have time on their way out, that they take a look at the New Museum in
Arachi, where Curiel tells him there are a number of fine pieces of
Gandhara. Will you pass this on to them? I am eager to know how things
have been going with them. Well, I hope! Tell them also that the exhibition
here was a great success, and as a result the postponing was delayed two
weeks beyond the original date.

I enclose a clipping of what looks like an important show in
New York of children's books, for you to send to Gladys. If the Morgan put
out a catalogue, I will try to get one and send her. Could you give me her
address?

I still feel wonderfully in a whirl as the result of our trip.
It was unbelievably rejuvenating.

All love as always,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

12 Dec 1954

Dearest Bryher:

The past week simply hopeless, and I simply
helpless. But will write at length tomorrow night or Tues-
day.

This just a note to say that I posted yesterday
by first class airmail to you *am strand*, the two little marrow
spoons for *slay* and *enneth*. Did not want them to pay any
duty, in the first place; and in the second was not sure of
anything but their country address, and suppose they will now
be at the new flat. Could you let me know the duty, if any,
and take with you to Home at Christmas for the tree. You can
explain that it was one which we designed, and then had wrought
by this silversmith who does things for me.

You will also have heard from Leslie and Mary.
I will explain all in detail in my next, but in the end it
seemed best to get them a new rather than a second hand car.
Certainly their happiness is overwhelming. Mary called the
night it was delivered to them. Susan answered, and all she
could say was: "I wish Bryher could have heard Mary's voice!
She would have felt a thousand times repaid." And so you
would.

I am keen to have a description of the *wandhara*
*piece* you got in Ireland. Ingholt is also. Do have a photo
taken of it sometime. But I am not jealous. Our Buddha makes
me a Buddhist. It is sheer beauty and calm. There is nothing
to match it in the house, least of all ourselves.

Love to you and Hilda, and greet Heyit, Mme Herf,
and the good Papa-Doktor.

It is late Sunday night at the office, and I must
quit and go home.

Dearest Bryher:

I risk this, care the boys at Rome, since the alternative
risk of its arriving at Kusnacht before you go, as I hope, for Hilda's sake
and the pleasure of the boys, that you will have done.

Don't talk to me of Christmas cards! It seems to me I have
done nothing in the past fortnight but inscribe greetings and lick stamps.
But I do use cards for better purposes than sheerly formal ones. Naturally
I get sent a good many scholarly offprints, and get written a good many
letters which require some acknowledgement (tho not necessarily at once),
and for these and for books which get sent, I simply take a card such as
I will have sent to Hilda and write a brief letter of thanks, but such as
to show I have really read what was sent. Otherwise I should spend earlier
hours trying to fill out space. At any rate nearly 500 cards go out.

And don't talk to me of Christmas festivities! For every
organization about the university has its celebration, has been having for
the past fortnight, and I must put in my appearance. Fortunately, this
coming week, the university will be officially closed; and even though I
have appointments Monday and Wednesday, and must go to Gardner to take
presents to my parents on Tuesday, I expect to have my office as chastely
bare as though I were a monk

But this is Sunday morning, and I have three-quarters of an
now, though I have to go home and dress for luncheon with Susan's mother.
And I shall come back in the afternoon, to see if I can begin to clear up
some of what I should have been regularly writing you under other circum-
stances.

First of all of course is your letter about the car. Susan
read it and laughed. "She's doing to you, just what you did to Leslie,"
she said. "Bryher's a good brow-beater!" And so she is. I shall look
around leisurely, however, since I suspect that it does a car no good to
sit out days on end in the rain and sleet as mine does, and March might
make a better time to adopt it, and a better time to turn my old one in.
In any event one things seems indicated to both of us. You ought to plan
your spring trip to the States so that it will include the spring holidays
for Yale, and we will christen the car by taking a trip to the Tidewater
section of Virginia. You ought to see it sometime, and we rather want to
follow up our visit last spring, seeing some of the better 18th-century
houses again and extending our circumference. This is a particularly good
year, for one of the students who belongs to a little social group I sponsor
comes from Richmond, and his father has made a hobby of just such houses.
"e promises me letters of introduction to many which are not open to the
public, and so this would have some of the special advantages of our trip
to Istanbul. The father is Under-Secretary of State, and comes from an
old Virginian family, so the chance is a remarkable one and could not really
be repeated another year, because the boy graduates. Vacation begins on
April 2nd, but we could leave on noon of the day before, and it ends on the
12th, so that you could be with us for my birthday. I consider the matter
as settled that you will come; I hope you do too!

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Now for the other matters, which must be endless. I have written Hodgson his Christmas letter, but thanks to my visit last summer it could be, and needed to be, a long and friendly one. I had a brief letter from him at the beginning of the month: "You are no doubt safely back by now from your visit to Rome with Mrs Bryher, and she is once again at her work. If you should be coming this way again, perhaps taking the precious Hawthorne letters home, or on some other business, do bear in mind that we can put you up and exchange a good amount of conversation; anyway we like to hear yours; a visit to Rome with a contemporary of the Caesars must have been exhilarating." So you see what you have become! But for me, your series of metamorphoses have made you a contemporary of many ages, without ever losing your presence in our own.

