T. S. ELIOT
537
reason why he should consent if I wrote to him direct. Could you do
anything in the matter? About Heuffer I have already explained to
you my difficulties. I certainly do not want him for several numbers
yet because there are a great many other people beside myself who
do not like him: the difficulty, if! asked him, would be to get some of
his really best work but not simply his egotistical meanderings about
his own services to English literature.
If
you happen to hear however
of his having done anything praiseworthy you might let me know.
I think it is particularly important to reserve the
verse
contribu–
tions to the really first-rate people. For that reason I should very
much like to get Yeats. There ought of course to be some other less
formal periodical in existence which would serve as a kindergarten
for meritorious youth but I do not think that the
Criterion
can afford
to print verse, for the present at least, except by people who really
know their jobs. Hence my desire to get hold of Yeats. I do not see
why we should not arrange later on to print some of your cantos in
the same month in which they appear in the
Dial.
That is to say, if
the
Dial
would print on the 25th of the month before one of our
quarterly numbers it would be all right. They wd have it
first
,
and I
don't suppose they insist on
exclusive?
You will possibly observe in the list of contributors a few
passengers who will have to walk the plank as soon as the ship gets
out of sight of land.
Re the Dostoevski . Lady Rothermere has some early Swin–
burne manuscripts, one of which is quite good. I should like to print
it in the next number.
ls
Have you any suspicion as to whether it
would be necessary to get the consent of Gosse . Gosse is certainly the
last person in England to give me any assistance if he could avoid
it . . . .
Has anything been heard of Proust? I see that the
Nouvelle Revue
Franfaise
announce what appears to be a fragment from a new
volume, to appear in their monthly magazine. Is this to be available
for the
Criterion?
I am off tomorrow for ten days at the seaside. I feel much too
tired for the journey to Paris and simply want to get away to some
dull place and "have left no addresses".19 Will write on my return .
Yours,
T .
18 . It did not appear.
19 . The Waste Land,
1, 181.
