[No surviving envelope]
NOW my dear I can sit down and write, becauseHarvard UniversityEnglish 26 (Modern English Literature);a7;a2 I have got over the first great ordeal which was the opening of my class (English 26) this morning. I had been so dreading it that I have been almost paralysed since my return, and couldn’t have written a letter of any kind until it was over. I set my alarum clock for 6:30 because I was so afraid of oversleeping (it is at 9 every Tuesday and Thursday). SpencerSpencer, Theodoreand English 26;b1 was there with me, which helped.1 ItHale, Emilyas teacher;w1EH's advice that TSE lecture less slowly;b1 went very slowly at first, but I remembered your monition to talk more quickly. The great thing seems to be to keep on talking at all costs, and get a large proportion of concrete detail and illustration. IBeyle, Marie-Henri (Stendhal)as realism;a2 hadHugo, Victorcompared to Stendhal and Thackeray;a1 a happy thought on the spur of the moment, inThackeray, William MakepeaceVanity Fair;a1 trying to explain the origins of ‘realism’ in the modern novel, telling them to compare the account of the Battle of Waterloo in Stendhal’s Chartreuse de Parme (the real thing) with the account in Les Miserables and in Vanity Fair. I don’t think that I shall give this kind of lecture (so different from the kind I have been giving) really well for some time yet, but I begin to feel that I am capable of learning, and I try to remember that it is what you and every other professor in the world have to do a number of times a week, and I just must learn how. I have no doubt that I shall feel periods of discouragement throughout the course; but it will have been a good discipline for me.2
Herewith some photographs: I thought that you might be interested to see those that I took on the rest of my journey. Wasn’t I quick to take photographs of my rooms after speaking to you on Sunday night, and have them ready by now? The view is out of my study window, looking towards the business school. IHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7eating sandwich;b2 amHale, EmilyTSE's names, nicknames and terms of endearment for;x3'riperaspberrymouth';b3 much pleased with the new ones of you: bothHale, Emilyphotographs of;w7in a car;b3 the one eating a sandwich so daintily and the riperaspberrymouth one in the car. But I like best the one you are to send me the film of. I only wish I had taken many more.
I wonder where I left off. IAmericaSt. Louis, Missouri;h4TSE on his return to;a8 told you something about St. Louis. The City was very kind to me; I only regretted that it gave me so little time; I wanted to go again to the cemetary quite by myself, and stay a longer while. CertainlyEliot, Henry Ware (TSE's father)haunts TSE in St. Louis;a6 the town was full of sadness for me; not so much on account of my mother as on account of my father; it was his city not hers; he was born there and worked for it and died there; and also I shall be haunted by my last sight of him until my last day. DidWashington University, St. Louishonours TSE with reception;a1 I tell you that they gave me a real oldfashioned Reception at the University? WeSmith, Holmes (TSE's uncle)at TSE's Washington University reception;a2 lined up in front of a grand piano – ChancellorThroop, George R.;a1 Throop,3 Holmes Smith and myself; the populace would announce their names to the Chancellor, who would announce them to Holmes, who announced them to me, and I then shook hands. SoSheffield, Ada Eliot (TSE's sister)remembered in St. Louis;c3 manyEliot, Margaret Dawes (TSE's sister)remembered in St. Louis;b6 saidSmith, Charlotte Eliot (TSE's sister, née Eliot)remembered in St. Louis;a5 theyEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)remembered in St. Louis;b7 remembered Ada, or Margaret, or Charlotte or Marian that I lost all grasp of names. Lor, I don’t know how many people I didn’t shake hands with in St. Louis. AndEliot, William Greenleaf (TSE's grandfather);a2 I was pleased to be introduced at the lecture as the grandson of Chancellor Eliot. I went to tea with the Jesuit fathers at St. Louis University, as a gesture of Reunion, and found them very intelligent – more so, I thought, than the Washington University people whom I met. OfChristianityUnitarianism;d9the Eliots' as against EH's;a1 the Unitarian Church I had no keen memories – myKing's Chapel, Bostondistinguished from unitarianism in St. Louis;b3 bestArlington St. Church, Bostonversus Unitarianism in St. Louis;a2 memories of Unitarianism are of Arlington Street4 & Kings Chapel – I went to the one poor little nearly empty Anglo-Catholic church there, which was of course new to me. But I was glad to leave St. Louis. EvenAmericaSt. Louis, Missouri;h4the Mississippi, compared to TSE's memory;a9 my Mississippi looked forlorn – the shipping has so fallen off since my time when the Creole Belle5 and the City of Memphis and the other steamboats blew the New Year in. ToAmericaSt. Paul, Minnesota;h5TSE on visiting;a2 St. Paul then, the train winding up the banks of the forlorn River till dusk – Hannibal, Keokuk; StEliot, Revd Frederick May (TSE's first cousin)as TSE's St. Paul host;a3. Paul in the morning early and Frederick waiting at the station in the dark. FrederickEliot, Elizabeth (TSE's cousin)hosts TSE in St. Paul;a2 & Elizabeth very kind to me; happy I think they are in St. Paul, and very fond of their adopted little boy. Two lectures there (one of them in Minneapolis). IUniversity of Minnesotalecture to;a2 spoke'Tendency of Some Modern Poetry, The'delivered from notes at University of Minnesota;a1 from notes only at Convocation at the University, after the organ had played the Star Spangled Banner, on Modern Poetry;6 and when I finished the organ played Hail! Minnesota,7 and they all stood up again. Also'Formation of Taste, The'lecture reprised in St. Paul;a1 at the Womens Club of St. Paul, on the Development of Taste.8 Met some more Furness cousins