The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (91 page)

1–The Hutchinsons’ country house, Eleanor, at West Wittering, Sussex.

MS
Houghton

6 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

My dearest mother,

Our time and thought has been taken up lately by negotiations over a new flat [at 9 Clarence Gate Gardens]. It has been a great worry. Everything is so expensive, so fearfully expensive, that it is bound to cripple one and prevent one from being able to do other things – and it means counting very close at that; and then one is so anxious lest it should prove to have some unexpected drawback when one finally gets into it. We have been worried out of our wits. I have finally agreed to take one – it will cost a great deal for us. But I simply cannot any longer work where we are, or even rest. I have of course been unable to write, or even read and think, for some weeks. Previously, we had practically decided on another one, but dropped it at the last minute partly because the landlord was a very disagreeable person – that took a lot of time. We have to have a flat that could be managed without a servant, for if we lost the one we have we should never get another at anywhere like such low wages and would never attempt to get another. I would do a good deal to keep this one, who has been with us four years; for besides taking low wages she does all sorts of things that no one else would do, and is almost like a trained nurse when either of us is ill. But we must have a flat convenient enough so that we
could
manage to do without her, if the pinch of expense became so tight.

You had better write to the Bank unless you meanwhile hear from me another address.

My book will I hope be out in two or three weeks. We have made all sorts of plans for you when you come in the spring – both for London and visiting other cathedral towns and the country. I am very glad you have got your moving over. I fear the streetcars will be trying for you at first. I am very sorry to hear about Charlotte. It sounds very painful.

I dissuaded Abby from going to Berlin. She went to Holland with a friend, and will soon be in Boston. She wanted Vivien to travel with her, but owing to this question of moving, and the expense, Vivien could not go. It was a pity. I do not know whether we shall ever take the rest of my holiday.

When you come, we shall arrange to let you have our flat and our servant, and we shall go elsewhere for the time. This is much the best plan. You will only have to walk into it.

Harold Peters has reached England; I have a letter from him from Plymouth; he will be in London in a few days.

I should be inclined to recommend English securities rather than French were it not for the income tax, which is
very
heavy
here. I will try to find out for you at what rate foreigners not living in England have to pay tax.

I am very tired and must stop now.

Your devoted son
Tom.

TS
Houghton

10 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

Dear Henry,

I am answering your letter at once, as you request.
¹
It is very kind of you indeed to take such infinite trouble and provide such very full information.

I figure that the $22,500 of stock at 4% and 3.60 pays Lst. 250 per annum. If I sold it @ 50 and 3.60 exchange I should get Lst. 3125. This invested in various bonds to yield @ 7%would give Lst. 218 p.a. The rate has fluctuated around 3.50 (a little over) the last few days. If you could sell @ 50 and buy sterling around 3.50 I think it would be a good investment. I have not heard of a projected loan to England in the American market.
²
If you sold 100 shares ($10,000) @ 50 = $5000 and could get sterling @ 3.50 it would produce Lst.1428, which invested @ 7%yield would net me Lst.100 p.a., a loss of only Lst.11 p.a. over 4% on the 100 shares (Lst.111 p.a.). I should not gamble on sterling going much lower.

Apparently I am not liable for any income tax in America on the Brick stock.

I think, in short, that it would be worthwhile to sell half the stock at a ratio of 50 (stock) to 3.50 (exchange) or thereabouts. If the exchange dropped further you could of course sell the stock for less, if necessary; and if the stock rose you could take a less favourable exchange. But I should be surprised if sterling got as high as 4.00 for many months. The present British government is very extravagant, and is likely to stay in power for some time; and on the other hand the accession of a Labour government would very likely be reflected by a depression in the value of sterling.

One is as a matter of fact very much in the dark (even arbitrage men seem to be) as to the immediate future of sterling. You know quite as much as I.

I cannot figure on better than 7%for gilt edged (government) securities.

We shall not let you forget your suggestion that you should come over with mother next year. You ought to have six weeks – that would give you at least three weeks here if you made proper arrangements, and that would be well worth it. In fact, you must come; so don’t let yourself think that there is any further doubt about it.

I am sorry you had Margaret on your hands. It must have been torture.
³
I want to write to you again soon about other things.

Always your affectionate brother,
[T. S. E.]

1–HWE had written on 24 Sept. about TSE’s stock in the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company, asking whether to sell the shares immediately so as to profit from the exchange rate.

2–HWE had reported, ‘rumor has it that England is planning to float a large loan in the United States with the purpose of establishing here large British credits. If this should be true, the effect upon foreign exchange rates would probably be favorable.’

3–HWE had related that their sister Margaret had been to stay with him in Chicago. ‘You can have no idea of what acute boredom is unless you have Margaret talk to you for an hour. It is not mere ennui; it is an excruciating pain; it is like being killed by light taps of the bastinado.’

MS
Cornell

15 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

Dear Lewis,

Thanks for your address. I should have communicated before but have been in almost hourly consultation with somebody or other about the flat which I am trying to take from an insane she-hyaena. As it is still uncertain what day I can move or whether she will make it impossible for me to move at all I have been able to form no plans and make no engagements. As it appears that I can get you on the telephone I shall ring up at the first moment I find myself free.

Yours
T. S. E.