Leslie seems as happy as ever with his new car, and I think it has worked out perfectly, as you wanted it to. I ended up by seeing that he got a new car. I daresay that station wagons are among the more difficult types to buy second-hand, and the only thing he could find of the sort was one with a wooden body like that of our Pontiac. Wooden bodies are attractive to look at, but as expensive to keep looking well as it would be to keep a chorus girl from the Dorchester line. We know. They have to be re-varnished twice a year, the wood on the doors swell so that they will not open, any accident to the body of the car (which is minimal for a metal body) means that one has to carve the wood replacement by hand, and in the case of accidents (which need not be one's own fault at all) a wooden body offers little or no protection. So Ivedoes that, from experience. Mary, too, had set her heart on a dark-green body. Whatever the reason was, I don't think matters. She got what she wanted, and they are as happy as kittens with their tongues in a bowful of heavy cream. The check I gave him was for $2577.00, but this hardly measures their Christmas happiness. I have not seen the car itself, but I have heard its reflection in the tone of their voices over the telephone.

Ingholt has been given his check for the first half of his payment, and I have suggested to him that if he should actually be able to go, as he hopes to, if he can get a fellowship, to Pakistan early in the summer, that he might like to have the remainder to help with expenses there. Gandharan art seems to be very much in the air on this side. The Yale Gallery was given four pieces as a result of their exhibition, and I understand that another fine piece, from a man who lives near New Haven, is to come this week. There was a big auction of Gandharan, or including much of it, in New York last week, though I did not hear of it until afterwards. I am told that the objects went very cheaply: 175 dollars, 85 dollars, etc. But of course one doesn't know what they were. I suspect rather the sort which would appeal chiefly to the specialist. My little head of Buddha appeals to everyone. I cannot tell you what ecstatic pleasure we take in it. Quite beyond question it is cherished beyond anything else in the house. It sits on the grand piano, as I told you; and the colored background of the wall sets it off beautifully. The little winged figure in steatite is on the mantelpiece in our little library, so that we see it at all times, and it has become a part of the house.

I am anxious of course to hear full reports of the boys' trip, and what they brought back in the way of treasures as well as photographs. Kenneth should be excited with his little Etruscan acrobat. Spinks quite won me as a treasure house, and I shall head for it each time I am in London from now on. Some day I shall get me one of the little archaic Greek pottery animals which we saw in the basement. It can be an absentee pet for the acrobat.

3

I have not been idle about the matter of the two books you wanted. Alas, Brown's ORIGIN OF THE GRAIL LEGEND, which the Harvard University Press published in 1943 is out of print. I wrote them ordering it, and have just heard the sad news that is unobtainable. I presume Yale has a copy; I could take out and post to you at Lugano, if you like. I fear that to advertise for it would take too long for your needs. I also ordered Newstead's BRAN THE BLESSED, which Columbia Press put out. At the same time as the first, but have heard neither confirmation nor denial. I hope for the best. I asked for it to be sent to Kenwin.

Three chapters, I think, of Gladys' ms have now arrived, but I wait until I finish these before-Christmas tasks before starting them. But don't be frightened. I know how anxious she will be to hear, so that I will not shilly-shally with them. I have ordered her a copy of the catalogue for the exhibition of children's material at the Morgan Library. It is supposed to be the greatest ever, with much material borrowed. I enclose the account from the TLS, which you might like to send to her if you think she hasn't seen it in London. If she were to come, to the States that is, I suppose she would have no better time than while the show is still up. But of course most of the material is not strictly down her alley, since it is not magazine stuff. I have, however, one idea which I wondered what you would think of. That is, knowing how easy it is to make mistakes, to hire some one to check the dates and titles etc in one or two chapters, as a kind of check on her accuracy. I needn't say anything to her about having done this, at first anyhow. Then if there are many I can suggest I have a friend etc., and if there are none, I can drop it. But I would hate to have the book ultimately appear, and then have holes knocked into its fabric of interpretation, simply on the basis of some errors. If you give the word I shall go ahead.

I enclose a copy of some paragraphs on the Kahrie Djami, from the book which Ingholt lent me. What seems to be the situation is roughly this: the mosaics have been known since c. 1900, and are famous; but only now are they truly being cleaned, so we were among the first to see them as they once were, as though we were a later Latif or Wulf. Pictures, evidently from the restored state, are in the Skira Byzantine volume. But the frescoes, as you can see from this account, have not been known until now; and it is these Giotto-esque scenes which will cause the re-writing of Western art historical theory. For instead of a situation in time when Byzantine art was said to have exhausted itself and to be fading out, there was this kind of work being done which is equal to if not superior to what was happening in Italy. And very like it in kind and manner also. So that one might assume that had there been no conquest by the Turks, there would have been a Renaissance there as well as in Italy, and that native national genius had very little to do with it. But whether this is so or not, I shall always feel that our moments in the Kahrie Djami were the very height of artistic experience. Probably this was partly because it was unexpected, not like the Sistine Chapel or whatever else may be already familiar through reproduction and superlative adjectives, and hence can usually only disappoint in the reality.

