CONRAD AIKEN AND T.S. ELIOT:

MINISTERS' PROGENY GONE AWAY (ASTRAY?)

By

Richard A. Kellaway

May 28, 1987

Conrad Potter Aiken and T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot met at Harvard College in 1907. They became renowned poets and lifelong friends. Both were the true progeny on one of their grandfathers. The historic connection is the Unitarian ministry and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Aiken's maternal grandfather, William James Potter, was the minister of the First Congregational Society (Unitarian), of New Bedford from 1859 ‑ 1892. Eliot's paternal grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr. ministered to the First Unitarian Church in St. Louis from 1834 to 1887.

William Greenleaf Eliot, Sr. married Margaret Dawes in Boston in 1807. They soon moved to New Bedford where William hoped to make his fortune as a merchant and ship owner. However, the War of 1812 became a disaster for New England ports because of the embargo placed on maritime activity. Faced with ruin, William moved his family to the new capital of Washington. There he secured a position in the Post Office Department.

He was never wealthy, but he always provided well for his family. Education was of the highest priority. Since the quality of schooling in Washington was questionable, Eliot sent his sons to a school where quality was assured ‑‑ Friends Academy back in New Bedford.

William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., after graduating from Harvard, was ordained to the Unitarian ministry. At the age of 23, he set out for St. Louis to help establish a new liberal congregation. Establish one he did. And much more besides. He helped develop a public school system, was "the Father of Washington University," and pioneered in many other civic and charitable enterprises. Without doubt he was the leading public citizen of St. Louis.

Equally energetic were his activities to extend the Unitarian movement. He helped nurture many new churches and became active in national Unitarian politics. The primary organization, The American Unitarian Association, was made up of individual members, not congregations. In l865 Rev. Henry Whitney Bellows of New York initiated an organization of congregations, The National Conference of Unitarian Churches. Among his principal allies were William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr. and his brother, Congressman Thomas Dawes Eliot of New Bedford.

After graduating from Columbian College in Washington in l822, T. D. Eliot had returned to New Bedford to learn and practice law. He became an important civic leader and an active member of the Unitarian Church, serving for a period as Superintendent of the Sunday School. In his theology he was as conservative as his brother. But the church was not.

New Bedford is in that corner of Massachusetts which is close to what is now Rhode Island. In colonial times the area became a refuge for dissenters from the orthodoxy of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. The leading religious groups were the Society of Friends and the new Baptists. In the early 19th century, the Quakers were torn by dissent. Many of the more liberal members were pushed out of Meeting. Some were impressed by the eloquent and attractive Unitarian minister, Orville Dewey, and took pews in his church.

William James Potter, to the undiscerning observer, had a relatively uneventful life and ministry. Born a birthright Quaker in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, in l830, his entire ministry (l859‑l892) was spent with the First Congregational Society in adjacent New Bedford. He graduated from the Friends' school at Providence, Rhode Island, prepared as a teacher at the Normal School at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and after a brief teaching career, entered Harvard College in l850. Graduating with honors in l854, he taught at Cambridge High School until he entered the Harvard Divinity School in l856. He never graduated. After one year, he sailed for Germany to study philosophy at the University of Berlin and to travel. He returned to Cambridge in l858 and began seeking a church. He preached at the Unitarian Church in New Bedford (First Congregational Society) several times in July l859. A call came in the Fall. He was ordained and installed on December 28, l859, and preached his first sermon as the Society's minister on January l, l860. He retired from the same pulpit in l892.

His father remained with the Friends. It is reported that his father was not pleased with William's decision to become a professional minister, but nevertheless offered prudent counsel, "If thee must be paid, William, be sure that thee is paid well." He was.

