"He loves me, but apparently not in the way usual to men less gifted"

March 15, 2023 12:42 PM

This is a digital edition, free-to-access, of the complete surviving correspondence between T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) and Emily Hale (1891–1969) – the 1,131 letters that Eliot sent to Hale between 1930 and 1957 (deposited at Princeton University Library, they were embargoed until 2020) – together with a number of important additional letters, including letters from Hale to Eliot, located at the Eliot Archive in London. The collection has been edited by John Haffenden (General Editor of The Letters of T. S. Eliot), who provides in addition a detailed chronology of the life and career of Emily Hale, and an Appendix of writings by Hale herself. This website features too a Gallery of photographs, and a fully searchable Index. All of the available documentation relating to the T. S. Eliot–Emily Hale relationship is presented here.

Part of tseliot.com, which "continues the mission of the late Valerie Eliot: to bring her husband’s life and work to as wide an audience as possible."

The Letters of T. S. Eliot to Emily Hale previously

posted by chavenet (17 comments total)

Well shit, my sandwich post looks extra silly now.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:44 PM on March 15, 2023 [12 favorites]

Like a hot dog, etherized upon a table, let us go now, through certain half deserted streets, and find some bread
posted by jamjam at 12:49 PM on March 15, 2023 [20 favorites]

don't worry, the Eliot-Hale story is a bit of a shit sandwich in and of itself.
posted by chavenet at 12:51 PM on March 15, 2023 [11 favorites]

Eliot’s first wife, Vivienne, died in an asylum.

I’ve often wondered how much her illness had to do with being seduced by Bertrand Russell.
posted by jamjam at 1:08 PM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

The wonderfully pseudonymed Gin Jenny has thoughts about Elliot and Hale.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:23 PM on March 15, 2023 [19 favorites]

"He loves me, but apparently not in the way usual to men less gifted"

In my world, this was the inspiration for Carly Simon's The Spy Who Loved Me.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:25 PM on March 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Surely you mean half desserted streets.
posted by slogger at 3:12 PM on March 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Let us go then you and spy,
While the heathen ladies cry
That is not what is meant by marriage
While we will take death's carriage
To the room where the women come and go
Barely arming their shawls
With me enthralled by words who ring
Hauntingly, sorry, solitary sentinels in lonely forests,
Waiting for the lonely men in shirtsleeves
To hurl dried geraniums from the balcony.
Do not ask what is it,
Pinned and wriggling on the wall
Because we have known them all,
The eyes that phix you in a phormulated fraze,
And say that's not a menthol.
posted by Oyéah at 4:18 PM on March 15, 2023 [5 favorites]

Hunh. I had always just blithely assumed from what little I knew of Eliot beyond the poetry (reactionary, Anglophile, fussy) that he was suuuuper gay. Live and learn.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:08 PM on March 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

outgrown_hobnail - I think you are thinking of T.E. Lawrence, I consistently confuse the two in my simple mind as well.
posted by dchase at 8:05 PM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

I shall wear my flannel pajama bottoms rolled.
posted by y2karl at 10:56 PM on March 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Reading Gin Jenny's commentary on Eliot's commentary, I'm realizing that I was correct, at 15, to label Eliot a giant schmuck, and am now feeling pretty happy that my schmuck-dar was functioning at such a precocious age.

(I eventually learned to appreciate Eliot's poetry, kind of. But man, everything about his literary voice sets off my "fuck this guy" hackles, but basically all the reasons in Jenny's takedown.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:12 AM on March 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

T. S. Eliot is an anagram for "toilets."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:14 AM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

"T.S." stands for "totally sexy."

Or maybe "technical sergeant."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:17 AM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ve often wondered how much her illness had to do with being seduced by Bertrand Russell.

I invariably am surprised anew (as I keep forgetting) that Bertrand Russell and T.S. Eliot were friends, as they seem like they would have almost nothing in common. Once one gets over recollecting that, however, the response to relearning that Bertrand Russell seduced Vivienne is, "of course he did," because that is just the kind of thing Bertrand Russell did with his friends' wives.

(AFAICT, the weakest links in the occasional hints of a Russell-Eliot threesome are that (a) Eliot didn't seem to be all that sexually attracted to his wife, and (b) Russell seemed heterosexual to the point of near-prudishness.)
posted by jackbishop at 8:26 AM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Like accidental stars with a talent for squad drill.

I have met vituperating harridans who take it personally he succeeded as a poet, and his wife was institutionalized. I love Eliot's poetry, and I have had people shout at me for it, this coming out of the blue.

I will read these letters, but they are not his poetry.
posted by Oyéah at 8:32 PM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

the response to relearning that Bertrand Russell seduced Vivienne is, "of course he did," because that is just the kind of thing Bertrand Russell did with his friends' wives.

Eliot satirized Russell in his first collection of poems, published in 1917:

Mr. Apollinax

WHEN Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch—trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.
In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing—Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible fœtus.
His laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the sea’s
Hidden under coral islands
Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence,
Dropping from fingers of surf.
I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair
Or grinning over a screen
With seaweed in its hair.
I heard the beat of centaur’s hoofs over the hard turf
As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon.
“He is a charming man”—“But after all what did he mean?”—
“His pointed ears … He must be unbalanced,”—
“There was something he said that I might have challenged.”
Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah
I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon

I couldn’t presume to say whether this was written by a man who knew the subject had seduced his wife in particular (if he had by then), but Eliot certainly knew what the game was.
posted by jamjam at 8:48 PM on March 16, 2023 [2 favorites]