I am at last starting to write letters again, after finding, of course, after a fortnight’s absence, a mass of business letters, books, manuscripts waiting, and the usual queue of waifs and strays and authors domestic and foreign who had booked interviews on my return. Also19 Carlyle Mansions, Londonrefurbishments to;a5, of course, several things have not been done about the flat in my absence. On the one hand the linoleum (would you call it ‘oil cloth’?) has been put down, and the electrician, whom I interviewed yesterday morning, seems very active and efficient. But my builder has disappeared (no doubt on some other urgent job) and has not yet polished the floors, or put up the curtain fittings, or fixed a new draining board; and the refrigerator, which the landlord had told me was a gas refrigerator, suddenly discloses itself (or else has undergone a sudden mutation of species) to be an electric refrigerator, and must go in a different place, and I must find out whose business it is to see that it is in good order before starting it. And the gas company sent a man who went away again leaving a note ‘Gas left turned off not sound’; so I must ring up the gas company in the morning to find out what that means. AndHayward, Johnhis furniture;m3 John’s furniture is due to be moved in on Thursday, and I have got to try to get the electricity on by then, as it may arrive about dusk. I should like to have some heating too, for the people who arrange the furniture, but apart from the gas itself, the gas heaters have not been put in order by the gas company as they said they would. I have interviewed a possible housekeeper, a Frenchwoman of middle age with three grown sons all living in England, who rather appeals to me; ICodrington, Primrose (née Harley);a1 am waiting for her testimonials, as a friend of John’s named Primrose Codrington is taking up the references.2 So this week will be pretty full too; and'Preface' (to The Dark Side of the Moon);a2 I have got to squeeze time to do my preface to the Polish book and'Unity of European Culture, The';a2 to rewrite a broadcast to Germany so as to make it three.3 AndPound, Ezracorrespondence between TSE and Bernard Shaw concerning;d3 as I have become the chief repository of information in this country about the affaire Ezra Pound, that involves me in considerable correspondence (IShaw, George Bernardrepudiates TSE's defence of EP;a8 have just terminated, I hope, a somewhat acrimonious and on his side very ill-mannered correspondence with Bernard Shaw on the subject).4
Thistravels, trips and plansTSE's 1945 Christmas in Lee;f8described;a3 congestion is no doubt what is to be expected after taking two weeks in Devon in which I did no work beyond writing nine advertisements for books – itself a very trying task always. I seem to be very much better for it. ExceptBehrens, Margaret Elizabeth (née Davidson)during Christmas 1945;c7 for seeing Margaret Behrens, and taking tea with Miss Armstrong, and cocktails with Mrs. White (granddaughter-in-law of a lemonade king) andMirrlees, Hopeand TSE judge fancy-dress parade;c9 judging a fancy dress parade at a party at the Women’s Institute (togetherGibson, Captain Edward Russell, Lord Ashbourneand the attempt on Mussolini's life;a1 with Hope M. and a local worthy, a naval captain named Lord Ashbourne5) I was thrilled to meet him, because it was his sister <aunt> who tried to assassinate Mussolini in 1926)[,]6 my only social diversion was to repair before dinner to the bar of the Lee Bay Hotel and chat with the proprietor, who was formerly an actor and a frequent second lead in English films, on theatrical gossip (‘DearSeyler, Athene;a4 Athene Seyler! how is she?’ ‘DearHannen, Nicholas 'Beau';a1 Nicholas Hannen,7 such a lovely man’ etc.). The weather there is usually wet; as everything is nearly perpendicular, up and down hill, the lanes are apt to be brooks as well; there are only two walks to take and one of them is rather too muddy. ButEnglandLondon;h1its fogs;a5 there were several fine clear cold days, at a time when London was freezing, foggy, and lacking gas; the food was excellent and ample – eggs every day, and such bacon as one does not get in London, and Devonshire cream, and the old lady was as delightful as ever. My doctor was pleased with me on my return, and indeed, I am now, most of the time, hardly aware of anything wrong at all – the inflammation of a gland, which may possibly have been aggravated by teeth poisoning; and I am sleeping better.
