NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN·CONN

Dearest Fido

1 March 1968

I was of course delighted to have in the morning mail (perhaps one from yesterday) your London letters of the 26th and 27th. I was not here yesterday to pick anything up, so the box was chock full. I have spent a good part of the morning going through the mail and beginning to answer a few of the queries raised in other letters. It is all endless. Glad you put your name in for the quota form, and this will give me time to get the matter sorted out here. The only problems really are the ones of your finances and whether or not you can accomplish the same thing by simply living here for as extended periods as you like, without actually establishing official residence on this side. Balancing this is, quite understandably, your feeling of wishing to settle really in. I think one will have to talk this matter out both with Philip and then later with Coigny. Postpone the talk with Coigny as long as you think best, but when you do it do it.

I was naturally much interested in your account of the broadcast. I suppose they pulled the other names in more or less to identify her, for she is certainly not widely known in England anyhow. Pound and Imagism are usually associated because of Pound's pronouncements to *Poetry* and his extended discussion. I credits Flint himself, and in one of his volumes included all of Hume's poems. Flint was basically the Francophile but his influence was more in the way of diction than of image. Hilda's cool distance has become a kind of cliché by those who little knew how hot her blood boiled. Not sure that I remember, offhand, the poem Christabel you like so much but they omitted. Unless it was Claribel? Their praise was a real tribute and this may well have an impact; her day is coming on both sides of the Atlantic. Yes, I shall miss having you as consul on the other side of the Atlantic. But you have other equally valuable roles on this side too. #Somehow I am a little puzzled, I mean saddened, by the fact of having to buy one's club stationery. Yet I suppose the dames like nothing better than to send endless letters out on the letterhead rather than pay for their own at home. # The book on the first British in Japan sounds interesting. Who published it? I am thinking of my friend Blum who collects books about first foreigners in Japan. He has an amazingly large library. # Susan said yes, the tumor would have caused a stroke. I can't help but feel it a blessing if she doesn't linger. She would have been wretched as an invalid; so would those around her. # I find Anna Freud doesn't come until April, so one really couldn't wait on the Pokross matter in any event. Still in any case better to have done as we did. # N.B. At the most you only owe $1,800 more for Barbara Jordan, since you sent an earlier thousand. I am a little surprised not to have had an acknowledgement of my check, and hope it reached her. Perhaps she waits to find out the answer to my query about the sales tax. # This is distressing about Nicholas. I wonder if he won't like it better next year with no older brother on the spot. I can well believe they are all sweating out the college admission for Valentine. The silence is not ominous, only that he was not outstanding enough to be among early admissions (a very select group indeed). Nicholas finds it, no doubt, too much with the nose to the grindstone rather than the guitar. #The January cover was not bad; but with no style such as Helen's editions have. But British publishers don't take jackets as seriously as Americans do. # I must say I don't see why Secker's is disappointed if out of an edition of 3000 they have gotten rid of so many. I'm not sure that it's a Penguin type, but am no judge of all that. As to the next volume of your memoirs there's simply nothing to do but take you time. You musn't dash it off, and you've too much on your mind. # I daresay you really are trapped now by Eric White. You must greet him profusely for me. But don't give him January, let him buy it. How splendid it would be if Secker's took Petrie's book. It

is good at least to know they will read it.

(At that point I went out to lunch, and then to the Co-op to order various books sent to those who had entertained me while abroad.) In the noon mail was your letter of the 26th with its further details about the application. It does sound rather grim for the British, but thanks for the extra data. Tomorrow's task will be the composition of the letter to Washington. I am much interested that the Club is being redone, and how sensible they are to get a man actually on the staff to do it. Tuesday afternoon at the orthopedist's office I read Miss Salter's memoir of Edith and was amused at the Salter's scorn of the Sesame's shabbiness.

Now as to the various enclosures. I was saddened to learn that Sachie could not have his Barbadoes trip before the operation. But I must admit I was a little surprised at his being allowed to go. The one thing is, if the gall bladder is really out of order he is certain to feel infinitely better in a few months, and his melancholia will have been more or less explained. How I wish I had had some other and better news of his manuscript than that of the enclosed xerox from Patrick. Pat's letter is interesting to me, for this is the first time I have seen him in action as a sheer businessman or editor. Always with you he is a little Jane Austin-like, in his letters. I think I am a little surprised not that he didn't altogether like the poems but that he should have so actively disliked them. As I suspect Horace must have also, although as I told you disclaiming having read them. Yet he must have jogged Pat into replying. I had told Horace I knew how difficult it would be for Knopf to take the manuscript since they had just accepted Richard Murphy's. I rather respect Patrick for not simply saying they were full up and could take nothing more--the usual editor's reply-- but by speaking out how he really felt. I shall not of course say anything of this to Sitwell but will try again once the papers are again here.

I had held back with Barbara Jordan's letter to me, but thought you might like to see it and her enthusiasm. Toss it and Pat's letter; I have the originals. Also the Science Fiction Course which I thought might amuse you. Why not become a student again and make packets of money.

The fates must be against me in terms of my Roman hotel, for I could not find the slip of paper on which I jotted down your advice, and the boys', about where to stay or not to stay. I thought you had said by no means to stay at the Excelsior because the boys no longer liked it. I believe that was where you and I stayed so long ago. But having said the Grand would be all right to the travel agent, I this morning did find the note and discovered that the Grand was not all right. But the agent left yesterday for a fortnight in Hawaii and wanted to send off for reservations before he left. Actually I don't suppose it matters. One had to arrange now rather than later, and the only possible solution seemed to be for Susan and me to go to Rome anyhow, even if not convenient for the boys. We can keep busy for I really don't know the city at all. The Grand doesn't matter for so short a time; I have engaged the room for the four nights and will keep it in any event. If it turns out at the time that boys are free and healthy and would like us for lunch or even overnight I will get a car to take us up and back. If understandably it isn't convenient for them I will kiss the Pope's hand instead of Kenneth's cheek.

The Dutch hotel is a quarter hour from Zandbergen's, is so he says very nice, and only ten minutes by car from The Hague so that one can go in there for dinner at times without being altogether tied down to the Hotel. My Saturday arrival in Geneva is of course subject to your convenience. If you have to be out of the country we can simply go to Lausanne for my appointment with Mattre Coigny, and amuse outselves until Italy. But 10 a.m. will give us time to get to Lausanne by train and then on to you;

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

and I

and I hope the departure time will be similarly convenient, so that one need not
go to the extra expense of a car. Outside of the meeting with Coigny don't try to
plan anything, for I imagine there will be much to do at Kenwin.

I bought you your copy of the H.D. book today and will post it this afternoon or tomorrow, to Kenwin. Similarly goes a copy of W.G.Rogers's *Ladies Bountiful*. You remember that he wanted to interview me in order to give you a chapter as a L.B. I said I would not, that if one talked about it all the bounty was lost. So he strings along references to you -- very pleasant ones I gathered by going through the index, but did not give you treatment of your own. It's possible that I was the one who told him about Natalie Barney et al that you had once wanted to sue Bill Williams, though others might have said it to him. Otherwise he takes only what you said in *Artemis* or others have said in their books. Perhaps it was a mistake not to open up to him, for you deserve a greater chapter than anyone in this category. But in my clumsy way I do try to protect your privacy.

Give Susan's and my love to the boys. You might sound them out about the
visit, reassuring them that we will understand completely if they are otherwise
committed or indisposed.

Greetings too to Sylva or any of the others.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

This being Saturday there was no letter from you, and last night
having been spent at home with only a t.v. show of Russian astronauts for
diversion there is little to write a letter on to you. But I begin, lest the
rest of the morning be interrupted.

I discussed the matter of the Washington lawyer with Susan and
she rather agrees with me that since the particular lawyer at Thurman Arnold's
firm who handled Hilda's case is no longer with them, it will or would take a
little while to get the huge firm personally interested even if I made a trip
to Washington. On the other hand my friend Jimmy Murphy, who was my Washington
boss during the war and knows Pup, has been Washington lawyer for Sir Wm Stevenson,
an immensely wealthy Canadian, and seemed familiar with the problem when I dis-
cussed it informally with him some months ago in Washington. I ought to be able
to get some sort of preliminary answer out of him in time to advise you before
your leave London, and by that time you will at least also have had Philip's
advise on how to proceed. This doesn't commit us to Murphy on any long-term
basis; I shall simply consult him about what I ought to say to you.

Now for the oddments. I had a letter from the BBC this morning
about Hilda's program. They ask if £40 is all right for fees, but out of this
8/3 out of each pound has to go to British income tax. This can be reclaimed
they say. They are also sending me a script.

I felt somewhat triumphant during the week to have a letter from
Brimmell quoting four titles. We already had them all, and indeed I could point
out that two which he indicated as probably first editions were not--we had them
with an actual date on the title page instead of no date.

You will recall the book I bought paperback in Copenhagen by
Eleanor Philby-- THE SPY I LOVED? It is now published on this side, but re-
titled THE SPY I MARRIED. All this carries out your contention of American
squaredom. I find anentire daisy chain of nuances dancing around the change.

Last night I finished reading Dame Edith's memoirs, getting to it
at last after reading the Salter (why do I think psalter?). There is much that
is bright in Edith's book, and she can sharpen a knifed phrase amusingly. But
even at its best it hasn't the openness of Osbert's; it is too much the effort
to be entertaining, and the bitterness is only bitterness. But how straitly she
was hemmed in as a child and as a woman! And how much as the oldest child she
wanted to be the oldest son! I suspect being Edith she really did need something
like the Roman Papa at the end, especially when she was an Exhibit A within the
family of the church. The Salter book was not quite as bad as I had thought, in
that it did give a picture of Edith one might not otherwise have had. What one
resented a little--what one always resents -- is that the Salter praised herself
in ways that should be left for others to do, and was possessive beyond the call
of homage. One wonders what she has stashed away in the form of manuscripts. She
hints at this in mentioning the letters from T that Edith gave her. I suspect
there was much more.

Now on to the letter to Washington,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

A langweilich day while I have been reading a manuscript book of synopses of Hawthorne's plots and sketches, for which I foolishly said last November that I would write a brief preface. I feel benumbed, so you must be tolerant of my letter.

Yesterday was not lively either, though I did manage to get some 24 letters written before I went home to dress for a cocktail party given by the ex Dean of the Medical School, and then on to Mory's where we had a couple for dinner before going on to the benefit performance for the International Student Center. This was made up of student performances of music and dance from around the world—Africa, Cambodia, Spain, Israeli, France, the Philippines, Java, the Ukraine, etc. It was all excellently done, though it went on too long. 11:30 before it was over.

Today's only diversion has been my absorption in the releases in Sunday papers of the new biography of your Prince Charles. What a marvelous conglomeration of virtues he has. In reverse one can see all the prejudices of the people answered. "He is academic at heart and no British prince since the Stuarts has cared more sincerely for intellectual and spiritual matters." (No need to worry about another Duke of Gloucester or Duke of Windsor.) He has a deep love of humanity." which he combines with a "careful consideration of horses." He won't however be as good at polo as his father, but for "the best of reasons." "He is too considerate, they say, of his mount." (And I 811 bet he doesn't play polo on Sunday, not your next king!) "His sense of humor, which is strong, is also very simple--the comedy he enjoys most is the goon type." (He's really one of us, as Zeus said of Odysseus.) "His sense of humor will save him from ever taking himself so seriously as Albert, prince consort of Queen Victoria." (I always knew the trouble with Albert was that he never would be goon enough.) Actually Prince Charles stacks up very well against history, for although I an older friend feels sure...he would have made a first-class schoolmaster teaching the humanities," this same sense of humor "will also prevent him from becoming a pedantic academic like his ancestor James I -- the 'British Solomon'." And what a splendid climax the articles had, ending on his performance of the pirate king in THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE. "It gave him the chance to exercise his well-modulated singing voice. But what he really valued was the prospect of making a legitimate fool of himself." What more could we ask of a monarch? Or of his biographer? It is easy to see why Mr Morrah has the title of Arundel Herald Extraordinary.

I was really impressed, as you must be. I never did thank you for that extraordinary page of tips on how the British could help the economy. It was not to be believed, and by giving it to me you upset my own economy -- for you made me all the more your debtor.

All love, as always

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

A day of complete frustration so far as my own work is concerned. I began it nicely by sitting down to read the synopses of Hawthorne. Then Professor Harper and his wife came a little after ten (he is the Professor of American History from Melbourne) and stayed until nearly twelve. At which point I had time only to fetch my mail (including your note of the 28th) but not really to read it before it was time to go to my Pundit lunch. After lunch there was a stream: an undergraduate senior (a Pundit) who does beautiful bookmaking and wanted to talk about it; then Chisolm an associate professor who has a chance to go elsewhere and wanted to talk about it; and then a visiting Japanese professor who wanted to make arrangements about another visiting Japanese professor who is arriving in town tomorrow night for four days, and so the afternoon was gone. I wait now only to take the Autralians to a dinner being given for them before his evening lecture, Susan and I having to do both before taking them back to the house afterwards.

We are in the throes of taking people home, and did so last night after the opening at the N.H.Colony Historical Society of the show on export-ware china from China. The speaker I had gotten for later in the month came down with his boy friend from Boston to see what he would be talking about, and they accepted my polite gesture of a drink enthusiastically. They didn't leave until eleven, and I only hope they arrived safely back in the Hub.

I was overjoyed at the clipping of sacred and pro-poodle love. I bow my thanks. Cornwall sounds as though might be fun, at least livelier than London at this worst-of-the-year season. No wonder you feel a little depressed. Even a baby chick would!

I had a longish letter from the Ruegg in answer to my note of thanks for his visit. He was full of the carrying out of instructions and is stashing away the cash at the moment rather than invest in common stocks just now. I suspect he likes feeling he has a client rather than an account.

A letter also from the Brigadier, the two boxes of Christmas cards having arrived. I gather they are shortly off to Scotland, but were looking forward to your visit. It is important to both of them, lest life altogether run in a rut. I should have loved to be at your heels when you trotted through the Military Museum. + A note from my brother informs me that my sister and her husband are safely back from Africa where they gone to see a cousin of ours who is the widow of a big game hunter. I shall be interested to know what sort of a time they had.

Did not, I think, acknowledge and thank for the arrival of Burton's *Sword*.
It is fascinating, and I had not realized that he would include even eskimo arti-
facts. It will be properly shelved with the rest of the collection.

There has been a strange rash of billboard advertisements lately, which I
do not quite understand. One I read on my way home says simply

CALVIN COOLIDGE
was your
30th President.

Another:

FRENCH PASTRY IS FATTENING
BUY AMERICAN.

I send you one marked

all my love,

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

Y A L E U N I V E R S I T Y

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

5 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

Another frustrating day but tomorrow will be the same so I am getting used to it. We went last night for dinner with the Norman Harpers (the Australian professor and his wife) and then to hear his lecture which contrasted Australian and American frontiers. And then took them back to the house for a drink, as a way to entertain them once while he was here. But it turned out that while a program had been planned for him today she was to be left to entertain herself. So I found myself involved into taking her to lunch and then for a drive in the car, around the city, up East Rock, and finally to the cottage at Johnson's Point. She was pleased to see something of the environs of Yale, and I must say the day would have been dull for her otherwise. I gather she rather dreads these tours with her husband for this very reason.

At the various ends one did errands and received callers. Various letters came in of interest to you but I shall write of those tomorrow, I hope, and send along a xerox of some. Marya says Pat is likely to take the Boston job but only after his father gets back to the Rusk. A letter from Rochester says that Grinda is being taken on for three years at ten thousand dollars a year. Since I only get sixteen he isn't doing so bad, and he won't have to teach at all. But better not to mention that you know all this when he comes to call or you go to him. (Of course, you may not be in either situation).

Your letter of the 29th, first from Tregoning, arrived this morning. I rejoice that your trip down was uneventful except for the old dame also en route to Cornwall. It is hard for me to think of daffodils being in blossom. The sun has been occasionally shining but not with that strength of yellow. * I wonder if you will have approved of Phyllis's choices of color for her rooms. I imagine you will.

How I shall relish a few days of peace and quiet, but these will not happen I imagine until nearer the end of the week. Tomorrow night we have to entertain at dinner the Japanese professor from Kyushu. He is the one who did the three Japanese volumes by me. And I will have to see much of him since he has flown here specifically for that. The visiting German professor did not appear today. He too no doubt will come with the other one tomorrow.

The volume of Randall Stewart's essays with my foreword arrived today. Do you want a copy simply for the record, or is it better to hold it on this side against your settlement. You have read the foreword and I doubt would want to read the essays. I wonder if at this point you want more books simply for the record. But instruct.

Give my love to the boys, at least what remains when you extract what you want of it.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN-CONN

6 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I never knew that such confusion could exist. It is one's own fault of course; but I never know quite how to get out of all these involvements, I probably enjoy them, as a source of dignity. Who knows?

Last night we went to the Lawn Club for dinner, and then to the violin recital by an Erika Morini. She was very good--a rich full tone, with quote extraordinarily good phrasing. But I fear I slept a little during the first part, lulled by Handel and Brahms. My great mistake on getting home was to put on the t.v. to watch a championship playoff basketball match between Columbia and Princeton for the Ivy League crown, so that it was midnite before I finally turned in. Meanwhile an excited telephone call at 11:15 from Professor Takuwa, just in from Fukuoka, and not even Justus being given a boat could have been so wildly enthusiastic in this case at being in the States again. This morning he said that he had repeated dreams (literally) of speaking again to Susan and myself in America but always being suspicious in his dreams that it was only a dream. But he has come for help with the courses in comparative literature he is to teach in a week or two at Carleton College in Minnesota where he will be with his family until the end of the year. Except for the summer when he expects to come to New Haven. So is another Japanese family. And three who are already here, plus a girl who is also coming from Japan. I shall have to drill them like toy soldiers. Tonight we have Takuwa-san and his fellow teacher at Fukuoka (already here) Miura-san for dinner. Tomorrow night tickets for the theater. Saturday night dinner with a lama.

Your letters of the 29th and 1st came this morning. How glad I am you could go back to Cornwall, though as you say it must tear your heart to leave. But to eat Phyllis's beef was a treat, and I envy you also seeing Bosigran again. It was, I think, already a club for army training when Kenneth took you and us there, but not painted. # Am glad that Perdita can have her copy of script from BBC. # I was sorry that Dean and Tom were not so well. I wonder if Ireland is just the right climate for her, it is so damp. And sorry too that Alan was treated so roughly. # Was a little surprised that Petrie's revision was not what Sylva was working on. Didn't Robin send it all along, or won't he? # Yes, you sent the Morris Kelmscott Chaucer along with the others--the fine paper edition, there is also one on vellum which is excessively rare. In the revaluation of the books this one was put down as one thousand dollars. It is one of the classics of English fine-book printing.

I enclose a clipping from the Times (return none of the enclosures) to give you a little background on Patrick's situation and why he will very likely change. A sort of footnote to Marya's letters also enclosed. The article mentions that Jovanovitch might retire. I'm not quite sure what his hospitalization was for. He has worked so intensely that I am sure he must have punished his body and nerves. If he should this would take the wind out of Helen's sails, at least she wouldn't have at all the same feeling of rapport.

The letter from Schilling is for your ears only, for it would be ghastly if news leaked out before Rochester wishes to announce it. I am highly skeptical for many reasons about its likely success, but guess I'm stuck so far as the editorial committee or rather advisory board is concerned, the whole idea

Schilling's. I shall have to correct Schilling. The $6.00 was paid for
the Barney number of Adam; the cost of the pictures was $150.00. Nor am I
quite sure what he means by my air of patronization towards the Graduate
School; my tone must have slipped.

I shall have to walk this to the post office and have it weighed.
Otherwise it will come bouncing back.

Greetings to the boys.

Oh yes, I forgot to say that last week I received in the mail a copy of the
Swedish number of Adam, published in 1966, sent with the compliments of
the Cultural Attaché of the Swedish Embassy in Washington. So that issue,
like the Swiss, will get a wide distribution and be taken off his hands.
He's a good salesman.

You will also be amused to know that the latest Sims rare book catalogue
quotes Film Problems of Soviet Russia at £10/-/. Another, less expensive
item was Edward VII's THE ABC or Alphabetical Railway Guide. January 1905.
"Edward VII's copy, bound in full blue calf, lettered in gilt on the upper
cover: 'The King. Windsor Castle.'" Three guineas. This was used perhaps
when he was travelling down to West Dean to see Mrs Edward James.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

Absolutely all day went &
the Japanese professor and the
professor. It becomes almost comic
in what is supposed to be a year off.
But your cash came, and I noted what
does not really surprise me from a
practical point of view. Philip is shrewd
and I shunned to whom he and Longuy on
this matter. More of this later. But
what other they say, in no way intervenes well
getting rid of Kenwin and setting up
venters residence, and longer in the States.
What they talk about is another matter.

What they talk about is another matter.
I was so expanded when
I was so expanded when
Fukurova went that I sat down in my
green chair and went to sleep. Perhaps
after wide beam I don't sleep tonight ad
the theatre.

which one it was you ordered for me? # In the most recent *Transatlantic Review* I noticed ads for a magazine called *New Worlds*-- "the science fiction magazine with an Arts Council Grant". Said to be on newstands and to be 'the new SF'. Very highbrow. Don't send or subscribe, but I wondered if a single copy might not interest you.

8 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday really was a day. Not that I did it unwillingly, but simply because it was so exhausting. At least my little nap when Takuwa-san had left kept me awake at the theater last night where we saw a production of *The Three Sisters*. It is a play as melancholic as it is talkative, but it was very well acted indeed. Like so many of Chekov's play there was a mortaged house, a decaying family, and unmarried daughters. I am sure there is a moral in the dramas.

What made the earlier part of the day so exhausting was the discovery that Takuwa who has a job teaching at Carleton College, in Minnesota, until next January, and whose family will join him there from Japan in a fortnight, was really going to this post with only the vaguest outline of his courses and no idea of what translations of Japanese novels and poetry could or could not be obtained here. No wonder in the various letters he wrote he said, "Before reaching Carleton, I must call on my master, professor Norman Holmes Pearson at Yale." He got the job at my recommendation so I felt not a little responsible, and of course as a foreigner he is more than a little bewildered by what goes or should go on. So I mapped out two courses for him, searched out what books could be ordered (though whether or not there is still time is quite another matter), and since he needed the books to study was able to give him from my library all but four of what he would need. He bowed low at the end of the afternoon. In between for a couple of hours I entertained the president of the German American Studies Association for lunch and found him a place to stay for the next three weeks. For Takuwa and a friend I bought tickets for the play but did not try to entertain them for dinner, being too tired to keep on talking. We saw them at the theater however and we all bowed low to each other in farewell. Until next summer when he returns with his family. He left this morning by an early train.

No letter from you today, probably because of your return from Cornwall. I did, but in fatigue, reply to your cable yesterday. I think at times in the past you must have felt that I was trying to discourage your emigration. I really wasn't. I want and expect your being here. But in my characteristically cautious manner, I have always wanted to be sure that one didn't upset too many applecarts by too sudden a jump. And I was heartened by the lawyer's advice that one could stay indefinitely and frequently on a visitor's permit without every absolutely having to change citizenship and alter tax status. You may well wish to do just this change, but even with the lower quota I feel pretty sure that we can pull whatever strings are necessary. I shall be eager to know what Philip and Maitre Coigny say.

A letter yesterday from Barbara Jordan, so the car seems to be now on the production line. I have written her this morning sending the extra amount for the sales tax. I'm glad I remembered. These small amounts do nevertheless mount up, and I imagine she will want to buy a number of gadgets of one sort or another. She certainly is grateful to you!

I can't seem to lay my hands at this minute on the Brigadier's letter but he spoke with interest of his reading of Philby book you sent him. He mentioned the author, but I gathered it was by two men not by E.h.Cookridge. Do you remember

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

9 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today either, alas! I may have better luck
on Monday.

Last night was blissful. I simply sat and read quietly.

This morning I have as usual plugged away at letters. One, from
James 'laughlin, begins: Dorothy Pound has written me recently, asking whether
I would investigate with you a rumor she has heard that you were writing a
book about Ezra 'containing many broadcasts.'" Not hard to do; she has con-
fused me with Charles Norman who has just published a non-book, collection of
trial reports and broadcasts. It was wearying reading.

Patrick phoned this morning to say that altho Horace was still
in intensive care section, he was doing very well indeed and the doctors are
optimistic about the success. The intensive care is chiefly a means of seeing
he has available nurses; otherwise the bill would be (as at Nyack) fantastic.
Patrick also said he had yesterday accepted the position in Boston with the
Atlantic Monthly Press, to work under a young man Peter Davidson who is said
to be quite good and is himself a poet of sorts. He will not go until June.
The Press is a small one, conservative, not going after best sellers and is
still independent. I think it is just Pat's cup of tea, and am immensely
pleased for his sake. Palisades presents some complications, as he says, but
it will be good for him to be at a distance. perhaps he will get a car and
learn to drive--which would make his visits home much more possible. He admitted
that the new setup at Knopf made life very difficult for someone of Pat's own
temperament. It is all geared now towards best sellers. Yet, oddly, Knopf's
own success on which they build didn't at all do this. Perhaps 'at will want
to take on Hilda's book in Bodton. Better than Knopf now, if he would.

You and I having spoken about the transformation of nouns into
verbs, I was amused last night by the enclosed illustration of making an adjective
into a noun. You psychiatrists don't know what you are doing to us by protecting
the confidentiality of patients. Personally I should prefer to privatize them,
if you will permit me to coin a word.

