Following the controversy caused by my earlier article on modern art, not least of which was the suggestion that T. S. Eliot held Chesterton in evident contempt, I thought I’d write an article on the enmity between GKC and TSE – and, more importantly, the friendship:
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/09/g-k-chesterton-t-s-eliot-friends-enemies.html
I recall reading that T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis had a similar relationship, with disagreement and dislike at the beginning, followed by respect at the end. (For the former, see Lewis’s satirical “A Confession”, referring to “Prufrock”: “I am so coarse, the things the poets see / Are obstinately invisible to me. / For twenty years I’ve stared my level best / To see if evening–any evening–would suggest / A patient etherized upon a table; / In vain. I simply wasn’t able. / …”)
Eliot’s Undoubted Elitism
‘the smell of steak in passageways’
tha dunt like the smell of dinner
the fact it escapes into passageways
but we poor live at close quarters to one another
the smell of dinner quite naturally escapes
and tha dunt like that does tha
cos’ it’s the natural state
an ‘aroma’ would suit thee more
a smell offends thi delicate nostrils
sittin on the edge of thi luxurious sofa
or lying along thi chaise longue
with thi nose in the air
tha so fastidious in thi taste