The other evening, when I was dining at the college, a wail of anguish went up because the speaker had not known we were to be in Istanbul. He wanted us to have called on the Greek Orthodox Pope. Now I know I would have had no luck in getting you to San Gorgolfo, to call on Pacelli; but I suspect that the Greek in you might have tempted you for Byzantium. Everyone here says the Primate is charming as well as magnificent. You may recall we

4

heard much the same report at Bebeck.

Another wail went up when it was discovered that I had forgotten a friend of mine was visiting professor this year at the University of Athens. But even had I remembered, I don't know how I would have gotten hold of him. Still it might have pleasant on the night we spent at the Lido (the splendor of the name outshone the place itself). And if they had had a car, it might have worked well that morning, and we could have taken in the Agora instead of the round-town excursion where so much was familiar. However, let the others wail! We packed in so much that was good everywhere, that memories are packed like sardines in my mind.

I have sent off a copy of ROMAN WALL to Lewis Milestone in Paris. I wonder what he will think of it, tho he seemed most interested that first night at the Grand Hotel Bar. It is actually the kind of thing that would lend itself to a spectacular, including a wonderful chance for some outdoor scenes taken in the right territory. I simply try to spread the word as I can. Brendan Gill, the senior editor of the New Yorker was here at Yale last week, and I talked about the books. He was interested, so I have another copy sent him. The magazine itself noticed the book, so I can do this without seeming to fish for anything. It will be when the next one comes out that any help might occur. My copies of OCTOBER came from Collins. I sent one down to Pup, along with the ties for John, when Lizzie took them their Christmas presents last week. Indicated that the book was from you to her, in case you are puzzled by her acknowledgment. I'm glad your second meeting went off well with Collins. The Wolfe knows that I want to see him when he comes over next spring. Just hope it won't be vacation.

As I told you, no one queried anything at either end when I went through customs. The Americans were as good as gold, despite the seven pieces I ultimately had. They asked me to open my suitcase, which I did on condition they would help me to close it. The lid went up, and then down again. That was all. So do bring the two Fletcher folios when you come across, if by way of London. All books have now been evaluated and added to the rest of the insurance. Barry was most excited about the Phillips History of the Britains, and thinks you got a bargain. He does the valuations, as you know, and is very kind: does them for nothing. But he had just come back and brought a good many early things, and asked if he could send you a list in case any interested you. They can be paid for in pounds to their English office. It is amazing what he finds, considering how little Maggs could dig up in the pre-1640 period. He included the British mss, because I said that was really all that you were interested in. I have made some notations on the margins of his list, indicating what was already at Yale simply as an indication of their availability. The Bush travels looked interesting, with no copy in the States apparently. But do remember that these statements "X locates only thus-and-so-many copies," aren't always meaningful, for the checks were made some years ago and are more excitingly to the collector if not brought up to scratch. I sent the list surface, without any covering letter, just as a precaution.

Everything is quiet on the saucerers front, as of this side of the Atlantic, but I enclose a note of the way the world ends, "not with a bang but a saucer". Even the milleniumites translate their visions into new metaphors.

How can I send you all the love and greetings which should be yours, and which you all deserve? I cuddle my memories, and they blossom; I hope you will sense them.

All love from us both to everyone,

Norman

1 January 1955

Dearest Bryher:

I had a special pleasure and wamnth from the thought
of having spent Christmas Eve with you through your letter, as I do
now in beginning the new year with my letter to you. It will seem
like a new year too, with all the possibilities ahead, and behind us
so much that made last year so difficult for you. I like best of all
to think that you begin it with RUAN, which comes out of the past but
carries the future with it as well. I am glad that you made only a
beginning of it in 1954; it will be a 1955 book now, with all that
that implies.

I was sorry that the trip down was so rough. I had
hoped you both might have a flight to compare with ours when we
skimmed the Jungfrau and glided up the high valleys of mountain snow
and along the ice rivers glorious in the sun. But I am glad you got
to Rome. Kenneth wrote that he had been a real Rex in getting the
flat ready, and I see the new rugs on the marble floors and the Gandharan
treasures making niches of wherever they have been set.

I am so glad that my letter was there to greet you,
and the bundles had arrived before you left. There has been some criticism
of the facsimile because of its reduced size, but for me that it is one
of its blessings. It seemed to me that you and Hilda each ought to
have one for those occasional moments when you crave the feeling of
the original. I like the speed that comes when there are not all these
divisions into scenes. In the old way, it flows as a play should, and
as life should.

