1920: Houghton
the eliot way
dear Henry,
i sent you a few days ago by registered post
a copy of my portrait (the one Knopf is using for
advertising) and a copy of my limited edition. i
have not sent this to Mother or told her about it.
i thought of cutting out the page on which oc
curs a poem called “ode” and sending the book
as if there had been an error and an extra page
put in. Will you read through the new poems and
give your opinion. The “ode” is not in the edition
that Knopf is publishing, all the others are. and
i suppose she will have to see that book. do you
think that “sweeney erect” will shock her?
i am grateful to you for giving me so much
news of mother. she gives it herself only in a
vague and fragmentary form. i am interested in
your suggestion that she ought to put the Mer
cantile Trust Co. in charge. i am always wonder
ing whether it is really necessary for her to take
so much upon her own shoulders, or whether it
is not merely the family temperament—to do
everything oneself and to put on climbing irons
to mount a molehill. i am not in the least sur
prised at uncle ed, and the sooner she gets good
lawyers, brokers, estate agents, and bankers and
has nothing to do with ed the better.
i have just written to her: i want her to take
her summer holiday here in england instead of
in boston. i can see nothing against it. she will
have to leave st. louis anyway for three months.
she does not want to come to england until her
estate is settled. i cannot believe that she would
stand any serious financial loss by a few months’
absence, with you in Chicago and good agents
in st. louis. i cannot believe that the differ
ence between twelve hundred miles and three
thousand miles matters so much as that. i know
