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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;">Yes, the commentary suggests that the four-piece suit comment by Woolf implies not so much social exclusiveness but more super-correctness and repression on Eliot's part. However
the commentary is Raine's, not Woolf's. I assume that Raine's source is the same one in Bell's book; there seems to be no alternative source given anywhere else, and the original postcard it seems has not survived.<br>
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Quentin Bell published a book of family photographs some years back I recall, and commented in a slightly embarrassed way about the lack of clothes worn by those photographed. So I remember anyway. And there are all those comments (from Leonard, I think) about
clothes being a nightmare to Virginia. So her view of Eliot's sartorial ultra orthodoxy may contain a whiff of envy along with the mockery.<br>
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Jeremy<br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;" id="divRpF356819"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b> adolphe@haberer.fr [adolphe@haberer.fr] on behalf of Adolphe Haberer [Adolphe.Haberer@univ-lyon2.fr]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 25 February 2014 16:47<br>
<b>To:</b> Jeremy Hawthorn; Vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vwoolf] A four-piece suit<br>
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<div>Dear Jeremy, <br>
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Just browsing on the internet, I found a mention of Eliot's four-piece suit attributed to Virginia Woolf:
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"In June 1927 Eliot was received into the Church of England, and in November became a naturalised British citizen. Virginia Woolf writes of Eliot "in his four-piece suit" - repressed, reserved, buttoned-up."
<br>
This in an article by Craig Raine in <i>The Guardian</i>. The "repressed, reserved, buttoned-up" commentary is interesting.
<br>
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jan/06/poetry.thomasstearnseliot" target="_blank">http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jan/06/poetry.thomasstearnseliot</a><br>
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With all best <br>
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Ado Haberer<br>
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<div class="gmail_quote">2014-02-25 13:30 GMT+01:00 Jeremy Hawthorn <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:jeremy.hawthorn@ntnu.no" target="_blank">jeremy.hawthorn@ntnu.no</a>></span>:<br>
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<div>This is interesting, but also intriguing. Did the person who so described Stevens know of Woolf's comment about Eliot, I wonder? It is possible that two people made the same joke independently, but it seems more likely that (as in the Hill review) Woolf
is being quoted without attribution. I am assuming that there really is no such thing as a four-piece suit, but what do I know?<br>
<br>
I am reminded of the skit:<br>
<br>
And this is good old Boston,<br>
The home of the bean and the cod,<br>
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,<br>
And the Cabots talk only to God.<br>
<br>
In both cases you think of a measure of upper-crustedness, and then top it.<br>
<br>
Jeremy H<br>
<br>
Den <a href="tel:24.02.2014%2017" value="+12402201417" target="_blank">24.02.2014 17</a>:02, skrev Adolphe Haberer:<br>
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<div>Not so rare as all that: There is a biography of Wallace Stevens by William Pritchard entitled _The Man who Wore a Four-Piece Suit_<br>
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See <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/20/books/the-man-who-wore-a-four-piece-suit.html" target="_blank">
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/20/books/the-man-who-wore-a-four-piece-suit.html</a><br>
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<div class="h5">Ado Haberer<br>
<br>
Adolphe Haberer<br>
Professeur émérite à l'Université Lumière-Lyon 2<br>
1 route de Saint-Antoine<br>
69380 Chazay d'Azergues<br>
33 (0)4 78 43 65 24<br>
<a href="mailto:adolphe.haberer@univ-lyon2.fr" target="_blank">adolphe.haberer@univ-lyon2.fr</a><br>
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