In my letter to Hilda I say something of last week (still
this week, rather, but when a year ends so do its divisions seem to; and
these two or three days are a true interlude), and you will understand
why I have not dared to risk a second letter to the Grand, even though
this one may have to wait for you at Kusnacht, where I presume you will
be for a few days before going on to Lugano. I rather like the idea of
Hilda trying it with you, if she wants to. And I should rather like it
better for you too; for it would mean company when your stint of daily
writing is done. Things will flow, I know.

Next week will be incomparably busy for me. Monday
afternoon, Susan and I go to New York, to buy a little ring for Lizzie's
21st birthday, which comes in February. I think we will get a small
saphire for her, and I have a connection so that I can get it at the
wholesale price, which cuts it to less than a half of what it would
otherwise be. I rather hope we can have a moment with Perdita, but
this of course depends on how things go. We have to go to a reception
at the opening of an art exhibition for a friend of mine, at the end

2

of the afternoon, and then will come back. Tuesday I have to go down
again, for a lecture in Brooklyn I am supposed to give at the Brooklyn
Academy (I still have to put it together, so pray retroactively! for me!)
I shall spend Tuesday night in New York, and have an appointment with
a publisher (a mad scheme about which I shall write later) and then will
lunch with the Holves so that we can talk over your letters, and get
some agenda in hand about which I can write to Islay(I shall see Ingholt
on Monday or on Tuesday morning). I have to come back that afternoon to
go to the Hotsons' for supper. Thursday night there is a banquet in
honor of Carl Rollins, a friend of ours, now old and almost completely
blind, who is one of the two or three most distinguished bookdesigners
in the country. Friday night is a dinner party for the committee for
the Bollingen Prize, to which we must go (Wallace Stevens will be there,
Allen Tate, Muriel Rukeyser, etc); and Saturday I have to go to New York
for a bachelor luncheon for one of my old students who insists on my
going. It is not quite my cup of tea, but of course he is flattering in
asking an old codger like myself. After that, if I am not already dead,
I shall settle down into my old ways.

So I shall not comment very much on all that the boys accomplished,
except to say that I am delighted with all they did; and completely satis-
fied that they went.

I have had a letter from the Columbia Press, saying that they have
sent a copy of BRAN to you at Kenwin, from which it can be forwarded to
you wherever you wish it to go. So that at least I could do half a job.

I had a nice note from Hodgson, written the day after Christmas,
thanking me for the "letter & contents". "I'll write you after the
Christmas rush is over." So it is pleasant to think that there has been
a Christmas rush even on his remote farm.

There is so much to say and write about, but now there is nothing
more important than to say again my thanks for so much, and send you my
and our love for the new year.

Norman

8 January 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Back last night from my lecture trip to Ohio. The worst of these caesuras in correspondence that one becomes so overwhelmed with things to say, and not quite certain -- the interval having been so great -- whether one ever did say them or not. Certainly this letter will not make up. But be patient. There are a few more days before anything but graduate seminars begin again, and with the tadj off my mind as a responsibility, and a kind of low-grade flu, which has been tugging me down by the heels since before Christmas, now, I think, subsiding, I should start mid-winter with both a clear desk and a clear conscience.

Christmas was very pleasant, with both girls at home, save that the flu left me without energy. I suppose one could say it gave me a kind of aesthetic distance; at any rate everyone seemed to have a good time and get what they wanted. The cable from you and Hilda arrived to bless us -- we were infinitely pleased to have it; and last night when I got home there was the nice little engagement book --Susan was pleased to have had hers too -- in which I have already made entries for September and the hoped-for visit here from the Swiss girls. I kept my Minoan horse-and-rider where my eyes could carress it and send extra-sensory Christmas thanks to you for this as for so many other things including the check for next year, which I had hurried to the bank and deposited in a little savings account so that it might begin to gather interest while it remained tucked away against next year. John and Perdita sent books, and my shelves are as full of good things to read as a housewife's cupboard is crammed with provisions for the table.

I suppose the big event for Goodrich Street was little Susan's announcement of her engagement. He is a nice boy named James Addis, who went to Yale, is now serving in the army and stationed at Fort Ord in California. Some years ago he courted Lizzie briefly, and then turned his attention to Sue, and has been at her heels ever since. He has good manners and is very popular with the various uncles and aunts at the shore, which makes life now and in the future easier. Alas (I whisper it only), he is a Catholic, but they seem to have worked it out for the moment at least; and little Sue has no intentions of being able to refer to "my priest," and they do not intend to be married "in the church." One always wonders about the future, but before going in the army he spent some time with an analyst, presumably about this and his relationship to a very devout and widowed mother, so I presume he knows what he is doing. After the army he wants to study architecture. One could wish he had already finished that, but I certainly do not want Sue to hang around that long and perhaps find that for one or the other it is too late. They hope to be married in June, and she will go west and get a job near the camp until his service is finished. On the whole I am much relieved, and her analyst has told her her treatment is finished. The whole thing becomes clear, I think. The young man came up to New Haven the day after Christmas -- having gotten his leave -- and formally asked me for her hand in the best old-fashioned manner. I think I was more embarassed than he was at the ritual of such a ceremony, but the idea is not a bad one.