Have been on a minor jag and bought three little mss, each from another
dealer, out of catalogues. All unexpectedly cheap. One is a pencilled page of
ms from Hawthorne's American notebooks, unpublished as I suspected and it turned
out. The second is a two and a half page ms supposedly written at Bowdoin College
by Franklin Pierce (later President of the U.S.) and a college mate and friend of
Hawthorne's on "The Influence of Essay Writing on Taste." Since this is so un-
Piercelike a topic I wondered if Hawthorne might not have helped him. It was
simply marked Bowdoin(?) and priced at $100.00. I turned to my undergraduate
prize essay on N.H. at Bowdoin and found that Pierce had declaimed this on the
same program when Hawthorne gave a talk in Latin. Who knows about H's help, but
certainly the oratory is more like H than P. fun anyhow. Finally I bought for
$30.00 a long letter from an American Artist-poet in Italy, mentioned in the
Italian notebooks, saying that he (Read) would have to change his poem about
artist life in Rome and leave it anything about a Faun because Hawthorne's
novel has unintentionally knocked Read's story into pie. This will make a nice
little flourish in the introduction.

Two yellowbacks came yesterday from Denmark, so I assume I have read
the contents. But I do thank you for the superb stamps with dolmens on them.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Justus will be delighted. Three others came earlier in the week, but as from Switzerland just before you left for Zurich and Copenhagen. What a saga O.B. told of his exhibition at Hastings. It must have been sheer nightmare. I must remember to look at his cookbook when I am 'enwin in the spring. I should of course have known the full Gough story when we spoke at Copenhagen about their future. I agree that it looks almost certain that he will go to Toronto. And you will be able to visit them in Princeton. Even at Tornovo they will not be far off after your move to this side. One could combine them with visits to the Rosslers. # Marianne's letter was sad, or so it seemed to me. Suddenly she has become a very old woman, and yet she is not so old at that.

I think I told you some months ago that I had ordered a copy of the 1650 Beaumont and Fletcher, THE MAID'S TRAGEDY, an edition we did not have with the Elizabethans. It seemed to me that I ought to go on with the B & F's even though I have not been buying new titles for the general collection. I had a little credit with Seven Gables, and this helped towards the purchase price.

Today's papers were full of the fear that the U.S. was directly or indirectly going to devalue the dollar. This will be a blow all around, and very hard on the nations which have continued to peg to the dollar. And of course this will be hard on the U.K. too since it will take away whatever advantage, if any, their own devaluation had.

I wish one could feel more confidence in the present administration, though I sympathize with them and would certainly not want to be in their boots, Texan or otherwise. But there is not even charisma!

All love,

Norman

81 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday but instead spent the day duly reading to the bitter end the book of synopses of Hawthorne's plots. Now I must do the introduction. Also moved a few more books around on HGS shelves, as order begins vaguely to emerge. But for the present it is still pretty much as the world is. Also plowed slowly through aperbacks in Print as I sought out 25 titles for a lady in California to give foreign wives at the International House at Stanford. I once made out a similar list here, which she knew of, but had long since lost it. Saturday night we went for dinner at the home of the Secretary of the University in honor of Zenkei Shibayama, master of Nanzenji monastery in Kyoto. A very small dinner which was pleasant because he was a very nice man, now retired to his own little home on the temple grounds. I made him laugh occasionally, and we got on very well together despite the fact he speaks not a single world of English. But he has an excellent interpreter. The only catch is that I must go today and tomorrow to his lectures on characteristics of Zen. I can't make the third on Wednesday, even though this is rude. No doubt I will learn. The Japanese visiting fellows tell me he is awesome in their own country, and they could never hear him there. So they turn out, or at least some will. Last night I shifted my pace a little and we watched "The Bridge at the River Kwai" on t.v. Very good. I never get to the films here, but they are now playing some classic revivals early on Sunday night.

I have a note scribbled down to remind me to "Tell her now that Elsie's gone to get a secretary in!" Really why not make a stab again for these remaining months. Marie Ann could help you perhaps find one. It would make such a difference with the shorter notes. Or you could use a dictaphone and send it out. I really do think it's worth considering as a way to stretch your hours.

After so many days of silence, and only one letter from you in the early post today, I have had a flood. Six in all. 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th (2), and 8th. I glow. The Regimental Museum sounded great fun, and especially so with the Brigadier to take you. I suspect, as you do, that there will be a great swell against regiments and empires and class and anything to be blamed for the change in pace. Even Vietnam figures in all this as a kind of scapegoat, certainly not as a bag left to be held. The U.S. government has hardly distinguished itself in statesmanship or in Military moves, but people must understand a little of the history behind it that comes toward the present from the moment we took Greece over at the request of the British. Margery comes in naturally with humanitarian feelings we all share. Nicholas does because it's in his nature, and parallels longish hair, guitars and the like. They are lucky (his parents) that he hasn't taken to pot. The son of the President of Yale is, it seems, a college dropout who has just been granted conscientious deferment from the draft. This too has the gleem of a world. I'm glad I'm not young and can duck. # I do hope Margery's Scillonian novel goes well. She is bound and determined to be an author like the rest of you: Wendy, yourself, Hilda Quick, et al. # The Bible at the military museum, sworn on when Washington took a degree of masonry in 1805 sound like a very rare item indeed, and indicates how loyal a mason he must have been to come back after five years.

2

lesser men would have been content simply to remain dead. # In your letter of the 5th, I surmise that Krauss went ahead simply because they received no reply. I doubt there can be anything done to stop them since there never was a copyright. But I can inquire again if you want, and see if anything can be obtained. There probably isn't really much point at this late date, and it will be good for the history of the magazines and contributors to have them available. Let me know, however, if you want me to put the New York lawyers on it.

One really does feel sad about Ethel's little Peke. That she was old and blind really has little to soften Ethel's sadness. I should think yes, another dog. But they will know and perhaps should wait what we used to call a decent interval for bereavement. Curiously your search for her reminds me of the search for the body of the drowned maiden in Hawthorne's *Blithedale Romance* which in turn was taken from a real search Hawthorne joined in by torchlight.

I can believe how sad you must have felt to leave Cornwall. It is really your country. One feels it to be so, in the way your nostrils quiver when the name is mentioned. At least the trip up sounded bearable and you were nothing if not busy in London. Poor Kenneth, I was sorry he too had the touch of hell. But hope he was well over it by the time they conferred with you. # My typewriter desk for HGS? It finally came, but the chair when opened proved to be damaged. It was most maddening, is most so. And my doctor who kept me waiting at his clinic now keeps me waiting again to instruct the physical therapy people what to give me in the way of exercises. I phoned this morning to remind his secretary since the doctor goes off at the end of this week for a fortnight's holiday.

But why not enroll for s.f.? As Winifred Pearson or something of that sort. You could submit the s.f. bit you once wrote. You know the instructors. You could say you were a Cornish dame now retired from a civil service job on pension and had saved up to come to the States just for this. You had always dreamed of seeing your name on a book and meetings just such famous persons as your instructors were.

It will be a wonderful convenience if you could arrange for a car from and to Geneva. Your friend Vivienne with her ambulance would do nicely. There would plenty of room for luggage and I could like down on the way to Kenwin. Yes, by all means come with her. Actually you could sit in front and pull the siren. I should like to do that myself.

I am much relieved that Robin is actually sending the revised manuscript to Sylva.

The interview with Philip was obviously invaluable. I of course don't know the details of the trust, but his description would fit in with what I suspect might be a more general complication. Indeed it was with this sort of thing pretty much in Mind that Mr Murphey, in Washington, was not sure that you ought to come in under quota, and he would certainly say you ought not to fill out the financial statement. If incorrect at the time you came you could be in hot water. Say, for example, that you did want to transfer something to Pup or to Kenneth. The U.S. would say, "ah, but you said you had fifty dollars altogether; now you say only 36. What happened to the other 14$? I think one can sneak you in as and when you think right. Meanwhile as Murphey says you can come and stay year in year out without touching the quota and please Johnson immensely by spending money here. All this is something they can advise you better on than I can. And we will go over it all in May. I perhaps should have my talk with Coigny on the Monday in case he wants to see me or you again.

The foreigners in Japan sound interesting. There is a new paperback I have on Chinese in America before 18--something or other, which looks good.

Am very glad indeed that Agnes has a vacation--I hope permanent--from her Pat. It was a dangerous kind of relationship, with Pat very much the bully. If they had been frankly physical it would have been clearer to both of them, I suspect. But it was too sublimated and snarled.

The story of the Arthur Waley mss, as told in the letter column of the TLS continues to be fascinating in a way, but I somehow don't cotton up much to the last duchess (Mrs W.) Miss de Zoete was a nice thing; I rather liked her.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I am really in the filthiest mood today, and should do far better simply not to write at all, least of all to risk this to Zurich. I feel really trapped. For example, yesterday the younger Japanese scholar came with letters for me quickly to write in his behalf. Just now the International Office phoned to say how unrealistic his application for travel money this summer from the government is. They are right. So tomorrow I must spell it out, write it out, reckon it out for him. No I don't really like it, but who else will? Then yesterday afternoon I went to hear my Buddhist priest, and was bofed by the alternate five minutes of Japanese and five minutes of English translation. Besides the seats were intolerably hard. But I should at least have discharged my civic duty by going this afternoon, had I not been phoned by R.W.B.Lewis's secretary--not even him-- to introduce Quentin Bell at a late afternoon lecture. I know. Two freshmen from Calhoun, where Lewis is master, were killed last weekend in an automobile accident, and one presumes the funeral is today. But why ask me, especially since I refused to do this very lecture last week when first asked "because you do it so well." All it means is that they were lazy, but what can I do when funerals are the excuse. Then a telephone call from New York interrupted the letter at that point to talk about Walter de Rachewiltz, Mary's son, who has gone home from Rutgers University where he was a third-year man. LSD seems to be in the background. Then to make matters finally worse I simply can't find several letters I am supposed to answer. And it is snowing into a storm outside, with a symphony concert to go to tonight. Yesterday it was 51°F. Last night we went to a musical comedy opening at the Shubert on King Solomon and his concubines and the Queen of Sheba. It opened with Solomon on Sinai or some mountain top praying to Jehovah and asking "Who am I?" The costumes were lovely, but the music and the script so dull that I felt like jumping up on the stage and asking the audience "Who are we, to come here?"

However your letter of the 8th and 9th came as a pleasant change, even if they both were sad letters on your part. You are really living one of your own novels, when eras change. I only wish Ethel could have been at the Sesame with you, for the luncheon. Or Pup. or myself. None of your other, even if many, visits and visitors are purely social. Not in the old sense anyhow. I think we are all tired of our age: tired of the inefficiency, tired even because we can't see resiliency in others.

I was interested in your further comments about L&L and Close Up. I think in both instances republication was gone on with simply because Kenneth wouldn't write in the first place. And I recall Herring being against it or not writing in the second. I can ask my New York lawyer to clarify if you think it worthwhile, but not unless you do.

I can't wonder that with the upset of things just now the question of what you should do must be overpowering. I hope you will thrash things out more or less openly with Maitre Coigny when you are back again. Unless the cards are on the table one simply can't play the game one way or the other. Meanwhile I will take a trip to Washington to talk with the lawyers there so I can have their opinion to bring with me when we come to Kenwin.

I just had a phone call from Lewis. The memorial service was indeed

scheduled for just now, so I can't say I blame him--the time being hitherto unknown.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN, CONN.

13 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I sent you two letters in care of the Glock but did not dare
risk this one. If by some chance the others didn't reach you while you were
still in Zurich perhaps they will forward them to you. No letter from you
today but letters from London have been more irregular in transit during the
past few years.

I sludged my way thru the snow yesterday afternoon to Stratchcona
Hall to introduce Quentin Bell (the son of Clive and Vanessa). He is apparently
now writing the official biography of La Woolff and has gotten her to her 13th
year. His picture showed him, as he looks, a white-bearded venerable looking
man with a boy's face beneath the scraggle of hair, which is as it should be
since he is younger than I am. He talked on V.W., describing the Bloomsbury
Group and was interesting without being revelatory. Except he did give me a
good clue when he paralleled Keynes' *Economic Consequences of the Peace* (as
an economic debunker) alongside Strachey's *Eminent Victorians* saying that
Keynes had handled Llod George et al just as Strachey had done his subjects.
There may be something in this; what with all of the new secret lives being
made public I could easily imagine Keynes and Strachey in bed together, but
I had not thought of their books nestling on the same shelf. We talked about
his recent visit to Victoria, in British Columbia, and when I asked him what
in England Victoria most reminded him of, he said Eastbourne. You must take me
there but I think I will need more than an hour to absorb its flavor.

The rain was violent last night, and worse because it always teetered
on the edge of snow. Indeed the driveway was thick with slush this morning, though
it melted later. Now at the end of the afternoon its snowing lightly again. We
went last night to the Lawn Club for dinner and then to the Symphony--because of
the storm only a third of the seats were filled-- and tonight have to go to dinner
at Timothy Dwight College to meet Anthony Quayle. I believe he is an actor and
director, and is apparently much admired. before that I must go to a board meeting
of the International Student Center.

I enclose a clipping of Yale's own little evidence of Black Power. I
wish they wouldn't. Yale has a rectuiter going around the country trying to find
Negro students who are up to scratch. Why should Yale be less in order to take in
more of an inferior quality. And what is curriculum relevance? Negro history?
They can get some if they want to. They sound like local high school children.
Everybody suffers in an age of change; the Negro has to understand that too. One
difficulty is --not just because of clippings like this--that people begin to
mutter in place of smiling. I mean white people, and perhaps just that slip
justifies the Negro in thinking himself excluded.

Hope you find all well. Give my greetings to Inez.

A nice card from John in the sun. And the *Masada*
book arrived in the morning mail.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday and will hardly do so today. ("This was his life!") I suppose I did good yesterday but not to myself. I took a visiting but now departing German professor to lunch (he had been my aide de camp so long ago on that Munich-Yale week) and then had an appointment with Doyle the New Zealand poet who has been here a year and leaves in a few weeks. He had given me a book of poems he had published, and an anthology of New Zealand poetry, neither of which I had read. So I spent the morning doing that, and at least saved myself from composing a letter. He left at three, when a senior appeared (a Pundit) for a long-promised interview on why I thought the move of Vasaar to Yale had been finally turned down by Vassar. Then it five, and I had an appointment at the gym for a massage.

Today? Well, I have been at the Library since eight-thirty to put things in order and lock all filing cabinets save the Hawthorne one. The man from Providence who thought *The House of the Seven Gables* was a plagiarism of "Das Majorat", and took several hours for that a week or two ago, is back again to go through the letters of the relevant period. What he really wants is the chance to talk, so perhaps it is lucky that altho he comes at nine I must be at a committee meeting at 10, and then go on for the rest of the days to entertain friends who are coming from out of town. Their coming was announced only yesterday noon, although invited a month ago. It is their only chance. Jean Charlot and his wife, plus two children (or grandchildren; I'm not sure which.) We knew them in Mexico, and have always been friends. He painted the huge blue canvass of the Mexican newsboys in our living room, and a little picture over my dresser in the bedroom. We used to see them often in the States and have done so once in Hawaii where they now live. He is en route to Mexico City for a hige retrospective show. I had to cancel another luncheon engagements with a second German professor, putting the latter off until tomorrow.

Last night I tried to repair fences by going with Susan to my first evening meeting of the Connecticut Academy, for a talk by Rudolph Zallinger on "Pictorial Reconstructions of the remote Past." You might know his things from *Life*, those immense reconstructions of Dinosaurs in Landscapes, Gnossus, and the like. He did the huge murals in the local Peabody museum on similar subjects. He is an acquaintance, on a first-name basis, so I felt it a matter of courtesy to go. His slides were interesting but he did mumble, and perhaps inveitably I dozed from time to time.

Tonight for the first time in a fortnight we do nothing. It will be the only time for another week almost.

Your letter of the 11th came yesterday for which my thanks. Your visit with the boys must have been a real lift in spirit. They are always fun, and now with a convenient doctor they like (I suspect Kenneth will find the trip to New York difficult, especially since he dislikes planes), and London in any event is nearer Islay's Mummy and the sort of theatre they enjoy. If they can manage to go twice a year or more it will be much better than an every-other-year in New York. But I shall be the loser naturally since one won't have the same chance to see them. "One"being me rather than you. I shall be interested to know your reaction to Kenneth's manuscript. I am confident it will be good and you'll have every right reason to like it. Have you read 'slay's revision? Kenneth's idea of the boat does appeal, a sort of ketch as ketch can. # I didn't really comment--so hurried have I been --with pleasure on your

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON
231 HGS

to Oonagh. I hope you'll at least occasionally be able to. You ought not to add to your burdens, but if you can maintain a position where she can feel free to turn to you, or rather feel simply that you're there, it would mean much to her as the knowledge of your doing so would to Petrie. I so very much hope this or a later child will come through. It would mean everything to Robin, as solving the problem of Ballinamona. And it might well prove a turning point to Oonagh herself, a justification. Then the past can be the past.

Many thanks for the tips about Rome. I will write about them tomorrow. I have meanwhile been interrupted by the arrival of Mr Petkus, and so must hurry before my lo a.m. meeting with the committee on publications.

All love.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

A rather stupid day, complicated by the fact that because of vacation the Library closed at noon. Not that I have not had a good deal to do at HGS but I should have preferred doing my notes on the swifter electric typewriter. Actually I haven't managed many of them at that, having been reading the books first before thanking for them. In this case the books are collections of essays by other people, or editions of books with prefaces. I need read only the prefaces for this sort of acknowledgement.

Yesterday went pleasantly. I enjoyed seeing Jean Charlot and his wife again, and they brought his son (and wife and one month old baby). So we were a large table at the lawn club for lunch; but I really couldn't ask Susan to cook and clean for so many. After lunch we went for coffee to Joseph and Annie Albers; he is the painter and she has a great reputation as a weaver. They live in West Haven in as ordinary a neighborhood as Paul Hindemith did, and their house is a little white frame thing quite indistinguishable from its neighbors. But when one opens the door one is at the zenith of the Bauhaus. Bare white walls except for his paintings and sculptures; a great dignity and even elegance. He knew Jean at Black Mountain College when neither of them were as famous as now. Albers must be nearly 80 but still paints vigorously. We spent an hour in his basement studio and it was fascinating to hear him explain his work to a fellow painter. Actually young Martin is also a painter by profession, though his work makes me think of things done by an amateur. Albers even has a theory of the mystique of board against canvass against which, or rather on which, to paint. Tho I said "against" because he saw the board as a challenge rather than a blotter, something gone against as in a fight for mastery.

I had thought to have last night for reading, but as it turned out young Susan had been asked out to dinner and so much wanted to accept that her mother took care of little Susan and I took Justus to his obedience class with Osaar. I must say they do very well indeed, have gone into the advanced class and both are holding their own against older dogs and older owners. Oscar, like a good dog, wants to please and so sits obediently while Jus walks around the large circle of dogs, though as a dog his heart is really in a romp. Jus seemed pleased to have me catch, and indeed I was pleased to hear him praised by the other in the sidelines like myself.

Your two letters of the 12th came yesterday after I had gone, and when I returned after putting the Charlots on the train, and picked the letters up, it was too late to try to write you then. I am glad you got your visits with the Scarlett (one at any rate) off as well as with Cousin Jack. These can't help but be emotionally exhausting to you, but they are wonderfully meaningful to your friends, and you have always been good at duty of this sort.

I thought we had the matter straight about the letter from the American lawyer, or rather lack of one, but I will repeat my explanation of confusion tomorrow.

Three sets of permissions fees for Hilda are in, coming to some 57 dollars. But her royalties for the last six months are only 36.54. 158 copies of the Selected Poems have been sold, 95 copies of Bid Me to Live, and for Helen in Egypt 6 were sold abroad and 50 were returned by American dealers with none at all sold. So it goes, but there will be a renaissance.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I start again on a Sunday morning. I really do apologize for having got my signals mixed. About the letter from the Washington lawyer. When we left each other in Copenhagen, I said yes I would go to Washington to make contact with Thurmond Arnold's firm. You wrote later that a letter would do. I proposed that to myself but felt increasingly that too much was involved and the questions were not in themselves clear. So I waited until after you had seen Philip, and when your cable came saying that he proposed a wait of a couple of years, and your letter explained the problem of the trust and that we could discuss the matter in Switzerland, especially after your talks with Coigny, it seemed again (not from procrastination) better to know in a sketchy way at least what his observations were. What was at issue of course was the matter of applying for a quota slot before July 1st, but you several times repeated that it would be an easy matter to fly to London any time before that with this specific purpose in mind.

Originally I advised applying for the visa slot anyhow, since it did not bind you. I had forgotten, what you reminded me of, which is the problem of the financial statement you must file with your application. I don't worry about your reply to the question of whether you intend to become a prostitute. I am worried at your filling out a financial statement without consultation with Coigny, and (in terms of the trust) Philip. For if the statement is later investigated or thought to be false you could be expelled and citizenship cancelled. For example, if your statement is to include only what you think you need to have, and pay taxes on, in the States, this you should discuss with Coigny. If you gave a full and accurate statement of the total, and then (as you once said) wished to transfer sums to Kenneth and to Perdita, you would have to account for why the taxable sum was suddenly smaller. And if Pup wished to keep any of this outside of the U.S. she too would be in a jamb.

It was for this reason, or these reasons, some of which may have gone in letters to Zurich or Kenwin, that I had not made the trip. I do intend to do this, perhaps after I have heard from you about your talks with Coigny. Or at least when you tell me precisely what questions are to be answered. No lawyer is likely to be able to tell you what the particular chances are to be for a particular individual. The lawyer whom I did consult in Washington last Fall -- a discussion I reported then-- said that you could come in and out of the States as often as you wished, and stay years on end without being in quota, and thus avoid the largest part of the burden of American taxes. This is what his client Sir William Stevenson, the Canadian millionaire, does. (You may have seen Little Bill's name in books on Philby. He was head of British intelligence in the U.S. during the war.) Murphey thought you were foolish to give up these advantages, but did not realise the emotional importance of formalizing the marriage with the States, instead of merely common law love.

One thing I can and will ask is precisely what has to be filled out for the financial statement, and I can have the firm go over an application with me. I can sketch the financial situation in vague terms without having to commit myself on paper--as indeed I could not do since I know, and ought to know, only general terms. But I will write ahead to ask for an appointment with

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

someone in the firm --the man who handled Hilda's case, within the firm, having written me (as I had forgotten) that he had left to go into the government,--to discuss a problem of this kind. Arnold would not know me personally, tho I have met him several times, but would take an interest as stemming from Yale and involving a literary figure like yourself. Once the appointment is made I will go down for the day.

When so much is involved and we have the delays between questions and answers I so often feel as though you must think I am indifferent or careless. Or even, as you felt in Copenhagen, somehow against your coming. The latter, at least, I hope you no longer feel. All I want is for you not to rush helter-skelter, espacially panicked by the threat of greater difficulty in obtain U.S. citizenship. Once things are in order I can, with legal help, always concentrate on that whether before or after July 1st. And meanwhile there is nothing against your coming over for an indefinite period, and experiment so that you know what kind of a residence is better for you here. That too has financial as well as social considerations, and there could be worse reasons for choosing New Haven than the fact that Connecticut has no state income tax.

What a dreary letter. But it is a dreary day in terms of weather, drizzling and gray. But the temperature is 50°F, and I am told that Spring comes this week. It would be welcome, if it doesn't appear as a transvestite in snow.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON
231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN

18 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I really ought to be at my work, but it is much pleasanter
writing you, especially so because this morning's post brought four letters
from you. The 13th, 14th and two of the 15th. It poured all last night
and thus far today.

So glad that Kenneth has what amounts to a clean bill of health.
I am not really surprised that they give up Prutting in favor of this new man,
or more accurately that they give up New York in favor of London. If they
liked flying it would be a different matter, but London is nearer and I daresay
cheaper, and I think they increasingly want to feel at home when they are away
from Cetona. Be British, I mean, in the U.K., rather than British in New
York. Also there are the publishing connections for both of them, and this
can be a real help in each case, keeping in mind the sort of book they write.
Sorry about Belle de Jour. You would probably feel the same way about the
average Swedish film. Quite understandably. No tensions exist within the
film from nudity and copulation; rather the tension comes (if at all) from
what one was formerly used to seeing and what one sees now. This is a passing
frisson at best. Actually the female nude has long been passé; only the male
nudity startles. But alas for me, I once saw a naked man!

You are gallant about Robin's Ghandaran piece. I shall be eager
to see it.

As to yours of the 14th, my letter yesterday may at least give us
a new beginning on the visa question. There was a most useful resume of the new
rules in this morning's Times which I shall clip to keep by me, and have xeroxed
for you. One of your strongest cards will, I think, be Perdita's adoption. A
reward. You were fortunate not to have been in the nahe of Grosvenor Square
yesterday with the 10-20-thousand protestors. What a pickle the States are in.
I thought it presumptuous of Bobby Kennedy to offer not to run if the President
would promise to change his policy and appoint a committee to study the war
from a list Bobby presented. Perhaps one should do those very things but not at
the cost of capitulation. I call the announcement of his running Bobby's Kennedyc/
The gold question is equally disturbing but perhaps it is just as well for my
countrymen to realise that they cannot support the world financially, militarily,
and politically, and carry on a war and a domestic reform and live in the greatest
luxury the world has ever known. No one sits down to reckon just what these things
will cost. They do cost, and because they do finances must be adjusted to meet the
burden. I quite understand Ruegg's dilemma; anything is indeed bound to be wrong.
Much better to sit and wait. # I am of course glad you did not try to see Elsie.
It means nothing to her; the Elsie you knew has already died and it is better to
remember her as she was than as she is. # It makes good sense indeed to Griederize
as the chance comes. The dresses will last forever and always become you. They are
part of your style.

The Japanese? I think they chose me rather than the opposite. But I
suppose it is partly because they frighten easily, find English difficult to under-
stand, defensively pretend to understand when they really don't. Unlike many Ameri-
cans I was brought up to become familiar with broken speach and no speach at all,
Gardner being a pot of that sort. I am not rude to them, and so they cling. And
send others. Each repeating the original situation I haven't the heart to turn them
away. Who knows? Perhaps a little it flatters my ego that they come and are helpless

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

and grateful. At least I suppose they are.