I found your pencil letter of January 2 – just decipherable – if you used a slightly softer lead it might be easier. FirstHale, Emily Jose Milliken (EH's mother)and TSE's hope for the afterlife;c8 of all I must say that I think much of the time about you and your mother. People talk glibly of ‘a blessed release’; and it is true, but all the same, my dear, I know that part of the pain of it comes from the fact that the release is blessed. I know you must go through a good deal of suffering, and that in spite of everything you will be still more lonely. IChristianitydeath and afterlife;b4the nature of eternal life;a7 do believe, by the way, that whatever the eternal life is like, such ailments belong only to this life: where they are due to some moral fault (such as love of power combined with a sense of weakness) they must be overcome in purgatory; where they are due (as in your mother’s case) to some physical cause perhaps the cloud disappears at once. I don’t know what more I can say now, except that I feel for you very much, and that I have always mentioned your mother in my prayers.
Two excuses to be made. First, I had not forgotten the call for the ‘old book’, and I hope, before I come to America, to be able to supply this need. But it does need time: it means browsing about in secondhand bookshops, most of which, in the book scarcity of the last years, have been swept pretty clean of anything interesting. ButScripps College, Claremontbequeathed EH's TSE book collection;f9 about the bequest to Scripps, that is a different kind of lapse. I not infrequently forget, in writing a letter (especially when I have many other things to do) just the one point which most needs mention: usually such an obvious one that I cannot believe, a few days later, that I have not mentioned it. ThatGeorge, Ruthand EH's Scripps College Library Eliot collection bequest;a1 is what must have happened in this case; for I was so aware of your writing about this, that your telling me I had never mentioned it came as a great surprise. I can only say now that I am very pleased that this bequest should be in memory of Miss George, who I remember as clearly as anybody at Scripps (evenEyre, Mary B.recalled;b7 includingCailliet, Dr Emilerecalled by TSE;a4 theJaqua, Ernest J.;a5 breezy Miss Eyre, M. Caillet, Sheff’s friend whose name I forget, and the sinister Mr. Jaqua) because she struck me as une âme pure – and they are rare enough. (ISwan, Ethel'une âme pure';a9 thinkWilliams, Charles'une âme pure';a9 hereRidler, Anne (née Bradby)'une âme pure';b7 of Miss Swan, our telephonist, of Charles Williams, and of Anne Ridler who was a disciple of Williams anyway). I am also glad that anything you have of mine should be kept together, as a memorial of a different kind, and also I like the notion of its being a kind of memorial of that strange visit I made, in that strange remote part of the world.
I was pleased to get your report of your large tea party, and of the dress you wore, and of how you looked. IEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother)imagined in exclusively female company;j6 can imagine how embarrassed Henry would be at finding himself at a party to which men had not been invited. But I am disturbed that you should be so tired at the beginning of a new term; and I fear that with the strikes now going on in America life may have some great inconveniences for you – it is unpleasant enough to know that at the moment one cannot send or receive a cable.
My pen has run out, and my ink is at the office.
1.TSE misdated this letter ‘1945’.
2.PrimroseCodrington, Primrose (née Harley) Codrington, née Harley (1908–78), a professional painter – she exhibited work at galleries including the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club and the London Group – was married in 1936 to a professional soldier named Lt.-Col. John Codrington (1898–1991), but divorced in 1942. She lived and worked in Chelsea.
3.Die Einheit der europäischen Kultur (The Unity of European Culture): CProse 6, 709–35. The three talks, broadcast on 10, 17 and 24 Mar. 1946, were published in German (1946), and in English as an Appendix to Notes towards the Definition of Culture (1948).
4.TSEShaw, George Bernardrepudiates TSE's defence of EP;a8 to George Bernard Shaw, 20 Dec. 1945:
Dear Mr. Shaw, / As you may know, Ezra Pound, the American poet, who was in Italy throughout the war and broadcast repeatedly to America from there, is now being held in Washington for trial for treason. It is possible that the death penalty may be imposed.