2

Susan was back this weekend, and told me a story which makes me hasten to check with you as to whether it is Maidi Oldens or Annie Reich whom you have praised so often for the young. A New Haven girl, married for six months, and about 23-24 years old has taken the flat next to hers in New York (they knew each other as children. When I asked if she was separating from her husband, I was told yes, provisionally. Said Susan: she didn't love him, and wanted to break the engagement, but her mother went upstairs and slit her wrists and said she would do it again if Yvonne didn't marry. Perhaps so far so good, since Yvonne was always reported as madly in love with a New Haven boy who married otherwise. But then Susan bowled me over by saying (with what innocence?) that Yvonne was "so" ignorant of sex and frightened of it; and, anyway, she said: they can always get the marriage annulled; she never let him touch her even once in the whole six months. (I almost dropped the plate I was washing!) When I said that Yvonne had better see a psychiatrist, Susan said she wanted to, but didn't have any money and couldn't go to her parents who don't have any anyhow. Well that may be that, but I suspect it's a matter of life and death with the child, and that a few preliminary talks with Dr Olden are indicated. She is old and wise enough to know what should be done from then on: there may be clinics in New York; the girl is actually a very skilled jewellery designer and maker, and is taking a studio, and might herself be able to work out some plan for supporting the p.a. herself (which is of course the very best way of all). At any rate, as a papa, I'll pay Dr Oldens for these first few talks until the situation becomes clear. At least if a similar situation should have happened to one of our girls, with the same tensions between parents and child, I think I'd secretly and eventually be glad that someone had taken it in hand. Susan thinks this would be fine, saying only that the analyst shouldn't be the 50ish year old mother's age, since Yvonne wouldn't want to confuse the analyst with the mother; but Dr Oldens, it seems to me, would be very much in the wise and experienced grandmother category.

When you check that it is Dr Oldens whom you recommended, will you send me address also? I'll write her, or speak to her on the phone before giving her name to the girl.

This Christmas period, not having galleys to go through, I spent with the ms of *Beowulf*. I'm really glad you're not going to touch it, because it does seem to me to be really perfect, a kind of gem; and it would be almost impossible for you to recapture the precise tone, the balance of good humor and desparation that you caught so beautifully. Nor would I have had you add anything, since it is so wonderfully in balance as it is. Really, my dear, it is a very good book. I am like a kitten with a bowl of cream, in my satisfaction. I did have a very few queries, which are on the enclosed sheet. I think they are self-explanatory, and if you have a copy of the typescript with you, you should have no trouble in finding the references. Actually, I think you could even arrive at your decisions without having to use the manuscript at all.

I have not been in New York, except on my hurried way to Ohio, but have talked to both Kurt and Helen on the phone. Everything is in order; they are happy about *Beowulf*, plan an early fall publication, at the same time as Hilda's book, and as soon as I hear from you about the changes, I will give them the ms. I have written the jacket material, and we begin to make plans for the cover. Kurt wants to make something rather different from the other novels, and will put his mind to it. Any ideas for the cover.

I explained to Helen that it was perfectly all right for Christian to go anywhere he wanted on his return to graduate school, and clarified the matter of "The Gate to The Sea." Helen thought you had said it was submitted to Grove, and agreed with me that *New Writing* was another kettle of fish entirely. So I will

3

be sending that off this week. Better to have waited anyhow until after
the Christmas holidays; everyone is too busy, and just now are beginning to
plan for the future.

I talked to Rita, as you suggested, about the financial situation
of the English Institute, which you rescued from their lowest moment. They
have been gradually putting it back into shape, ever since Rita and the new
group took over, and their heads begin to be lifted. They can't quite yet
look the world straight in the eye, however, for it does take an extended
period to become orderly. He gave me a detailed account of their finances,
which would probably be meaningless if I were to try to outline them in a
letter. But the long and the short of it is that as of the moment, they are
about $1000 behind if they were really to be even. If that were adjusted,
they would be able to carry themselves without any problem in the future,
and would not be using current funds to pay off old debts. I don't know how
you really feel about this, but I must say that I find it appealing to think
that one could really establish a matter by a gift to balance them once and
for all. I shouldn't feel this way, of course, if the management had been the
same as the one which carelessly brought them into their present situation, nor
if they had not already shown themselves able to improve their position steadily
since you helped them before. As it is, it will be several years before they
can make up enough to be even, unless they do have help. What do you think?
"Remember that it is the leading organization of its kind, and has been very
effective in its impact. If you agree, there is enough money in the accounts to
take care of it. They have a meeting of the directors on the 28th of January,
and one could see they had it by then. That is, of course if it appeals.

Taking the two savings accounts together there is about $33,000, which
should be more than enough to take care of present commitments including the
fall. Actually there is a little over that — a few hundred dollars gained in
interest last year, which comes from having it in savings rather than simply in
a separate checking account.