there, very nice ones, and Cousin Agnes Blake. StayedEliot, Revd Frederick May (TSE's first cousin)unChristian;a4 over Sunday to hear Frederick preach. He is a good preacher, I believe, and a good clergyman, and is one of the leading citizens there, and is good friends with the Roman priest there, Father Mahoney, who is a gentle, intelligent and cultivated old man. ButChristianityChristendom;b2TSE ponders the decline of;a1 there is something all wrong about it, all wrong, about Frederick’s mind; I suppose you will think I am carping again; but the world is going to pieces and this all so mild, and you know I am by way of being a fanatical narrow bigot. I prefer Christianity. But I felt that something was accomplished by getting into touch with Frederick again, and I have a great respect for all that branch of the family. ItMartin, Alice Eliot (TSE's cousin)reunited with TSE in St. Louis;a1 [sc. I] was happy too, to meet my cousin Alice Eliot (Mrs. Martin)9 again in St. Louis (to go back); to find that I like her very much, and to find that there was someone genuinely happy, with a good husband, a pretty daughter, two handsome wellmannered sons, and a comfortable home, and one of the real breed too. It has been a great joy to a person famished of kinship for so many years, to meet so many relatives that I like. From StPorter, Ruth Wadsworth Furness;a1. Paul I went on to Chicago, just to spend one night with the Porters (Ruth Furness).10 TheyEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother);b4 are great friends of Henry’s, and were very kind to him while he lived in Chicago; which is why I went. But alas, I did not make very much of these Porters, and especially not of the husband, JamesPorter, James;a1 Porter, a good wealthy serious business man with no notion for curing the economic and other ills of the world except to sterilise compulsorily every man as soon as he has begotten three children (he has five himself). He seems to have read popular science, and is a pessimistic atheist in a small way. There came the Buchens (Henry’s former partner, an intelligent man, and educated)11 andEliot, Thomas Dawes (TSE's first cousin)described for EH;a1 the cousin known as Tom Dawes (in distinction to Tom Stearns) with his Swedish wife;12 but Tom is definitely trans-Sierra-Nevada in temperament (born in Portland Ore.) and professes sociology at the Northwestern University. Had a motor drive through Chicago to admire Michigan Boulevard, the Exposition, and the Planetarium. UpAmericaAnn Arbor, Michigan;c4TSE on visiting;a1 and early the next morning to catch a train for Ann Arbour [sic]; arrivedLear, Edwardsubject of TSE's Ann Arbor lecture;a2 40 minutes before my (afternoon) lecture; lecturedCampbell, Oscar;a1 (Edward Lear)13 was taken by Professor Oscar Campbell14 (a nice fellow) to tea with KatherineAndrewes, Katharine Day;a1 Little (Clarence Little 1st wife [sic]) who still lives there) who was quite charming.15 ILittle, Clarence C.;a1 wonder why they did not get on. IPeters, Harold have not seen ‘Pete’, and find his case as difficult to understand as Barbara’s. But in this case the children frequent partly one parent and partly the other, which I think is a bad thing. Then a faculty dinner – more names and faces instantly forgotten – and then the night train to Buffalo. ThereAmericaChicago, Illinois;d8TSE on;a3 IPerry, Henry Ten Eyck;a1 stayed with Professor Henry Ten Eyck Perry16 and his wife and stepdaughter (Betsy Bigelow by name)17 Connecticut people. AHarvard UniversityTSE's student days at;a2 pleasant city, and some intelligent people mixed with others who if not very intelligent hunt little foxes in the neighbourhood. ToPerkins, Palfrey;a1 tea with Palfrey Perkins,18 the local Unitarian minister, whom I had known during my senior year at Harvard; lecturedLear, Edwardagain in Buffalo;a3 to the university (Edward Lear, I am getting pretty tired of him). DinnersAmericaits horrors;c2food;a8 at each place, my digestion not improved: always chicken or turkey and terrible salads. The Perrys had a dish consisting of pancakes with melted butter, caviare, red caviare, smoked salmon and olives, with which we had Port to drink. Took night train to Boston, upon which I caught the cold referred to previously, and took to my bed here. Up again on Sunday afternoon, andAmericaBaltimore, Maryland;c6TSE on visiting;a4 took the night train for Philadelphia, where I changed for Baltimore, where I was met by Boas.19 BoasBoas, George;a1 I knew in the Graduate School – looks French, indeed, has a surprising resemblance to Bergson. Appropriately, his wife is French;20 French sister in law staying in the house, and little girls chattering French about the house; atmosphere very intelligent and civilised, and really good salads with French dressing and garlic (at my request) and NO chicken. IPercy Graeme Turnbull Memorial Lectures, The (otherwise The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry)TSE on delivering;a4 gaveJohns Hopkins UniversityTSE on Turnbull lectures at;a1 threeDante AlighieriTSE lectures on;a2 lecturesDonne, JohnTSE lectures on;a1 onLaforgue, JulesTSE's Turnbull lecture on;a1 Metaphysical Poetry (Dante, Donne, Laforgue), to the University;21 they were well attended, with people standing up each time; andPoetry Society of MarylandTSE lecture to;a1 one'Tendency of Some Modern Poetry, The'again for Poetry Society of Maryland;a3 informal lecture to the Poetry Society of Maryland on Modern Poetry, with readings (it was in the church hall of the 1st Presbyterian Church, and somebody was playing the organ all through my reading). HadTurnbull, Margaretgrand and unintelligible;a1 to spend one night as a punctilio with Mrs. Bayard Turnbull22 (the lectures are the Turnbull lectures, and they are People of Importance, with an 18th century family portrait). Mrs. T. is conscientious as a lionhunter, but has the local accent to such a degree that it is sometimes unintelligible (she told me about something they had on the place which I finally concluded to be a COW, but the pronunciation cannot be imitated in print). ScottFitzgerald, F. Scottdoses TSE with whisky;a1 Fitzgerald, the novelist (hisFitzgerald, F. ScottThe Great Gatsby;a4 novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ was a very good novel indeed) lives near by, and is one of the table lions; I found him refreshing; he filled for me a medicine bottle marked ‘one teaspoonful every three hours’ with whisky – it tasted like varnish, but I was grateful in the circumstances.23 HerTurnbull, Eleanor;a1 sister in law, Miss Eleanor Turnbull, is however very charming:24 she gave a dinner for me, atKinsolving, Sally Bruce (née Sally Archer Bruce);a1 which I sat next to, and was dwarfed by, the great Mrs. Kinsolving.25 But Mrs. K. has been very nice and has sent me as a present a Benedictine breviary nicely bound (she is the wife of Dr. Kinsolving, the great local Episcopalian clergyman, and considers herself a Catholic).26 I was nice to her because I want her to be nice to Dodo. DodoSmith, Theodora ('Dodo') Eliot (TSE's niece)TSE reports on from Boston;a8 (Theodora Eliot Smith, my niece) is a problem. There she is, self-dependent, living in a small flat alone, teaching in the best girls’ school, and I believe a good teacher; never making friends, knowing nobody her own age, and I don’t believe any man of any age. And with her I can’t help feeling that it is a weakness of her own temperament; she is, I find, terribly critical of people, and apt to say cutting things about people, andEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister)worried by Dodo's manner;b8, Marian says, cutting things to people without knowing it, though she is so sensitive herself that you dare not say anything. I feel that if I saw enough of her by herself I might be of some use, for I believe that she is really fond of me; but I am not likely to see enough of her. She is pretty, though not very pretty, and very good and affectionate. AlsoEnglandencourages superiority in Americans familiar with;a8, she has been so much in England that I fear she looks down on most Americans. What could one do to make her more charitable and less pig-headed? ISmith, Charlotte ('Chardy') Stearns (TSE's niece)Dodo looks severely on;a7 am fond of her, you see, and also fond of her sister Chardy – about whom she is rather severe.
What a very sketchy account I have given. But my memories of my travels are – after leaving Claremont – very sketchy: I have a fog of faces and names and few clear images. As for general conclusions – have I any yet, I wonder? These will crystallise gradually, and start up, no doubt, in the middle of letters on other subjects. Returning to Cambridge, I am overwhelmed with work – I believe I have undertaken much more than any of my predecessors – I must see about secretarial assistance for business letters. SundayNoyeses, the;a5Noyes, James Atkins
This letter is extremely narrative – in a jerky piecemeal fashion. IHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7EH encouraged to gain weight;a8 hope that you will (to please me) get a little fatter; that in motoring youHale, Emilyappearance and characteristics;v7EH encouraged to tan;a9 will get sunburnt and get a great deal of fresh air; that you will try not to be too conscientious in your duties; and that you may dine out and meet new people if there are any. ISmith, Isabel Fothergill;a1 don’t trust Dean Smith,38 andStephenson, Martha Tucker Mazyck;a1 I distrust (though in a lighter way) Mrs. Stephenson;39 I don’t know about Mr. Jaqua, but I incline to think he is allright;40 everyone else seems to me very good. I hope that now you have a Car you will be able to get to church on Sundays; though the Unitarian clergywoman (What was her name, Miss Blagoon?) did not seem to me inspirational & colourful. IChristianityasceticism, discipline, rigour;a9as salubrious;a5 don’t think I am sentimental about church going. Half the time I don’t feel devotional at all. But I am thankful to say that it has become a habit; so that when I miss making my regular communion twice a week (as I have had to lately in my peregrinations) I feel just as I should if I didn’t shave or clean my teeth in the morning. You know that I am deliberately not a proselytiser: I have used my self-control in that as in other respects. Natural (or environmental) goodness isn’t enough – I am not here preaching, or talking to you or to anybody, but simply reminiscing. My parents were naturally good, both of them, and goodness came easy to them; and I had to find out by painful and humiliating experience that I was not so good as I took for granted. ToChristianitysins, vices, faults;d5as a way to virtue;a5 passChristianityvirtues heavenly and capital;e1not an Eliot virtue;c1 through a period of dissipation was a necessary stage for me, and a bitter lesson in humility: Eliots are not naturally humble, and what Charles Eliot knew about life was not much. But I have not said this in the way I mean it. I am just talking about myself, really. I have never criticised you in any way; and you should know by now that I can be quite convinced of somebody’s superiority – in the way in which I most wish to be superior – to myself. And as nothing that is possible or conceivable41 could shake that conviction, I am convinced that I have no illusions. If I don’t stop this long rambling letter at this point I shall only drivel, I expect. So I will subscribe myself,
See descriptions on backs of photographs. IMcSpadden, Marie;a1 am not surprised to hear that Marie42 is engaged to the Faun. I thought at the time that it was possible. He is beautiful but his brother seems to have more brains and gumption. I feel very sorry for them both. MyAinley, Richard;a3 youngGlendinning, Ethel;a1 Richard Ainley43 is now married to the charming Ethel Glendinning,44 who acted with him last year in the Old Vic troupe.
