon has retreated to Dieppe.
²
He believes that he has escaped lockjaw. Shall see Fritz [Vanderpyl] and perhaps Cros
³
in Paris.

Yrs. T.

1–The card shows the porch of the Collegiate Church of Saint-Ours at Loches.  

2–TSE recalled this episode in ‘Wyndham Lewis’,
Hudson Review
10: 2 (Summer 1957).  

3–Guy-Charles Cros (1879–1956), poet.

MS
Cornell

Friday [27 August 1920]

[Paris]

I sent Fritz a card to say I would fetch him about 5–6. If he dines with me I will return here before dinner. Or better still, come on to his flat, 13 rue Gay Lussac, between 5–7.

T.S.E.

MS
BL

Tuesday 31 August 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear Sydney,

Thank you for your charming letter which did indeed welcome me back. I was, as usual, very loth to leave France. Our change of plans must have appeared odd, especially as it took us so long to reach the coast! But when we
finally
got to the actual sea coast the weather had become suddenly very cold, and we felt we could not stand the dreariness of the Breton landscape, so we rushed back, to Saumur. The Loire is extremely beautiful, and I had never stopped in that part of France before. There was good wine, and Lewis found some delightful old houses to sketch that just suited him, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. He had intended to go to Dieppe or Boulogne after a week or ten days and get hold of some special material there. Unfortunately, we hired bicycles, and his wretched machine collapsed and bruised his hand so as to prevent him from working for some time. I left him in Paris. He is a most excellent companion in travelling and a great comfort intellectually.

We saw Joyce again in Paris – but I feel that I would rather reserve him to talk about than try to give my impressions on paper.

Don’t expect too much of the
Dial
at once! I agree with you about Hueffer: he is very readable, but after a time one comes to feel that he is an unpleasant parasite of letters. The article by Aldington was taken by the
Dial
¹
prior to Pound and not through him. I think Aldington and Flint
²
say a good many silly things about verse and prose, and I am hoping for an opportunity to discuss this with Aldington. I think the effect of Pound’s editorship will be visible gradually, especially after he gets the form of the paper altered. 

I should love to come to Eastbourne again – the weekend party was a great success too! – but candidly I do not feel I can afford the expense of any more weekends at present.
Shall you come straight back to Cambridge Square after the 15th
? I want you to.

Vivien’s photographs of you are wonderfully good. You will have to tell me about her success as an actress – she won’t admit it.

I have arranged to meet Lewis as soon as he gets back, to discuss the paper. Do write and say when I shall see you. With love from both of us to you and Violet.

Affectionately
T.S.E.

1–RA, ‘The Art of Poetry’,
Dial
, 69: 2 (Aug. 1920), 166–80.

2–F. S. Flint (1885–1960), Imagist poet, translator and civil servant.

MS
BL

Sunday [5 September 1920]

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear Sydney,

After all, if you can have me, I should very much like to come down for next weekend (11th), as I want very much to have a talk with you – and somehow that seems easier in Eastbourne than in the midst of London. I shall also want to show you what I hope to have written by then. If it is not convenient then I shall have to hope for your speedy return. But tell me frankly whether I can come or not.

Affectionately
T. S. E.

TS
Houghton

13 September 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear Henry,

You will think me a beast not to have written – not to have even acknowledged your very detailed letters about mother’s health and about the family finances;
¹
and finally, to have left your so generous cheque so long unthanked. It is difficult, especially the more time elapses, to explain the thousand little and big things that interfere with the letter one wants to write. I do not think I shall ever have time to write a letter worth anyone’s
keeping. As the world becomes worse to live in, every month, so the minutiae of existence seem to consume more time and energy; so many of the processes that were formerly almost automatic now demand the thought of a Field-Marshal planning a campaign. And also, as one gets older, one seems to accumulate more responsibilities; toward one’s friends, toward younger men who are always wanting help of thought and advice; and literary schemes too, instead of being an exciting game, are one more responsibility. One feels now, at I imagine a much younger age than people ever had to before, a responsibility toward the next, unfortunate generation.

I have consumed much time and worry in the problem of a flat. Just now I am on the verge of taking one; if I take a new one it will be because I have your £90 in the bank, and feel safer in paying a higher rent than before. Rents are fantastic. The ‘Rents Act’ only really protects those who want to stay where they are; and all the nice (comparatively) cheap flats are occupied by people who will probably hang on to them till they die and then bequeathe them to friends. But I cannot say more in gratitude than that you have made it possible for me to change my flat – if there is another one to be found. I do not think we shall ever have a house; quite apart from the rent (houses are not much dearer than flats!) the cost of running a house now is prohibitive – even if one can get servants to work, at any price.

26th September: I began this letter several days ago and since then my time has been completely and absurdly absorbed in the question of which of two flats to take, or even whether to take neither and wait or even try to stick this one out for another three or five years. We are going round in a few minutes to have a last deciding look at one of them, for we must choose by tomorrow morning. I have just heard that some friends of ours have taken a small house in a disagreeable suburb and have to pay £120
plus
rates and taxes, which will certainly bring it up to £150 or more, and then they will have higher fares to pay to get into town. So nothing else is better. The
other
flat is only £100 a year, which is very cheap for what it is, but there are expensive fittings, stoves etc., which
must
be bought. So if you don’t pay one way you pay another. I go on with all these details just to suggest faintly how such petty elements of life as hiring a place to live in consume all the energy one has. I have not done any writing for months, and now we are both sleeping very badly.

I have finished the proofs of my book with Methuens, that’s one thing at least, and it ought to be out in October. I feel maddened now because I want to get settled quietly and write some poetry; there seems no likelihood of it for some weeks at best, as if we take another flat there will be a thousand details of business to occupy both of us. What I (what both of
us) would like best of all would be to have a nice easily run very tiny flat quite cheap and also the most insignificant small labourer’s cottage in the country, where we could always go for a change or for weekends, and the rent of which wouldn’t matter. Such a combination would have been possible before the war. But to live in the country
all
the time would involve great fatigue in coming to town every day, and we should probably never see our friends.

I must write you again as soon as I have any leisure or peace of mind, because there are lots of points to mention in your various letters to me; but I must get this off because it is already scandalous how long I have been unable to thank you for your gift. Thank you again, very very gratefully.

Your affectionate brother
Tom.

Those are charming photographs of Millis you sent. I was very glad to get the one of mother’s new house.