To The Waste Land

Abstract

Vivienne appreciated Tom’s genius and encouraged his enjoyment of what gaiety they could afford in war-stressed London. Eliot, for whom Beethoven’s sonatas had a special attraction, played the piano occasionally, when mood and opportunity were favourable; once, in Pound’s flat, he took part in the playing of his host’s compositions. For a time he and Vivienne lived with her parents at Hampstead. Then, after a chance meeting with Bertrand Russell, they occupied a room in his London flat, and were introduced to a number of the artistic intellectuals who made a habit of staying at Garsington Manor, the home of Russell’s current mistress, the flamboyant hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell. He thought Mrs Eliot a trifle vulgar (as did Aldous Huxley) but adventurous and likely to tire of her ‘exquisite and listless’ husband, who seemed ashamed of his marriage, and grateful if one was kind to her. With diminishing resources, Eliot had little difficulty, as war losses and recruiting increased, in finding a teaching-post; for one term, at the end of 1915, he taught French, German, and history at High Wycombe Grammar School.