The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (44 page)

MS
Houghton

22 October 1917

Sewhurst Farm, Abinger Common,
Surrey

Dear Mrs Eliot

I hope you got my short letter written last week. I thanked you for the money for Tom’s underwear. It is not spent yet, as I had a great rush and life was very difficult for the last few weeks. But it shall be spent to the best advantage. So far we have not needed to go into thicker clothes as the weather has been wonderfully good all this month.
Too
good, as you will perhaps have read in the papers. The weather always does seem to favour the Germans, in an extraordinary way! It is always wet when we are trying to advance, in France, and beautiful and cloudless at the times of full moon, when they get their chance to make our lives in London a misery to us.

I told you that we had decided to search (probably in vain) for a tiny cottage, somewhere within very easy reach of town. The only way to do that is to take some neighbourhood as a centre and to stay there for a time, hunting all around. I spent much time and money in correspondence, 
trying to get rooms near enough for Tom to go up and down each day while I hunted but of sixteen addresses I had not one could take us, except this one – which we discovered,
when
we arrived, to be six miles from the nearest station!! It was a great disappointment, for of course it means that Tom can only be here at weekends. We came on the 20th and had a lovely weekend, and Tom left early this morning. Each day I am going to walk, or go short distances by train, and to do my utmost to discover a small cottage or hut. This is, in my opinion, and in Tom’s too, now – the most beautiful country in England. It is all hills and miles and miles of pine forests – with stretches of heath – heather and bracken and bushes – in between. It is very wild although so near to London, and very
very
healthy. If only I could find something in this part! But the more I hear the more improbable it seems – in this part or in any other. You will of course know that we should not be contemplating this thing if it did not seem essential, and likely to become
more
so. We always are, and have been, very careful of what we put in our letters, for of course it is necessary that the censorship about some things must be very strict. Besides, one doesn’t care to have one’s letters destroyed! But it is rather hard not to be able to explain things in detail to you. I am sure if you were here you would urge us to try to find something in the country. You see we are bound to keep on the flat, for several reasons. If it were not that Tom considers it absolutely necessary to have all his books about him, (and it is necessary) we could wander about and not be so fixed. But we can’t wander with fifty or 100 books – to say nothing of papers – typewriters, and all the other business! Tom now gives two lectures a week, as I expect he has told you, on Mondays and Fridays, and that
necessitates
those two nights being spent in London at least. The lectures are both in outlying districts – at opposite ends of London. He never gets back before 11. Another point is that it is very difficult indeed to let a flat now – almost impossible I think. And ours, you see, is nearly a top one. So the only thing to do, if one does anything, is to get some cheap cottage to spend as much time as possible at. My people were in the country nearly all the summer, they are just at home now for a fortnight, but are leaving again this week. I have had a great deal of country myself in the last four months – about eight weeks on and off! and I am so
much
better for it. I have not felt so well since we were married. You see, after I got back from Bosham, I had only been at home a week when I got a very severe attack of influenza, from a germ. The doctor said there was a slight epidemic of it just then, and you know what I am when influenza is about! Well, I had a good deal of fever, and was very bad for some days. I had to get in a strange woman – and she only
stayed two days, as she caught it from me. Then I had no one. The doctor meanwhile had sternly forbidden me to get out of bed. But while it was still at its height there were two air raids – the first a bad one. So I had to get out of bed each night and go down in the cellars for an hour or two – and the wonder to me is that I got over that attack as quickly as I did. Directly I was able my parents wired for me to go to them (in Sussex) and so I was back in the country two weeks after I left Bosham. I stayed with them for a week, and Tom came for two days. Then I came back and had everything to put in order again, and got on with my interrupted cleaning of the flat. After so much absence, and coming and going, and Tom there alone, it was much more than filthy. Then we decided on this plan – and I thought I had better get hold of a good woman, temporarily. Tom’s health
does
suffer by our not keeping a woman if I have to be away. While I was at Bosham he was invited by some very good friends of ours who live quite close to us, to make his home with them. They begged him to stay on a
long
visit – promised to leave him alone and undisturbed, put a sitting room at his disposal, and did all they could about it. The result was that Tom stayed for three days, under pressure, and then insisted on returning to the empty flat, saying he could not work anywhere else. He was very thin when I got back, and of course the truth is that he is over worked, and it needs colossal efforts to keep him averagely well. So, seeing that to find this cottage I should have to be coming and going – and as a most remarkable servant was
sent
to me without any effort of mine, in a curious way – I instantly decided to engage her,
temporarily
. She was installed for ten days before we came here, and I found her a most wonderful person. I have never had anyone like her, she is clean and hard-working, an excellent cook and a most finished servant altogether. Also I could see she had common sense, and is very economical. I feel now
perfectly
confident that Tom is at any rate well looked after and fed, when he is at home.

I do hope you and Mr Eliot are keeping well. Please do not worry over Tom too much – we shall be quite allright, we are very cautious people, and Tom is really getting on awfully well. One can’t help feeling proud of him – he is doing so well at the Bank, and everyone there likes him so and they seem anxious to advance him. He is giving very interesting lectures this year, I enjoy them immensely, especially the Southall ones (the same people as last year). If only the war were over and we could all come together – I am looking forward so much to going to America. You can see I have a great deal there to draw me – all Tom’s family, and his friends, and my one and only great friend, Lucy Thayer, whom you met. Next to my family she is most important to me, and she is not able to get back to me here.

This farm is quite ideal, a sort of fairy tale farm. An old house, of course, right on the steep side of a high hill – surrounded by pine trees. Only a cart track leads up to it. How I wish I could send you some pictures of it.

Hoping you will write soon.

Affectly
Vivien

MS
Houghton

24 October 1917

The Egoist
, Oakley House,
Bloomsbury St, London,
W.C.