1.TheodoreHarvard UniversityEnglish 26 (Modern English Literature);a7class described;a3nEnglish 26 (Modern English Literature)
2.See too ‘T. S. Eliot to Lecture on Shelley and Keats’, Crimson Review, 17 Feb. 1933: ‘T. S. Eliot ’10, Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, will deliver the fifth lecture in the series on “The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism” tonight at 8 o’clock in the New Lecture Hall. The subject will be “The practice of Shelley and Keats.”
‘“AnWordsworth, Williamin amongst the Romantics;a1n age of revolution is not a good one for poetry,” stated Eliot to a CRIMSON reporter last night. “Perhaps that is why there are few poems of this period which satisfy me completely, and those rather short ones, and chiefly of Wordsworth.
‘“GoodChristianitybelief;b1and good poetry;a1n poetryDante Alighierihis didacticism compared to Shelley's;a3n, according to my view, should be written by good Catholics and good atheists: not by a man with a religion of his own. Shelley’sShelley, Percy Byssheas against Dante;a1n didactiveness compares unfavorably with Dante’s for that reason. Dante assumes that we accept the scheme of the Catholic Church; Shelley tries to convince us of the scheme itself. Thepoetryas against didacticism;a4n poet cannot afford to teach; he is quite at liberty to expound ideas, so long as they aren’t his own ideas, for then there is a chance that he will make poetry of it.”
‘Eliot attributes the greatness of both Shelley and Keats to the promise they showed, rather than their actual accomplishments. “In the case of Shelley one is giving him the benefit of the doubt; theKeats, Johnhis letters guarantee his talent;a5n letters of Keats, on the other hand, prove, I am sure, that he was headed in the right direction.”’
3.GeorgeThroop, George R. R. Throop (1882–1949), classicist; Chancellor of Washington University, St Louis, 1927–44.
4.Arlington Street Church: Unitarian Universalist church facing the Public Garden, Boston.
5.The Belle Creole was a Missouri paddle steamer, built in 1823. See too Susan Clement, ‘“All Abroad for Natchez, Cairo and St Louis”: The Source of a draft heading of T. S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday I’, Notes and Queries, Mar. 1996, 57–9.
6.‘JanuaryUniversity of Minnesotalecture to;a2 19, 11:30 a.m. TSE'Tendency of Some Modern Poetry, The';a2n addressed an all-university convocation in Northrop Memorial Auditorium at the University of Minnesota on “The Tendency of Some Modern Poetry”. He predicted that future poetry will take two new forms: in the first, satire will be seriously developed; in the second, a new kind of poetic drama will emerge. The modern poet serves no essential function; only the worst and best poets are known; the former are published in newspapers, while the latter are appreciated only by the cultured minority’ (Loucks, ‘The Exile’s Return’, 23).
7.‘Hail, Minnesota’, written in 1904 by students at the University of Minnesota, was to be adopted as the official State Song in 1945.
8.Loucks'Formation of Taste, The';a2n, ‘The Exile’s Return’, 21–2: ‘January 6, 1 p.m. At the University of California, Los Angeles, Eliot gave a lecture and poetry reading in Royce Hall auditorium on “The Formation of Taste”. TSE identified four stages in the development of poetic taste, from childhood to maturity, the final phase involving the whole person. Characterizing his own taste as capricious and limited, heGoethe, Johann Wolfgang vonTSE's failure to appreciate;a1 admittedWordsworth, WilliamTSE's failure to appreciate;a2n he had never been able to appreciate Goethe and some of Wordsworth. “I do not affirm that what I like in poetry is good. If one is sincere, he will not enjoy a thing because he is told it is great. He must be true to his own feelings. Self knowledge is the most important factor in knowing what we really feel.”’ Henry Eliot reported, copying directly from TSE’s lecture-notes, these remarks: ‘For at no point has our development been merely a development of Taste, that is, an approximation to a discerning, appreciative enjoyment of all of the poetry worth reading, in its proper kind and degree. Such an ambition is a phantom, the pursuit of which we may leave to those whose aim in life is to be “cultivated” or “cultured” – I do not know which is the right word to use. Such people treat art as a luxury, and commonly end by becoming themselves luxury articles. The ideal is unattainable, and I think is in some sense even undesirable.’ The lecture at the Women’s Club of St Paul was evidently a reprisal.
