27 March 1921
27 March 1921
27 March 1921
Villa Isola Bella, Menton, France
Later.
At this point they came in and we began with olives and sausage and very good herrings. M. saw the point of the affaire Elliot perhaps better than I did. I didn’t know he had been spending his very spare time with the Hutchinsons and not with the likes of you. Hes a rare, delightful being - isn’t he? Thats what I always feel, even when the bluff oppresses me. But Prufrock remains. I think thats what I want modern poetry to be. I even have a feeling (this is private!) that Johnny Keats would have admired it immensely and written Elliot no end of a letter.
I confess Im a moralist enough to think no man can afford to run with the Hutchinsons, more especially if he feels about them as Elliot does.
But I don’t know. One must lay down the law for nobody except oneself . . . but Life is so precious, so marvellous — can one afford to pour it out for the Hutchinsons — afford to waste it except — gloriously - with ones friends?
[To Sydney Waterlow in Collected Letters, late March 1921.]