Letter from T.S. Eliot, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Howard Morris, 1932 October 18 : typescript signed.

Describing his first weeks at Harvard and discussing when he might be able to be in New York; saying "Har- is not what it used to be; I can't say much about the undergraduates yet, I shall have a few piling up tomorrow afternoon to look me over. They don't seem to be the natty dressers that they were in our generation, and their mild and studious looks differ strangely from the hard & bestial faces of most of our old friends. But of course I may be misjudging on insufficient evidence. I see little evidence of alcoholism, which may be due to high prices; there is good whisky at 5.00 a bottle but I can't afford that myself : $25.00 a week is more than I can afford. I had to give a poetry reading at Wellesley, and even the girls seem to lack endocrines or something, as there was no rush to kiss me afterwards; only one lass (age about 14 I should think) came up and shouted in my year 'I WAS AT MILTON TOO.' My wife, by the way, remains in London; I couldn't pay for two, and besides her doctor did not think she was up to the voyage. I should enjoy a Thanksgiving Festival at your home, but vide supra the miscellaneous relatives above expect me to a large dinner, and as I expect to go west at Christmas I dare not fail them. The actual performance of lectures does not bother me much yet, as I have only 4 to give at Harvard before Christmas, but I must sit here and sweat over writing them and also over the odd lectures I expect to give elsewhere later on. I probably shant get to New York before Christmas, but after that several times; and I should much like to drop down to Long Island for a night with you on one such occasion. Anyway, I'll let you know of any prospective visit. I hope that the Stock Exchange doesn't worry you to death and that you get enough to eat. I don't know whether football games ever attract you to Cambridge, and anyway I understand that the Yale game is at New Haven this year, but if you come this way you will be welcome at B-11;" adding, in a postscript, "Give my regards to Mrs. Morris whom I haven't met yet."