I am dying to know what Rita and the others said about Otto John. I
enclose a couple of clippings which I thought might interest you about him. I
suppose the best one could say is that he has a sort of Hessianian compulsion.

Oh dear, so much to say, and how shall one say it. My colleague in
American Studies has a little five-year old daughter who was so struck with the
paradoxes which Sunday School lessons presented, that she faced him with the
query: "Are there people who are grateful for crocodiles?" I wanted to say:
"Norman Douglas."

But gratitude being a pleasant feeling under any circumstances, how much
enlarged it is under the best. And I can't help but think you will be having
the best of all occasions with the visit of George Plank. How nice that he was
free to come. I can't imagine anyone I would rather be with, (you and Hilda
being outside of comparisons) and I can never help but feel a quite unjustified
friendship for him, bound with the invisible lines which the Swiss girls throw
out to their friends.

This is examination time, and I keep working at my desk except for
intermissions like the Ohio trip). There is certainly enough to do. The third
ed of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and the first of Rule a Wife, arrived in
this morning's mail, along with five copies of the German Avon, so that I can
send Mary Herr (from whom I had a pleasant note also this morning) her three
copies; and Harold Doelttle his. By the way, if Hilda ran out, before G.P. got
his, I'd be delighted to send one to him.

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And, off yes, I did so like my little <u>sizzi maroni</u> man. You
have inexhaustible memory!

The senior professor in American Literature at Yale has grown much worse with his leukemia, and the cortisone has brought on diabetes in addition. So he is actually retiring permanently, and will not teach again. Fortunately, however, I will not have to give his lectures next term in addition to my own; and they are getting a man to come up from Princeton for his graduate seminar, and giving the undergraduate lecture course to a young protégé of mine. All this brought up future years as well as the present one, however; and so I made a big jump which I hope you will understand and approve. I announced that I was through with giving large undergraduate lecture courses, and that beginning next year (which I told them I was taking off, willy-nilly Professor Williams' retirement), Fenton could take over my undergraduate lecture course on the 20th-century American prose writers; and that another assistant professor named Feidelson could have Williams' survey course, and Wms' 19th century graduate seminar. I will keep my 20th-century graduate seminar, and give a small senior seminar in 19th century for honors students, taking the last third free for administrative work. I've been the popular lecturer for ten years, and I've had it. I feel myself in the danger of quoting myself, of repeating; and the whole thing is so exhausting that younger men should do it. This is a good time to withdraw a little from the local undergraduate limelight, and concentrate on my writing and publishing. If I don't give these big lecture courses for 300-400 students, they won't ask me to speak at so many placymote affairs on the campus, and I can count whole days as my own. It's almost impossible to be a teacher and to write, under any circumstances; so I might as well try to make the circumstances as congenial as I can. And, as I said, of Antony, there comes a time when you know you can do a thing well, so there's no point in trying to prove it to yourself, and you become tired of the very doing of it.

I do thank you for sending along the Bro Jivente stamps -- you and Hilda--
I am always given a catch of breath as though spring were near.

I have become a great admirer of your Scilly-set, and I do think Hilda
quick has a real style for describing birds and life which she ought to make
something of, and could, with encouragement. I think it's this sharp eye that
watching gives one; I notice that my friend Dillon Ripley, the ornithologist,
writes rather clumsily and in cliches about many things, but when a bird flutters
across his vision it comes alive on the page.

Lethbridge's hunches sound wonderfully apt. Did you see him. I rather
wonder if the enclosed Christmas card is not from Glynn. Forgive my making the
notes on the back; it was for my Ohio lecture, which I fear is a little too corny
for me to send. And anyways it does have a para on your prose and one on Hilda's
poetry in relation to typographical problems. I called it: "Minding your P's and
Q's."

No, we have not read The Day of the Trifids. Do send. And don't forget
later when you get back to Kenwin, to make out a list of what you have, so that
I can keep you supplied in something besides duplicates. Do you want short
stories, or just novels. Susan prefers the novels as being less sterotyped (speak-
ing on general terms).

If there is anything you want me to see Philip about when he is New York
this month let me know, and I can run down to see him. Probably isn't.

I am so pleased that the Christmas packages arrived in time, and hoped
you had not read the Dinosaur Valley book. Susan and I see no reason why (next
fall might be a time) we could not fly out nearby, hire a car, and actually see
it. Why in heaven's name shouldn't one do the things one wants to do? These
drive-it-yourself cars are very good, and very reasonable, when one divides in
reference to three persons; and going by plane would mean cutting down expenses
on compartments and that sort of thing, giving the time where one wants to actually
spend it. One doesn't need the helicopter at all.

An excellent description you wrote of the Hesse tree. Thank you for
sending me a copy.

And of course, luck with Avalon. Keep at it, but if you flag, don't forget
my memorial piece on Adrienne. I shall write Sylvia shortly.

All love to you and to Hilda, and I see no reason why I should not include
George Flank in my affection. In this, as in nothing else, he is helpless.