My dearest Mother,

I just wanted to write you a line as I did not by the last mail, though it is now late. I was very glad to get your letter and father’s this morning, and to have a little news. You made me reflect that I am most often very inexpressive in my letters. But I am constantly thinking of you and picturing you in past scenes, and trying to picture me in the present. There are so many things I don’t like to think of, because I think often that I used to be very selfish and self-indulgent in many ways, and quite unappreciative of your and father’s kindness and generosity. Now, of course, when the time has gone by, I think of these things, and there is nothing I can do – I cannot even write letters as often as I want to.

We spent last Sunday in a most delightful farm, hidden away in the Surrey hills, about an hour and a half from town. There is a very nice farmer and his wife who do not take lodgers regularly, but they had formerly been gardeners to Lord Russell and to the Trevelyans, and so they took us in. The farm is in a little hollow in the hills, very high, surrounded by a ring of pine woods, broken only by a little narrow yellow winding road that wanders down into the valley. It is four miles from a village, completely in a forest; but you can walk about two miles and emerge suddenly on the top of Leith Hill, precipitous on the other side, with a view wide over the downs of Surrey and Sussex. We had beautiful weather too. I took down books and prepared my lecture on William Morris. I no longer
write
them–I set down about three pages of notes. Vivien says I am getting better and better as a lecturer.

Tonight it is raining torrents, which rejoices me. I must go to bed now.

with Very much love
your devoted son
Tom

TS
Houghton

31 October 1917

18 Crawford Mansions,
Crawford St, w.1

My dear father,

I have had two nice letters from you and mother this week, from St Louis. I wish there was one day when I could always look forward to getting your letters, but the mails are irregular, and I never know when they will turn up. Still, it is always a surprise. I am very busy with my lectures, as I give one on Fridays and one on Mondays, I have hardly finished one before I begin to think of the next. But they cost me far less in effort and time than they used to; I only make a couple of pages of notes now, and I can talk away for an hour or more. When I began, I used to try to get too much into the time, which I believe made the lectures difficult to follow; now I make them very thin, and press a few simple ideas without many qualifications, and my audience keeps awake. I never thought that I should ever be even a passable public speaker, but now I believe I could almost speak extempore. The feeling of power which you get by speaking from very brief notes is pleasant. I remember that the first lecture I gave, in Yorkshire,
¹
I had written all out and tried to memorise, and when I came to deliver it I found that I had quite enough for two hours talk!

As you know, Vivien has been in Surrey, which suits her very well, and I have been with her over weekends. This will be the last. We shall be very sorry, as the country there is very beautiful, and the climate delightful, and the farmer’s family very kind, and the home made butter and fresh eggs and home killed fowl very good.

Most of my spare time after lectures goes in to the
Egoist
editing. It is good practice editing a small paper, but very difficult under present conditions, when there are so few people to write, and those mostly poor stuff. I struggle to keep the writing as much as possible in Male hands, as I distrust the Feminine in literature, and also, once a woman has had anything printed in your paper, it is very difficult to make her see why you should not print everything she sends in. It is bad enough in a bank. My typist is in a bad temper now because I gave a couple of letters to do to someone else who happened to have nothing to do at the moment. The trouble is in some cases (as my typist) that the women in business don’t have to work, but if the men are away and they have no children or are
unmarried they want something to do; so not being wholly dependent on their salary they are rather
in
dependent, and sometimes irritating to men who
are
dependent on their salary. Of course such women are a minority, as there are very few incomes which don’t need supplementing nowadays, but there is a certain number.

I am going on with Spanish, mostly at lunch times; and they let me have all the Spanish and Italian and Portuguese financial papers for myself.

I must stop now. Write soon again please.

Your very affectionate son
Tom

1–At Ilkley. Asked for their opinion of the lecturer the class is reported to have said that he seemed a nice young man but he would fiddle with his watchchain (Valerie Eliot).

TS
Houghton

31 October 1917

18 Crawford Mansions

My dear Eleanor,

This is I believe only a short note, to acknowledge and thank you for your two letters, both of which I very much enjoyed. This is not the first Sunday of the Month, but on that date I hope to be in Surrey (the garden of England). Vivien has been there for a fortnight, and I have joined her on Sundays. It is really a part of England which you must see some time. It is only an hour or so from London, but some of the most beautiful country that I have seen in England. It is mostly large estates, and very lonely from Dorking on. We have been at a farm two miles from Abinger Common, and Abinger Common is three miles from Abinger Hammer, and the latter is a mile from the nearest station, Gomshall, so you see how remote it is. The farmer happened to have been a gardener in the family of some people we know, and he does not take lodgers regularly. His farm is very high up, the lane is steep, between tall pines, all the way from the station, the farm in a little hollow of the highest hill, with a ring of pinetrees all about it, and a little rivulet trickling down into the valley. The pigs play about, and we can have fresh milk, and home made butter. Two miles away is Leith Hill, which looks for miles over the downs of Surrey and Sussex. It is the sort of country where old farmers touch their hats and call you ‘gentry’.

I have not time to write much at present, and my regular work for the
Egoist
takes up most of that. I am trying to make up a Henry James number at present, as three of his posthumous works have just appeared.
¹ 
But there are very few people to write nowadays; all the old lot is broken up, and only drivellers left. I am just writing to ask May Sinclair for something, but I don’t believe she will. I have just been invited by a certain Madame Vandervelde,
²
a very dull woman, to contribute to a reading of poets, and what a poor lot they are! the only one who has any merit is a youth named Siegfried Sassoon (semitic) and his stuff is better politics than poetry.
³

I must stop now. I told you it was only a note of acknowledgment. As I write during business hours, ‘trusting to hear from you in due course’.

Affectionately
Tom.