The trial cannot take place immediately because of Pound’s physical and nervous condition. In the middle of the summer, after being arrested in Italy, he was kept for a month by the American military in a steel cage in the open air, exposed to the sun in the daytime and to perpetual electric light throughout the night. He had only the ground to sleep on, he was given no reading matter, not allowed to communicate with anybody, and was, in effect, in solitary confinement. As a consequence of this and other forms of discipline, he suffers from lapses of memory, and his attorney has secured his temporary transfer to a hospital in Washington, and hopes for permission to transfer him to a private sanatorium until he is fit to be tried.
Miss Phyllis Bottome, Desmond MacCarthy and myself have been excogitating a short letter to be sent to the American press at the appropriate moment and to be signed by a select number of British authors. We aim to secure the names of some of the authors best known and most esteemed in the United States and preferably, of course, authors whose political views are known to be opposed to the views held and propagated by Pound himself.
You will observe that in the attached draft letter, I have left certain blanks to be filled in at the last moment. It is obvious that such an appeal, if made before the trial or during the trial, would be ill-received by the American public for whom a charge of treason against one of their citizens is of course the occasion for demonstrations of the American type of patriotism. We must be very careful not to offend these susceptibilities and therefore I have asked correspondents in America to notify me immediately the verdict and sentence are delivered. I shall then fill in the appropriate words and cable the letter with the names of those who sign it to the New York Times.
We very much hope that this appeal for clemency will meet with your approval, and yours is obviously the most distinguished and the most helpful name that could possibly appear underneath it. We may have a dozen or so authors altogether as we wish to keep the list limited and select. I very much hope that you will find yourself able to give us this inestimable assistance.
I may add that of the many younger writers of my acquaintance, none of whom shares Pound’s views and most of whom hold views antithetical, all of those to whom I have spoken are united in wishing that Ezra Pound should receive as much leniency as is possible.
—————Yours very sincerely, [T. S. Eliot]
Ezra Pound has been tried by the ......... Court, convicted of ...... and sentenced to ......... No doubt a plea for the mitigation of this sentence has been made, or will be made, by fellow-writers in America. But writers in other countries also must be concerned for the fate of an American poet who will not be forgotten. As a poet, he is held in high estimation in literary circles not only in England, but, to our knowledge, in France, Holland, Scandinavia and indeed wherever interest is taken in modern poetry written in the English language. Several of the most eminent writers of our time, among them W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, have acknowledged their debt to him; and many younger writers have enjoyed his assistance and encouragement. In the history of our time, his position as a poet will be one of the highest worth and dignity. For these reasons we, the British authors who have signed this letter, add our voices in an appeal that he may receive all the clemency consistent with justice.
George Bernard Shaw has written at the foot of the letter:
This is enough to hang him ten times over. It is no defence to a charge of high treason that the accused is a poet: it rather aggravates his guilt. A better line would be that he is an idiot who did not understand what he was doing.
But as long as he and Joyce and the rest put themselves in the hands of the lawyers with their sham defences and vain excuses, they will hang. They should claim the right to take their honest sides in a European war of morals, and to be treated when captured as prisoners of war.
On that there would be a chance of the jury disagreeing.
———I won’t sign.
———G. Bernard Shaw
———25/12/45
———Ayot Saint Lawrence,
———Welwyn,
———Herts.
The ‘Joyce’ to whom Shaw refers was William Joyce, ‘Lord Haw-Haw’, who had broadcast from Germany during the war, was subsequently tried for treason by the British authorities and hanged on 3 Jan. 1946.
5.CaptainGibson, Captain Edward Russell, Lord Ashbourne Edward Russell Gibson, DSO (1901–83), who was Commander of the 3rd Submarine Flotilla from 1945, had succeeded to the title of 3rd Baron Ashbourne in 1942. He was to reach the rank of vice-admiral in 1952.