2

David was living now, that the heart must play a part in it, and that he had been taken up by someone else, or vice versa. Auden was truly shocked. Altogether it is a most disgraceful affair, and everyone seems heartbroken at Osbert's plight. I suppose it is much too late for Robert to take up again, and no doubt this would create a problem with his George. How complicated things are!

The Bollingen Prize, this year, which is to be announced tomorrow morning in the papers, was divided this year between Leonie Adams and Louise Bogan, neither one being quite first-class but having real achievement. Marianne spoke of Hilda the night before the meeting of the committee, but, alas, I had to remind her that Hilda is not an American citizen and the prize can only go to a citizen.

The others at the meeting were Muriel Rukeyser, whom I had not seen for many years, Randall Jarrell, a young southern poet, and Allen Tate, the latter rather ill from a farsome air trip where the pressure adjustments had broken down in a storm when they were 19000 feet aloft. He was green about the gills, but at least not drink as he sometimes is on such occasions.

My lecture in Brooklyn went all right, and there was a reasonably good crowd, though I think I talked a little over their heads. Perhaps that is a good thing, for they were generous in their applause when I had finished, except for one older man, near the front, who got up at the beginning of the question period, and, after a long preamble, put his question: "After one hour of talking, can Dr Pearson give one single benefit that he thinks we might have derived from his lecture?" It seems he is an ex-Yogis who has just cut his hair; and since I spoke a little scathingly of some Bostonians at the end of the century who had tried being Buddhist priests as a solution to life, I must have hit a raw nerve.

There has been little reaction in the press to Rene's committee report, and I have not yet seen the report itself. Tho I have ordered it, for when I was at the Modern Language Association meeting, the head of the Guggenheim Foundation greeted me as I came in with my bags, asking what I had been up to. "Up to?" "Yes, didn't you know your name was one of the few mentioned particularly in the majority report of the Reece Committee?" Since the Guggenheim Foundation had been attacked, I thought he meant that I had done something against them. "Was I mentioned favorably or unfavorably in the report?" "Oh, unfavorably; very unfavorably, as a subversive!" I tried to think how Rene could have dragged me in as a subversive, and then I remembered that the Carnegie Foundation had given the money to pay for the lectures in AMERICA IN CRISIS, if you remember it, where I wrote on the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and tried to explain why people had been friendly to the Soviet in the days of the Spanish War, and why the same values which had led them towards this friendship, also led them straight away from it, when they saw that the Soviets simply had tricked them. But of course Rene couldn't see the point of the article at all, and one wonders if her felt a little grudge somehow. Well, I must wait until I can see how he actually expressed it, but I am somewhat annoyed all the same. It doesn't matter to me in the slightest, but were I a younger man without tenure at Yale or anywhere, this would have been of

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN

16 January 1955

Dearest Bryher:

This has been the ghastliest week, in terms of interruptions. Almost as bad as the previous one, with all its running to New York. I can hardly remember when I wrote you last, save that it was hurried and cut short. But at least I have been with you this morning at the office, even though not in writing to you. I decided that I simply must put away the huge batch of correspondence you sent out from Kenwin, before our trip. I have been reading through them, to know roughly what there is. This seemed to be the time, and I seized it. Now everything is nicely in your local steel muniment cases, my office looks as clean as a whistle, and I cluck with satisfaction.

Yesterday (a Saturday, forsooth) was typical. A woman, coming from the University of Vermont, for a meeting which began at 10 in the morning at Yale, wanted to see me beforehand to get advice on a College English meeting to be held in Vermont next fall. She arrived on the train at 6:25. We fed her breakfast on arrival, and later went to the office where she stayed until 10. She left, meeting a professor from Kiel, who was here for two days to see what we were doing in American Studies at Yale. He stayed until 12:30, but talked mostly about the injustice of the War Crimes Trials at Nuremburg, and had hardly got to his business when the time was up. He wanted me to come to the office this morning to go on talking, but I really had to beg off. I wanted to do my own work, alas for him. He was nice but time-consuming. In the afternoon, after I had made out the course schedules for next year's catalogues, and checked the copy, we had to go to a wedding of a sort of cousin of Susan's. By last night I was too sleepy to do much work at night.

There is no point in trying to detail the rest of the week. It was much the same. And tomorrow morning it will start off in the same way. I have office hours and my afternoon graduate seminar, but still I will have to see a Carlos Virgilio Frias, from Buenos Aires, who is the editor of some magazine there, and wants to know what is being done in American literature. It seems to me that I am the one who is being done, or undone. But still I sympathize with these people; they do want to know, and they ought to be helped.