One of your Philby books has come this morning, the Times collabora-
tion. I shall be eager to read it. The other will no doubt be along shortly.
I am amazed that a New Worlds, even in s.f., should be porno.

Yes, come and be a S.F. student this summer.

Pup's letter, like John's card, sounded as tho the visit to Jamaica
had been a great success. John wrote that he couldn't make the bus trips
because of not being yet able to bend his knee. In that sense a stiff knee is
more awkward than a stiff hip. But sun and time will cure all that.

We went out last night to a buffet supper, mostly historians, in
honor of St Patrick's Day. Irish whiskey and Irish stew. Both were good.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

Like early Spring today, the temperature certainly in the high
fifties. Your letter of the 17th came in the early afternoon mail. I had
waited just on the chance there might be something. I was lucky to have had
both of my Glock letters reach you there. It is sad of course about Elsie.
One can only hope this does not go on too long. But in a way I am also glad
you are back in time for the funeral. Certainly not for a funeral's sake,
but your going can be a last Swiss gesture to Elsie.

The dollar situation seems for the moment to be better, but I
am not a prophet and everyone agrees that the solution is only a stopgap.
So far as I can understand it the States are for all practical purposes
(for individuals like you and me) off the gold standard. The value of
travellers' checks are an example, since the redeemer cannot convert into
gold at the stated price. All this is no doubt good for France but rough
on the U.K. as well as the U.S. I try to get my repairs done while I know
what equals what. I can buckle my belt better later on. The Dutch trip is
no doubt a luxury but one had planned on it and Susan had counted on it.
Another year when you are more likely to be on this side, we can make our
spring holiday to South Orange, New Jersey.

Nicholas? I think you must be firm and pretty much drop him.
You simply can't risk it at this moment.

Poor Ines, what a trip she had. Her restaurant lunch was a
good reward for her pluck. I wonder if she did not prefer going without
food also because by fasting she could stick close to her bags and her oranges.

Yesterday afternoon after getting my prick for common colds I went
to the bank and deposited three small checks to Hilda's account. This morning
came a request from a High School teacher of music to set one of her poems to
music. It all takes time but is worth it, like laying a flower before her memory.

A rapturous note from barbara Jordan today, written on a greeting
card colored by two fluffy kittens. I copy rather than xerox for economy's sake.

Dear Professor Pearson,

Just a little 'incoherent' note to say that I have
my car! The Mullane Ford Co. called me Thursday, and Conrad took me to
buy it this afternoon! It is a beauty--rich looking & graceful & solidly
built and I love it! I drove it home (a 'white-knuckle-ride!' and now it
is in the drive in all its glory, thanks to Bryher and you, dear Sir!

Shall send a color print as soon as ever I can to both yo
lovely people. I still can't believe it; I am so very happy to have it that
it hasn't registered yet!

Vielen Danke! Bene Gratia! And other expressions --
all inadequate. But thanks! Most Sincerely

Barbar Jordan.

Surely few letters have been written with so many exclamation marks. What a good
idea it was of yours in the first place. I have no right to be included in "both"
but it was pleasant to be a tangent.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Last night's incident on the present non-stop whirl was a dinner at the new
New Haven Hotel, the Park Plaza, by La Chaine des Rotisseurs, a gourmet group
made up mostly of restaurant owners and people connected with the local
Culinary Institute who belong to this local chapter. I have for several years
but only last night was "inducted." It was all I could do to keep from bursting
into an obscene grin. Solemnly one by one -- this is a world-wide, especially
French organization-- the new members were called to a raised platform (previously
we had raised our right hands and pledged allegiance to our guts) where one
national officer rigged out in a costume like that of the Legion of Honor put
a wide cordon about our necks, a medal dangling, and while we held one rapier-
like spit in our right hand, another national officer (all French) recited a
formula and dubbed us whatever rank we held on the left shoulder with his own
spit. At which point the recipient raised his spit upright in formal salute
and then walked off the podium to sign the register. Except for the final
kiss of the Commander's buttock it was all very much like what joining the
Knights Templar must have been. Afterwards I was given a woven shield with
the American flag on it to put on my cordon; the shield is like what one gets
from the Olympics or if one has gone to a ski resort in season. I don't really
know what the title of my rank is, except that it is the lowest. For I don't
even own a rotisserie. What I do not do for la vie! But the food was delicious;
Susan likes talking recipes (even at $35.00 a plate for the dinner) and drinking
the wines; and we were both amused at the rituals. I will sign you up when you
move. We left the 7 p.m. dinner at 11:15 without waiting for the after-coffee
cordials.

One is tempted not to bother to send the enclosed clipping since you know
it all already, but it might be useful to show Coigny. The disadvantage later
will be for the workingman; we will manage your entrance as Perdita's and mine.
Actually Perdita's long ago adoption will make a great difference if managed from
on high. I shouldn't worry too much if the rabbis advise you to wait before
filling out the financial statement.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is the first day of Spring, though it was springier yester-
day. No letter from you and not accomplishment to offset its absence. Because
I had queries about the last bill for the cardio-pulmonary examination I had
to search my papers for the preceding bill and so decided to make a delayed
beginning on pulling things together for my income tax. It is baffling. If
only, I always say, I spent time entering thi ngs as they arrived. But that
of course would make the entire year a bafflement; as it now is I only suffer
for a brief period, like the 48-hour flu.

We went last night to see *The Homecoming* by Pinter, interesting
because one hears so much about Pinter, a little dull because it seemed to go
on so long. It was like a somewhat more macabre Checkhov *Three Sisters* with
three brothers substituted. Both the Russian and the British homes were old
and decayed, and life had more or less come to an end; both are comedies, or
so one says. Tonight we have only to entertain a German professor (president
of the German American Studies Association) and his former student now a visit-
ing fellow in the graduate school. I trust they will not stay too long. Fortu-
nately the professor doesn't drink, so he may get bored.

Much to my surprise the afternoon's mail contained a package with
four immense notebooks, made up of the page proofs of Quayle's bibliography
of Ballantyne. In it was the letter of which this is a xerox. I have never
read a letter in which one combined first-naming with what looks like the
advertisement for real estate. I suppose in a sense this is just what the
proposition is, for he may intend to buy his new home with the proceeds. Before
you look at it, the answer is No. No for me, and no for you. If Yale wishes
to buy it fine, with unlimited money it would be worthwhile I suppose because
certainly the collection can never be equalled. But ours is not that bad
bibliographically, and basically we have the cream of the literary manuscripts
already. Some of the diaries are interesting, and in a sense he misled one a
bit by withholding what he now offers. I shall show the letter and material to
Yale; I rather doubt that they will go for it, but who knows what might appeal
to Beinecke. But when I see what pleasure a car has given arbara Jordan I say
to hell with £20,000 for books. Still, however he managed it he did get together
an extraordinary collection. Did I tell you that the framer lost the little
Ballantyne watercolor Quayle gave me? I am naturally heartbroken. Maybe I
can persuade Quayle to sell me one, even if it reduces the total to 1277 items.

Don't weep over this; I don't, and wouldn't even show you the xerox
if you thought I did or you thought you would. But we do after all share.

Especially love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I know, I know. I just can't persuade myself to sit down to
write that introduction to the book of synopses of Hawthorne's plots. So
I've dotted away at cleaning piles of things in my office, getting several
matters for the Colony Historical Society in shape, -- anything but begin.
Tomorrow I shall have no excuse, and must get at it. I will beg in the day
with prayer.

I was visited after lunch by Anthony Rota, who sends you his
greetings. He was up for a day of booking, and contact-keeping though
surprisingly it was his first visit to Yale. He is, naturally enough, off
to Texas now. Actually he hadn't too much to say, and didn't stay long--
G allup was with him to show him Beinecke et al. But he did say that
Jocelyn's library, in tota, with a huge bookplate in each volume, had gone
to the San Diega branch of the University of California; and all of the
manuscripts were now at the University of Texas.

A letter in from Brother Volant who begs we come back. He was
also eager to have the copy of the *Vikings in Greenland* I promised him before
our trip to Copenhagen. The copies have now arrived--the tupilaks not yet--.
Shall I send yours to Kenwin, or would you rather keep on this side. It
might be a change of pace for you, with excellent photographs.

Read the review of the biography of Luke Fildes by his son. "The
Doctor" of course I know. What a pity he didn't paint you sick-a-bed; then
you would have been a bit of British genre and we could give you to the Mellon
Collection.

I enclose a review of a book in which Hilda is mentioned favorably.
Waggoner had a girl do her doctoral dissertation on Hilda. I am tempted to
buy the book and have the references xeroxed for you.

Your letter of the 18th in this noon. Glad you liked Ruegg; I did,
very much. Good manners and apparent good sense, and I am all for the way he
takes exercise in the rain, especially late at night in Copenhagen. I should
doo, if I were young.

Poor Ines has her troubles with the Swiss. But of course to Elsie
and to Nicholas she is Italian.

Will see that Macbeth gets a *Helen*. I may have an extra one on hand; other
wise will order.

I began by taking my car to the garage for its spring cleaning and
checkup. I shall have to end it now by going to fetch it before the garage closes.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

22 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, but last night as I stopped on my

way back to HGS one had come after my letter to you. The double spacing
above comes from the fact that I managed this morning to get one paragraph
of the introduction accomplished. I shall have to begin again not only
because I was interrupted but because I suspect I wrote it so tightly that
I included everything I had to say. I should much prefer it to be just
one paragraph altogether, but etiquette seems to demand two pages. We
shall see.

You had told me both letters to the Glock came. I was
frightened. The delay seems between the airport and your desk or mine.
We will never know. One waits, as you see, for the British budget, or
rather to see what effect the pound and the dollar will have. The budget
is severe but, I gather, honest. In any event I am glad to be outside.
The dollar holds on rather better than I thought it would, but everything
is still artificial. Congress won't give Johnson his tax raise, but I
gather this is because they wish to coerce his Vietnam policy and rising
expenditures, can't publicly deny him (as a Congres), so say cut your
expenses knowing he can't cut enough domestically and so will have to
on his war budget. There is some feeling also related to the size of
appropriations for the Indias, Turkeys and Bolivias of the world, but
they don't want him to do this as the means to escalate the war bill.

I am interested that Seckers brought out the Giddings book.
It is a little slow going but very full of data. I have a copy of the
American edition and gave one to Brother Volant. If you find eventually
that you don't want to keep it why not send it to Chris? It might be
helpful to him in teaching an d identifying eskimo articles. Brother
Volant was jubilant, because he could identify some objects he hadn't
been able to call by name before. I hadn't realised that Lady Vyvvyan
had a new book coming out; I shall be eager to see it. The copy of the
Cookridge book on Philby came this morning. My thanks. Now I shall have
to wait patiently for the Philby memoirs. There is a chapter from it in
Evergreen which came this morning but hasn't been opened.

I was interested this morning to be phoned from New York
by a consulting firm who wanted to know what I thought of a candidate for
the presidency of Adelphi College, a big but not first-class one. A major
general, Sibley, who I had known at Magdalen (he was from West Point as a
Rhodes Scholar) had given my name as reference. He has been in command of
the Engineering Corps in the N.England district taking care of rivers and
habors. I tried to describe what they would get and what they wouldn't get,
as fairly as I could. But I was chiefly interested that the college trustees
hired some one to gather opinions. I suppose it is less tricky than asking
questions themselves, and since each trustess would be partial in one way
or another this takes the burden off. Naturally no advice of this sort by a
firm would be binding but might seem more impartial. I thought the questions

made sense.

At eleven arrived (by an appointment made late yesterday afternoon
by phone from New York,) a Professor Robert McDowell, a Scot who is Professor
of Irish history at Trinity College, Dublin, sent by a friend of mine so
that he could see Yale. A very lively garulous man, a bachelor in college
rooms, whom I showed the library to, then took to düncheontat Mory's and began
a tour of the campus with. But I had also asked a young man on the faculty
who teaches our only course on Irish history for lunch, and turned Prof.
McDowell over to him for most of th e tour. He may come back for tea, but
I suspect will go back to New York in my friend's company's chauffered
limousine--big and black and long. The young man was delighted to come and
serve, having as he said tried for two years to meet this Zeus of Irish
historians.

A Japanese is coming to return a book, and I must get back and begin
my preface again.

I have kept forgetting what is most important to me. Will you, if
you can manage it at the time of Elsie's funeral, arrange for flowers to be
sent in Susan's name and Mine? I rather got the idea from Heydt that one
did send flowers, and the more bunches the better. If so you might also
want to send a bunch or wreath or whatever from Perdita and John. I leave
this all to your social judgement and experience. After all, Elsie used to
say you were almost Swiss. (At that point one half hour out for the Japanese
professor.) But I do insist, point d'honneur, that you let me reimburse
you for the flowers, as I did Heydt. I think, however, not orchids for
Elsie. Forgive the ghoulishness of all this.

The sun refuses to come out and sulks behind the clouds. I wish
one could store sunshine away other than in the rays of a sun lamp.

Last night I stayed quietly at home and read. Sheer heaven. Tonight
we must go to dinner at the home of the soon-departing New Zealand poet.
He is Irish by birth; now he has had enough, he says, of New Zealand and
in midyear is transferring to British Columbia. So much for the efficacy
of our Learned Society grant to provide New Zealand with another man in
American literature. But how does one, as they say, keep them down on the
farm?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today either. Monday should bring another
group of them. The day began a littler offkey when I trudged to the Library
only to find it closed for the entire day. Tomorrow too. Alas, when the
Dublin professor came bounding in last night just before five -- he wanted
a cup of tea before going back to New York --I rushed to the HGS without picking
up what I needed for the weekend. But it doesn't matter really. I have spent
most of the day working over my income tax, always a prolonged and agonising
event even though the final work is done by a professional.

My only interruptions have been a funeral this morning, then to
take the German professor to lunch on his final day -- he had been spending
the morning in the other room, writing letters on my machine. And finally,
after lunch going to a shop to pick out a second hand Lettera 22 to take the
place of the one I had loaned to Sister Bernetta and which was stolen from
the hotel. The hotel paid for this, and I suspect I came off with a newer
and better one in the end. Anyhow, that episode is finished.

Last night we went for an 8 o'clock dinner to the New Zealand poet's, (Mike Doyle), with an Australian poet (Norman Talbot) also there --- both are really British -- and Wallace Stevens's daughter. A nice dinner of New Zealand dishes, and good conversation, but necessarily late. So I have felt a little sleepy all day, and it may be just as well that I could not try to go on with the introduction to Hawthorne.

The Grove Press Evergreen Review has just come out with a first installment of Kim Philby's own memoirs, and several references to myself. I am a little bewildered at his description of me but of course we never see ourselves with other eyes. Stil.... Well you can make up your own mind. It begins:

After preliminary high-level talks with Donovan, Bryce, and
others, we had assigned to us a small liaison party. Its head
was Norman Pearson, a poet from Yale. He was hail-fellow-well-
met, and have you heard the latest one about the girl in the train?
He was terribly funny about his organization. Oh So Sexy. It was
a notably bewildered group, and they lost no opportunity of tell-
ing that they had come to school. I must have been slow to grasp
the facts of interdepartmental life, as I was innocently surprised
by the confidence bestowed on them by Cowgill. He gave them the
freedom of our files, including the intercepted wireless traffic--
which was still being doled out grudgingly to the FBI in heavily
disguised form. It was difficult to see why a professional organi-
zation like the FBI should be denied intelligence which was given
in profusion to a service once described by Pearson himself as 'a
bunch of amateur bums.'

I've never been able to slap backs in all my life, and was normally embarrassed by bad memory when asked to tell handed-down jokes. I really can't imagine that I called my own associates bums, though we were admittedly amateur. Naturally I look forward to the entire book; you may too. What is Olympian about the book is the tone, but he takes credit for coups that were not really his. The anti-Americanism at Ryder Street must have been overpowering in his clique. Much is explained to me that originally I couldn't

understand, which perhaps makes me an amateur bum.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

Sunday, and it blows properly for March, with an occasional flurry of snow, but also an occasional peep of the sun. It has rained so steadily for the past fortnight that I might have thought myself on vacation and travelling.

I have been doing neither. Just keeping at work on my income tax, getting the justifying receipts in order. For much of what I spend becomes a business expense and so can be charged off. Each of my gifts must have its acknowledgement. A more immediately orderly person would have filed these as they came in. It would have saved time now, but taken much more time then. Better to give up two or three days solid to the task, as I now do.

We were at home last night, and after going through several oddments I began reading the Times book on Philby. The newspaper articles have been completely rewritten and it is actually a book. I think you might sometime like to take a look at it. I haven't gone far yet, but may be able to get back to it tonight.

One wonders what changes there may be in Vietnam with Westmoreland withdrawn. The ferment here, especially among the young, is intense. Not even in Franklin Roosevelt times was there such an anti-administration feeling. A member of the cabinet was not permitted even to finish his speach yesterday at the University of Wisconsin. One good thing however is that many of the peace-demonstrators are being drawn into political activity. Which is at least on the side of the law.

This is really only a note and a means of sending

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

25 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I have no business to begin the morning -- more or less -- by a letter to you. But I have a professor coming from Massachusetts at eleven, to work on the Dusty Diamonds (he is writing on novels about the Incas etc., and including this sort also--alas I cannot find one of the volumes I am supposed to own), he will be here for lunch -- and tomorrow also -- and I have a 2:30 engagement in New London and must have taken Susan at 6 to the Graduates Club for the dinner before the meeting at the N.H. Colony Historical Society. Thus it is not likely that I will be able to write at the end of the day as I usually do.

I finished up all I could do at HGS yesterday on income tax--Susan managed to get hers all out of the way-- but I shall have to put the material at 511 aside for a day or until I finish the Hawthorne introduction. Last night I read two of the catalogues (there are five altogether) that Quayle sent over. But need more leisure to write about them. Suffice it to say, Yale can buy the material if it wants to. I am completely against this price and against haggling.

Your letter of the 21st was in the early morning mail, and it was good to have something after last Thursday. I think you probably indeed did hear a protest march bomb or preliminary before you left the Sesame. The U.S. is certainly unpopular everywhere including this continent as well. Johnson simply sulks and does nothing to give anyone confidence. I fear he lets the army take the upper hand always, and fancies himself as a great general. Fortunately with two additional candidates for the Democratic nomination, a lot of steam can be let off openly. So far as the Republicans are concerned, the soup is cooling with only Nixon for fire. Although registered as a Republican I don't see how I could vote for him.

Odd that the Cookridge book, posted later by you, should have arrived first. I thought last night I should get on with the Quayle details, but will get back to the Times book again. I have read too little in it to be able to compare with Cookridge. The latter makes errors but is lively.

As to foreigners, yes they all come to my door--chiefly because they feel lost. Even the Germans who like the feeling of someone who can grunt a few umlauts, and are consoled by being dealt with by an ex-obers. As for the British, they come all right but of course speak the language already, are at ease, and accept the fellowships and financial aid as an understandably appropriate tribute. I doubt this is so true in the sciences, but in the humanities it most certainly obtains. I should no doubt feel the same way; one almost has to or else adopt an entirely new mode of life. And who wants to do that!

26 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

Eureka! The Foreword, brief as it was, was finished this
morning and is now in an envelope to mail off. It was not worth the extra
gray hairs, but one could have written an introduction more easily to a
dictionary.

Eureka too of course because there were three more letters from
you yesterday late afternoon when I returned from New London, and one more
arrived this morning. Then: 20th (2), 21st, 22nd. Today: 23rd.

Last night's talk at the Historical Society went off well. The
young speaker (he graduated from college in 1962) was immensely knowledgeable,
very articulate and contagiously enthusiastic. I felt triumphant in having
secured him. After the meeting we had him and the two couples chiefly re-
sponsible for the exhibition of Chinese export phina to the house for a drink.
Yesterday the man came to work on Incan and Aztec dusty diamonds and has just
now left again, so I feel wonderfully free.

Now to your letters. New Zealand poetry I discovered from an
anthology I was given, is much more modern than one would think, with a
rather strong influence of some American writers. In England as of Philip
Larkin and that school. # Many thanks for the comments on Kenneth's manu-
script. You did say you'd read an earlier version but never said what it
was about. I should think the Pakistan setting might be awfully well done
and appealing. Islay's book about an Uncle Norman and his crocodile artist
sounds very swinging indeed. # Three or four parcels of letters from Petrie to
you came yesterday. I looked at one or two, and sniffed out the clippings
about the debut, which I shall read in more detail. Secretly I'm not sure it was
such a good thing for Petrie to encourage the publicity, but I suppose it was
to help snare a good bagful. I do hope you will feel able to keep in touch with
Roberta--not have the burden of management but at least to give her the strength
of someone who knows her and cares. # Quayle is sending me a copy of the Ballantyne
bibliography, so don't order. I may get a second copy later, to mark up--but I
shall want to see one first. # You ask about what is owed for Barbara Jordan's car.
Nothing really, and especially since this may be a tight time for you. I gave her
two checks, one for $2800.00 for the car and then a second one for $84.00 for the
sales tax. She has cashed both and I have the cancelled checks here if you'd like
me to send you for your records. You earlier sent me $1,000 towards the sum, thru
Coigny; so the next amount I myself have put out is $1,884.00. I can't think of
anything else which I could conceivably charge you for. Sometimes I charge the
books to your account, sometimes to mine. But I have been going lightly on these
lately lest I crowd you out. I have the Helen for MacDuff at the Library ready to
post out, and will fetch another for you to go out with your Viking book. I'll
take both at the same time. # I am so sorry about Inez' cold but am glad she
could at least get about for her birthday. It is wonderful of you to nurse her and
fete her, but don't get too involved. As for Tigerli I should think yes perhaps
the summer, though if anything happens to Elsie you may well want to say to Hans,
now what do you wish done with the cat, take her yourself or what? He will say
perhaps that he needs her a souvenir of his sister, or he will say perhaps that

2

it is too great a burden upon the estate. You cannot have the responsibility
of providing lizards. # The lawyer question: I was quoting the lawyer (James
R. Murphy) I spoke to in general terms last November when I was in Washington
fpr a Smithsonian Council meeting. Philip seems to take the lead for the moment,
but I think you should begin to discuss the matter openly with Coigny too. I
may try to get what information I can before I come across, but again vaguely.
I agree these matters are much better discussed. # Glad you got the Gandharan
safely to Kenwin. Islay's letter sounded fine. Obviously both Boys are very
keen that you should come down when Susan and I are there. How we wish you would,
for our sakes as well as theirs. The change would be good and the extra day or
two together would be valuable for conferences. You might stop the one night
in Rome at whatever hotel you wanted to, we entrain together (your experience
would make us less nervous), and you might like to stay on a few nights longer
with the boys and perhaps make a call on Osbert. I doubt we would have time
on our one day at Centona. I really mean it when I say the Boys really mean it.
And so do I when I say the extra hours would be practical. Much of the time at
Kenwin may go into what is to be done with particular things, eventually. #
Marianne's letter was very sweet but saddening to read. She has become a little
old lady, it is clear--frail and I think frightened. # Much interested in the
note from Authors. Wasn't it Stevie Smith whp was so annoyed by your single
name? I'm afraid I've never cared overmuch for her pomes, but I daresay they
are worthy of admiration.

I know how awkward the matter of taking Ines must be; and I suppose
it is her own realization of the situation that makes her want revenge publicly.
But what you do at the Escale affects Marie Anne of course and one does have to
follow customs to a degree at least.

I applaud your effort to get Pup's adoption papers not only in terms
of the entry visa but also for the will.

What a pity Robin cannot simply have xerox copies made of all the
pages on which Petrie made changes. And then read the proposed script after
Sylva has finished with it. No point in her working over anything except what
Petrie worked over. Her time would go to waste. But she will have to realise
that widowers are not efficiency experts, especially if country gentlemen. And
Robin is the finest kind of country gentlemen, which means he will want to do
things slowly.

I still have a massive amount of things to do, especially finishing
my income tax material. But once the diamond miner left I wanted to be sure to
catch up with you.

All love as always in all ways,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I'm not sure that I've accomplished very much today,
nor is there much to report. Last night we watched a fine t.v.
show in color on birth in nature, from flowers to puppies to
squalling small humans. But it was beautifully photographed,
tastefully done, and a most marvelous thing for anyone of any age
to see. Afterwards I read away at pamphlets and especially the
spring catalogue of books to be published, which I had somehow
put aside--so busy do I seem to have been.

Part of my reading was in the TLS for March 21st,
and I must say I was startled by the episcopal tone of the
editorial on American Foundations. Why should he be so against
an American grant for a study of the stage spectacle in the
English theatre of the eighteenth century? It's not my cup of
tea, but out of Leslie's work much of interest and consequence
has come. Then he didn't like a grant to a senior scholar for
a critical interpretation of the major novels of Henry James.
"In fact," the editorial says, "such Foundations are now helping
to spoil the academic temperance, if only by encouraging vain research
and repetitive criticism." I don't consider this anti-American
but only silly. Especially when he says The Bollingen Foundations
proves the value of Foundations when they steer clear of the
establishment. I should think the writer's way of going at decisions
as to what is and is not vain and repetitive is the essence of
establishmentarianism. My own hunch is that the writer's identity
will be known in the right circles and that (why naturally) his
application to the Bollingen Foundation for a grant would be given,
whereas of course the Guggenheim does not grant to British and there-
fore no chance has been ruined. Americans can apply to the Guggenheim,
why shouldn't British be able to apply to the Arts Council?

I wrapped steadily this morning and six bundles of books,
addressed to hither and yon will go tomorrow to the postoffice. One to
MacBeth, and another to you (including the Viking book and an extra Helen).

