<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv=content-type></HEAD>
<BODY dir=ltr bgColor=#ffffff text=#000000>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000">
<DIV>This is (allegedly) an uncollected PC from VW to Bell: see <SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: times; mso-ansi-language: en-gb; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa">Clive
Bell, <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Old Friends</I> (London: Chatto
& Windus, 1956), p. 120 (“<SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: times; mso-ansi-language: en-gb; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa">Tom
is coming, and, what is more, is coming with a four-piece suit</SPAN>”).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: times; mso-ansi-language: en-gb; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: times; mso-ansi-language: en-gb; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes">There seems to be a pun here on “three-piece suite”,
which in turn is non-U: we (we?) would say “a sofa and two (three)
chairs”.</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: times; mso-ansi-language: en-gb; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: times; mso-ansi-language: en-gb; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes">Stuart</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt tahoma">
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=jeremy.hawthorn@ntnu.no
href="mailto:jeremy.hawthorn@ntnu.no">Jeremy Hawthorn</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, February 24, 2014 10:32 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=VWOOLF@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
href="mailto:VWOOLF@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu">VWOOLF@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Vwoolf] four-piece suit</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>In
the <I>London Review of Books</I> for 20 February 2014 Colin Burrow has a (good
I think) review of Geoffrey Hill's <I>Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012</I>.
Burrow notes that Hill was "a grammar-school-educated son of a policeman from
Bromsgrove, and so was not ever likely to be an Eliotean Tory in a four-piece
suit".<BR><BR>I was really puzzled by the "four-piece suit": Google does suggest
that the inclusion of a matching bow-tie can turn a three-piece suit into a
four-piece one, but I cannot imagine Eliot wearing such a monstrosity. So I
wrote to Burrow and he told me what I probably should have known, that it was a
joke, but not an original one, as he had stolen in from Virginia Woolf. Woolf
wrote to Clive Bell that she was always expecting Eliot to turn up in a
four-piece suit. I suppose the point of the joke is that the fourth piece
remains unspecified; Burrow admitted that he had wondered if it could have been
spats, while admitting that that would have meant five pieces.<BR><BR>This
somehow reminds me of the volume control in <I>This is Spinal Tap</I> that goes
up to 11.<BR><BR>Jeremy Hawthorn<BR>
<P>
<HR>
_______________________________________________<BR>Vwoolf mailing
list<BR>Vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu<BR>https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf<BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>