Bellows intended the new National Conference to be open and inclusive, but a spirit of Unitarian orthodoxy quickly prevailed. The conference defined itself as Christian and made clear its distrust of more radical views. The Eliot brothers stood with the orthodox. Potter did not attend the organizing meeting in New York in l865, but did attend its first Annual meeting in Syracuse the following year. He was opposed to sectarian organization and was incensed by the insistence of the majority on a preamble that clearly identified the Unitarians as Christians. Stow Persons reports (Free Religion, p. 42), "As he boarded the train at Syracuse to return to New Bedford the idea of a 'spiritual antislavery society' occurred to William James Potter . . . The new society would dedicate itself to the emancipation of religion from the thralldom of irrational and traditional authorities." The result was the Free Religious Association, organized in Boston in l867. It was radial in its openness to new ideas. Potter drafted the Constitution and throughout its effective history, he was its mainstay, first as Secretary and later as President. He also edited its journal, The Index.

Potter's daughter, Anna, married a physician, Dr. William Ford Aiken. They moved to Savannah where they quickly established themselves in society. Four children followed; Conrad, the oldest, was born in l889. Elizabeth, Kempton and Robert were adopted by Frederick Winslow Taylor and his wife, Louise Spooner Taylor, cousin of Anna Potter Aiken. A wealthy Pennsylvania electrical engineering and pioneering efficiency expert, he insisted that the children to be adopted take his name. In order to preserve the Aiken name, Conrad was not included in the arrangement. In l901 Dr. Aiken murdered his wife and then committed suicide. Conrad was raised by a succession of relatives, many of them in New Bedford, and attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, but "never felt that he had a home." His guardian was William Hopkins Tillinghast, ("Frightened Uncle" in Aiken's autobiography, Ushant) who worked at Harvard, but his favorite was Alfred Claghorn Potter ("Beloved Uncle"), Assistant Librarian of Harvard's Widener Library. At the age of 9, Conrad had written a series of sermons "in pious imitation of Grandfather Potter."

In his poem, "Halloween," he speaks implicitly of his grandfather,

. . . O you who made magic

under an oak‑tree once in the sunlight

translating your acorns to green cups and saucers

for the grandchild mute at the tree's foot,

and died, alone, on a doorstep at midnight

your vision complete but your work undone,

with your dream of a world religion,

a peace convention of religions, a worship

purified of myth and of dogma:

dear scarecrow, dear pumpkin‑head!

who masquerade now as my child, to assure

the continuing love, the continuing dream,

and the heart and the hearth and the wholeness‑‑

It was so, it is so, and the life so lived

shines this night like the moon over Sheepfold Hill,

and he who interpreted the wonders of god

is himself dissolved and interpreted.

Rest: be at peace. It suffices to know and to rest.

For the singers, in rest, shall stand as a river

whose source is unending forever. . .

His second wife, Clarissa Lorenz, reports on one of their first meetings.

. . .In a warm account of his grandfather, William James Potter,

a Unitarian minister in New Bedford for thirty years, Conrad

expressed his own idealism. "He was a hero to his congregation.

They followed him when he broke away from Emerson's orthodoxy to

form the Free Religious Association, a doctrine embracing

scientific discoveries like Darwin's theory."

(In fact, Emerson was a founding member of the Free Religious Association.)

In l971, Aiken wrote:

. . .What could have been more natural, as I grew

older, that in my preoccupations as to the

content of the poetry I should turn to the

teachings‑‑for they were more teachings than

preachings‑‑of my Grandfather. I regard all my work,

both verse and prose, as in a way a continuation of

his work‑‑the finding of the truth about man, and

man's mind, and of man's place in the universe, and

the telling of it as accurately and beautifully as

such themes deserved. And, success or not, I like

to think he would have approved of the endeavor,

at least. And that's all I can say.