9.AliceMartin, Alice Eliot (TSE's cousin) Eliot (1889–1967) was married to Leonard Martin (1887–1971).
10.RuthPorter, Ruth Wadsworth Furness Wadsworth Furness Porter (1875–1942) – whose ancestors included famous New Englanders, and who was related to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and TSE – graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1896. Cultivated and gregarious, she was married in 1898 to James Foster Porter (1871–1939), who ran a trust by the name of the Porter Realty Trust – the family inheritance included a large farm that would become the Chicago Loop. They lived in a grand lakeside home at 1085 Sheridan Avenue, Hubbard Woods, Winnetka, Illinois, and enjoyed too a holiday home in Maine. Their five children included the renowned painter Fairfield Porter (1907–75): see Justin Spring, Fairfield Porter; A Life in Art (Yale University Press, 2000); Material Witness: The Selected Letters of Fairfield Porter, ed. Ted Leigh (University of Michigan Press, 2005).
11.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)his business in Chicago;b5n Eliot had worked for the Buchen Company, a Chicago advertising business, in 1917–29.
12.ThomasEliot, Thomas Dawes (TSE's first cousin) Dawes Eliot (1889–1973) was married to Sigrid Victoria Wijnbladh (1888–1942).
13.TSE had given his lecture, ‘Edward Lear and Modern Poetry’, in Balch Hall at Scripps on 5 Jan. 1933: see William Baker, ‘TSE on Edward Lear’, English Studies 64 (1983), 564–6.
14.OscarCampbell, Oscar Campbell (1879–1970), Professor of English, State University of New York at Buffalo; author of Shakespeare’s Satire (1943); The Reader’s Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (1966).
15.ClarenceLittle, Clarence C. C. Little (1888–1971) – known to Harvard friends as ‘Pete’ – scion of an upper-class Boston family; science researcher specialising in mammalian genetics and cancer; President of the University of Maine, 1922–5; the University of Michigan, 1925–9; founding director of the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory at Bar Harbor; managing director of the American Society for the Control of Cancer (later the American Cancer Society); twice President of the American Society for Cancer Research, President of the American Eugenics Society; and, most controversially, Scientific Director of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (later the Council for Tobacco Research), 1954–69.
Little’sAndrewes, Katharine Day first wife (m. 1911), was Katharine Day Andrews, who bore three children: the couple divorced in 1929. In 1930, Little married Beatrice Winifred Johnson (1899–1973), a scientific researcher who worked as his laboratory assistant: they had two children.
16.HenryPerry, Henry Ten Eyck Ten Eyck Perry (1890–1973), Professor of English, University of Buffalo.
17.Elizabeth Perkins Bigelow, daughter of Henry Bryant Bigelow, was to die of an embolism from horse-riding in 1934.
18.PalfreyPerkins, Palfrey Perkins (1883–1976), who graduated from the Harvard Divinity School, was Unitarian Minister in Buffalo, New York, 1926–33; later of King’s Chapel, Boston, 1933–53.
19.GeorgeBoas, George Boas (1891–1980), Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University.
20.Boas had married Simone Brangier, a sculptor, in 1921.
21.LoucksPercy Graeme Turnbull Memorial Lectures, The (otherwise The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry)described;a5n, ‘The Exile’s Return’, 23: ‘January 30, February 1 and 3, 5 p.m. TSE presented a series of lectures, “The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry”, in Latrobe Hall at the Johns Hopkins University on the occasion of the 29th Percy Graeme Turnbull Memorial Lectures (“TSE on Puritan Poets”; Schuchard, Introduction to Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry, vii, 234). Individual lecture topics were “Toward a Definition of Metaphysical Poetry”; “The Conceit in Donne and Crashaw”; and “Laforgue and Corbière in our Time” (Schuchard vii) … February 2, evening. Appearing before the Poetry Society of Maryland, TSE lectured on the charge of obscurity in modern poetry, then read from his work (Schuchard 236).’
The Baltimore Sun reported on Tues., 31 Jan. 1933, 20: ‘T. S. Eliot Asserts Advantage Of Being Critic Is That It Pays: American-Born Poet, Who Became British Citizen, Gives First Of Three Percy Turnbull Memorial Lectures at Johns Hopkins:
It pays better to criticize poetry than to write it, T. S. Eliot has learned.
The eminent poet and leader of a reactionary movement in poetry said as much while discussing his calling yesterday after a lecture at the Johns Hopkins University. He gave the first of the three Percy Turnbull Memorial Lectures for this year. Speaking on The Metaphysical Poets, he will complete the season with lectures at 3 P.M. Wednesday and Friday in Latrobe Hall.