No letter today, but four yesterday made a feast on which I
can still be nourished.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

28 March 1969

Dearest Fido,

A morning of running about, but since I expected to it doesn't matter. Susan to New York, and so after doing the dishes I went to my podiatrist and thence to the bank (a) to get small change, (b) a crisp bill for young Susan's birthday next Wednesday, and (c) to check if any odd keys I had were my missing key to the safe deposit box. It wasn't, so the lock will have to be changed. But at least I can now throw the odd keys away, having tried them and others into every conceivable past or present lock. That goal of discarding useless keys is at least done. Then I took the Oldsmobile to the tire shop to have the snow tires taken off. I needed one new tire anyhow and found I had to have two. But since I hope to be able to turn this car in next Fall (it is now seven or eight years old) I bought good ones but not the highest quality I usually get. From there back to HGS and off to the tailors where I ordered a new lightweight jacket for our May trip to you, and finally ended the morning by taking lists of books given Yale to the bookdealer to be evaluated. This afternoon I finally took the six big bundles of books to the post office. So Helen is off to Macbeth and to you.

A nice letter from the Brigadier, as well as what looks like a fascinating book on Cornish Miners in America. He wrote about the various Philby book, and says that Kim's own memoirs are now being run in the Observer and he thinks this enough for him. I agree. But you will want it, tho if it is to be published in England better to order your copy from there--quicker and cheaper. The Brigadier's letters couldn't be friendlier, even warmer. I daresay he hasn't so many close friends in England, except for those in the Army -- and although always discreet he seems to welcome it that I know about Joan and he needn't be ind discreet about Ethel in order to have one know what he half-says in his dry way.

Your letter of the 24th came this noon. I am delighted that Inez's birthday went off well, and that she enjoyed her dish of status and whipped cream at Zurcher's. Sad however about Elsie--sad that is that she lingers so -- and I can well imagine that you live in a kind of uneasy uncertainty as to just when you pick up and go. # The Giddings book, as I wrote you, I already have. It is excellent but a little dry. You may recall that the hardware-store-owner's wife gave me a bag full of flint chips to take back from Churchill to him. I only met him once, with Helge Larsen at the National Museum. Giddings offered to catalogue my eskimaux things, but was killed in an automobile accident before he could. I will get you to Greeland and Erik's home once, and perhaps once back to Churchill after you come this side.

Today two copies of the H.D.broadcast came: one from you, the other from the BBC. Did you say they were sending one to Perdita? If not I'll send her one of mine. So many yellowbacks have come in that I doubt I can comment on each of them. But they are all always meaningful to me. I should not otherwise know anything about the Hotsons. They apparently flourish, and Leslie's book should be as microscopically drawn as the miniature itself. Certainly he has put incaluable energy and scholarship into it. # John's letter on Nicholas was most interesting. I am glad they are firm about

his not hanging around at home in New York. #Ladies Bountiful did turn out to be rather less than it might have been, but as it finally emerged I am all the more pleased that I gave him nothing at all. The photograph of you he got from the Yale Library collection of VanVechten's photos. #Secker I gather want to wait awhile before bringing out another. In the States it would be just the moment for an American Avalon but of course the situation by the Channel is different. # I was fascinated by the programs for the weddings of Petrie and her daughter, since we have absolutely nothing of this sort on this side. And by the two accounts of Oonagh in Evening Standard. I suspect Petrie must have had a friend on Fleet Street whom she was helping, but I was surprised that Petrie would give out the cost in £'s of the wedding. Here it would be rather eyebrow-raising. Biddie's letter was most touching, and a great tribute to your friendship to Petrie that she would write it to you. I liked Biddie very much. At the buffet dinner Petrie gave for us, Biddie sat down with me for a half hour to tell her own history. Robin's letters were of course from his heart; you were kind to let me share them. #Rosemary and her rocking horse make an appealing picture. Life is, I feel, not altogether jolly for her at the moment. Perhaps with Spring and the chance to use her caravan things will pick up.

Although I shouldn't I think I will trot into New York tomorrow morning. It will be my only chance to see the exhibition of Cummings' paintings at the Gotham Book Mart, where they have put in a gallery. Frances Steloff has sold it but is still staying around as advisor. I may or may not be able to write tomorrow. Alas, the Library is still closed on Saturday and Sunday, but I really must finish up my income tax things--and so will try to take a briefcase full of papers to HGS to last me until Monday.

I hope things go smoothly. I send all love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday, having spent the day in New York. Your letter of the 24th -- no this must have been picked up from before. Your letters of the 25th and 26th I picked up on my way home, but of course could not answer. Am glad you agreed with my decision about the Quayle -- this was not anything you were supposed to be tempted by -- I simply feel that the price is absurdly high, fine though his collection is. Conceivably Yale's Mr Beinecke might like to buy it, and I will dutifully give them the chance, and then write in regret. I have just finished reading the five typed volumes of inventory. I was interested to have a catalogue from Mott come, with his Ballantyne ms of The Lonely Island offered at 1650 dollars, but he has been trying to sell this for over five years. * Send the Fildes biography if you want to, for this side. If you ever do rework Artemis I should think it most likely done as from this side. * The Vikings in Greenland book is the one I wanted to buy for you in Copenhagen, save that the bookstore at the National Museum had closed. The Giddings (not Gittings) is the one I already have. * Had not meant to inflict the Quinn book on H.D. on you as a chore, simply for the record. Am a little puzzled since in your first letter you say you don't like it, and in the next say you haven't read it. Neither have I. * Poor Elsie, how hard it is on you and Hans and the others to have her linger in this way. She herself presumably knows nothing. * The weather here, as with you, has for the past two days been sheer spring. Daffodils suddenly grow in front of one's eyes, and there are the first blossoms of crocuses everywhere. * You score a great victory with your Platter de pain. Had you never heard of it before? * A most interesting letter to the Times from the Australian scholar.

No letter from you this morning, but three yellowbacks arrived. Two were chiefly Petrie, the other had some of the miscellany in it. I felt more than ever pleased at your gift of the Ford to Barbara Jordan, when I read her letter about the necessary care of her mother. I wonder if eventually she won't really have to go to a home. But homes are so horrible that I suppose one can't. Only I hate to see two lives dragged down by one. * Your Chester's letter sounded elegantly Mariannesque, and I take it that he and the boy friend are to take another trip abroad this summer. You will have a steady stream of guests if you want them. * Gretchen Weinberg looks like the sort of girl that Fathers like better than the average man do. I myself would run amile. * It seems hard to believe that the Boys have been together twenty years. I must say this can only be close to a record. I like Islay's phrase 'set up shop together', but was this on the *Nea Hellas*? * Dorothy Richards's letter reminded me that I had meant to ask you if you wanted me to send you I.A.'s newest book. Or perhaps he will. One might wait to see. * I have two sets of Jones's life of Freud--my own and Hilda's. Would you like me to give his gradmother's to Valentine if he hasn't already got one of his own? It is hard to know what is permanent or passing with him, but he is obviously a devoted reader, rather like Patrick. * I thought Oonagh's letter a very nice one; I wonder if being alone won't perhaps in a sense cause her to grow up. Sometimes I think that Petrie (quite unwittingly) never let her be an adult. Or perhaps Oonagh simply thought Petrie didn't, wanting really still to be a debutante without responsibility.

[1968]

2

Last night I for the first time read the Third Program on Hilda.
Perhaps I should keep both copies for the record. The one from you was
complete, uncut. The one from BBC had the text checked and corrected when
he varied from the script, and had cut out the portions of poetry that were
not actually read. So if you did send one to Pup I will keep both of them.
No duplication and I am particularly grateful to you for securing the uncut
version. I thought it quite good on the whole, and certainly far better
that the Poetry Society's tribute--or so I would judge.

I haven't reported on the Australian propsects for some time, mostly
because I haven't heard a thing. I suppose partly because the State Depart-
ment simply doesn't know what it's budget will be. And won't until Congress
passes it with or without the surtax on incomes. The impression seems to be
that Congress can't openly criticise the Vietnam war as Johnson has been
conducting it, but knows that their demands for cuts in expenditures can't
be met by civilian cuts alone. So far Johnson hasn't given in. Westmoreland's
removal may be a significant step, since there can be no greater slap at a
commanding general than to be moved up or down or sideways before his campaign
has been won. Rumors are, but only rumors, that bombing will be stopped for
a period to see what if any effect the gesture invokes. If the war isn't
pretty much over by summer at the Democratic convention I don't believe Johnson
will dare to run. In that case I suspect Kennedy will win that nomination and
be able to beat Nixon. Neither one makes me very happy.

Yesterday while I was in New York a Mark Holloway phoned with a letter
from Kenneth. He came to the HGS office (library still closed weekends) at
ten this morning but as I was finishing income tax material (I give it to the
accountant Monday), I had to send him off to cool his heads until noon. Then
I took him to Mory's and gave him shad and roe (an Escale feast--I had Welch
rarely) and then for a little walk as I shopped. He is here for ten days or
so, and I guess we can have him to the house for supper Monday night. This
is Uncle Norman's biographer, here to work on the Archie letters and the rest
Yale has. He is a friend of O.B.'s and Max's as well, and had a room in their
house until he married. A sort of fringe writer I should think, rather than
an ex-croCODILE. He says Kenneth has loaned to him Norman's letters to you
and the ones from him to Hilda, both sets of which you gave Kenneth for K's
collection (so the envelope reads in your hand). So I presume there is no
reason why he should not be able to see the few still here from N to you both.
Actually Kenneth permitted Holloway to take all the papers back to England with
him, and probably just as well since if I remember correctly he and Kenneth
are co-executors, though Kenneth owns the manuscripts. He seems pleasant,
has four children and few teeth.

The trip to New York yesterday managed to get several things out of the
way. The New Zealand poet is, it now seems, actually going to teach in
Vancouver next fall, tho he hasn't told New Zealand this and also violates in
spirit at least the aim of the grant by A CLS which is to train for New
Zealand, and his university there which paid part of his slaray while there.
So A CLS is only paying his return fare to Vancouver, tho he and wife and
three children have to go back to New Zealand first. I feel sorry for him,
but I understand the penalty enacted. He doesn't of course. Anyhow I have
had the story from HQ as well as from him and so can consult better. Then
I went to Klejman's who had written me that they had what would be a crown
jewel, "the" was the actual article, of my collection. 800 dollars for a

carved swimming bird. As I suspected this turned out to be a tingmajuk,
of which I already had one as crude and large as the one they offered,
and half a dozen smaller and better ones. So I said no. Then I went to
an exhibition of Cummings' water colors, at the Gotham Book Mart. Pleasantly
for Mrs C all but e view of the worst had been sold. But I went to look not
to buy, though if I hand't had one there was a watercolor I would perhaps
have bought. 850 dollars however; the average was 500-700. Everything is
inflated. Finally I went to the Seven Gables bookshop to lunch with Papantonio
(he paid for it) and found that friends of mine were bidding high for each
of the Hawthorne items about to come up at an auction at Parke Bernet. I
already had copies from the previous owners, both men are generous in letting
me use anything I want to. So I saved money by saying I simply wouldn't
bid.

Had had my car washed while I was in New York, stopped off at the
office to pick up the mail and read it--we had two couples for dinner last
night-- and while I was inside it rained on the dust that had gathered since
the washing. All was for naught!

I did manage to put the last together for the income tax, and
except for Mr Holloway have spent the remaining hours at my desk. My brother
comes for overnight on his way to New York. I haen't seen him since he was
in the hospital so it should be pleasant. We go to Mory's to save Susan
from cooking for guests two nights in the row. She has been gardening in
best Elsie fashion.

All love.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

31 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

My brother arrived at six last night and left today at noon. It was a very pleasant visit but a little exhausting from my point of view, because I don't think he stopped talking for even a moment. He had much to talk about, and of course lives alone in Gardner and so enjoys the chance to open his mouth. My sister and brother-in-law apparently had a wonderful trip to Africa. They went out to see a second-cousin of ours (married to an American in Kenya busy with wild animal conservation. The man arranged safaris for them and they saw every conceivable wild animal except a tiger. My brother is now in New York buying for the Gardner store.

Yesterday I forgot to write that I phoned Marya about Horace. He is back at the Rusk again, in good spirits tho still very weak. The colostomy seems to have worked, which must be a great blessing indeed. Marya finally got up her nerve to ask me if I had seen the Philby excerpt, from the _Evergreen Review_, about myself. She and Horace and Patrick had all been properly astonished, didn't think the description particularly fitted, but she assured me that Patrick and Horace didn't think the notice would "hurt" me. It proved, they said, that I was not similarly professional like Philby. Actually they didn't like the excerpt and thought it boded ill for the book. Still, you must read it. Did I tell you that the Brigadier says it is running in the Observer. So someone in England is sure to bring it out. If they do it would get to you much quicker as from there. No, you must have it from me. I will airmail it over.

We have decided to have Kenneth's friend tomorrow night, to get it out of the way. We go out Tuesday night, and Thursday morning early I hae to set out for South Carolina and the meeting there. Having had Friday night taken, and last night, I simply welched out of asking him tonight. I fear this was shameless.

I enclose a clipping of a Boston lady who always fascinated me as a boy. She was old styled in the best way. I thought she was wonderful.

All love, as always,

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

Y A L E U N I V E R S I T Y

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

1 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

A rather chaotic day. Your letter of the 28th was in the first
morning mail; presumably yours of the next day came this noon. But the latter
I left in HGS and so cannot answer it with much particularity. However I
am glad you sent along the letter about Close Up. I will send it on to my
New York literary lawyer, to whom I did write last week to inquire into
the catalogue of Kraus, a firm which offers reprints of both Close Up and
L & L. This newest letter will spice up their attention.

I am still reading the Times book on Philby and will report at
least briefly later. I do not have your Gomme singing book catalogued with
the dusty diamonds, but if I have it I will know just where to look. Perhaps
not tonight since we have Holloway on our hands. I have uncovered the folder
of letters to you from Uncle Norman for Holloway to see. He is letting me
read xeroxes of those to you from Norman which you gave Kenneth. Also the
letters to Hilda. I seem to have no folder of those, so guess you gave all.
I really ought to ask your OK for Holloway to see these, but since Kenneth
has such confidence in him I presumed you would want to do the same. And
better to see and make one's judgment from the whole than a half (even a
Kenneth half).

Spent part of the morning putting things together from last
Fall's American Studies Association meeting (New England), for tomorrow I
hand it all on to the new officers. Also devised a little agenda which should
speed our discussion along. Then after lunch to the hospital for a consulta-
tion with their physical therapy people. I will take a dose of exercises
and see if any benefit comes. No problem at the moment but to avoid problems
later. Or so they say. Finally to the accountant with all my data for the
income tax. On the whole I was more orderly this year than last, I am glad
to say. However there is room for improvement still.

We watched t.v. last night when the President spoke, guessing that
there would be something of importance to make him take the prime hour of the week.
I hardly guessed how important, although I blush to say that just before he
made his surprise I was lulled enough to drop off to sleep. The silence when
he finished woken me up, and I heard Susan say, "So he's not going to run!"
I soon caught up however, and they replayed his statement so I was in while the
soup was still hot. It has rather taken the country, perhaps the world, by
surprise. At least coming now, but this was before the Wisconsin primary..
when he presumably would have had a worse defeat by Macarthy than in New Hampshire.
Johnson is at least a political realist. My guess is that now Bobby Kennedy will
be the next president, and this gives me no glow of satisfaction. Macarthy
simply doesn't have the political organization behind him; he is brave and fine
for protest, but that won't carry him thru. Of course it may, but the Kennedy
machine is well oiled. If Johnson was to call a halt on the bombing and the
war (which this does mean sooner or later) I am a little surprised he didn't
call off all the bombing instead of 90%. This gives Hanoi an excuse and makes
the American defeat (for it is just that) all the more humiliating. But I think
Johnson had to give in and up, no matter whatever justice originally lay behind
the campaign. The country was against him, and the world too. No country and
certainly no president can stand up to that kind of pressure. But I find it all
sad in every way, victory or defeat, lives saved or battle lost.

All love, Herman

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

Y A L E U N I V E R S I T Y

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

3 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

I still seem to be in somewhat unnecessary confusion. Today I think two letters came from you, but I must have left one at HGS. Those of the 29th. One of the 28th came in the late afternoon mail which I picked up after the bank and the accountant's and the hospital. Last evening's dinner threatened to become disaster, but fortunately all turned out well. I had asked Holloway to come to my HGS office a little before 6:30, byt a quarter to seven he hadn't arrived. I phoned his hotel. No answer. I phoned Susan and said to keep the kettle off the stove, and I would be back at 7 if nothing happened. Anyhow I waited outside and he did turn up at ten minute to. Had become lost in the two blocks from his hotel to my office, although he had been to see me before. I think he told the truth since he approached HGS from the wrong direction. Anyhow the supper was good, and he was very pleasant, and wanted to go home at 11.

This morning's lunch however was anders. I thought, ah those
two men coming from Smith; booked a table for 12:15 at Mory's, waited in
vain until after 12:30, then rushed to the Library and my engagement book.
They were not a half hour late, I was a week early.

Part of this morning's accomplishment however, aside from two
appointments with foreign students, one of them gave me an elaborate book
of German poems and watercolors by himself, bound but ms and unpublished,
was to write Winick about the reprint of Close Up. I hope he gets at it.
# You are right of course, Hilda had no older sister, or none that I know
of unless stillborn. And three brothers certainly. I never saw the book
for vetting of facts. # Grindea. No you can't jump to his whistle. I can't
make out--Holloway was careful, but I gathered his circle are a little sus-
picious. # I shall have to go back over the Cookridge book to note the errors.
Certainly I could write a small book simply correcting the impressions given
of certain operations. Cookridge writes well and keeps things focussed excitingly
on Philby; he is particularly good on Vienna. The others have the same material
but not so jazzed up. The Times book is scholarly, and very much rewritten from
the newspapers. Vivian there was dead, and is now alive again--fair enough.
But the entire tone taken by them in the newsprint where they were so scornful of
Cowghill is completely altered. They are respectful, as I think they should be.
I thought collaboration should be collaboration, and thought the English needed
the Americans for liaison work. Philby curiously liked the F.B.I. Cowgill knew
how often they blew security. # Your pearls from the Sesame and things of beauty
and joys forever. Continue, I pray you, to keep your ears open.

The missing letter is the briefer note; I have the longer later. Coignu
talks sensibly about Kenwin, and I am glad he sees it is not a private villa. One
can really get down on one's hands and knees if one has to, to clear out quickly.
I'll be glad to fly over to help if happily necessary. Happily only because this
would mean Kenwin had been sold. # MacDuff was joke. # The cat is not, but
agree she should have one more season of heat. By the sun. Unlike Helen I am
no cat-lover although sometimes catty. # I rather think I did plan for two
nights with the Boys. So as to allow one full day, with siesta, there. I do
hope you will decide to come along so that we can have that much extra time to
talk.

I go now to read the letters from Douglas to you and Hilda.

pleasant. I take an 8 o'clock bus tomorrow for the Newark Airport, and hence to Clemson, South Carolina for the meeting of the Southeastern American Studies Association. Back Saturday afternoon. We are having nice spring weather here, but it should be warmer there, with flowering shrubs and the like. Will write, but perhaps not predependably when. All love, Norma

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Your new ribbon is absolutely splendid! Your type struts as
though in an Easter parade. Away with Pelikans! I am interested that even Hans
has given up the visits to Elsie; she lies now as my father did, sustained by
an inner iron strength. But it does her no good to be watched, and you certainly
not to watch her. I have slipped into, as you can see, your two letters of the 30th
and 31st which came this morning. I am sorry that Perdita hasn't had time to check
on her adoption papers. Could you give me an approximate date? Then I can
search among your letters of that time, and Hilda's. I remember seeing references
to it in letters, but of course have long since forgotten where. There just
might be a precise reference. Would Kenneth remember? Even approximately? I
am sure I can get on if I know the year or period of years. That is, Pup was
about three when; about two when, ... usw. # Don't for a minute worry about
the car from Geneva. We can quite easily go by train to Lausanne and out from
there. Or if you let me know I can hire a car from geneva, with driver. Or
a Hertz and drive it back and forth myself. I feel guilt enough, as it is, in
coming. Your Vivienne's car does sound small for three plus luggage plus my
stiff hip. # Am also most grateful for the two Jelmoli notebooks which came in
this morning's mail. I now have a bountiful supply, for which I bark my thanks.

Last night we went to the Lawn Club for dinner and then to hear the
Boston Symphony. A fine concert of a Mozart and a Beet oven symphony (# 5),
plus a percussionful modern symphony by a Sino-American name Lee. The Beethoven
was like a fine thick Oriental rug, except for one ghastly moment when the
player of a French horn must have let his tongue slip on a banana peel, for the
most awful sound suddenly came in the midst of harmony and then slid back into
the nap.

The morning began with my trip to the physical medicine part of the
Yale-New Haven Hospital for my first lessons. It is a wonder I am alive at all,
I breathe so improperly. In goes my diaphragm when it should be going out, my
chest muscles expand when they should contract. I must unlearn a lifetime.
But eventually I should be beautifully chesty, and wherever I am and breathe in
public, people will break into applause. I am given other mysterious exercises
of pushing and pulling, and flexing and bending; and when these are consecutively
performed I look rather like a mating partridge in his dance. My two instructors,
one a superior Miss Baum, and the other (just over from Linz), an Ilse Wolfart-
berger, have great confidence in me, more than I do in myself. I did at any
rate think I had better get the Fraulein to instruct me in English rather than
German. My faulty understanding doesn't matter socially, but how disasterous
it would be to think she said dilate when she meant the opposite. I imagine all
this will be excellent for me.

After all this I finished the morning by finishing Norman Douglas's
letters to you and Hilda so I could return them to Holloway. I took him to lunch
and we had a pleasant talk. He's a nice chap. I answered a few questions and
asked some. Am still not sure just what his relationship to Uncle Norman was,
but he seems sane and balanced.

Today is young Susan's birthday, and she comes with the two children
for dinner. She is 38 I believe. Lissie will be there too, so it should be

77 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Arrived safely home last night a little before six, but
will not try to describe the convention until I get to my electric
typewriter tomorrow. Even three day's of mail had overstuffed my
HGS box, so that they had to bring it to my office where it stood in
a huge pile for me to go over this afternoon. But nothing was more
welcome than your two letters of the first, and that of the 2nd which
shouted out to greet me.

No, I never really set my own judgment up against your
theories on the Thirties in England. Only my experience of course was
rather cloistered in Magdalen, and grows now chiefly vicariously. As
for the Bollingen it is indeed Jungian, by name and by publishing his
work; but I can't let that be a complete characterization to explain
their backing of Coleridge's notebooks, the translations of St. Jean
Perse, and Jonathan Edwards. Sometimes you are awfully sweeping in
your exclusions. But why not!

Will forward the letter on to Sir William, but will have to
dig out the street address of the Brittanica. I suspect Chicago would
be enough, though not in New York City certainly. There they ruthlessly
return. Airmail is only ten cents, so I waste not by using the stamp
you enclosed for this letter to you. / Am delighted that you recommended
Cornish Miners for me. It is just the out of the way study I greatly
enjoy. / Will leave the Philby volume to you to order from England, as
quicker and likely to come out while I am in Europe. I will get mine
here on return. / The Giddings book, as you will see, was most warmly
reviewed in the TLS. / Glad you are getting your sunbirths (no, sunbaths
but I like the first word too) and think of you as Anadyomene stretched
out amongst white violets, primroses, and a few dark violets. Oh, that
your Victorian could have done your portrait so. / Am not at all sure how
you will like the Rogers book. I thought it started out better than it
finished, becoming little more than a grab-bag of second-hand anecdotes,
thus no book at all. I suspect he simply couldn't get the information.
But he wasn't out to describe bounty at all, just oddity. / Sir Gavin
has much on his side, but I hope France will shift back with the others
before too long. It is not simply the question of the General's being
against the U.S.A., but his being against the whole of Western Europe.

Alas, I fear I am not at all surprised that Grindea wants
to borrow money for the magazine. Here I must take note of my early
position of suspicion; it was you who warmed if ever so slightly. He
quite obviously wants an H.D. issue not for her sake but his (vis-a-vis
you). And he took great pains to tell me how he never, oh simply never,
even breathed to you the idea of help. Too obvious pains. I am scared
that the University of Rochester has bought a lemon, and I think I must
refuse to become an advisory editor of the magazine when it comes on this
side. However let him go on with the Ramuz number, and for the sake of
R-- give Grindea something if you can get your mind on it.

All love,
Zorn

8 March 1968

Dearest Fido,

After I had written you yesterday I discovered that Yale,
like all schools in New Haven was closed today. Mail came, but there
were no classes, few secretaries, and even the Library was closed. The
Blacks demanded that all businesses close to, but they did not. The
Blacks as a whole? Probably not, just the militant ones. But the
Governor of Connecticut has made tomorrow, the day of King's funeral,
a day of morning, and most businesses will be closed in the morning.
The public schools too. Yale, I don't know. But very little of this
is out of grief. It stems from fear, and of course this sense of guilt
that everyone accepts. And out of politics, because an election is
coming. Kennedy sent Mrs King to Memphis in a private jet to fetch the
body back to Atlanta. So today Rockefeller flew her back to Memphis for
the memorial march. Thus the score evens between them. I wonder if
Macarthey won't at least send a taxicab to the airport and get in on
the act. And yet there is grief, grief for King and grief for the country.

I feel a little crippled by not getting to the Library as
planned. But I have plenty of reading to do in HGS. And letters to write
on this old machine. I began by finising the London Times book on Philby.
It is rather solemn, like a graduate school report. But very much rewritten
from the Sunday appearances, and men like Cowgill and Vivyan given gentler
treatment. Presumably it was more interesting to me than to others, though
it is surely the one that will last the longest. If it lasts at all, for
each age will want the story retold in its own style--much as Cookridge has
for us. Cookridge is racy and makes things move, and gives feeling to it
as well as vividness (especially in the early Vienna section). He is
however often too certain of details he can hardly know, and gives as fact
what can hardly be proven to be so. His manner is a little hinted at in
the enclosed review from the NYTimes of his Battenberg book. Yet, I agree
with you, if one is to be given a single book on the subject, then Cook-
ridge is most likely to please.

Thanks to your reminder I hae just now written Horace a birthday
letter (this will be his 70th) and sent it off to the hospital.

