BEL ESPRIT.

IN order that T. S. ELIOT may leave his work in
Lloyd's Bank and devote his whole time to literature,
we are raising a fund, to be £300 annually; this being
in our opinion the minimum possible for this purpose.
Method, £10, Fifty dollars....payable yearly by
30 subscribers.

NOTE.

As three of the initial life members of Bel Esprit,
Richard Aldington, May Sinclair and Ezra Pound are
practising authors, having nothing but their writings
to live on, we consider ourselves in a position to know,
with some accuracy, conditions being what they are,
about what Eliot can earn by his best work; and at
what point hack-work, &c., would interfere with his
good writing, i.e., interfere with it as much as or more
than his present exhausting, but steady bank work
(which brings him £600 a year).

[This Notice for private circulation only.]

We are not a home for sick animals. We want the
work of certain men. We want a better grade of work
than present systems of publishing are willing to pay
for. This is to our credit, and our choice of an artist
should be an honour to him.

Eliot's earlier poems are available. He tried some
years ago to live by journalism, and found the bank
preferable. Our aim is NOT to send him back into
journalism.

He certainly is not asking favours, our plan was
concocted without his knowledge. The facts are that
his bank work has diminished his output of poetry,
and that his prose has grown tired. Last winter he
broke down and was sent off for three months' rest.
During that time he wrote 'Waste Land,' a series
of poems, possibly the finest that the modern movement
in English has produced, at any rate as good as any-
thing that has been done since 1900, and which cer-
tainly lose nothing by comparison with the best work
of Keats, Browning or Shelley. As some of the sub-
scribers approve primarily of Eliot, and some primarily
of the aims of the society, Bel Esprit, the pledge forms
are written so that the subscriber may make his dona-
tion either to Eliot direct, or to Bel Esprit for Eliot, in
which latter case the treasurers of Bel Esprit (Mr.
Aldington, England, Mr. Pound, France) stand per-
sonally responsible for the delivery of receipts to Mr.
Eliot.

BEL ESPRIT.

I HEREBY pledge myself to contribute £.......... yearly
$......... yearly
for........years
to (a) T. S. Eliot.

(b) To Bel Esprit for T. S. Eliot (in which case a treasurer of Bel Esprit, R. ALDINGTON, Malthouse Cottage, Padworth, Reading, Berks, acting in England. Or—EZRA POUND, 70 bis rue Notre Dame des Champs, Paris, acting in France, stands personally responsible for the transmission of funds to Mr. Eliot).

This money is given on the understanding that Mr. Eliot shall devote his entire time to literary work. No restriction is placed on the nature of that work, and I, the present donor, will make no effort to influence either the subject-matter or the manner of his writing save by such literary criticism as any critic of literature might indulge in.

I will pay this money { annually
semi-annually } beginning
................date.

(Signature)................................