When asked how he could account for his success as both poet and critic, in view of the general rule that a great poet is seldom a great critic, he said:
‘Well, I don’t know about that. My chief reason for being a critic at present is the fact that you can make a little money out of an essay on criticism.’
It was the second time this month that a poet from the British Isles visiting Baltimore has intimated that writing poetry is not a lucrative profession. Several weeks ago William Butler Yeats, leader of the renaissance of Irish literature, said that the Irish were great ‘appreciators of poetry, if not readers of it.’ They honored him as a personality, he admitted, even though they did not read his books.
Mr Eliot, born in St Louis, aroused much speculation when he became a British citizen in 1927. Some said at the time that it was the case of a thinker seeking seclusion, like a mediæval monk going into the monastery.
Asked if he found London conducive to the contemplative life, he replied:
‘PerhapsEnglandLondon;h1affords solitude and anonymity;a3East Coker, Somerset
For his lecture Latrobe Hall was packed with well over 400 persons. Prof. H. C. Lancaster, chairman of the department of romance languages, introducing the speaker, said, ‘Our English cousins are generous in sending us poets and other lecturers to help us in our war against Philistines and other barbarians. We are indebted to them, but we ask for no cancellation nor moratorium. Our debt is well paid, for we have given them Henry James and T. S. Eliot.’
TSEPercy Graeme Turnbull Memorial Lectures, The (otherwise The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry)their fate;a6nVarieties of Metaphysical Poetry, The
22.MargaretTurnbull, Margaret Turnbull (1887–1981), a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, had gained a Masters in History from the University of Pennsylvania. Her husband was Bayard Turnbull (1879–1954).
23.Matthew Bruccoli related in The Life of Scott Fitzgerald, 404: ‘When T. S. Eliot lectured on the metaphysical poets at Johns Hopkins University in February 1933, the Turnbulls invited Fitzgerald to a dinner they gave for Eliot [at “Trimbush”, the Turnbulls’ estate at Rodgers’ Forge in Towson, north of Baltimore]. Fitzgerald regarded him as the greatest living poet and had been gratified by his praise of The Great Gatsby. On this occasion Fitzgerald was asked to read Eliot’s poems [including a section of The Waste Land] aloud, which he did effectively.’ FitzgeraldFitzgerald, F. Scotton meeting TSE;a2n to Edmund Wilson (ca. Feb. 1933): ‘T. S. Eliot and I had an afternoon + evening together last week. I read him some of his poems and he seemed to think they were pretty good. I liked him fine. Very broken and sad + shrunk inside’ (F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters, ed. Bruccoli [1994, 2005], 227). See also Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur (1981), 345; Arthur Mizener, The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1965), 249.
T. S. Matthews adds (Great Tom, 115): ‘On the afternoon of Eliot’s arrival at the Turnbull House Fitzgerald came to see him, and the two went off for a long walk. Mrs Turnbull remembers seeing them start off across the lawn … When Eliot returned from his walk, Mrs Turnbull showed him her copy of The Divine Comedy, and told him with some pride that she had read it. “Begun to read it,” he corrected her.’
OnFitzgerald, F. Scottin TSE's recollection;a3n 30 Oct. 1958 TSE wrote to Andrew Turnbull (son of Mr and Mrs Bayard Turnbull), who was at work on a biography, Scott Fitzgerald (1962): ‘Fitzgerald seemed to me a very sick man at the time I saw him in Baltimore. I liked him and enjoyed our conversation, though I cannot now remember what topics were discussed. I can remember the carboy of gin which he produced from a cupboard toward my refreshment, very similar indeed to a carboy of gin which one of my friends at Harvard provided for me <regularly! $300 a gallon> during that period. I also remember that you paid me a sort of compliment, or so I was told afterwards. Someone said that you had remarked about me that I had the manners of a titmouse and the strength of a lion. I do not know quite what the manners of titmouse would be and I have certainly never felt myself to be very leonine, but the impression made by the remark was rather pleasant’.
TSE wrote on 22 Sept. 1960 to John Quentin Feller. Jr.: ‘I did go to see Scott Fitzgerald and his wife in 1933 when I went down to Baltimore to deliver the Turnbull lectures there and was a guest of the Turnbulls. Fitzgerald and his wife were then living in a house on the Turnbull Estate which had been put at their disposal by Miss Turnbull. I called on them one afternoon. It was the first and only occasion of my meeting with Scott Fitzgerald in person. I remember that he looked a very sick man and I remember that he produced from a cupboard the usual prohibited carboy of bootlegged gin for my entertainment. But what we talked about I do not remember. It was a friendly occasion and I liked the man, but I retain a strong impression of sadness. And I have never read Tender is the Night, though I am proud to possess a copy inscribed to me by him. I still regard The Great Gatsby as a very fine and remarkable novel’ (Cited in Bauman Rare Books Catalogue, 1996).