How stupid it was of me yesterday not to have exclaimed in triumph
that Sunday morning at home I searched and found Alice Gomme's CHILDREN'S
SINGING GAMES, "To Darling Dolly From A.E. P. Sept 2/ 1901". So here it
is safe. Would you like me to send it to you?

Your letter of the 3rd and two of the 4th came today to my cheer.
I agree that Philby is both a tragedy and a symbol. And certainly a mile-
stone. * Poor Elsie. I think of my father and how long and at what cost
of money and emotion he lived on and on. I wish I could help, but I cannot
get carbon monoxide to her. * Lucky Ines. I wish I could take lessons in
English for you. I think she is frightened of Nicholas because in a sense
he seems to her to be as Swiss as Elsie. I think p.a.o. would explain her
car-sickness. Given a nice Italian and she would dash off in an Isotta
sports car. * Ah yes, it was Fildes I wished had painted you sunning
among anemones. * I shall wait until you come over for you to give the
Freud to Valentine. I gather now that I am to go to Australia, but have
only heard indirectly rather than from the State Department. The meetings
come in the last week of August, and I gather that the two weeks before I
am shunted from university to university. Or perhaps the two weeks after,
if the colleges aren't open in August. It's winter there, and the cold
season. If I can either before or after I want to pay at least a flying

2

visit to Australia to see Hilda's friend. I mean of course to New Zealand.

I am overwhelmed at your kindness in helping towards a new car. Alas, Susan had a little accident with the Oldsmobile after taking me to the airport limousine. Someone cut in front of her and she hit him, not badly but enough to dent the front bumper. But this is too much, why not let it cover the money for Barbara Jordan's car plus a little more. You did once give me one thousand towards the car, a sum which is in my savings account. Once I get the repairs done on the front porch of the house at Johnson's point, I should be able to swing a car before winter. So let this be Jordan water, enough to baptize a second car as well as hers. * I was gleeful at Kenneth's glee over his new electric typewriter. He is like Justus with a new erector set. Now I must get back to letters and see if I can finish Melville Cane's new book, to be published on the 15th which is his 89th birthday. He is the chief lawyer in the New York firm, and goes daily to his office though he no longer practises.

Spring has temporarily left us, and it is cold and drizzling outside.
Naturally, I wore no coat.

All love,
Norman

9 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

At least today I was able to hand all of the papers over
to the new officers of the New England American Studies organization.
You will recall that I was president for the past two years. Can't
say I'm sorry, all the more so because the new ones are very able
indeed. They drove down from Amherst and Northampton for lunch and
a briefing luncheon.

Otherwise it has been more of the same: i.e. picking up
after my absence, since today I could at least get into the library.
Newly arrived are the bindings in cloth with red morocco spines of
B & F's Philaster, 1887, and 1652; Knight of the Burning Pestle, 1635;
and King and No King, 1631. Also Fletcher's Tragedy of Thierry, 1648.
They had been unbound and spineless, and it seemed to me that if we
were to have them at all they should be clad in more than the emperor's
new binding. I try to keep up the respectability of your library. I
think I told you earlier that I had bought, using up the last of the
credit plus some more a copy of the B & F Maids Tragedy, 1650, the sixth
impression--an issue which we didn't have. I continue to fill out the
B & F runs as the chance occurs; otherwise there is little to buy. Seven
Gables say they have a few plays I might be interested in, but I think
better to wait until more cows are in. Some cows did come in, especially
two branded with a W. I had feared a little since I had only a for-some-
reason-supplementary cheque for $400, with reference to an earlier one
which had not arrived. Suddenly my brilliance forced its way, I asked in
the mail room if there was a registered letter for me; oh yes, we forgot
to tell you. So now I have paid for the tickets I can use to plug the
dykes. when we get to Holland.

I had had a letter from the Arno Press people, enclosing a xerox
of your reply to them, and after re-xeroxing I put it with a letter to
Winick in New York. Then walked from the mailbox to the mailroom and found
the enclosed letter from Winick to me. I fear he may be right about Close
Up being in the Public Domain, and altho Kraus originally wrote and offered
to sign a contract they may have been annoyed at not hearing from Kenneth
or you until now. But there does remain the question about Brendan Publishing
Company and who owns its assets. Was it you, or did it ultimately belong to
Herring. By which I mean to ask if Herring might legally have been in a position
to give the rights for republishing. I daresay you or Philip has the papers
of incorporation as well as of defunction (if there is such a word). Do let me
know, since I don't know what accountant Winick wrote to. Any help you can
give will be gratefully received. Obviously now that L & L will be generally
available, as well as Close Up, any space you want eventually to devote in your
memoirs to them will be read with much interest.

Your letter of the 5th (Walter's Day) came this morning, with Helen's
in it. You can't write too often, and if you piled one on top of another I
can see you all the better for them. I should, as I wrote yesterday, think

I will be going out to Australia in August, but just how or for how long I'm
not yet sure. I spoke to the Australian now in Washington on the phone about
it, and he was going to jostle our State Department again. I would imagine
I leave early August, but it might be later in September since I must lecture
to pay my way and universities are on holiday earlier. In that case I might do
my trip to New Zealand first, and Australia into September. # Curious about the
economy. In an sense the Americans are, no matter what happens to gold, the
most presently prosperous nation. But there will be ups and downs, and peace
without war contracts will disarrange the economy of many regions (including
Connecticut). As to the young, this is now their world, as you and the French
say. I say, let them have it if only they will leave me alone in my own juice.
Come in, the water's fine--for me. ----- No I never knew Eleanora personally,
but she always appealed to me as a boy. She seemed to me to have bel esprit.
-- Grindea? I told you how he snorted when I asked why he hadn't replied. "I
didn't ask them for money. They can buy it if they want it." But if you care
for the subject ( in this case, Ramuz) you care for the public regard the issue
will encourage. --- A nice letter from Helen, I thought. In today's paper I
saw that the last of the lindberg sons had been married (the one with hearing
difficulties?) to a French girl.

The chief host at the Clemson meeting was the author of a biography
of John Trotwood Moore, Merrill's father. I was given a copy and read it thru
last night, mostly for Merrill's sake. He was born Austin Merrill Moore, named
for a professor uncle at Vanderbilt. The father was, I had only half
realised, the pure racist sentimental nivist who was regarded as a kind of
author laureate of old-fashioned Tennessee, also eventually the State Archivist
and hack writer of history, after he gave up being a journalist on horse-racing.
No wonder poor Merrill was ambitious to break away into quite another kind of
sonnet, and needed and wanted to practise psychiatry! Because of Merrill, you
must take a look at the volume when you are next here.

Everything has been quiet today, though whenever I put in a long
distance call to Washington or the state university I find the other end shut
down. But at least I could get to the library, and at least I can pay my bills.

All love, of course,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

10 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Your two letters of the 6th came this morning. I am glad
Pup has the adoption certificate. It ought in any case to be available.
Conceivably Maitre Coigny might have a xerox of it on deposit with the
most recent of your wills. I should have pitched in to track down thru
the correspondence, but what a nuisance to follow on from there. Grindea
threatens to become a perpetual topic of conversation, and we will exhaust
him shortly after he exhausts us. But it is so patent on his part to
suggest a number on the history of Life & Letters. Not that the subject
might not be an interesting one, but that it would make him (he feels)
closer to Winifred. He quite obviously did not want to put out any
figures on the costs of the Ramuz issue, and does not offer any with
his cri de coeur to you. I must say I think the University of Rochester
is in for rough sledding, especially if they think they can steer as
well as support him. I really am going to refuse being on the advisory
board, on the basis naturally of being already too busy. Anyhow they
have my friend Martz from Yale, and one from here is enough. * I am
glad your verbs march with Ines. But her situation vis-a-vis grammar
is being matched by all in the States. They simply do not teach grammar
in grammar schools, so students studying French haven't the foggiest
notion what is meant by subject or predicate, and I doubt even adverb.
* Yes, if anything happens to Elsie then Hans ought to clear away her
things rather promptly. I suppose one has to wait however (sibce she
left no will) for the courts to appoint an executor of her estate, and
all will be hamstrung until the appointment. Of course I don't know how
such things are handled in Switzerland; in the States it would be as I
say. You might ask Coigny sometime so as to be prepared. * As to books,
well they are to you as they are to me -- which is another of the reasons
we understand how each other ticks. I cannot bear not to be able to turn
back to something when I need it, and most books become a part of me. Still,
I have found a good many that I can rid myself of. No, not a good many: some.
Ultimately the thing will be to ship them to this side, and store until you
find a good New Haven or New York apartment, or both, and then stack to the
ceiling. On one shelf instead of a double row inside, you can have only an
outer row. Put a blanket and pillow inside, take a couple of books off the
shelf each night, crawl in behind, stretch out, and draw the removed books
back for protection. * Many thanks for arranging about the car. Plenty
of time for details even so late as when we are in the Netherlands. I sent
off the money for tickets yesterday, and will have them by return mail. I
only hope you will come with me to etona and hold my hand and talk between
levees. You might want to stay a few days after, perhaps to see Osbert as
well as to be alone with the Boys. * When we were last with you, Marie Anne
wanted very much to take us for raclettes. This would be a great outing for us,
especially if you came along. And a fine chance to see her. Susan will be
delighted at the prospect.

Much tension late yesterday afternoon, Martin Luther King being
buried but the troubles not. At the gym were the mayor and the chief of police,
the latter warning me not to go home by Winchester Avenue my regular route. Now

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

a Black section. The mayor exhausted and cross, although of course not with me. He tries hard and cannot understand why the Blacks don't try too. There was no trouble to affect us, but many were arrested for throwing stones through windows and setting over thirty fires. All in the Negro section, against themselves. There is no logic to it.

Instead of trying to think it was easier to go to the Symphony concert and hear Bartok and Mahler, in the latter case the first playing in America of the 2nd movement of Mahler's 1st symphony. It had been lost but the James Osbornes (whom you have met in London--they used to be friends of the Hotsons) bought the ms of the whole symphony with the missing movement in it. They have donated the rights to the N.H.Symphony.

I try my best to keep at my exercises but fear I make no progress. At least my chest does no swell properly with wind and pride. But I will keep on trying.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

I simply could not resist despoiling this morning's New York Times
so that you could share, quickly, this wonderful picture of Marianne at what
must have been the happiest moment, the true climax of her life. The young man
beside her is, I think, the one with whom she is writing the history of the
Brooklyn Dodgers. I am truly touched by how beautifully her life has worked
out, at her fame and her happiness in it. Do read the account of the game to
the bitter end for the reporter obviously felt the unusual mood of the day
rather than the game to be reported. Perhaps this particular clipping ought
to be saved.

Other clippings will go out tomorrow morning in a printed matter
envelope, but Susan and I agreed there should be no wait even until tonight's
re-reading.

No letter from you today, but I have been so well treated epistolarily
that I cannot complain.

I began the day with a ten o'clock visit to the hospital for my
exercises, adding still another female to the flock which surround me and utter
ohs and ahs at the spectacular curve of my spine. We don't see things like this
any more, they say marveling. True, though a little unlucky for me. Still, if
I had been later--my friends would not have been the same. They devise ways of
pulling and stretching, but whether to any avail will remain to be demonstrated.
I am to go twice a week now, but not for long of course because of our trip to
you.

Last night at five I entertained Mr Holloway with a cup of tea at HGS, my first "party" so to speak. He finished off my present supply of cookies so that I can start afresh. Brought back your letters from Uncle Norman, and I translated ritual terms like Beaver, Dragon, Rover and the like. He asked me who and when the term crocodile had begun for the little ones. Do you know? This was sheer curiosity and not intended as scholarship. He set out this morning by bus across the country to California and then to Arizona where Archie and wife and two children are living in a trailer camp. Holloway seems competent and pleasant without being very exciting. But the job will be tastefully done, I should think. He knew Douglas only as I did -- in the WW II period, although obviously he saw him oftener. Still, he was no Pino. Alas for him he hasn't yet been able to get access to Orrioli's papers and journals, which a daughter(?) wishes to publish. And already it is really too late for the obscure early part of the life.

After the hospital I made a trip to the bank to adjust the various
accounts post-income tax. As you know, I simply deposit the sums received for
royalty and interest on savings, pay in advance the estimated tax (based on the
previous year's tax, and only withdraw the share of the tax when the final amount
has been calculated. My present tax is 50% of all income earned or otherwise
received except as gifts. One-half of your royalties and interest on savings came
to $4,458.65, but your latest interest added 247.81. So deducing what I had

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

already paid on the sums added last year to your account, and adding the interest
for the last quarter, your present (not to go lower) total is $17,364.05. Next
year at this time one will reckon on whatever is above this present total. Hilda's
one half for royalties and permission fees (her chief source) and interest comes
to 292.50, so after deducting this amount her present total is 1,535.78. I had said
to you that we might deduct what I paid for the two sets of her letters, to the
Wilde parents and to that older woman in her girlhood. But it seemed wrong somehow,
and better to hold her royalties against some memorial or some help to someone she
would have liked helping. I hope you agree that this makes sense.

In the envelope going out tomorrow there are obviously too many clippings,
though I thought what was happening in New Haven (your future home?) might interest
you. Turn the pages over; the stories are continued. And read in some detail accounts
like that headlined "Black Women Begin Boycott." How can Bill Coffin, the Yale chaplain,
say Amen to all this? And last night when I went to the Law School for a lecture
on Hawthorne I saw huge placards, like calendars, for Yale Law School students to
sign up to join with this particular Black Woman protest. One feels the incredible
casualness of King's murder, though I suppose too much history lies behind for it to
be casual in every sense. And we are share a kind of guilt, but not so overwhelming
a one as to make us lose all principles and logic of proportion in finding a solution.
Yet I suppose I am old, have had my war, have had too much happen that is ghastly in
peace, for me to join with any vitality in these protests now. Against whom am I
protesting as a white man? How can one condone violence and destruction? Well,
anyhow here it is for you to look at.

I wanted to phone Horace yesterday on his birthday, but Holloway didn't
leave until six-fifteen and I had to scurry home for a quick supper before coming
back down.

Tonight should be a quiet one at home.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Susan has just phoned, having gotten the one o'clock back from New York, to say there was a cable from you which when opened proved to be birthday greetings. And your letter of the 9th ('Who knows! This might still reach you on your birthday though I doubt this') surpassed your expectations and this noon. So I am well comforted for tomorrow and consoled for good Friday (today) a moment of the calendar which always rubs my New Englandism the wrong way. For no secretaries are here, no drinks can be obtained at Mory's (though I don't normally drink at noon anyhow), and I consider a minute of silent prayer as efficacious as a day's holiday.

I had an appointment for lunch with a younger member of the faculty at 12:45 at Mory's, when I arrived at 12:46 at the latest I was told he had gone but would be back. So I waited until 12:45 and then began to eat, which was just as well for Martin never arrived. However a Marine colonel did, a Robert Heynl who does books on the military and I have known from before was in town and sat down at my table. He confirmed my opinion that at least the airforce had been fighting an obsolete way in Vietnam (by which I mean fought with out-of-date tactics). I should not mention this if the Colonel had not said that the Air Force was fighting for their institutional life, man-powered aircraft now being obsolete except for flying in supplies. He confirmed that they hadn't been as successful as they claimed in Korea either. And that he thought Johnson had been the rather simple (unquestioning) victim of the military advisers he chose.

I thought you had already written Grindea, but as with myself it is probably better always to count ten. I somehow can't stifle a suspicion that he always intended to go to you on Ramuz, on the basis that you wouldn't ask questions but become a permanent patroness. With the H.D. number, that on L & L, and other affections that he would eventually discover. * It is most sad about the Scarletts, but what is becoming true for them holds for all of us as well. Just as the death of a pet mouse is tragedy enough for a nun, so what Kenwin is to you their littler house is for them. It is in their case giving up one thing for the ease of other advantages. Last night I read a new book written by the wife of a friend who is professor at the University of Wisconsin about the 100 acre farm in the country they have spent their lives remodelling and bringing the soil and streams back. But 100 acres would be too much for me now.

I forgot to say that Lady V's *Nothing Ventilated* arrived yesterday. I shall be keen to read it, for the sake of her perpetual joi de vivre and elan.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

I was surprised and delighted today to have in the mail an issue of a French magazine BIZARRE entirely devoted to Romaine Brooks, with a nice inscription to me in it, and articles by Paul Morand, Eduard Mac Avoy (her local boy friend and himself an artist) and Michel Desbrueres. It is a true homage, and filled with excellent new photographs of her best work. One can see how derivative the paintings are, but they have quality and interest. I hope she sent you one. If not we can put this aside as another tidbit to tempt you here.

Mostly I have pecking away at letters and recommendations, which never cease. Or never get caught up with. One I answered today came at the end of January just as, or just after, I left to be with you in Denmark. From Robert Hodgson, the nephew. Did I tell you that as economic conditions worsened in England the better it turned out for his commercial art? "The tighter the squeeze, the frostier the freeze, the more Fleet Street beamed upon me -- nay positively grinned like a Cheshire Cat." He claimed to have dug up still more about his uncle. I tell him to go ahead and write his memoir and publish it, whether Aurelia liked it or not. There's nothing scandalous in what he finds. And soon there'll be no one left who knew him at all.

It has been overwhelmingly spring today, although a little chilly. But the sun is out and the sky is clear (although tonight is a total eclipse of the moon) and people idle and wander and no doubt tonight will therefore riot. It promised to be a good weekend, and although nothing special is planned for tomorrow, there is to be a Bennet clan picnic at the shore on Sunday. The new plot of land still has not been transferred, but all is supposed now at last to be marching.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

13 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, but yours of the 9th and the cable which came last night greeted mr warmly and I have thanked you for them all today. In fact there was an additional remembrance. Two days ago the bix with the tupilaks arrived from Copenhagen and I save them until now to open them. None were broken, and they make an excellent addition to the little group I already had. In fact unnecessary addition for several of those from the earlier group have dried out and cracked, even in one or two cases broken because of the poorness of the ivory. I thanked you at the museum, and I thank you again now.

Indeed your bounty filled my day, for in a sudden burst of birthday wildness I went this morning to the car dealers (again this afternoon to one, since he was not there in the a.m.) and asked about possibilities of replacing the one I now have. I must talk it over and think it over, and measure garage space here and at the shore. But I rather think I shall get another Oldsmobile. They have done well for me and look much more solid than the Chevrolet which seems to be the most likely rival. What you have sent me already will make all this possible, and it seems almost better to enjoy the car during the summer than to wait until winter and the snows.

I went to, along Route I, to a place recommended to me to discuss the rowboat I gave to Justus on promise at his birthday. I will take him along when we finally choose, but thought it wise to have preliminary discussions in private. In that way I can steer the discussion away from what is neither practical or suitable for his age. A fibre glass rowboat seems to be the best solution, one that will later take an outboard motor.

So the morning went. I lunched with Roysce Smith and the two younger generations of Blackwell's from Oxford. Not Sir Basil but his son and grandson. Very sensible I thought, and alert as to the business. 2/3 of their gross, they said, is done with export; but they are not allowed to escape the service tax for employees which the small manufacturers are. They feel this is levied to discourage people from going into service establishment (which a bookseller is) as against export industry which can help the budget. Yet, as they say, our age is a service age.

Last night was a total eclipse of the moon for somewhat over an hour. We watched it come on with the greatest fascination, it being so completely clear a night. One star twinkled at the base of the blacked out moon rather triumphantly, and certainly with gaity.

We go out tonight for dinner, I not wanting to burden Susan with having to prepare anything special. Tomorrow being Easter (once it was Easter on my birthday) it was foolish to try to find another couple amongst our friends. So I took the chance to make a final gesture to a Japanese playwright and his wife who had been here two years ago and were back again, teaching, and who will be leaving a week after we get back from you. So they dine with us, out, and then we go to see Albee's play, *Tiny Alice*. It is said to be curious rather than good.

My deepest thanks again for all you have done for my birthday, and always.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

14 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Just a note at the end of Easter to hope that your day
was a pleasant one. I spent the morning quietly at the house, going
over some applications for ACLS Fellowships, clearing out the outside
drains of leaves and silt from the winter, and preparing for the
picnic at the shore.

It was a perfect day, weatherwise, cloudless skies, little
wind in our courtyard at Johnson's Point, and a temperature in the low
70's. Thirty-two members of the Bennett and allied clan appeared.
Fortunately each brought its own lunch, but steaks were cooked and
salads tossed enough for all.

After lunch I explored the point of land which I shall
be buying, the first time I had penetrated through the briars and
rushes to get to the farthest point. It was clearer at the end than
I had thought. A little fairy circle or clearing in the woods. A
wonderful place for children to dream in.

Last night, as I wrote you, we went out for dinner,
taking the Japanese playwright and his wife for company. And then to
the local Wharf Theater to see a performance of Albee's *Tiny Alice*.
Certainly a kind of muddled profundity, with an overlong and repetitious
ending. But still a serious play that tried for something, and was
worth seeing.

The next fortnight frightens me with all I shall have to
crowd into it. Remember me in your prayers, as I beg Brother Volant.

15 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is absolutely senseless. A vast trove of letters came
from you today, including my birthday tie and its treasured letter with
it. Yet I am writing only a snatch at the end of what has hardly been a
coherent day at all. The morning went into a hodgepodge of desk work--
most on fellowship applications for the ACLS, to be decided on next Monday
in New York. Then a meeting of the board of the Connecticut Academy,
Ingholt just back from the Virgin Islands, tanned and gay at having gone
snorkle-diving whilst there. From the luncheon meeting on to the doctor's
for my routine annual physical examination. What he poked and probed
appeared to be fine, with no discovered hidden tumors to frighten me.
An examination of this sort always resembles an Easter egg hunt, where
the eggs have been hidden for the children to find.

By this time it was past mid-afternoon, with little likeli-
hood of getting back into my parking lot. So I phoned the Oldsmobile dealer
and told him to bring the car I had decided on to Goodrich Street to fit
into the garage. That is, to see if it would. It does, though getting to
the deep freeze isn't simplified by the extra six inches in the car's
length. The best of the extra otherwise is that it gives three more inches
of knee room inside the car, and three more of storage space in the car's
trunk. This being clarified I went back with him and we went through the
various specifications, which include the special handbrake because of my
hip, and (this time) air conditioning so I will not have to sweat in order
to keep the windows shut and Susan's hair in order. I sympathize with her
problem, but hope this will solve mine. Not a black car this time, but what
they call a green jade-- very dark but perhaps it will not show the dirt quite
so much. So there I am, thanks to you, and as I told you before--the two
checks plus the turn-in value of the old Olds come close enough to what is
necessary so that no more will be needed. I hope to get it properly broken in
before your summer visit. It will not be delivered until after we return
from Italy.

Now I must rush and get this into the mail before dinner. Will
write more properly tomorrow. Thanks for the tie, thanks for the car, thanks
for yourself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

But all branches of medicine are always self-protective (like electricians) in
these matters. * Oddly it is hard for me to picture Kenwin as a hotel. Not the
site which is superbly suited. But the house is really too small, not enough rooms
or communal parlors. One has to have many for profit. As an office, yes. That is
different, depending on the sort of concern. In the end my own hunch is that in
fact it will be torn down and apartments put up there. What pity, but I fear
inevitable. I am glad you are not being rushed out. * I continue to be fascinated
by your language lessons. Do you think Ines would learn more quickly with the
best silver? You can try out your second-best forks in teaching me Arabic. *
What fun for Gretchen Baker that she can go back to her hotel. She obviously
loathes cooking of any kind, and likes it better to sit in the lobby, play bridge
with other dames, and then trundle into the dining room for fried fish. * I do
very much hope that Rose won't destroy the D.R. Amabel letters. I should think
it might conceivable be better, if she trusted me, to give them over to me to
save and later give in her name to the D.R. Collection, as against giving them with
restrictions since it would be then be known Yale had them. Certainly they must
not be destroyed. Or as Sam Goldwyn is said to have said, when someone asked him
if they could burn certain records. "Of course," he replied, "so long as you make a
copy!" * In general keep on sending all letters. They can be sorted out in due times,
and perhaps no copies kept. * Shall be interested in the MacBeth poems. And will
not forget the Mrs Philby book. I recommend you read the Russian half as interesting
picture of the life led by this sort of exile.

Must rush now to the gym for a second set of exercises. No letter I
fear tomorrow since I do not return until late.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Each day seems to have its own brand of harrassment. Today I began by paying bills first, in order to clear my desk for nobler tasks. Then came time to rush to HGS to meet an English schoolmaster from St. Edwards School, in Oxford, and another from Dartington Hall, whom the State Department had particularly sent to me for consultations--only for me to find after a quarter of an hour's wait that it was next Wednesday rather than today. So I stayed until lunch, writing a letter of recommendation (at least I did that) and filling out a curriculum vitae for a new edition of a scholarly who's who. In the morning had called the New Zealand poet, departing on Saturday for his home. He "must" see me to say goodbye, so he got lunch. Then after lunch came an Edward Weismiller (and his son) to say hello as from California. He worked for me in France during the war, and knew Pup. Now one of the German Max Kade Fellows equally "must" come before I go abroad again, for me (I gathered) to give advise (which I don't approve of) as to how he can stay for a few more years in the States, reading and getting ready to write while his wife works in the Library and writes letters to their children back home. And then, alas, I "must" (this time the "must" is mine) go to a lecture on Faulkner by a visiting fireman who will be angry and hurt by my absence, since he knows I am here. I have taken a tranquilizer.