T. S. Eliot was born in St. Louis in l888. His father, Henry Ware Eliot, was a man of great taste who made his living manufacturing bricks. His mother, Charlotte Champe Eliot, wrote poetry and early recognized an exceptional talent in Tom. She strongly encouraged his literary aspirations. His first published writing was 'A Tale of a Whale;' it appeared in the Smith Academy Record in April, 1905. His minister grandfather was a persisting influence. In conversation with James Luther Adams, the poet commented that one of the most important things he had learned from his grandfather's life was the importance of being willing to work on committees. In l953 he visited St. Louis and lectured at Washington University. He reminisced:

. . .I never knew my grandfather: he died a year before my

birth. But I was brought up to be very much aware of him: so

much so, that as a child I thought of him as still the head of

the family‑‑a ruler for whom in absentia my grandmother stood

as vice regent. The standard of conduct was that which my

grandfather had set; our moral judgments, our decisions between

duty and self‑indulgence, were taken as if, like Moses, he had

brought down the tables of the Law, and any deviation from

which would be sinful. Not the least of these laws, which

included injunctions still more than prohibitions, was the law

of Public Service: it is no doubt owing to the impress of this

law upon my infant mind that, like other members of my family,

I have felt, ever since I passed beyond my early irresponsible

years, an uncomfortable and very inconvenient obligation to

serve upon committees. This original Law of Public Service

operated especially in three areas: the Church, the City, and

the University. The Church meant, for us, the Unitarian Church

of the Messiah, . . . the City was St. Louis . . . the

University was Washington University. . . . These were the

symbols of Religion, the Community and Education: and I think

it is a very good beginning for any child, to be brought up to

reverence such institutions, and to be taught that personal and

selfish aims should be subordinated to the general good which

they represent. (quoted in Wells, p. 25)

II

At Harvard Aiken and Eliot spent much time together. Both aspiring poets, each served as editor of the Advocate. Eliot frequently accompanied Aiken to the home of "Beloved Uncle," Alfred Claghorn Potter, for Sunday night supper. In the same early conversation with Clarissa, Conrad:

. . .described meeting Eliot in his freshman year, dining at

the same table in Memorial Hall. Actually, he said, they

weren't in the same class ‑‑ Tom Eliot was ahead of him.

What was he like? "A Wonderful fellow. Marvelous sense of

humor. We were both addicts of the comic strips, made the

rounds of bars and burlesque shows, talked about everything

from free verse to love and human folly. After I moved to

England we met less often."

Both spent much of their adult lives in England. Eliot in London quickly established himself in important literary circles. Aiken, painfully shy, settled in West Surrey in remote Rye. The work of each exemplifies and extends attitudes and values at the center of the religious commitments of their divergent grandfathers.

Aiken married three times and produced three children. He spent many of his years in three places ‑‑ Rye, Savannah, and Brewster, Massachusetts. It has been suggested that he loved his houses more than his first two wives ‑‑ Jeakes House in Rye, a townhouse near his childhood home in Savannah, and 41 Doors, an old farmhouse on the Cape. In temperament he was frequently irascible and outspoken. Often he seemed to enjoy shocking others.

Among his works are 35 volumes of poetry, 5 novels, an autobiographical essay, Ushant, short stories and criticism. In the 20's and 30's he wrote the Letter From London for The New Yorker. He received numerous awards including a Pulitzer Prize and was the Poetry Consultant at the Library of Congress. But his shyness led him to reject all offers of honorary degrees ‑‑ including one from Harvard. Indeed, he resigned from the College as an undergraduate, partially because his election as Class Poet would have required him to speak in public.

In spite of all honors, Aiken has never been a popular poet. Perhaps one reason is that many poets become known through their public readings. Contemporary poets who are unavailable rarely develop large followings. While he was fascinated by the literary world, he did not much participate in it. As a person, author, and critic, he was deeply committed to candor. He believed his real business was "to give the lowdown on himself, and through himself on humanity." (Writer's Trade, p. 233) A poem posted in the HENRY A. MURRAY MEMORIAL BATHROOM at 41 Doors (made possible by a gift from this friend) states the poet's mission

. . . Was this the poet? It is man.

The poet is but man made plain,

A glass‑cased watch, through which you scan

The multitudinous beat‑and‑pain,

The feverish fine small mechanism,

And hear it ticking while it sings.