6.The Hon. Violet Gibson (1876–1956) – daughter of the 1st Baron Ashbourne (1837–1913), Irish lawyer and politician; Lord Chancellor of Ireland – attempted in Rome on 7 Apr. 1926 to assassinate Benito Mussolini with a revolver. The two shots she fired succeeded only in grazing his nose. Having been deemed to be insane, she was released without charge from prison (at the direction of Mussolini) and would spend the rest of her life in a mental asylum, St Andrew’s Hospital in Northampton (where James Joyce’s daughter Lucia was to be confined from 1951). See Frances Stonor Saunders, The Woman Who Shot Mussolini (2010).
7.NicholasHannen, Nicholas 'Beau' ‘Beau’ Hannen (1881–1972): British stage and screen actor.
4.MargaretBehrens, Margaret Elizabeth (née Davidson) Elizabeth Behrens, née Davidson (1885–1968), author of novels including In Masquerade (1930); Puck in Petticoats (1931); Miss Mackay (1932); Half a Loaf (1933).
4.DrCailliet, Dr Emile Emile Cailliet (1894–1981), Professor of French Literature and Civilisation, Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School, 1931–41 – ‘dear Mons. Caillet [sic],’ as EH called him (letter to Ruth George, 6 Dec. 1935; Scripps).
2.PrimroseCodrington, Primrose (née Harley) Codrington, née Harley (1908–78), a professional painter – she exhibited work at galleries including the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club and the London Group – was married in 1936 to a professional soldier named Lt.-Col. John Codrington (1898–1991), but divorced in 1942. She lived and worked in Chelsea.
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
3.MaryEyre, Mary B. B. Eyre, Professor of Psychology, lived in a pretty frame house on College Avenue, Claremont, where TSE stayed during his visit to EH at Scripps College.
2.RuthGeorge, Ruth George (1880–1959), Associate Professor of English, Scripps College, Claremont, California, had become a close friend of EH at Scripps in 1932–4. EH was to donate thirty-two inscribed books to Scripps; five inscribed items to Princeton University Library.
5.CaptainGibson, Captain Edward Russell, Lord Ashbourne Edward Russell Gibson, DSO (1901–83), who was Commander of the 3rd Submarine Flotilla from 1945, had succeeded to the title of 3rd Baron Ashbourne in 1942. He was to reach the rank of vice-admiral in 1952.
7.NicholasHannen, Nicholas 'Beau' ‘Beau’ Hannen (1881–1972): British stage and screen actor.
11.JohnHayward, John Davy Hayward (1905–65), editor and critic: see Biographical Register.
40.DrJaqua, Ernest J. Ernest J. Jaqua (1882–1974), first President of Scripps College, 1927–42.
2.HopeMirrlees, Hope Mirrlees (1887–1978), British poet, novelist, translator and biographer, was to become a close friend of TSE: see Biographical Register.
3.Ezra PoundPound, Ezra (1885–1972), American poet and critic: see Biographical Register.
3.AnneRidler, Anne (née Bradby) (Bradby) Ridler (30 July 1912–2001), poet, playwright, editor; worked as TSE’s secretary, 1936–40: see Biographical Register.
2.EthelSwan, Ethel Swan, a Faber & Gwyer ‘pioneer’, joined the firm on 12 Oct. 1925, as telephonist and receptionist, retiring in 1972 after 47 years. PeterSwan, EthelPeter du Sautoy's tribute to;a2n du Sautoy reported in 1971: ‘These duties she still performs with admirable skill and charm … SheJoyce, Jameson the phone to the F&F receptionist;c1n has an amazing memory for voices and it is certain that if James Joyce were to return to earth to telephone a complaint (he called us “Feebler and Fumbler”) she would say “Good morning, Mr Joyce” before he could introduce himself, as if he had previously been telephoning only yesterday. Many a visiting author or publisher from overseas has felt more kindly towards Faber & Faber as a result of Miss Swan’s friendly recognition’ (‘Farewell, Russell Square’, The Bookseller no. 3410 [1 May 1971], 2040).
5.CharlesWilliams, Charles Williams (1886–1945), novelist, poet, playwright, writer on religion and theology; biographer; member of the Inklings: see Biographical Register.