Yesterday passed without incident. I had an easy flight to Philadelphia and got most of the business done by somewhat after noon. Upon which I was taken into downtown Philadelphia for lunch at the Arts Club, and thought how lovely the squares were with all of the trees in blossom, and the vistas all white and pink in the spring air. After lunch I went with one of my hosts to the Art Gallery to see the very fine show of English art brought together for Philadelphia and Detroit (but not New York) from all over the world. English art is now very much in vogue as you know, is not really my cup of art-tea, but interesting to look at. From there to the station where at four I boarded the train which took me directly to New Haven. I splurged, I took a pullman. But as a result I was able to read undisturbed except for time out for dinner. I read the catalogue of the show I had seen. And I read a novel about South Dakota which was sent me by the publishers to write a blurb on, since I know the author. And I almost read (having finished it now) the book on Hilda. Alas, for once I must agree with you. It is not very good. To read a book of summaries is dreary enough, but I don't think he knew what to say otherwise. One is tempted to quote what he quoted: "If you do not even understand what words say,// how can you expect to pass judgement/ on what words conceal?" It isn't simply that I disagree with him in his belittlement of the later poems. He doesn't have anything to say about the early poems. It's not that he made so several mistakes biographically on the first page (why didn't he ask?). It's just that he isn't interesting even when correct in his data. No it's not a good book, and you don't have to like it. I'll have to lie through my teeth when I write him, for I can't ignore his gift of the book to me. Perhaps the Lord will guide me.

Your letter of the 15th came today, and by my own absence yesterday I did not miss your unwritten letter of the 14th. I am pleased--so will Susan be--at the usefulness of the coat she sent you. She was proud to have chosen it for you, and it was her gift not mine through her. * My, how we will use up the coupons in your bus book when we multiply trips by three. But how sensible they are.

Tomorrow morning I begin with my usual trip to the hospital for exercises. I wonder how long I can manage to keep this up.

Life is too much with us. I read with interest the offer of a manuscript poem by Daudet, which in translation begins: :I have in my heart a bluebird."
The cataloguer obviously must be bored with life, for he commented, "This must have been rather uncomfortable for both the poet and the bird."

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

19 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Stopped off at my office this morning on the way to the hospital for my exercises, and found your letter of the 16th, for which my thanks. It has been warm here too; at noon almost uncomfortably so as I walked back from the Graduate Club. Glad that your reading and your language lessons progress. Too bad one can't teach Ines poetry rather than tables. I remember how dull a tisch seemed to me, and how exciting a Rilke did. What walls of silence Ines must have faced over the years. Also in the mail was the birthday check which I have already deposited in the bank against the day when the new Olds is delivered. I hope you will approve of the choice.

This noon Malcolm Cowley and his wife came, as I told you. To my HGS office where I was reading the beginning of the novel by my blind admirer, the lawyer who has turned novelist. I mentioned Sachie's poems and wondered if Viking Press might not be interested. He said they were, but of course was much more interested in the novel. Novels sell. Sometimes. So off, after luncheon, he went with both Sachie's manuscript and that of the novel. I'd like for them both to be liked, but especially Sachie's. You, and he, must very well have thought that I had forgotten the poems. But it works better, if it works at all, when I can keep the personal note in the transaction.

There were a few more dividends from the luncheon in the way of ideas that I may possibly be able to use next week for my Albany talk. Unfortunately I haven't yet been able really to begin even thinking about it in any continuous way. I'll have to count on being able to do it Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I won't try to write it out, and this will help save time though perhaps not quality. Spontaneity however should be improved.

Because of all interruptions next week I made today's hospital visit my last until I come back from Italy. Then, amusingly but perhaps sensibly, they want to send up someone from the hospital to follow me more or less through a day: to see how I sit, how I walk, how I slump and so forth. It will be something like a film on "A Day in the Life of a Mouse." Shall I order a print for you?

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

Y A L E U N I V E R S I T Y

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

20 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Another supremely fine spring day, warm enough almost to be summer. But I stick puritanically to my duty, and although not much has been done at least a little has.

Two letters from you unusually in a Saturday mail, one from the 16th, the other as of the 17th. Glad all seems to march: Grieder on your kennel rug, the books no, but the adoption papers yes. Much better to have and stash away chez Coigny than have to have one when Pup is in the Lower Antilles. I was much annoyed yesterday when the Yale New Haven Hospital could no locate my x-rays. Charged out to one doctor who says he doesn't have them, so do the only other two likely to have them. But the whole point was that I should have complete set of x-rays in case I came into the hospital on emergency in the future. They wouldn't be available. I must keep after them when I return. * Vis-a-vis rindea, there obviously isn't any reason he couldn't have the given the printing bill to the Swiss Foundation, unless he felt endangered. Well, one learns. * Why don't they teach grammar in the States. The theory of structural grammar, about which you have read. It is a theory, accepted but devastating. * Thanks for your account of Elsie's will or non-will. The Swiss certainly do hem one in. * Many thanks again for inquiring about the new car. As I wrote you, the two checks, one for 1,000 dollars, the second for 2,997.50, come close enough to the total to make the remainder comparatively negligible. And what with all the extra burdens of the moment for you, you'd better hang on to what you have. * Suprised to hear that Blackwell's hasa reputation for not giving good service either to correspondents or people who go to the stores. They do nicely by me, always reply at once to confirm my orders and tell me if I must wait, etc. The middle Blackwell said that about 2/3rds of their business was by correspondents. I don't know anyone who actually goes into the shop itself these days so have no idea how they fare. * Still no word from Washington about either Australia or New Zealand, although I am told by others that they have been told I am going. All rather odd and slightly discourteous I should think. We can talk all this over when we ate at Kenwin, providing of course I have heard. It would be most of August and first half of September I should think. # I was enchanted by the English of Chris's father. The sentences were a verbal lark.

This is the first, I swear it, word I have had of any communication from Russell Sage College. The head of the English Department is or was a friend of mine. A very small, perfectly decorous, not very distinguished college for women. A local magazine is a prestige symbol for a college these days, though who reads them I don't know. Scholarly means with footnotes; critical means what teachers like to think they are doing when they discuss a book. Criticism is even more commonly written about other criticism. There is no academic penalty for such incest. Nor is the critical intelligence punished for indecent exposure or lascivious carriage. I don't think you have to reply, but if you wish to you can say that you are in the midst of "creative" writing and mustn't take your attention from it.

I was pleased that Princess Anne passed her driving license and that she used a Rover 2,000. Maybe she will drive out to see the relocated London Bridge being a fair lady.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Really there is nothing more to say than to fill the
slightest of notes. Last night I picked up a xwrox copy of a
manuscript life of Nathaniel West, by a Jay Martin who has been
offered a post elsewhere and whose promotion and retention here
depends on the quality of this third effort of his. Although I
cannot be at the meeting when the formal action is taken I must
write a letter for it, and am told since he is in American litera-
ture that my opinion will probably be decisive. I hate this sort
of responsibility, indeed hate all responsibility. But hate it or
not, I am not free. So far I have read 300 pages out of 600. Alas,
I had hoped to begin thinking about my talk in Albany on Friday,
and must go tomorrow morning on the 8 o'clock to New York for an
all-day meeting of the fellowship committee in American Studies
of the Council of Learned Societies. Which means, with all else that
must be done before next Monday night (the 29th) that nerves will
be tense indeed.

Still, I will be getting away. And not sorry for it.
I was also phoned, this Sunday morning, by a member of the board
of the Mark Twain House about a planned palace revolution. But I
shall be away too from that day of judgment, and will perhaps lose
fewer friends than otherwise. Some I am sure to lose anyhow, at
least figuratively.

I wish I could think of something bright to say. Ah
yes, the weather! It is bright and sunny and warm, and all the flowers
are so rapidly in blossom that I suspect the last tulip will have been
behind by the time we reach Holland. We'll simply have to go again.

No letter tomorrow, but on Tuesday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 April 1988

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday was uneventful. I got the 8 o'clock to New York, breakfasted on the train which arrived on schedule (somewhat of a miracle) and then taxied to the ACLS near the U.N. and your old stamping ground. We ktp at work with the committee tasks, took time out only for lunch and finished up a little after four. Alas, I have been taking anti-biotics for an odd rash on my left biceps and these drug me intolerably. So I napped at the Yale Club until the 5 o'clock left, went directly from the train to the Graduate Club where the others on the board of the Historical Society had already sat down to dinner. Afterwards we went to the Society for a talk on New England Gardens, 1640-1820 which was illustrated and very nicely done. The hall was filled so, as Program Chairman, I was naturally pleased. Susan has known the speaker since the days when she was head of the State graden clubs, and so I had her do the introduction. She did it very well. After the meeting we went home and I read some more in the biography of Nathaniel West, which I finished this morning. Today I began by going to the office which collects tags for parking violations. I was sent a stern reprieve for not paying my fine on a parking violation last March. What was it for? For abandoning my car. What this was when the car was stolen and the police informed me it had been found the next morning. By why should I pay a fine for having it abandoned by someone else, especially a thief. I left in disgust when told I would have to go the police and argue with them. But now the mayor's bodyguard says he will take care of all. This done, I went to the bank and bought travellers checks against the trip.

A big mail from yesterday and today, especially your two of the 18th and of the 19th. I hadn't paid too much attention to the French Philby, thinking I'd read the man's book when it comes out shortly. Apparently this man helped the U.S. but not for pay, vis-a-vis the Russians and the Cuban missiles. He also knew of Russian penetrations of the French service and the fact that Americans didn't trust the French services. De Gaulle is, said, not surprisingly, to have hushed the matter up as much as possible. But all nations do that. I will send over multiple copies of the book when it is available. * Am delighted that you can now arrange charge and deliveries from both market and veg man. Of course you must hold your ground on fresh vegetables. Odd how the farmers themselves never understand how much better the fresh things taste. Probably because they eat only the leftovers they can't sell. On orange groves in California, the farmers drink tinned juice. * There is a hidden Switzerland I am sure, one of which Elsie never guessed. My hunch still is, and notwithstanding your protestations, that I could have gotten a local locksmith to open your filing cabinets. We will fight it out with skeletons (keys). * Don't worry about the tie not coming; it made a kind of birthday Monday. * I must say I am rather shocked that Brindea returned your letter unopened. 'e must be slightly off his rocker. What a good thing it was that I would not give him a copy of Romaine's autobiography. I said I would only if Natalie Barney authorized me to. I am suspicious of what he would have done with

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, but after I wrote yesterday I
found two more in the mid-afternoon mail. 20th and 21st. So I do not
feel deprived. Indeed last night and so far today have given little to
report on. I have been reading away at Hawthorne's American Notebooks
to see if I can't quarry out something to use in my talk at Albany. My
title is "Mist, Glorified Fog, and America." An odd way to get at Haw-
thorne, but I had to have something! The basis for the talks is America
as a Poem, whatever that means. My phrase comes from some comments by
Hawthorne on what a poem requires: that is, mist and glorified fog.

Your visit from the Goughs sounds like great fun. Surely
you must come across sometime during the period they are at Princeton.
It is an easy visit from New York for a day, and they say the Princeton
campus is lovely. And I am glad that Michael could meet the de Beers.
I should think they must have enjoyed each other's tea immensely * Like
yourself I had no idea that such a thing as a Samaritan still existed.
But how did the Englishman become one? Because he had a wife he wanted
to stone? Seriously, you must get the man's histoire sometime. Perhaps
make a trip to do so. * I am delighted that the Petrie revisions are
good. Are you still planning to put in the final chapter or stop with
the war? I am not sure of your final decision.

A yellowback came also yesterday from Switzerland. With
letters as late as April 12th. It did not say airmail, but must have come
that way. A surface letter from Chris dated March 27th also came today.
Considering the usual length of surface mail from Scandinavia (they use
their own slow ships) I wonder if this too didn't come by air. You may
also have gotten his two circulars about Greenland schools, with pictures
by him, and I think once of him (tho faceless). He also enclosed a xerox
of a page from the big Copenhagen newspaper of 13 February with my picture
and a longish article (alas in Danish) on the "Grand Homage to Eric the Red"
given by 59-year old Norman Holmes Pearson, professor of History at Yale,
and of Scandinavian origin. I believe it also says I am going to K'agssiarsuk
this summer. I must get it properly translated. What frightens me a little
is Chris's final sentence of his letter: "We hope that the efforts of Havs·een-
Mikkelsen must be according to your expectations --and to those of the people
there." There was also an account enclosed from a Greenland paper, tran$$ated
into Greenlandic.

Last night I did read the letters that Rose Odle sent over. What
an extraordinary batch. But I am sure of one thing, and that is that Amabel
wanted them saved, wanted to assert herself and her relationship to D.R. Which
is perfectly understandable. I am grateful to you for persuading Rose.

One minor pote of possibility about Uncle Norman's crocodiles. I
see that the title of a British book by one Rupert Croft-Cooke deals with homo-
sexual relationships of English authors, and its title "Feasting with Panthers"
comes from a phrase of Wilde describing some of his dinners and good times with
boy friends. Presumably the phrase was well known in the circle, and Uncle N
might well have said, "More like crocodiles!"" Not that it matters.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

Today has been a frightful jamb, I not having properly armed
myself against intruders these past few days. Hence I am truly behind the
8-ball so far as my talk tomorrow afternoon in Albany is concerned. I shall
have to come back to the Library tonight, since I start out for the long
solitary drive tomorrow. Too bad, or is it lucky, that I don't have the
new car to travel in, as solace. I come back Saturday afternoon, so it
is more than likely there will be no letters from me until Sunday.

Yours of the 22nd was in the morning's post. Many thanks to Coigny
(Marie Anne) for the card of the taxi. I note dutifully. I quite understand
your not coming, and think it makes good sense. One can never talk properly in
a car anyhow, yet there is so much to speak of.

I was interested that Michael Gough saw no significance in the
Philby books, so far as he himself is concerned. Blackwell was exactly the
same-- simply a piece of rather boring scandal that one would cheapen one's
self by being interested in. When I said Bo Blackwell that it showed the
problem of the Establishment's self content, I think he was too Establishment
himself to understand. How could a gentleman do what Philby did, he asked.
Then supposed that somehow Philby wasn't a gentleman, as though that took
care of the matter.

<u>Life</u> which came yesterday had a long account of your Frenchman
in it, by him rather. Susan said I should send you; so today I bought another
copy, took out the pages, and airmailed to you this afternoon along with the
material on Brattahlid as translated by a Danish boy here. Very polite and
warm, but it seems a little odd that no one except Chris (finally) sent it to
me at all. I was not interviewed, and think the picture must come from one of
my books given to Melgaard. The visit may have gotten them on the ball; perhaps
too they saw in my suggestion of others giving the chance to get others to give.

Your royalty statement from Harcourt, for the six months ended 31
December has just come. Somewhat smaller than usual. Of _Coin of Carthage_ 271
regular copies sold, plus 11 export. Of _Artemis_, 20 copies sold. Of _Avalon_,
278 regular copies, 28 for export. Of _January_ 30 copies of regular, 39 for
export. Of the paperback _Carthage_, 257 copies sold; interestingly more hardbacks
were bought than the cheaper paperbacks. The total check for royalties was
$183.57. I will deposit Monday so as to lose no interest for you.

We went last night to the vernissage of the show of American art
owned by Yale alumni. First tothe dinner for lenders, and then to the show itself.
It poured buckets: 1.25 inches, and everyone was soaked in their evening garb.
It was black tie, pleasant but exhausting. I think I shall be grateful to be in
Wassenaar.

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

Y A L E U N I V E R S I T Y

N E W H A V E N • C O N N

28 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

You are getting rather the short end of my correspondence today, but shortly I hope I shall be writing you from closer-at-hand and my letters ought to arrive more promptly. I have been spending as much of today as I can in clearing up my desk, putting the monthly allowances in the banks for the two girls, paying bills, writing the usual letters of recommendation, salutations of respect and the like. Now the day is almost finished, although there is more daylight than usual since Daylight Savings went into effect this morning.

I phoned Horace to say goodbye. He seemed very chipper indeed, says he is making wonderful progress with his walker, the operations have been successful and for the first time since 1958 (he reported proudly and properly so) he has been able to have a regular bowell movement. This has been a difficulty with him almost from birth; his operation may have helped, and if so his spirits will be better. He reports that Pat already has an appartment on Beacon Street, one which belonged to the man he is replacing and so will be able to move in in mid-summer although he starts on June 24th. Meanwhile he will be living at the St Botolph Club which he has joined (a rather smart one), which has the added advantaged of exchange privileges with the Garrick Club in London, which he hopes to enjoy when there. I asked if Pat was going to get a car. No, he wants to save gasoline money etc for his trips abroad.

For the sake of the record, we arrive at Geneva on KLM # 331, May 11th at 10 A.M. And leave Geneva for Rome on May 16, on Alitalia #411, at 2:30 P.M.

Have just bought, inexpensively (that is $10.00 a good Fenn letter giving his price per page for his writing and matters of that sort. Good for the economics of 19th century dusty diamonds. Brimmell had two or three titles we hadn't had, in his last quotes--but the majority we already owned. It gets slimmer pickings. Quayle's bibliography which has arrived will send Baslantyne's books higher. Yale understandably turned down the chance; and I have written Quayle to see where he wants to turn.

Your letters 66 the 23rd and 24th were waiting for me last night. How well I remember your and Hilda's return from the 1944 Stratford birthday. It seems like another age. Glad you have your own Bizarre, and I can tuck mine away safely for the archives. The reproductions came out well, I thought. * You ask about Rome. My idea was we spend the night of the 16th at the Grand, then train the next day for the Boys (if they can have us--I wrote but imagine they will reply c/o Kenwin); then back to Rome for the night of the 19th and fly back to the States on the noon of the 20th. Actually I wrote Downes and asked if he were to be in Rome on the 16th and if so might he not like to dine with us. The Boys are down on him at the moment, but no reason why we shouldn't see him. # What a sad handwriting from Sachie! Rather like Osbert's. It frightens me a little. # And a rather frightening letter from Catha vis-a-vis rinking. We both know what it can mean if one slips into the pattern. I am saddened that anyone young can feel "so much alone in the world." Marriage hasn't changed that for her and isn't likely to. She has no family. One feels almost as though Australia would be better, or even the States. Anywhere but in the shadows the past. You mean much to her, everything perhaps.

It is late and must rush this to the postoffice since I have missed the post by the HGS.

All love,

29 April 1968

Dearest Fido,

It is almost noon, and at seven we take the airport limousine.
The morning has been spent in running errands, putting your royalty check in
the savings account so that you wouldn't lose a month's interest on it (your
balance, with the income tax withdrawals having been made, is now $17,547.62),
writing a letter or two on business matters etc. I shall have to spend the
first part of the afternoon the same way, before going home to pack.

A letter has come from Washington about the Australian visit.
In a preliminary way it now looks as though they wanted me from August 15-30.
But the precise schedule of course I don't know. I might well do New Zealand
before the 15th, if that is convenient for the dame there. We can discuss.

Your letter of the 25th was nicely timed and was in the first
post this morning. Perhaps there will be something waiting for me tomorrow
at Wassenaar. (I keep my fingers crossed about the weather there, and whether
or not we shall have been too late for the tulips. It is less likely that we
will have been too early.)

I quite understand your reluctance to go to the Boys until after
Elsie's saga is ended. Then you will surely want a little break of one sort
or another--to Italy or to London.

No, the Rogers' book was a quicky, and as I said I doubt that in
the end he really was able to get much help or cooperation. Treating 20th
century heroines is different from 18th century ones. He simply patched together
what he could get out of books. I doubt that it sold very well, but one never
knows. He is retired from his regular newspaper work and keeps busy with hack
jobs. He did the one on Frances Steloff and her bookshop--also not very good.
But I like him, and he means well.

The evening out with Marie Anne and raclette sounds fine. I am
of course sorry that I shall miss Coigny, but unless I were to discuss migrations
with him there is really little need to go over anything. With Ruegg it is more
to let him feel one watches.

Hope your good weather continues.

21 May 1968

... And this is as far as I ever got this week towards

writing you. There have been no crises and really no problems except
as to how to get things done. But there were five big cardboard boxes
filled with mail and a steady stream of people who for one reason
or another simply had to see me at length and at once, engagements to
fill (Thursday night was the only night this week I shall have eaten
at home), and so it has gone. I will fill all in as letters to you
come. Perhaps it was fatigue and the sense that you were far from
Kenwin and would have Elsie to greet you that made me procrastinate.
But oh those bills that had to be paid (my conscience) and notes written,
and junk mail looked at and tossed aside!

Your letter from the Grand was here to welcome me in the office,
on the top of one of the boxes, since it came the latest in the three
weeks. And I cannot tell you what pleasure, what happiness it gave me
to be with you at Kenwin and then to have you come on with us to Rome
and the Boys. Cetona would be nice under any circumstances, with you
there it made our circle complete.

Then in this morning's mail was yours of the 20th, from which
I judge that the strike (postal) is over). I must read _The Red Lapeworm_
It was everyone's favorite during the war, the best sort of war relief.
Now? I suspect you are right in misjudging it. I don't know Gillian
Freeman's book, nor know its title. A whole book on monographic
magazines seems excessive, but perhaps the books do to. The cellophane
is to discorage browsing, for once glimpsed at the magazines are henceforth
only for the muniment room. Kenneth had spoken of coming over in October,
who Ilay seemed dubious. What fun it would be to have you all here
together. Australia and New Zealand notwithstanding, you must come then
if they do.

We packed a good deal into Rome on the Sunday afternoon. Tried
dutifully to visit the Borgatti Gallery only to find it closed, but I liked
the Pantheon. The opera was excellent, at least the performance was. The
opera itself is a little flabby but with nice music. The first of the Son
y Luce performances in the Forum was interesting to have seen. I doubt I
should see it again except as to accompany someone. Rather too loud. I
remember how it blared nightly in the Boys' ears.

Monday morning, I went for my shave and farewell prayers, while
Susan packed her things and then returned to pack my own. Otherwise we
did not venture out until 11:30 when we left for the plane. All went well
at the airport and into the crampacked plane (many as from Brussells that
morning, 5:30 a.m., in order to get back to New York--there being no Air
France). But once in the plane we taxied along the runway and then finally
returned for mechanical difficulties and stood in the hot sun, without
ventilation for over an hour. I feared that Swiss Air had hexed me (they
have an understanding with Alitalia which might include this privilege),

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

but ultimately we did get off, had a somewhat briefer stop than scheduled
in Lisbon (but too long for me in that antiquated and overcrowded airport),
went blithely through the customs in New York and managed to get a 10 p.m.
bus to New Haven, arriving at the Park Plaza Hotel at midnite. What with
taking the house-sitter home, unpacking, and just sitting for a minute it
was 2 a.m. New Haven time when we went to bed, or 7 a.m. by the time we
had risen at. We were tired the next day, but Susan managed to plan a
fine Japanese arrangement by night and took it on Wednesday morning to
a somewhat distant town to show in the invitation class. She also judged
the horticulture. I myself I must confess sat limply in my office, glanced
at the mail and threw away as much as possible.

I shall go on later. I spoke with Dorothy Richards on the phone
and have sent the watch to them special delivery and insured. It is, she
said a great favorite of I.A.'s--though I would have guessed it to be a
woman's. And an old one, though it surely looked new. They leave at
the end of next week for England. She seemed cheerful, anxious to hear from
you, and sent her love to Ethel and yourself.

So do Susan and I.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 May 1968

Dearest Fido,

Back at the office on this Sunday afternoon, chiefly to write you. Not all of what is owed, but an installment at least. The morning I spent at home, putting things away, bringing terrace chairs and tables out, finishing _50 Wall Street_ which I had read fitfully on the plane to and from as well as at the Hague and Kenwin. By a former student of mine. As a picture of _Wall Street_ it is excellent, though as a novel perhaps the market is slipping. Fully as much fun was a visit from the Jim Houston who began the Eskimaux in all their soapstone carving and art work, who married the daughter of a friend (he is much older, or at least older and was married before.) I think you met him at the Grolier Club show. He was in town with his in-laws for the weekend and had been long wanting to see my ivories. He is an enthusiast by nature and lived up to his nature. Naturally I was pleased to have him say it was the finest collection he knew of in private hands (I doubt that), and asked if I would be willing to let it be shown at the Metropolitan in New York (I doubt that too). But no collector is without vanity, as he knows.

I am now driving my new dark jade green car, and I purr along with the motor. It smells new inside which is as heady a perfume as lemon blossoms. I read for the wrong buttons and can't judge the length of it without skipping a heartbeat, but am sure I will like it immensely. I bow my thanks to you again. The Brigadier and I show drive tandem holding up a banner of gratitude. But I had not realised how much time the taking possession of it demands. Two trips to the dealers, then lessons on the mechanics (not fully absorbed), then papers to sign with him, for the transfer of and sale of the other car, transactions with the insurance people, and the Connecticut Automobile Association. And finally a swift dash (actually two) to my faithful tire man to have the original tires changed (I get full credit for them) to white-walls with a safety inner tire. To me this is important, both in terms of avoiding blowouts but also so I don't have to change tires myself, being warned by the slow softening.

I have had a nice letter from Barbara Jordan with a photo of her own new car (she also should join the procession and could go alongside Pup and Phyllis). I rather imagine she sent a copy of it to you as well, and so will not send it to you as from here. However I can if desired. Obviously she is both pleased and grateful.

And so am I for the check for $1,800 which was waiting for me from Coigny. But if this was for the extra needed for Barbara's car I think you had sent the amount before. Let me know. I can redeposit this in your savings account here or return to you in Switzerland.

As I work down in the accumulation of papers I begin to find a few more threads apropos of Australia and New Zealand. But all is in confusion and obviously I must go to Washington. (I should hope to talk

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN.

your lawyers. At the moment, tho as I said no two lines are clear)
the Australian-American Fund (based in Australia and using U.S. credits)
will fly me out first class, plus 50 pounds excess baggage, want me to
stay four weeks in Australia and two weeks in New Zealand, But when or
in what order is not clear. Nor what I should do except hold consultations
and give lectures I'm not sure of, my trip abroad having delayed and confused
things. But I will keep you in touch so that you can fit your own plans
in appropriately.

Do tell Inez that we are still nibbling at her chocolates and
think of her as we do so. How every kind she was to us when Susan and
I were with you. Her smile seems perdurable.