FitzgeraldFitzgerald, F. ScottTender is the Night;a5 inscribed a copy of Tender is the Night: A Romance (New York, 1934):
‘T. S. Eliot from F. Scott Fitzgerald
with all admiration
——all respect
——all ———
All everything from one who believes that Dr. Johnson’s sneer at “reciprocal courtesy between authors,” must have been tossed off in a bitter moment.’ (TSE Library)
TSE’sFitzgerald, F. ScottThe Great Gatsby;a4 copy of The Great Gatsby, which Fitzgerald sent him in Dec. 1925, is inscribed: ‘For T. S. Elliott [sic] / Greatest of Living Poets / from his enthusiastic / worshipper / F. Scott Fitzgerald. / Paris. / Oct. / 1925.’ But TSE lamented to Jack L. Morris (Tallahassee, Fla.), 3 Sept. 1959: ‘Oh dear, I wish I knew what had become of the copy he inscribed for me, but – like so many of my books – it has vanished.’ TSE’s secretary told Jeffrey Hart, 26 Mar. 1964: ‘Mr Eliot does not think that his copy of The Great Gatsby was inscribed by Scott Fitzgerald. In fact he is almost certain that he bought it for himself, but he cannot verify this because unfortunately he has mislaid it.’ (See too Jeffrey Hart, ‘Scott Fitzgerald’s America’, National Review, 19 Nov. 1963, 443–4.) Valerie Eliot wrote to a Swiss researcher, Eugen Huonder, 17 Mar. 1970: ‘Alas, I am sorry to say that my husband’s inscribed copy of The Great Gatsby disappeared many years ago and there is no record of the inscription’ (EVE carbon). See Daniel G. Siegel, ‘T. S. Eliot’s Copy of Gatsby’, Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 1971, 291–3. TSE’s copy of The Great Gatsby, inscribed by FSF, was donated in Dec. 2007 to the John Hay Library, Brown University, by Daniel Siegel of M & S Rare Books, Providence, RI.
TSE told Marie P. Harris (19 Feb. 1952) likewise: ‘I liked Fitzgerald personally, and rated The Great Gatsby very high indeed.’
OnAsh Wednesdayinscribed to Scott Fitzgerald;a7n 3 Feb. 1933 TSE wrote in a copy of Ash-Wednesday (1930) on the title page: ‘Inscribed to Scott Fitzgerald with the author’s homage T. S. Eliot’.
TSE would later inscribe his copy of Fitzgerald’s posthumous collection The Crack-Up (1945), for Valerie Eliot: ‘I met S. F. only once: in Baltimore in 1933.’
TSE told John Quentin Feller, 22 Dec. 1960: ‘You can tell Miss Turnbull, who I have no doubt is a very charming lady, that I am as shocked by her intolerance of Scott Fitzgerald’s weakness [for alcohol] as she is by Scott Fitzgerald himself.’
24.EleanorTurnbull, Eleanor Turnbull (1875–1964), scholar and translator of Spanish poetry.
25.SallyKinsolving, Sally Bruce (née Sally Archer Bruce) Bruce Kinsolving, née Sally Archer Bruce (1876–1962), author of David and Bathsheba and Other Poems (1922) and Grey Heather (1930).
26.RevdKinsolving, Revd Arthur Barksdale Arthur Barksdale Kinsolving (1861–1951), minister of St James, Baltimore, 1906–42.
27.InStillman, Charles Chaunceyendows Charles Eliot Norton Chair;a1n 1925 Charles Chauncey Stillman, class of 1898, philanthropist, gave $200,000 to endow the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry, in memory of Professor Charles Eliot Norton.
28.AliceJames, Alice Rutherford Runnels Rutherford Runnels James (1884–1957), wife of William (‘Willie’) James Jr. (1882–1961) – son of psychologist William James (brother of Henry) – American artist and painting critic for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; acting director, 1930–7.
29.Edward Burlingame Hill (1872–1960), American composer, taught at Harvard from 1906; Professor, 1928–40. His students included Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Virgil Thomson.
30.LangdonWarner, Langdon Warner (1881–1955), American archaeologist and art historian; specialist in East Asian art; Professor at Harvard; Curator of the Fogg Museum – and reputedly one of the models for Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones. Katharine Sansom thought him ‘a jolly sort of buccaneer … the gentlest of men and a passionate aesthete’ (Sir George Sansom and Japan, 20).
31.Henry Copley Greene (1871–1951), Harvard alumnus, writer and social worker. He was for many years Clerk of the Boston Art Commission. His wife was Rosalind Huidekoper.
32.For Sears, see below.
33.William Ellery Sedgwick, Jr. (1872–1960), editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1908–38; his wife was Mabel Cabot.
34.DanielSargent, Daniel Sargent (1890–1987), historian, biographer, and poet, taught at Harvard, 1914–34, and was thereafter a full-time writer. Author of eleven books including Thomas More (1933). He lived at 30 The Fenway, Boston Mass., and was Secretary of the Boston Art Commission.
35.AnnieLamb, Annie Lawrence (TSE's cousin) Lawrence (Rotch) Lamb (1857–1950) was married to Horatio Appleton Lamb (1850–1926).
36.JanPaderewski, Jan IgnaceTSE attends concert given by;a1 Ignace Paderewski (1860–1941), world-famous pianist and composer – and advocate of Polish independence. As well as his hugely successful concert career (which meant he spent little time in Poland after the 1880s), Paderewski was briefly Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland in 1919 and also played a leading role in the exile government in 1939–40 after Poland was occupied by Hitler and Stalin.