Behold, this delicate paroxysm

This mission was in large measure a response to avid reading of Freud, Jung, Adler, and Ferenczi. He was enthralled by the notion that the unconscious could be explored to reveal realities not only about the individual self, but also about the essential character of the human species. In the early thirties, the poet H D (Hilda Doolittle) returned to Rye from Vienna after experiencing analysis with Freud. She reported that he had read Great Circle and kept a copy of it in his waiting room. She then suggested that Aiken take her place as one of the analyst's five patients. He was greatly tempted, although there would be great difficulty in raising the funds to afford the trip and process. Perhaps even more daunting than poverty was the fear that analysis might destroy creativity. (Lorenz, p. 168)

Sell him to Doctor Wundt the psycho‑analyst

Whose sex‑ray eyes will separate him out

Into a handful of blank syllables,‑‑

Like a grammarian, whose beak can parse

A sentence till its gaudy words mean nothing

(from "Changing Mind" Collected Poems)

Obedient to rebellious springs! His candor extended to his bluntly expressing his views about the work of other authors. This honesty helped make him an outstanding literary critic; it hardly enhanced his popularity within the literary world. His isolation was increased by his prolonged sojourns in England which led to confusion about his identity. Unlike Eliot, he never chose to assimilate and become a British subject. Yet his absences made it more difficult to be accepted within the American literary scene. Clarissa's reflections on Conrad's lack of recognition suggest several factors:

. . .Conrad's obscurity has puzzled many. There were, in my

view, a number of factors that contributed to the paradox. He

was a writer's writer, "a hellish highbrow," too difficult and

serious for the average reader. There's too much analysis for

his own good and the reader's. ". . .Even a book of critical

essays frightened off a yea‑loving public by calling itself

'Scepticisms.'"

. . . His poetry wasn't difficult to understand, he said.

In fact, it was quite easy. Young people had begun to discover

him. "These young people, I think, are interested in my free‑

wheeling attitude to life, my skepticism, my belief that there

are no final solutions, that things may have no meaning and

that we've got to face that possibility all the time.

Everything is in a sense reversible."

Including his lifestyle, and this is reflected in his

work. New England serves as one spiritual pole, the South the

other, forcing a life of uneasy perpetual motion on him.

. . .He pined for America when in England and for England when

in America, delighted by the British flair for conversation and

other attractions. He couldn't resist the pretty girl who

described herself as a "piece de non‑resistance."

An undoubted Anglophile, Conrad, but "the history and

landscape of Puritan America in his bones created his most

distinguished poetry,". . .

. . .Aiken shrank from promoting himself. His whole life

was devoted to his own genius, as one critic noted. He made no

effort to polish his image; he forbade the reprinting of one

of his most popular early poems because he detested it. He was

known to pay a price for sticking to writing, and writing only

what he believed in. His only profession of being a poet was a

rarity.

. . .Lest his father's insanity doom him, too, he lived

his life off stage, behind the scenes, remote whether in

Savannah, Boston, Cambridge, Rye, Cape Cod or Manhattan. He

never lifted a finger (except at the typewriter) to advance his

own reputation. . . .He let his books speak for themselves; no

autograph parties, TV appearances, lecture tours, or readings

(only on tape), no plugging his name. . . .

As for religion, he never joined a church. However, when his wife, Mary Hoover Aiken jokingly listed him as Episcopalian on a hospital admission slip, he was furious and insisted that he was a Unitarian. She reports that the two volumes of Grandfather Potter's sermons accompanied them on all their journeys and that they were once lent to Eliot. He wrote to Aiken on January 24, 1939:

Dear Conrad,

Haven't I been on the point of writing to you at any

time these six months? And haven't I been paralysed with

fright on each occasion by the thought of those damned

sermons, and not having the cheek to write to you until I

could find 'em?. . .

Shortly after Eliot's death on January 4, 1965, Aiken did a reminiscence for Life magazine. In it he refers to his own religious identity. In it reports on youthful discussions:

. . . He preferred France and I was the one who felt inclined to

England ‑‑ oddly, because it was he who became so entrenched in

London that he became a British subject and, in time, a convert

to the Anglican Church (from which I, a Unitarian). . .

