T. S. ELIOT
539
persuaded the publisher not to throw it all up at once; which would
mean the trouble for me of getting another publisher if possible, lot
of trouble, and she would probably insult him too (this in STRICT
confidence); also her only comment on the contents is that it is Dull
and that Saintsbury is bad .
I am not running the paper for Binyon any more than for K .
Mansfield . Of course I don't mind printing a story by
K.
Mansfield,
though I prefer Binyon and have no use for either. I will however
suggest to Lady R. that she should secure a story from K . Mans–
field. I myself should much prefer to have something from Murry;
he is at least in every way preferable to his wife. The latter is not by
any means the most intelligent woman Lady R. has ever met. She is
simply one of the most persistent and thickskinned toadies and one
of the vulgarest women Lady R . has ever met and is also a sentimen–
tal crank.
1 notice that the
Criterion
is generally reckoned as a source of in–
come when Bel Esprit income is calculated, but is useless and
hopeless on other occasions. I am not entitled to want more than
£300 stipend, but am expected to edit a review for which there is no
need or use and to write articles for the
Times
which are also of no
use and furthermore are said to damage my brain. My dear Ezra, 1
don't want to write articles for the
Times
or for anything else, I don't
want to write articles at all, 1 don't want to write, no sensible man
does who wants to write verse. But 1 don't see how I am supposed to
be selfsupporting in five years except by an enormous output of
useless articles, literary rubbish etc. instead of the small number of
which 1 have hitherto supplemented my income.
It
is preferable to
run a review and be paid for letting other people write than to write
oneself, but if the situation for a review is as hopeless as you make
out 1 don't see any reason for bothering about that either. (I thought
you said it "might become a property") .
Of course I do not see England exactly as you do, it comes
largely from having spent so much of my time among commercial
people and not mixing with literary people as much as you have
done; it also comes from a belief that nothing matters about a coun–
try except being let alone, climate, chemists, and the character of
the lower classes ; of course England is deficient in some of these
qualities.
My own idea is that the way to make a review is to make it as
unliterary as possible: there are only half a dozen men ofletters (and
no women) worth printing, better get good people from other oc–
cupations who at least write about something they know something