Kay Boyle's edition of Bobbie's book came at the end of the
week. A letter from her waited my return. After spending Easter in
jail (she has a mania for passing her holidays so) she went into the
hospital for cancer surgery and says she has had large parts removed
and so cannot teach again until fall. Nor, I hope, go to jail. I
glanced at the pictures, chiefly of herself in a parady gallery of
changing high styles, but have not tried to read the book. Alas, she
rather maliciously (I thought) thanks me for my "close reading" of
the manuscript. I had asked her not to thank me in any way. This
somehow gives the impression that I OK'd what this is now there. Not
true as you know. The paper is very cheap and the book not attractive.
Yet it may sell like fish and chips, which it much resembles.

An extremely nice letter also from Rose Odle in which she
accepts my suggestion that I hang on to the letters until *after* the
Glikin's book is out. It would be awkward to have these catalogued
in the library but denied her. One can always say or imply that they
turned up later. And why shouldn't Rose have her own way about things.

Spring, or the last of it, has been pleasant here. Susan still
has much azalea and some lilacs and dogwood, and the peonies are just
beginning to open. She has been busy yesterday and today putting in
crysanthemums against the fall.

We have an appointment on this coming Wednesday afternoon with
the architect to see what he has come up with as suggestions for the new
terrace at the shore (which has caved in since the tree roots rotted)
and for somewhat enlarging the seaward windows in the living room so that
we can watch a storm. I hope he can be both interesting and acceptable.
Charles Moore is head of the architecture school, and rather a wild man
at least in his own home. Here he pulled away all floors, and the nooks
and bunks are mostly projections for the walls. But he is a bachelor and
his home needs are different. As a result these crocodile nests are
functional (as architects would say). He has a fine reputation especially
in the San Francisco area where he has done much domestic architecture.
It could be fun to add a little life to our staid cottage.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

I realize that I have not told you of the conversations that have taken most of the week and kept me from letter-writing except to pay bills before the new month's ones are issued. I decided I really must go ahead with a secretary and not wait until after I returned in the fall. Someone called to say she was working for the Chairman of English (half-time), he was netiring from the position and a fulltime girl was replacing her. And so there was a person, but the problem was how she could have Yale privileges and be paid by me. The long and short (but the not the final version( is that the associate treasurer of Yale suggests I set up a fund, replenishing it as needed, to sponsor research on Hawthorne or American literature, but that I should be the single authorization for spending the money as I ordered. So it could go for the secretary, at the same time that I would get full credit for the entire amount as a tax deduction. Actually their argument is that the research benefits Yale, and indeed as a gift I will get perhaps fifty percent credit on my tax, and as a business expense 100%. So the next step is to see my tax man. However who knows but that eventually I shall be in opera-tion.

I have as you can see not been idle.

Our love to Ethel if she is still with you. For yourself
a particular rubbing behind the ears, a wriggle of the tale and a
sniffing of gratitude and love.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 May 1968

Dearest Fido,

I must say I grow dizzier each moment from all the complications of acquiring a secretary. In theory she is to begin with me on next Monday, but whether this will ever take place remains to be seen. It will come out to about $300.00 a month, but if it works as it should there should be no question of its value. I simply can't go on trying to make all phone calls, run errands and do a dozen or more letters a day. Who knows, things may even get filed. And if you need someone when you are on this side we can work out an arrangement by which she does letters for you too, and perhaps even manuscripts. I have talked with my tax man and he urges by all means setting up a fund with Yale. This avoids all sorts of unemployment taxes, state and national, and endless paperwork at the same time that the total will count as a donation. But ah the initial complications.

We spent last night after dinner going through a couple of carousels of Holland pictures. One simply makes a trial spin to get the idea; then we have been through all we can pick and choose and discard. There are as many of tulip fields as I once took of icebergs. But it is pleasant to be assured that we ought eventually to have a nice little group to show you. I only wish we could show them to Ethel too. perhaps we can someday if she comes this side.

A harvest in the mail, which makes me blush all the more for the days of silence on my part. They were inevitable, I assure you. Yours of the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th came in different mails and in varying sequence. But I was grateful for all. I'm sorry you had such bad weather; it has been coldish on this side too' it is just now. One wouldn't mind so much if Cetona were not so tempting for walks. I should have liked nothing better than to walk and sit and then walk and sit again. The landscape is so intriguing that I never really knew that the boys had t.b., they are so much better than the screened image of life. As to your camera lessons you must steel yourself to try a few shots yourself and send on to me and to slay as proof positive of your new profession. The mail strike in Rome must have been a bore for the boys, and perhaps that is the reason there was no letter from Downes for us at the Grand. Otherwise of course we were unaffected. I suspect your troubles at the airports were a little like our own in being crowded out by all the French refugees. Geneva, Zurich, Brussels, Rome became the havens for everyone. And in the end I am not surprised that you stayed only briefly in Zurich. Do not forget that you solemnly promised me that you would not try to see Elsie again. Dorothy Richards asked me about her, and I told her that you had promised me not to go. D.R. cheered a bully for Bryher, and sadly but honestly meant that nothing can be gained even for one's conscience by further visits.

You will be enjoying Ethel's visit, but a month of midweeks will be costly I fear for the novel. Still Ethel amuses herself easily, and if the stairs are not too much should manage. I should think she

might be permitted access to Elsie's living room as a stair saver, with
easy access to the terraces. Joan should keep trying, I believe the
States are making an increased effort to get tourist trade. I enclose
one she might like to try out, or (if she wished just for horses) I
can dig up a ranch or two to which she could go more or less directly.
A New Haven girl owns one which is said to be very good. Joan could
do her tour on another occasion. But a ranch might be fun. For
general tours, if she lets me know what she wants (though you if
she prefers, I can get my own agent on to seeing what is available).
I simply need a little more information as to time, destinations and
the like.

I suspect that the best way of getting Kenneth to a psychiatrist
is to work on this through Prutting. Pride, if nothing else, would
prevent him from acting through you--just as it did in the old Berlin
and after days.

Your reading sounded interesting. The Strachey book has been
so much praised that I ordered the volumes from England. The Freeman
book would make interesting glancing but I don't think worth spending
money on.

Poor Ines; I am so sorry about her unglück during your absence.
Greet her for us.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 May 1968

Dearest Fido,

Somehow I can't seem quite to swing again. Perhaps it's the weather. Yesterday was overcast and drizzling; today has been one of small gales and driving rain so that one is soaked from the beginning. I had intended moving my typewriter to HGS in readiness for the secretary on Monday, but of course one could only have floated it across. Because windows have had to be shut the air is stuffy and I was always one to tune in with nature. Forgive me then for being a little duller than usual.

Your letters of the 25th and 26th came. Interesting that Ines and the Papal Guard should feel the same way about sleeveless dresses. One tends to forget how very daring bare arms were thought to be. Only loose society women wore evening gowns of this sort. In Eliot's *Prufrock*, the forlorn lover has fantasies of the bare arms of his dreamgirl, and these just lightly downed. Women who lift up sleeveless arms in prayer endanger not only priests but God by their eroticism. So praise Ines for her nice modesty, and say that I am pleased that her piety has not been endangered by her stay with the Swiss.

Sir Gavin's talk with the whilom ambassador was most interesting. Even Susan was shocked by how little the French workers received, and said she didn't blame them for striking.

As a kind of preparation for a brief talk I am to give a week from this Saturday at my 40th reunion at Andover I asked my Pundits what changes I should expect to find in the student body after my two years of not teaching. They said (a) that two years ago one had to explain and "apologize" for being activist; today a student must blush and explain why he isn't activist; (b) the overwhelming sense of guilt on the part of students that they have luxuries and that their great-great-great grandfathers had slaves; (c) the expectation and even demand that curricula become relevant (no longer facts for facts sake).

It was kind of Melitta to send you the old letters. Hope you will decide that they should be saved, by analogy to your advice to Rose.

Five sets of yellowbacks came; one from Petrie, most of them relating to things we had discussed. But all fun. I was delighted both by the clipping of Leslie and Mary's schoolchildren in Maine, and their photographs. Leslie's is his favorite and the one her gives to newspapers when they need it. It is, as he says, striking how close the resemblance is to Sherlock Holmes. Not entirely by coincidence, I suspect. * And I was delighted with the picture of O.B. at his dinner. I like him, he manages. * Just to be certain--did you order the Philby book for the Brigadier? I am sure you said you did, but am reminded by his letter to you in which he mentions my offer to him. * I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for the £52/-/- for Miss Bowra. * You mentioned Gretchen Baker's move to the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

hotel. I should think it both simpler and safer, as well as more
convenient with her leg. I imagine her friend will move back also.
* A good letter from your Clara; both boys are doing well, obviously,
and if the older one prefers music to philosophy he is wise to give
his one life to his preference. And since he is in publishing rather
than recitals or music lessons, he should manage nicely. * I was
bewildered by the list of books by Jack Cox until I came on the separ-
ated note identifying him. * The Jules Verne card from Sylvia was
most interesting and I will put with her documents. * How very nice
that Hildegarde should have an exhibition hall named for her. Such
tributes are not lightly given in the scientific world. But what an
even more extraordinary place "Lwisure World" must be. It looks like
echt California in every way. We must visit her there sometime. * I
hope by now that MacBeth's copy of *Helen in Egypt* will have reached
him. I sent him a separate letter about it but have heard nothing.
Indeed I don't expect to, since he much more naturally would write to
you. * And I found it rather sad that Stephen Lewis's son had had
a stroke, even a slight one. How fine Hilda Quick is to help, and to
turn the rest of the printing money over to the two Scillonians. She
deserves a monument.

I had thought to be able to write you about the plans for the
renovation of the shore cottage, since we were to have gone to the archi-
tect's at 3 this afternoon. But his secretary phoned to say he was home
ill, with intestinal flu. I only hope the true reason wasn't lack of
plans. He wanted to know if I could see him on Sunday. But alas I go to
New Jersey to give a commencement address at a boys' school there. I must
get at that, and at so much more.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 May 1968

Dearest Fido,

Another day in which I don't quite seem to have come afire.
However the morning was interrupted by two long visitors (one from Smith
College), which with the still foggy weather managed to keep one at low
ebb. The fog was a holdover from the torrential rain and wind yesterday.
Actually New Haven had only a little over an inch and a half of rain, but
New York had 4.88 inches which is a lot of water.

This afternoon I have been picking away at odds and ends pre-
liminary to moving my typewriter over to HGS tomorrow in readiness for the
new secretary on Monday. This means a certain amount of material as well,
but the Library should be more scholarly thereafter.

One was to check in two more dusty diamonds. But the pickings
have been, I must admit, slim of late. The only one of consequence was a
late, actually posthumous, Kingston, and a periodical Ballantyne. I checked
our holdings against the Quayle bibliography and weep for the gaps. But I
must cherish patience.

Have tried once or twice since return to phone Horace, but can
only do so at the end of the day, usually after I have left. Last Sunday
he was reported out of the building walking with his wife. I have just called,
a little after five, and he is not on the floor. One judges him to be improving.
How wonderful it would be if he could manage his walker again.

I forgot to tell you that Malcolm Cowley returned the typescript of
Sachie's poems, but with no accompanying note. He still has the manuscript novel
by my former student-so-to-speak, which only shows the relative interest in novels
as against poems. No doubt I shall hear from Cowley eventually. This has been
American Academy season, and he is always officially busy. Indeed he may not
know I am back.

And did I say that Susan and I looked at the photos of Kenwin
and Cetona in blossom. Susan took some lovely ones of Kenwin and we must make
up a little album for your birthday. Those at La Vagnola came out well too,
and I am only sorry the weather didn't allow us to explore with camera the
hilltop with its superb views and the shooting box etc. They have done wonders
with it. Not surprising that Kenneth thinks of it as his memorial. But what
heaps of money it will take to maintain it by endowment. Or otherwise. I fear
that any institution would be leary at taking it on for a few artists or writers.
But who knows. I hope they have a record of before and after.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

31 May 1968

Dearest Fido,

Not very much special today except that this is the first letter
from HGS typed on the IBM machine. I rought it back from the Library this
afternoon so that it could be here on Monday morning for the arrival of the
secretary. I suspect I may do most of my letters now from here after she has
gone, though I shall have to buy either another electric portable or a big
one for the Hawthorne work. I suspect it will be the portable. One good
result of having the IBM in HGS may be that I will really work on research
in the library rather than do "one more" letter.

I was delighted to have your letter of the 27th, the first for
a couple of days. I am glad about the cheese and had meant timidly to ask
you. For it must have been ordered on the 3rd of May at the latest, and
business at the cheese farm didn't seem to be all that good, to account for
the delay, nor the slowness of trains that great either. At any rate we hope
that one enjoys it. # I suspect your weather and ours has been much alike.
Today, too, has been overcast and muggy and occasional drizzles to measure it
by. # Joan's suggestions for Australia sound very professional and more
specific than the guide books I have been reading. I am most grateful for
your letter to Mrs Pratt, and will write her when my schedule is firmer. It
now appears that I must give all of Aggast to Australian lecturing so that
New Zealand will be either the last two weeks of July or the first two of
August. I gather that the U.S. will pay my fare there too, which will be
a saving for us both. # I know how you feel about telly and how expensive
it is. But it might keep Ines company and actually be good for her French
as well as a kind of tutorial in the size and variety of the world. # I
remember that the de Beers were to have a friend over at this time, one who
wanted rest rather than travel and tea. # But what good news about Elsie's
insurance. This will make an immense difference, and Ruegg I am sure will
see that you yourself are repaid what can be collected from the past rather
than into Elsie's own coffers. If there, then those funds should pay bills
until the amount is used up. In this morning's mail I had a letter from my
N.W. lawyers, who say, "As you may recall, the Teachers Insurance and
Annuity Association last year advised us that full payment had been made for the
year 1967, but that an additional 1,000 payment could be paid on the insurance in
1968 [for 1967 bills before Rusk]. In following this up, [as they had promised,
having made out the accounting] we have just learned that a 1,000 payment was in
fact made directly to Horace Gregory in early January of this year. We had not
previously been advised of this fact. I think it would be worthwhile to confirm
with Mr Gregory that the payment has indeed been received and properly credited."
I had wondered about this and guess I should check with Horace that it was in fact
received. As to "properly credited," if received, I guess the only thing to do
is to tell him to keep it permanently. His expenses will be heavy I am sure when
he gets out of the hospital.

Not having been able to reach Horace by phone last night, and on Sunday
when I phoned having discovered he was out 'walking' with his wife, I called
Palisades this morning only to find Patrick there. He is just two days ago back
from his holiday in Ireland and England, and reports having a wonderful time. I
had not realised he had left Knopf on a two weeks notice when he told of his move.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

He goes to work at the Atlantic Press at the end of June and hopes that Horace can be home and settled by then. In two weeks he thinks. Says Horace is making good recovery, but Marya reported the walk as her taking Horace out and pushing him in his wheelchair. She now goes in and spends weekends at a small hotel near the hospital. A good idea and especially so while Patrick was abroad. Pat says he is restless at home all the time and anxious to get back to work.

Marya was proud of Gregory (her grandson) who, she says, at Princeton, looked from his window and saw agitators from Columbia, invading the Princeton campus, take an American flag and spit on it. Gregory descended from his room, walked calmly (in Marya's words) into the midst of the crowd, without saying a word took the flag from the offenders, folded it and then walked off with it to the cheers of other Princeton students from their own windows. I suspect it is roughly true, perhaps completely so. Marya is shocked, for as she says, when she came people knelt down and cried as they kissed American soil and the freedom it both promised and gave.

I struggle along with interviews with people wanting to say goodbye, trying to make arrangements for air conditioning in HGS--the price is terrifying-- and tomorrow will have to write the commencement address for Sunday.

Au love,
Norman

1 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

The afternoon is almost over, but at least the commencement
address at St. Bernard's School in New Jersey has been sketched out enough
for me to give (at least I hope so) tomorrow. The Carey Cadillac limousine
drives up from New York to pick me up about 10 a.m., I lunch at the school
(said to be two and a half hours away), then listen to graduation exercises
and the award of prizes, before giving my twenty-minute talk. Then back in
the limousine and to New Haven again for what I suppose will be a late dinner.
Susan will not go mit but instead work on the garden at the shore. Sensibly.

I promised to do this almost two years ago, for the sake of Henry
Luce III who is the head of the school's trustees and a former student at Yale.
He is now head of *Fortune Magazine* and the son of the late Lucifer.

Next Saturday I have to talk to my Queenwood classmates at Andover,
there for the 49th reunion. I shall most certainly NOT go to Yale's commence-
ment, being at least on leave from here.

Though it doesn't altogether seem that way. I wrote by hand some
dozen letters endorsing the International Student Center's plea for funds. Then
took the five catalogues of Quayle's collection to the postoffice, since he baked
for these to be sent airmail. The bill? $39.75. But he thinks big, as his procedures
indicate. I wonder if he ever will get anyone to buy them at his figure? Then
I took the portable typewriter to be cleaned, and bought a secondhand electric
very heavy portable for me myself to use in Sterling. The IBM I brought back here
for the secretary. What I bought was a Smith Corona, two years old--174.00 instead
of over 250.00 for it new, or between 500 and 600 for an IBM. It will do well
enough for me, since the secretary will do any heavy typing.

Last night to the retirement dinner of Professor Watson, chairman of
Physics for twenty years and a friend though not a close one. After various remarks
in his honor he was called on for a few words. The few words took 40 minutes. I
was glad I had a comfortable seat.

Once home I read Sachie's typescript he gave you of further poems. Not
a selection as I thought but 63 pp of descriptions of roses. I liked them but I
can see how they don't fit the mood of the times. I'm not really sure how they'd be reviewed here, which has nothing to do with their quality. One day they'll be well known.
But when? Now that Viking has turned the others down I'll have to start out again.
Now that I've really had a chance to look at the photographs of Edith's monument by
Henry Moore, I'm not really sure that I know whether I like it or not. They seem a
little too much like pastry Rodin, surely not typically Moore or Moore trying very
hard it seemed to me. But in the rock so to speak they may be much better. I wonder
what your reaction was? We were so busy both at Kenwin and Vagnola that I never got
a chance for topics like this.

My newest Adam has come, and I see that Oliver Edwards blurbs it highly. I
really haven't had a chance to go through it.

I won't be able to write tomorrow. There was no letter from you today.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN.

3 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

I am of course treating you in a most shocking fashion so far as letters are concerned. Today is no exception, but at least I can enclose Graham Greene's review of the first two books about Philby. It is quite extraordinary and makes one's head spin a bit. Send it along to the boys if you think they would be interested; Kenneth, I know, is very fond of Greene, or should I say loyal to him.

My chief reason for not writing yesterday was of course my trip to Gladstone, New Jersey, to give the commencement address at the graduation of the boys school there. It poured absolute buckets all the way down--indeed it has scarcely *not* rained since the beginning of the month--and I was delighted to be sitting in the back seat of the Cadillac sent for me, than be driving even my own beautiful new car. Especially so when the driver lost his way several times in the final stages of the journey. The Carey driver turned out to be an ex-acrobatic dancer (Hungarian) now running a dancing school in New York two nights a week and driving cadillacs the rest of the time. His second and present wife, he said proudly, is assistant executive housekeeper at the Plaza. He was a jolly an talkative man when I wished to talk, but quiet whenever I looked at my notes on the way down or wished to sleep on the way back. He had arrived in New Haven from New York at 8:30 in the morning but fortunately did not ring the bell until an hour later, since I was told he would be there at 10 and still had not eaten breakfast what with being up late to hear Kennedy and McCarthy. On Kennedy the driver was interesting: Kennedy doesn't think, he said; he acts, he depends on his hands to express himself, I am an actor and entertainer, I know, I want someone who thinks as President not an actor.

We arrived in Gladstone so early that I could not escape going to the church service, where the rector-headmaster marched back and forth as he sermonized about what lack of responsibility had caused a delay in the yearbook. I was sad for the culprits and wondered if the headmaster couldn't have skipped the public reprimand with all parents present. I was lucky enough to have a student speak at graduation lead into my own, got through my chore bravely, with pluck which the audience responded to generously with applause. Nothing profound, simply an episcopal laying on of hands on my part.

After the service I went back with Henry Luce III to his house for a drink, and then sat wearily on my black throne until we reached home at 8 p.m. Poor Susan who had stayed in New Haven (sensibly) got little gardening done at the shore because of the storm.

This was the first day of my new secretary, so the morning was filled with explanations. This afternoon I went to Wesleyan to talk to the Press about a selection of poems I agreed to do from the volumes in their series. Now it is time to go home. I write again tomorrow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Dearest Fido,

4 June 1968

Another day of Mrs (Wilda) Hammerman and we have gotten along very well indeed. She seems intelligent, interested in literary things, and thus not offended by my varied interests. Best of all she can keep office accounts, and this will simplify my life considerably. When you come this side it will be comparatively simple, I think, to find you your own girl Friday. How your tail will wag at that.

No letter from you today, but yesterday brought four: for the 28th, 29th and 2 for the 30th. What an ordeal it must be not to have surface mail moving through France. Everyone was so optimistic that de Gaulle had pulled it off; I fear I don't think so. A few will go back; the union officials would like all to, for the unrest threatens their authority as well as that of the government; but the workers will keep heckling during the three weeks prior to the election, and I have a hunch will then throw the General out. As I told you, the French university instructors here on fellowships (two are studying under me) simply refer to the revolution. As going on now. They are not radicals. As to prices, I found Italy very expensive, though am no judge. For when I travel I live more expensively than at home. How can one help but, and I always console myself that this is a holiday.

I am sorry about Marie Anne's mama, and very much hope she will consent to her hotel. * I envy you your sunbaths. here now that the gymn is closed for the summer not even my nose let alone my navel receives rays.

The newest TLS in today has a long and, to me, interesting article about Marianne Moore in it. Significantly it raises the question again about her first book. "Miss Moore's first book," it says, published by the Egoist Press in 1921, was brought out by her friends Bryher and H.D. without her knowledge (she said later that 'to issue my slight product--consipicuously tentative--seemed to me premature.')" One might say that this called for a letter to the Editor, but since in your modesty you would be bowing and scraping to protect Marianne, I wish instead that you'd write me a detailed letter of what really happened beyond the rhetoric. For your sake and especially for Hilda's (as for posterity and the biography) since Marianne has been selling Hilda's books, perhaps letters, and I have a hunch will not do much do bulwark anything Hilda did for her. Women poets are not the most generous rivals, love them both though one does.

As an aside, did you send along to Joan the New Yorker of May 4th before you read the excellent review of Pilgrimage? If you did I'll send you along a xerox; I liked it and will be sending a copy to Rose.

Back to your letters and to France. The franc is obviously in for a bad time. But the General ought not to expect perpetually to buck the world, and if it goes lower than it need to the general can blame himself.

As to esimaux artifacts at the Metroploitan, although Houston did ask, they would be foolish to do so. They deserve a true loan show of the best from museums everywhere. I might have one or two pieces in it and would be honored for that.

Am mildly amused at Ines' jealousy of the gardener. In fifteen years she
would be worse than Elsie in possessiveness. You're too sexy, that's
your trouble!

I made an effort to check on the ranch for Joan this morning, but the man I needed is in Virginia until next week. However I can begin from another direction. Meanwhile I have a little stack of pamphlets, one or two possibilities both Susan and I thought interesting, which I will mail off to her with a letter about the ranch.

A good deal of my time just now is spent spending mohey for the office,
though I expected to. Tomorrow morning the man is coming to talk about
dictaphones. This is obviously my answer, since I can be dictating while she
is typing. She is used to an IBM so I think I shall stick to that. And we
are laying in supplies in general, since I let that go until I knew what
who-ever-she-turned-out-to-be wanted. Even the lamp for the desk. I shall
be broke but, I hope, efficient.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

It was numbing this morning to hear of Robert Kennedy's tragedy. When I asked my Pundits what the characteristics of students would be, differing from what I knew two years ago, their first response was fear. They meant fear of the urban crisis. But now at the end of the afternoon I gather that he was shot by a Jordanian, so that there is fear in every corner. Kennedy-King-Kennedy, who would thought the States to have a tradition of assassination like that of some Balkan or South American State. America which still offers such promise, which must have offered (and given) the promise to this Jordanian. One can't help thinking of the Kennedy family with almost Puritan eyes: --- ambition, fulfillment, and then the oldest son died in the War, the second killed and the third almost certain to die or be maimed, the oldest daughter feeble-minded, the second killed in an air accident, even Teddy (the Senator from Massachusetts) almost killed in another air accident, and the patriarch speakless and almost immobile for years from his shock. How can the old dame bear so much.

Your letters of the 1st and 2nd came this afternoon, for which my thanks. I am not surprised at your reaction to the Beowulf book. The English Department here didn't quite think Ted had it, which was why I had to find him the job at Pennsylvania. Actually I think he cares about nothing other than Beowulf; it is his passion but like many lovers he may be inarticulate. The Pope records I can and will buy, though it is not carried by the Co-op. I keep it for you on this side.

I airmail the folders to Joan tomorrow, and have today sent off a letter to Wyoming, asking Betty Woolsey to write directly to Joan. I should think for Joan what might be ideal (if Betty still has an opening) would be the 21-day round trip, I suspect straight through to Wyoming with a stopover in New York so that we can see her and so can Pup, just a day or two in New York altogether for a glimpse. Woolsey is in late forties, I should think, perhaps early fifties, an old New Havener from an uptown family, who cut it all to be on her own and run a ranch. Joan would I think like her very much.

For Ines the house is now hers, the garden was never hers but Elsie's.
Thus Elsie's ghost walks arm in arm with the gardener and they both beckon you to
come out. Ines has a peasant's blind loyalty and affection.

I actually wonder if the Philby book is to come out in England after
all. There seemed to be some agitation against rewarding him by royalties. You
might ask Gulden & Curry, and if they say no I can send for your shelves and the
Brigadier's.

Thank you for sending Mrs Pratt's. I wait to write her until she
replies to your later letter, but I see it must be en route in July. Everything
about the trip seems so complicated but perhaps will straighten out. A trip to
Washington may be indicated. Another of today's letters was to Thurman Arnold
asking for an appointment with someone in his firm.