Eliot as a young man was something of an aesthete and a dandy. Fascinated by the esoteric, he studied philosophy, Eastern religion, and learned several languages. As with Aiken, much of his poetry was initially perceived as shockingly and incomprehensively futuristic. An initial jolt was delivered by an early poem: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." It has been suggested that the model was Aiken's "Beloved Uncle," Alfred Claghorn Potter.

. . .In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

to wonder, "Do I dare? and, "Do I dare?"

Time to tune back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair ‑‑

(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the

chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple

pin‑‑

(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are

thin!")

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will

reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all‑‑

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume? . . .

. . . But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in

upon a platter,

I am no prophet ‑‑ and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and

snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,. . .

. . .I grow old . . . I grow old . . .

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the

beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Aiken appreciated Prufrock and worked with Ezra Pound to have it published, but also he was able to tease Eliot. He wrote to him from Rome in 1913:

. . .What have you been writing ‑‑ futurist poems? If you have

a superfluous copy of the love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,

any time, here is one who hath an appetite for it. Or

anything new. ‑‑Pour moi, I have delivered some dozen or less

of long narrative poems, realistic, rough, often smutty,

occasionally impassioned, dealing always with humble folk. ‑‑

One, I have written (totally different, I may say) as a

caricature of T. S. Eliot Esq., ‑‑O, a caricature worthy of

Beerbohm. It has you, and your poems (the earlier Lamia kind

as well as the later Prufrock variety) and your hoisted Jesus,

and all; a complete composite photograph. Tom posed as a

decadent! I'm sure it would amuse you, but my last copy has

just been sent away to a sister‑in‑law‑‑. Anyway, it's rather

childish. Write and tell me about yourself, your latest

meditations, and how Silk Hat Harry (Wehle) demeans himself,

and the others. ‑‑In other words, What's the Dope?

Yrs. C.A.

Selected Letters, p. 26

In its outward forms, Eliot lived a life a conventional as Aiken's was wild. He settled in England, soon married, and remained married to Vivienne until her death. This, in spite, of her apparent mental illness and long confinement. The most important woman in his life was Emily Hale. Niece of the wife of John Carroll Perkins, minister of King's Chapel in Boston, she and Eliot met while he was at Harvard. His marriage to Vivienne, almost on impulse, surprized her. However, they maintained a regular and intense correspondence for nearly forty years. Lyndall Gordon in the second volume of her biography, suggests that she was his primary muse. She was surprized and disappointed when he didn't marry her after Vivenne's death.

He worked in Lloyd's Bank for eight years, then became a literary editor for Faber and Faber for the rest of his working life. Moving away from the Unitarian denomination, he was confirmed in the Church of England in 1927. Choosing the structured liturgy and organization

of the Anglican Communion may have been an extension, not a repudiation, of the liberal Christianity of his grandfather.

In his latter years William Greenleaf Eliot "came to emphasize what his Church shared with the Christian churches. He cherished 'all that was sacred and memorable in the past, as a priceless legacy, a repository of truth, even though commingled with error.'

He loved the institutions of Christianity, baptism and the Lord's supper; 'he considered the communion table the centre of the religious life of a church'." (Figures, p. 12) Clarke Wells

asserts: "Eliot carried over much from his older faith. He was an innovator, experimenter, a radical inside a great conservative, independent always even as he sought to be a servant of faith. He had taken world religions seriously and was committed to historical

method and rational argument."

T.S. Eliot became the most renowned poet of his age. He was awarded The Nobel Prize for literature along with many other honors. There were several books of poetry but clearly he was committed to quality, not quantity. There are also five plays and much literary and social criticism. He was an important public figure ‑‑ reading from his work, lecturing, and participating in church and other organizations.

At Harvard and during their early years in England the two poets were mutual admirers and confidants. Eliot wrote to Aiken:

. . .I am very dependent upon women (I mean female

Society); and feel the deprivation at Oxford ‑‑ one

reason why I should not care to remain longer but

there, with the exercise and routine the deprivation