37.Elizabeth Wheeler Manwaring, Class of 1901 Professor of Rhetoric and Composition.
38.IsabelSmith, Isabel Fothergill Fothergill Smith (1890–1990), first Dean of Scripps, 1929–35; Professor of Geology and Tutor in Sciences, 1929–35. See Jill Stephanie Schneiderman, ‘Growth and Development of a Woman Scientist and Educator’, Earth Sciences History 11: 1 (1992), 37–9.
39.PresumablyStephenson, Martha Tucker Mazyck Martha Tucker Mazyck Stephenson, wife of Nathaniel Wright Stephenson (1867–1935), Professor of History and Biography at Scripps College, 1927–35: author of Lincoln and the Union (1919); Nelson W. Aldrich (1930); A History of the American People (2 vols, 1934).
40.DrJaqua, Ernest J. Ernest J. Jaqua (1882–1974), first President of Scripps College, 1927–42.
41.‘Der Gedanke enthält die Mölichkeit der Sachlage die er denkt. Was denkbar ist, ist auch möglich’: ‘The thought contains the possibility of the state of affairs which it thinks. What is thinkable is also possible’ (Ludwig Wittgenstein, proposition 302, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. C. K Ogden, with the assistance of F. P. Ramsey (1922), 42–3). William Empson, ‘This Last Pain’: ‘“What is conceivable can happen too,” said Wittgenstein …’
42.MarieMcSpadden, Marie McSpadden, in a letter to Kay Koeninger, 16 Jan. 1982: ‘Emily Hale, his dear friend, was an intimate of mine … I think he sent me the poem, “Marina”, because I was a typical California “sailor girl”, tanned, tall, and used to the sailing and swimming and out-of-door living that went with the locale. And very extrovert.’ A student at Scripps College, McSpadden went on to take an MA at Stanford University, and was to work for a while as assistant to Lou Henry Hoover (1874–1944) – wife of Herbert Hoover (1874–1964), President of the USA, 1929–33 – when she served as the National President of the Girl Scouts of the USA, 1935–7.
43.Richard Ainley (1910–67), stage, screen and radio actor.
44.EthelGlendinning, Ethel Glendinning (1910–96), stage and screen actor.
6.RichardAinley, Richard Ainley (1910–67), theatre and film actor; son of actor Henry Ainley (1879–1945).
Little’sAndrewes, Katharine Day first wife (m. 1911), was Katharine Day Andrews, who bore three children: the couple divorced in 1929. In 1930, Little married Beatrice Winifred Johnson (1899–1973), a scientific researcher who worked as his laboratory assistant: they had two children.
19.GeorgeBoas, George Boas (1891–1980), Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University.
14.OscarCampbell, Oscar Campbell (1879–1970), Professor of English, State University of New York at Buffalo; author of Shakespeare’s Satire (1943); The Reader’s Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (1966).
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
6.MargaretEliot, Margaret Dawes (TSE's sister) Dawes Eliot (1871–1956), TSE's second-oldest sister sister, resident in Cambridge, Mass. In an undated letter (1952) to his Harvard friend Leon M. Little, TSE wrote: ‘Margaret is 83, deaf, eccentric, recluse (I don’t think she has bought any new clothes since 1900).’
1.Marian/MarionEliot, Marion Cushing (TSE's sister) Cushing Eliot (1877–1964), fourth child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Eliot: see Biographical Register.
2.RevdEliot, Revd Frederick May (TSE's first cousin) Frederick May Eliot (1889–1958) – first cousin – Unitarian clergyman and author: see Biographical Register.
12.ThomasEliot, Thomas Dawes (TSE's first cousin) Dawes Eliot (1889–1973) was married to Sigrid Victoria Wijnbladh (1888–1942).
2.Washington University 1857–1932: Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Inauguration (Washington University Press, Apr. 1932) saluted WilliamEliot, William Greenleaf (TSE's grandfather) Greenleaf Eliot (1811–87), one of the founders and third Chancellor of the university. ‘He was graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1834, and one year later was ordained as a minister. Desiring to identify himself with the West, he accepted an invitation from a group in St Louis, and organized the First Congregational Society, which later became the Church of the Messiah (Unitarian) … In 1853 he became the first president of the Board of Directors of Eliot Seminary, a position which he continued to hold after the change of name to Washington University, until 1870, when he became also acting chancellor. In 1872 he was elevated to the chancellorship’ (6). In an address given on 22 Apr. 1957, the Revd Dr W. G. Eliot proclaimed, ‘The charter under which we act is unexceptionable, – broad and comprehensive, – containing no limitation nor condition, except one introduced by our own request, as an amendment to the original act, namely, the prohibition of all sectarian and party tests and uses, in all departments of the institution, forever’ (11).
3.HenryGreenes, the CopleyGreene, Henry Copley
5.EleanorHinkley, Eleanor Holmes (TSE's first cousin) Holmes Hinkley (1891–1971), playwright; TSE’s first cousin; daughter of Susan Heywood Stearns – TSE’s maternal aunt – and Holmes Hinkley: see Biographical Register.