I am still in the throes of the new secretary (whom I like) and the discovery of what still needs to be done and what equipment ordered and what changes made. I began the day by ordering some new envelopes printed. Their address and that on the sheets will differ, to every one's utter confusion, but I wish to use up the old paper thriftily. Then we conferred with the IBM man about dictaphones, and I discover I can buy (somewhat shiftily) as through Yale reco nditioned ones that had been used as demonstrators. This takes about a third off, and since the bill will be nearly one thousand this matters. I think of trying also a portable model I can take on trips or dictate to at home. It might make special sense when I saw Mrs Pratt. Later I accepted delivery of the second-hand portable electric Smith Corona for the library office, plus the one I had had cleaned. And finally had new telephone chords put in both HGS offices to make it possible for me to have the phone on my desk.

I lunched with a former student and then colleague who is leaving, and got a little more dope on student activism to use in my talk Saturday at Andover.

It is hot, almost like summer. But, mirabile dictu, the university says it will put air conditioners in both HGS rooms. Fortunately the business manager is a former student of mine. I suppose there are compensations for old age.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

A fearfully hot day in the high 80's, and we are plunged suddenly into the midst of summer. I have been promised air conditioning for the HGS offices but that will be a long time off, if experience is any clue.

The day started off sadly with the announcement of Robert Kennedy's death, though it would have been still more tragic if he had lived on as a limp rag because of the brain damage. We watched for an hour on television, the man dying on the floor, the cries of get his gun get his gun, the President taking at the white house, doctors discussing the prognosis, exhausting but memorable.

The pamphlets on American travel went airmail to Joan this morning, rather a heavy two envelopes full but there could have been no use from them if by surface. I hope something can be worked out. Your advice will be excellent, I am sure. I should so like to help.

Malcolm Cowley and his wife arrived at ten this morning, he to use my Hawthorne material for a revision of his Viking Portable edition of N.H. Earlier he had written about Sachie's poems: "I sent back Sacheverell Sitwell's poems. They weren't a book that Viking could undertake: too purely decorative and too verbose. Also they seemed to be *voulus*, as if the author had said to himself, 'Now I shall write a group of poems on tropical flowers. Now I shall write....' But the poems never seized hold of him, and, except for the 'ballads,' they are lacking in inner events." --- What an example this is of two contrary points of view--his and mine. I daresay he is right on the short view, but I prefer to place my bets on the future. No word of all this of course to Sachie himself. So far as he knows, I am doing nothing.

Halfway through that paragraph the phone rang from Washington and the lawyer. We are in luck, the Bill Rogers who handled Hilda's repatriation is back with the firm again, and I have an appointment with him at 4 p.m. next Wednesday in Washington. There really isn't any way to it except viva voce; otherwise one has to put too much on paper. This will still give time if, as is unlikely, he feels one ought to dash for London and a pre-July 1st application.

Susan spent the morning planting at the shore, and we met at 2:30 at Charles Moore's. the architects, to go over his model for suggested changes at the shore. Different windows towards the sea, and another terrace outside, our present one being so cracked and tilted as to be unsafe. As you may know a huge tree once grew up from it, the hurricane knocked it over, now the roots have rotted and the concrete sunk in. I'm not sure we entirely liked the first model, but he made new sketches and promised a second model delivered to the house some time tonight. It is a little difficult to describe but one hopes it will be finished by your visit.

I will drop a note tomorrow, then not until next Monday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

10 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday the temperature was in the mid-90's, today it is 59. The weather is as bad as the world.

I was of course happy to have your letters of the 6th and 7th in the morning's mail. Violence? Yes, it is really hard to say whether there is or isn't as much violence say in France as in the States, or in Italy. But the gunning of people does seem higher here by actual count.
* Quayle? Well he wanted them back by airmail, I suppose because he hopes to work on his next possibility soon. I wonder if he actually could ever hope to get his asking price. It was better, I thought, to toss in the extra amount (I can at least count it as a business expense) on the hope that he will sell me any duplicates he may have. * I feel relieved that you did not particularly like the Henry Moore memorial for Edith. It seemed to me in photographs to have little true style. But in situ it may look better. I do like much of Moore's work, but it is very modern I agree. * The time span must keep me one Adam behind you, for the number I had was chiefly about music. The Ramuz number simply hasn't come. * Glad that you have tried the t.v. It may not work but if it does, or even fairly well then it may keep Ines happier. The medium size is certainly large enough. I suspect she is used to an institutional one, of the sort for public homes or restaurants. And you are completely right in putting it in the room downstairs. I should make Elsie's room reasonably off bounds for Ines; she musn't be encouraged to think she has inherited Elsie's place or role. The future isn't going to be that way, and if she thinks so she will only be wounded.

I enclose letters from Mrs Pratt, very kind and generous in her offer to help. Also one from Pokross to whom I had explained not having seen Anna Freud. I used the 60% distribution before a re-discussion as the figure you suggested when we discussed the matter at Kenwin. I see no reason why one shouldn't have enough results on hand from the first grants to know how to use the rest.

Today was Yale graduation. But being still on leave I did not march in any processions or even bother to stand or sit in the cold to watch the black-robed ones receive their degrees.

The Andover weekend was pleasant though not particularly exciting. Still, there were a number from my class who returned and who I am had known. Alas, the two or three best friends did not come back. We drove up Friday after lunch, enjoying the air conditioning, as you can imagine how welcome it was returning yesterday. I did have a couple of visits with Dudley Fitts who is retiring this year as a teacher at Andover, and the school were pleasant. Sunday morning he was full of Cowley's review of the McAlmon-Boyle book in the *NYTimes*. Cowley liked Boyle but not Bobbie whom he apparently never liked. Fitts surprised me. I had not known he had lived in a boarding house with Bobbie and others, disliked him, said he had never heard McA say a good or unbelittling word about anyone. Hardly the great warm friend that Kay pictures. * My Saturday talk to the alumni seems to go luckily well, and people were kind about it all day. I discussed student activism and their fears, sense of guilt, compulsion to activism, and insistence that study be made relevant. Since I got it all from my Pundits, the words came more or less from the pny's mouth.

We go off to dinner tonight at the Henru Peyre's.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

Another day in which not as much has been accomplished as one
might have hoped. Still, a little; I cannot ask for everything. And at
least I got yours of the 11th which I was delighted to receive. You must
not, really, feel guilty about Nicholas. As comes eventually one simply
has to grit one's teeth and then bite the string. You can't inconvenience
yourself beyond reasonable limits.

I haven't heard about the book on Ethel Smyth though I should
be interested to read anything about her in addition to her own memoirs.
One doesn't really, (quite in a non sequitur direction), know just what
Victorian dames called it by name. But as correspondences show, it quite
naturally and sensibly existed even unnamed. Especially among the women
sculptors, for example, and many of the actresses. Each star usually had
her apprentice, so to speak, and each sculptor had at least her devoted
younger admirer. And unless one is mistaken by what is written, the
relationship was physical.

I was most interested by Islay's report on Kenneth, and am
inclined to agree more and more that it is at least in part psychological.
On the other hand there are several conditions (gallstones for example,
I believe) in which internal physical conditions bring on the appearance
of heart attacks. Eventually, properly diagnosed, this was found to be
the case. It would not completely surprise me if this in fact might not
be Kenneth's situation as it was my friend Ted Hilles's. They thought he
was going to die from heart trouble until in a year or two they removed
gallstones. For that reason a Prutting visit might be indicated, just to
be sure.

My chief achievement today was a visit to the University Treasurer's
to establish what is to be known as an American Literature Research Fund, the
sole authority for disposing from it to be mine. From it Mrs Hamerman for
example will be paid, so that she can get the fringe benefits of being a Yale
employee rather than my personal one. This means medical insurance, use of
the Yale facilities by her children etc. My accountant thought this splendid
since it saves me from filing the endless accounts otherwise necessary for the
state and national governments. I can deduct the amount as a gift to Yale,
but this in itself is no special advantage since otherwise it would be a business
expense and deductible in that form. I put in a few hundred dollars to get it
going, will see that it gets about five thousand dollars and replenish it all
as necessary.

Not having been to the exhibition of American Art (where our Trumbull
drawing hangs) since the vernissage, I paid a quick visit to it again after
lunch (it closes Sunday) and then went to the tailors to pick up a jacket for
which I had had a frayed collar replaced. The effect is jauntily different,
since the material doesn't quite match. But in this way I can get another two
years of wear, and one might as well be practical.

Tonight we drive to Hartford for the pre-wedding dinner of Susan's
niece. I might preferably have gone to the opening and dinner of the Harriet
Beecher Stowe House in Hartford, for which we accepted until this invitation
came. But naturally Susan herself prefers a rally of the clan. At least the

sun has just come out for the first time in over a week.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

This being Saturday there was no mail from you of course. At some point your letters must be passed along just a second too late. But for the first time in many many days we woke up to see the sun. That is or ought to be a message of some sort.

The pre-wedding dinner in Hartford was pleasant, with some thirty or more people who had flown up from Kentucky (the groom's home) for the dinner and the wedding. We go back to Hartford this afternoon for the knotting.

This being also graduation season I thought you might be amused by the enclosed. I had never really thought of rewarding them in that way! Actually I believe it refers to girls who were able to continue schooling instead of being simply a drop-down.

I phoned Horace this morning, or rather Marya since he is difficult to get. She says he makes progress, so the hospital thinks, and now at least has his electric typewriter there. The competition of the t.v. in the same small room is, however, I gather, formidable. At the moment he is doing several things for the Encyclopedia Americana. The article on D.H.Lawrence is the present assignment. He likes it, and they actually pay very well. It seems hardly likely now that he will be back at Palisades before Patrick leaves. Marya begs for letters to him, saying people forget. I couldn't tell her I have been waiting for an answer to my letter to him a few weeks back about the $1000 insurance check. I told him I simply had to know if it came, for the sake of the lawyer, and that he should keep it; but I fear he may find it embarrassing. Actually Pat could so easily write for him an answer of this sort.

Susan spent yesterday hanging curtains at the shore. The week I suppose will be devoted to a series of slow partial moves.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

16 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

A very quiet Sunday at the office while Susan works outside on her driveway garden. Between thunder storms that is. It is warm and sultry and a little overbearing. Your letter comes rather late in the day, for I began by lokking at the chaos on and behind my desk, and have spent my time at it. Much is little more than a figurative sweep under some other rug. But there were clippings cut out for you, the reason for which was no longer apparent. I do enclose three however, one of the citation for Marianne's honorary degree at Columbia (you can see with what affection everyone regards her as the unmarried aunt in the great American family), another of a boat, and the third simply the one I forgot last time, which must have made at least one paragraph utterly pointless.

Will you, byt the way, send me Sir Gavin's address. I know I have
it among the unfiled letters but it will save time if you let me know so that I
can thank him for the two offprints he gave me. I was much interested in both
of them. He writes an excellent French, impeccable but with just a slight trace
of British rhetoric which makes the sentences all the easier for an Englishman to
read. What an indefatigable scholar he is; he ought really to do an illustrated
on Mme de Stael similar to the one on Gibbons. Then one needn't see Coppet.

Harvard defeated Yale on the river yesterday by thirteen lengths, the farthest separation in the past 35 years. Fortunately I am not a crew fan so my weekend has not been ruined.

The wedding yesterday went off well. The various members of the clan gathered, and the display of family strength was formidable indeed. Even the Louisville, Kentucky groom gathered an army of his own relatives. I like their name, Rounsevall. It sounds like Charlemagne; Charlemagne and champaign might have been a wedding cry. Fortunately the reception was over before too late, and Susan and I came back for a 7:30 supper rather than try to eat on the road. One is, at least I am, always exhausted after these tribal fetes. One always derives interesting insights into the local culture whether in the Hague or in Hartford.

I trust your visitors have been fun.

17 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is the 9th consecutive day on which it has rained--
not all day but enough to give one the feeling of gloom. And it is
coldish and damp. Alas!

Not much done today except odds and ends of correspondence.
It is such a blessing to have a secretary who can manage still other odds
and ends. Three letters from you today: the 12th, 13th and 14th. You
speak of France and things are indeed grave. The Frenchmen here simply
refer to the Revolution. DeGaulle's permission to the dxiles to return
is said here to be the price of his support by the army. So that in one
path or by another the General is, I feel sure, finished. The election
will simply certify what is already more or less of a fact. * Yes, t.v.
is rather a tricky thing. We had to put up the high aerial because of
interference by West Rock of programs from New York, and by East Rock for
programs from Hartford. When a plane flies overhead the picture is dis-
torted, or a truck goes by. Trains do this too, so I am not surprised at
the almost impossibly poor reception you are getting. * How pleasant it
must have been to have Ethel with you. I am not really surprised that
she likes French treason better than British. One is as defensive about a
nation as about one's own family. We would all die if we did not blind
ourselves to ourselves. * This is wonderful news about Michael Gough's
O.B.E. It comes just at the right time, is deserved, and will be no end
useful in Toronto. * I suspect Sachie, as you do, was not overwhelmed by
the memorial. I keep my fingers crossed about the poems, something is
brewing but whether it will boil I can't guess.

Mail keeps pouring in to answer. Hilda's affairs alone would
keep one busy. Just as a sample I enclose xerox copies of three that came
today.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

I began the day righteously by resuming my sessions at the hospital. I can't say I've progressed very far in my breathing skills, but perhaps I begin to get the idea. I'll have to stand with my hand on your stomach and put your lungs their proper paces. I pushed and I pulled and was altogether exhausted by the end of the hour. Afterwards I went to the architects office and hope I persuaded the secretary to get the assistant to phone me tomorrow. We do need to get started, at least on the main room. Afterwards a stop at the Co-op, but no booking really. I need to read what I already have.

The end of the afternoon's excitement was my first real attempt to use the dictating machine. Sometimes I forget to put the apparatus on, and there is silence. Sometimes the reverse, so that when I stopped to answer a phone call from Gallup and put the receiver down I had recorded our entire conversation.

Your two letters, of the 15th and 16th came this afternoon. Yes, Peyre was the head of the French Department and for a while edited French Studies. I remember that you didn't like his article on Colette. * I am particularly pleased that Joan had had her letter about the ranch. Seriously she is foolish not to accept, for this is not at all the tourist sort of thing. It is what one would simply not know of without some sort of introduction. But of course I can understand her hesitation. It is quite a lot to take. One can't persuade her; she must make up her own mind. Perhaps if she refuses this year she will try it again. I too must find out what a quarter horse is. Perhaps Susan, who went to a ranch like this with the girls, will know. * Am glad you had such a good visit from Sylvia Dobson. Perhaps, just perhaps, after you shift to this side you might take a trip out to the Coast with blinders for all save Hildegarde and Sylvia. * I am sorry about the high cost of the new taxis, but cars are high everywhere as we found in Holland. The cost of the car was more than the hotel and meals. Still, worth it.

The trip down under begins to sort out a little. I see now that my official New Zealand trip must be for the first fortnight in September. Since Mrs Pratt will be away I shall perhaps try both ways, that is coming and going, so as to get her before she leaves for the Fijis. The 200 mile bus trip to her house sounds exhuasting but off the beaten path. I daresay I shall get a good insight into New Zealand and New Zealanders by it.

A good day again today, we have rejoiced us in the Lord's.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 June 1968

Dearest Fido, Even with, or especially because of, the help of a secretary I don't quite understand why more isn't accomplished in a day. But at least I should perhaps console myself that no more is likely to be accomplished tomorrow. For this afternoon, perhaps fortunately while I was out, Prof. Takuwa arrived with his wife and two sons, from Minnesota. He had said he would phone ahead from New York; he never went there and came here unannounced. Fortunately I had engaged hotel rooms for them all (as my guests) beginning tomorrow night, and the secretary phoned the hotel and began them as of now. They were to have phoned me, I haven't called back, hoping to keep as much of today for myself as I could. Meanwhile I sit here waiting for a return phone call from New York, from James Baldwin's literary agent, so that I can arrange a meeting with him and a visiting Japanese professor here. I feel as though I were in the land of the setting sun. Earlier I had arranged a meeting for the same professor on Friday with Ralph Ellison in New York, done "for you sake" as Fanny Ellison reluctantly said.

I have about reconciled myself to buying the dictating machines. I'm sure I can't manage without them, but each instrument is as expensive as a t.v. I shall be glad when I am settled in.

Have now heard from New Zealand, or at least about it. My official visit there is to be the first two weeks of September, with August in Australia. As it now seems best I shall fly out by way of Whangaroa to see Mrs Pratt in July, and return to New Zealand again in September. I do want to see her and in her own home is best. The Fiji's are too distracting, although at the general recommendation I shall stop for two or three days there on the way out just to break up and rest from the long air journey. How does this fit your convenience? We could visit Mrs Pratt together by bus, and see something of New Zealand in addition, and perhaps a little of Australia as well before my tour begins. The Australian government is flying me out first class and I suppose I might as well use it, although economy would certainly due for me. In fact I would like nothing better than myself to slip back into your economy seat while you took advantage of the first-class one. Actually this seems to me to make admirably good sense. I have not and will not buy my ticket for a bit yet, so let me know how this strikes you. The travel agency also recommended a one-night stopover in Hawaii, again to break the trip. This is apparently being more and more done with airtrips of over two days.

I still use up old paper and envelopes, but having run out of long business ones I ordered a number such as encloses this letter. You have my first use of it, but I shall go back to the old. The number at HGS really doesn't matter.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

21 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

At the moment it seems as though New Haven had been invaded by the Japanese. In any event they are the reason for my not having written you yesterday and almost not having written you today. The Takuwa family of four arrived for a four day visit--they are staying at a local hotel as my guests, since I could not really have them at home--and much of my afternoon was spent in discussions with them about their older son's stay here for a language course this summer. Then a little after six I took them to Goodrich Street and afterwards to the Lawn Club for dinner. Tomorrow night I take them all to the Captain's Table in Guilford (by the harbor, you have been there), and this afternoon I saw them again after the boy's registration. Meanwhile yesterday Mr Yamazaki, the playwright, came to bid farewell; and a Mr Aoki and his wife and two small sons arrived to spend the summer. He is a former student of mine who has been in New York during the winter as a Visiting Fellow at NYU.

My chief regret is that it takes time from my secretary, and next week will be her last. Then she goes on a month's vacation (long since planned) and returns in August after my departure. But it will be useful to have her attend to things in my absence.

I do apologize for not having written yesterday, but could not help myself with these visitors and others. But I have now your own letters of the 17th, 18th(two) and 19th which came enmasse. I am very pleased indeed that she is actually going to the ranch. It may not be perfect but I think she will enjoy it immensely. My own hunch is that she will want to go back another year. At any rate how lucky it was to have thought of Betty Woolsey. As to the books I will check what is available. You haven't told me when she is to take off so I don't know what the mail schedule will permit. My own guess is that she will do best not to anticipate anything as against books, but lick them up in glee after she is familiar with their terms. You can send her history and cowboy tales from now on. * As to Ethel I am sure it would mean much to her if you could get to Zurich while she waits. Then you will be back just in time for the first of your long string of summer visitors of all ages. * Australia I can write a little more about tomorrow, more letters having just come in. But I should be back in New Haven about the 18th or so of September. * Caravans might well be fun, and we could think of hiring or buying one. I always dreamed of sleeping in one, but the only chance I got was when we came out of the Arctic to Cherschhill. There hotel rooms at the brothel for you and Horst, but I was bedded down in a caravan (double bedded) with the good Doctor. Luckily I was not an Esimo's wife to be shared. * Marya's letter was indeed sad, and even though the complaints are now well established they are no less real. She wants to be great, she wants to be admired, she wants to be a great intellectual, she wants to be the mother and grandmother of geniuses, to win prizes for her poems, to be married to a prize winner. And in so many ways she has had much less than she deserved and has earned. I think too she fears the strain (physical) of Horace's return. How sad in some ways it is that they cannot have an all-day and all-night permanent houseman, such as the Kennedy father has. * I am not surprised that Mrs Bayliss needs help. Indeed, you foresaw this. * Have heard of the Lehman book, at least the review you sent, and will be interested in Secret Service. But at the moment, oh dear, how am I going to read the manuscripts left on my door. *Islay's

letter was a little disturbing if they intend to visit Prutting but not let
him run through the whole series of tests etc. Under these circumstances
there really isn't much point in their going. And cardiographs are surely not
painful to take, at least not those I have had done in general overhauls.
I still think there might be an outside chance that gallbladder trouble lies
behind Kenneth's situation. Just at it did with my friend Ted Hilles who
was said to be dying in Holland at the Kasteel. It was only later they found
out what the true problem was. At least this would indicate why Kenneth
could have murmurs but no change in the cardiogram. * Very interesting that
The Player's Boy is in demand. One reason of course that there is almost nothing
in that period, even for a little earlier in Elizabethan times. * You may have
seen that the youngest Lindberg daughter was married yesterday at her brother's
ranch in thw West. Col Lindbergh, so the papers said, was unable to attend. Yet
the husband was a schoolteacher from near Boston and seemed to have a completely
inoffensive name. * Still not official letter from Washington, but suspect
they like all lawyers take their time, and expected me to pass on the immediate
advice not to worry or take out an application for a resident's visa. * Ines's
problem might be a real one, though perhaps suggested by her in order to keep
you stirred up and thereby emotionally bound to her. Certainly this is one way
of getting an assurance of contract with her. The hotel is certainly not
out of the question as an alternative. * This is too bad about the Raleigh
manuscript; the particular Maggs catalogue has not yet reached me.

Now I must run. A cocktail party I do not yearn for, but given by
Chisolm who worked for me in American Studies, and even did his dissertation on
Fenollosa under my direction, and is now leaving for the University of Buffalo.

All love

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

Susan has been slogging along all day, moving to the shore. We will sleep there tonight (sans hot water, I gather) and finish transferring our chattels during the week. The newly married son of a friend will be in the house this summer to stand guard.

I have devoted the day to the office, having been so much interrupted during the week by my overseas visitors of one sort or another. And even this Sunday morning at the office, where a man might have thought he would be undisturbed, I was phone by Mark Holloway (the Norman Douglas biographer-to-be) who had stopped off between Dartmouth and New York in order to tell me what he had accomplished in the last few months. What could he do except to say I would see him for an hour. He had actually turned up a good deal all over the country. The Americans, obviously, value him higher than the British do. But the British may relish the gossip.

Have just now talked with Horace on the telephone. He had written, he said, but not until yesterday, having at last finished his article on Lawrence for the encyclopedia. He brought up the matter of the thousand dollars return from insurance, saying it had come in January and been immediately by him turned over to Rush Hospital which had been so kind to him. So I said fine, that was a good way to use it, I simply had to know it had been received so my lawyers could close their books. I don't think he realises that the money was a return on what I had paid out for nurses, and looks on it more as a sort of premium for which nothing was given out. But it doesn't matter, and its lucky that this particular thousand could via the insurance company be made the equal of two thousand. Horace was in good spirits and had gone out to lunch today at an Italian restaurant which he thought the equal of anything to be had in Venice (his Elyssium). Someone had wheeled his chair, and he and Marya had had a whirl. He wants to get home but a stumbling block (quite literally) is the toilet next to his room at Palisades which is up steps. Marya has had someone in and found the room could be cut out and lowered so he could go on the same level as the bedroom, sitting room (the back one) porch and dining room without fear of stumbling and breaking a hip. I suppose the problem is the expense. I wish I could help but at the moment I am helping a little for the moment, two students finish. And although it is unworthy I am committed to the changes at the shore. But he gets the additional thousand from me anyhow as of July 1st (I give one half of his allowance at the beginning and the other at the end-of-the-year- middle of the year. Pat is now settled in Boston, and Marya must have managed to get in on her own.

It was really great fun going with Justus yesterday for his boat. Did I tell you that the boatmaker was a true old-line Connecticut cum twang. His father had been born on the east side of the Connecticut River and moved as a boy to the west side. "Don't seem like home," he said, "somehow living this side." We are conservative, you see.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

I seem to have a succession of frustrated days. Yest, thanks
to a secretary she at least kept on working while I met and talked in the
office, on sidewalks, and over the phone. From 8:30 on. Now at the very
tail end of the day I must go to Goodirch Street in order to pick up at
least a few clothes to take back to the shore for a change of garment.

Your letters of the 20th and 21st pleasantly arrived. My thanks.
And for Sir Gavin's address which I shall use as soon as I can. I am glad
you keep off his financial affairs. But who is Sege Beney in whom he has
such confidence. A relative of "our" Beney? I think you might rather
enjoy Christmas at la Vagnola with the Boys. It would be gay in the best
sense of the word, and the brightest! Certainly they would dearly love to
have you, as who would not. I was a little surprised at the powerful backing
of the General in the first Sunday election. This was quite unexpected.
But he has the army now of course, and the far right (who were not in his camp
after Algiers) now prefer him to what they feel is Communism. But I think
all this will not really last long. Finances should really be somewhat
easier for the Hotsons because of the father's death. Leslie was always
generous and loyal to him, tho if I remember his siblings were less so.
Sad to think that Ethel is less well. I used to think a trip to the States
was sometime indicated, but I doubt if even she would now want to chance
it. I took hope that Joan will be able to make the Wyoming trip, and am
particularly pleased that she cabled. I wanted to urge her to do so. If
it works out I shall feel very happy about the whole thing. I do think
that somewhere along the line you should see Helen when she is across; it
would mean much to her without question.

Much to my surprise I had a letter from John Maggs today: "We have
just bought a delightful 'Dusty Diamond' which I thought you might like."
It is 1920, after our date, but I thought I had better take to maintain his
interest. I explained it was late. Christopher Beck, The Brigand of the Air.
I rather wonder if this a child of Louis Beck, an earlier diamond digger.

I enclose the letter from Arnold and Porter which came today. I
have taken a xerox copy for me to keep, feeling that you (if anyone did) deserved
the original.