Eliot’s letters reveal unbearable agony!
Spicezee Bureau

London: Today TS Eliot may be considered a literary genius, but the price he paid for his success was huge. On one hand he had his sick wife desperately in need to be taken care of and on the other hand was the gargantuan task of editing ‘Criterion’, a quarterly magazine.Recently published second volume of TS Eliot`s fiercely guarded correspondence with writer Virginia Woolf reveals the pain and struggle he underwent while writing his masterpieces.

“I have written nothing whatsoever for three years and I do not see any immediate likelihood of my writing. The writing of poetry takes time and I never have any time," these lines kind of sums up the author’s terrible plight. The 800 pages book underlines three crucial years of the writer’s life when he was just not able to do much.

While a student in philosophy at Oxford, Eliot had married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in June 1915, but his wife constantly struggled with ill-health and mental instability.

On March 12, 1923, he wrote in one of his letters, "I am now in the midst of a terrific crisis. I wish to heaven that I had never taken up the ‘Criterion’. It has been a great expense to me. I have not got a penny out of it."

A banker by profession, the writer stuck to his job for financial security although he was dispirited. "I am worn out. I cannot go on," he lamented in March 1923 in one of his letters. February 1925 found him "at the blackest moment of my life", but in reality there were blacker moments still to come. "So life is simply from minute to minute of horror,” he wrote to Woolf.

“I am ashamed to have sent you such badly written articles. The workload, and worry about money had shaken his confidence in writing. Eliot refused to give up his bank job and wrote on April 26, 1923: "The bank is a secure job for life, with a pension at 60, a year`s salary and a pension for my wife in the event of my death."

On December 31, 1923, he said: "I am ashamed to have sent you such badly written articles. I must stop writing and read and think for a long time before recommencing."

These letters dripping with agony depicts in harrowing detail a man desperately trying to stop himself from being driven mad by circumstances.