MS
Beinecke

15 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

Dear Jepson,

Please forgive my unpardonable delay in replying to your kind invitation – which has been due to pressure of business of the most agonizing
description. I shall be very much pleased if I may come to your supper on Sunday evening.

Sincerely yours
T. S. Eliot

TS
Beinecke

17 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

Dear Scofield,

Thank you very much for your charming letter, written on my birthday, and also for the interesting cheque enclosed therein, which came to hand at a most opportune moment.
¹
I also observe your sagacious consideration in withholding payment until you had raised the rate.

Upon due reflection, and after perusal of Mr Shanks’s
²
contributions, I shall be glad to undertake a contribution every other month under the name of ‘London Letter’, dealing with the literary life of the metropolis. I suppose it will turn out to be mostly an attempt to diagnose the reasons for there not being more life than there is; but I will endeavour to spot any germs of vitality that appear, lest our American public should find the London spectacle too depressing. As soon as my personal affairs, which means at the moment protracted negotiations over a flat, have quieted down a bit, I will compose something to send you.

Mr Shanks, by the way, has just been presented with a silver medal for writing the most beautiful poem for the year 1919,
³
so he will probably retain enough conviction of his own merit to tide him over. I do not suppose that Pound will have any objection to the change.

Meanwhile I will not publish this matter abroad.

I received last night by the post a package bearing a label which indicated that it came from the offices of
The Dial.
When opened, it was found to contain
The House of Dust
by Conrad Aiken, and nothing else.
⁴
There was no enclosure or inscription to indicate why the volume was sent to me. It occurred to me that it might be intended for review: and if so, I fear it was a piece of naughtiness on your part at Conrad’s expense. I have
glanced through the book and it appears to me that the workmen called in to build this house were Swinburne and myself; the Dust being provided by Conrad. I trust that this criticism will not appear egotistic on my part, but I can point to a quotation on page 83.
⁵
So will you tell me what I am to do with the book? I will forward it to anyone in America or the United Kingdom whom you designate. I have always, of course, had the most friendly relations with Conrad; and I shrink from straining our friendship by reviewing his book.

Vivienne has recently been approached by a certain person of our acquaintance with the request that she should forward to you a manuscript which had already been rejected by Pound. To which she replied that as Pound occupied the position of Foreign Editor of the
Dial
, it would be considered a violation of etiquette. But, she said suavely, that the person was quite at liberty to send the manuscript direct. However, the individual in question has (very wisely, in my opinion) decided not to risk it.

Vivienne sends her love, and thanks you for your letter.

This address will continue to find us until further notice. My cable address in case of need is ‘Eliot, Information, Branchage, Stock-London’.

Yours as ever
T. S. E.

1–A cheque in payment for ‘The Possibility of a Poetic Drama’,
Dial
79: 5 (Nov. 1920).

2–Edward Shanks (1892–1953), English poet, novelist and critic, had written three London Letters for the
Dial
(Apr., June, Aug.), the last on TSE and English criticism. TSE’s first London Letter would appear in Apr. 1921.

3–Shanks’s
The Queen of China and Other Poems
(1919) was awarded the first Hawthornden Prize.

4–Conrad Aiken,
The House of Dust
(1920).

5–Aiken: ‘Sometimes, I say, I’m just like John the Baptist – / You have my head before you … on a platter’ (III, vii, 9–10). TSE: ‘Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, / I am no prophet – and here’s no great matter’ (‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, ll. 82–3).  

MS
Cornell

18 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear Lewis,

You may already have left for Hastings, but if not I trust it will do you good and that the strike
¹
will not prevent your coming back. Don’t let it. It is true that we are having great trouble and I rather doubt if we can move at all. This fills me with despair. Just had a party of Schiff, Ottoline, and Siegfried Sassoon (all accidentally). Come and see us directly you get back.

Write to this address.

Yrs –
T.S.E.

1–A national miners’ strike began on the day of this letter; it was triggered by wage reductions consequent upon the de-controlling of mines on 31 Mar.

TS
Berg

23 October 1920

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear Woolf,

I have been most anxious to come out and see you and Mrs Woolf, since you have returned to town; but have been prevented by a series of calamities. I have been engaged in long and most vexing legal negotiations over a new flat, and got partially moved in last week; since then my
father-in-law
was taken suddenly ill, and I have not been able to attend to anything else. He had to have an operation very suddenly on Friday, and I did not get to bed till Saturday night; he was just at the point of death, and we do not know from hour to hour whether he will survive. My wife has been on the edge of collapse in consequence.

There have been several minor complications too, such as a minor operation on my Nose. But at present my father-in-law’s condition is the only concern on my mind, and we have to hold ourselves in readiness at any moment.

I have not forgotten, however, that you promised to review my book, and as the author’s copies have just come in, I suppose it will be in the hands of the
Athenaeum
. So I have written to Murry tonight to say that I have asked you to do it, and to ask him to send it to you; and I very much hope he will. I am looking forward with great curiosity to finding out what you think of these essays.
¹

Please tell your wife that I am disappointed at not having seen her since my visit
²
which I enjoyed so much, and disappointed at being now in a position such that I can neither ask you to come and see us, nor come to see you.

Sincerely,
T. S. Eliot