I enclose a review of Edith's new collection, from this week's *Time*. This, of course, is the sort of thing Max Gissen wanted to do for your book. Or rather for *Time Magazine*; it is interesting, but simply journalism, and the pity is that so little is said about Edith's fine poems themselves. I am still rather glad we wouldn't play ball; though, of course, if you ever change your mind, I shall be an

obedient spaniel, and wag in whatever direction you want my tale
to turn. Fortunately Edith really likes this sort of attention
herself, so one can't blame Gissen, and one is glad that she can
have it. I was a little embarrassed, however, the other day by her
little weakness, which is not always understood. I had suggested
her name to the present lecture committee chairman (I am only on the
committee now) for a reading of her poems. This always goes better
than such lectures, as she gave the last time. He wrote her; she
was pleased, but wanted to know the price (naturally; he ought to
have told her), and wrote him back at once. But on the back of the
St. Regis stationery, in broad bold script she had endorsed her
name and return address, thusly:

DAME EDITH SITWELL, D. B. E.
D. Litt. Litt D. D. Litt

I may be wrong about the middle Litt D., but know she usually gives
them both ways. But, Fido, how can she! Doesn't she know it only
causes people to rush up showing the envelope, as it was shown to me?
And the added comment, perhaps correct, I don't know, was that one
doesn't use "Dame" and then the "D" with the B.E., since they repeat
each other. It really doesn't matter, naturally, for she lives in
her own world, and will never know what professors do; I am only
sorry for what seems to be as much a gesture of insecurity as of
triumph. No comment needed: we both know the reasons why she does
it.

I think I told you that I sent _Roman Wall_ to Lewis
Milestone, the movie director. I at least have heard that it reached
him safely. Also sent a copy to Brendan Gill, the senior editor of
the _New Yorker_, feeling I could do so since his magazine had already
reviewed the book favorably, and so I was not fishing. (Actually I
was thinking of _Ruan_.) He writes: "I much admire Bryher." I might
have answered: "So do I!"

I hear that Prouty and Kokeritz were both good in the
scene from _Twelfth Night_ they did for 12th night ball for the benefit
of Stratford. Especially Kokeritz, whom Leslie described as being
almost professional. Prouty he said would have been funnier if he
had talked naturally: a double-edged remark which I did not probe
into. But alas, they only made 200 dollars for the benefit, which
was a lot of work for very very little. But perhaps the publicity
will help in the long run.

The insurance people have now finished with re-checking
all titles and valuations of the books, now that the ones I brought
back with me have been added. Barry, of Stonehill's, called to know
if you had said anything about the list I sent you. I said no, but
since he was going off to the mid-west on a tour, I said to save the
Bush, which was below the 500 dollar mark you mentioned; and a fine
addition when displaying the collection according to your idea, both
because of the flying illustration, and also because of its extreme
rarity. The one other book perhaps useful for the rounded picture
would be the _Eastward Ho!_ because of the American angle in terms of
the Lizzitethans. 750, I believe. Let me know; and if you OK the
Bush shall I pay from dollars here (which I can) or do you prefer to
pay in pounds, as billed from England? Easily done.

19 January 1955

Dearest Bryher:

I do hope that the absence of letters from you
means only that you have been hard at work on RUAN, and not that
you have frozen to death in your attic chamber. However, much as
I miss the letters, I do not worry; Hilda would write if anything
were wrong.

There seems to have been another little spell of
office chores: letters of recommendation to write, courses to be
changed for students for next term, and chiefly shedding sweat while
I wonder what I will do for the over 390 students who have registered
for my lecture course next term. It will be a madhouse. I've sent
a wire to California to see if I can persuade my last year's reader
of exams to come back east and do it for me as of February. Otherwise
I shall have to train a troup.

Monday and yesterday there was a nice little publisher
from South America (Buenos Aires) in, on a State Department grant of
some sort, looking for new American books to publish in translation
there. I rather foxed him, by giving him a long sales talk on ROMAN
WALL, and sent him off with a copy of that and of your other two books.
It would be fun to think of your book coming out there. He seemed to
be quite interested. My second suggestion was that he introduce science
fiction to the Argentine; apparently it has not yet struck south of the
equator. Are there any good authors amongst those I have sent you, or
you have read? There is a tendency to stereotype amongst them, but I
agree with you that they have a kind of vitality not found elsewhere.
Some one will come along and write the epic of our time on the basis of
the genre. It could be a true epic, don't you think.

I would really prefer to read them that the sort of thing
I hurried through yesterday in order to talk to the former graduate student
of mine who had published it. His second novel, BUCKSKIN CAVALIER. All
about Kentucky, and a cavalier from Williamsburg who went out into the
Daniel Boone country to look for Dawn, a real lady seized by the Indians,
and who spent a long caesura, having been seized by them himself eventually,
in the tepee of a tree that seemed to be a dark-skinned beauty until one day
when he and his friends came upon a forest pool "and on the wet golden
bodies of a group of young girls enjoying a noisy bath. Some of them had
fine figures, and Lyon was deeply moved by their beauty. "By George,"
exclaimed Lyon. "See the one just coming from the water! Isn't that
White Deer? ... Look, Jeff, look at her skin!" From waist to knee the
girl's body was milk-white." Later, Lyon discusses this with White
Deer. "I know," she said calmly. "My skin away from the sun is white.
The other girls are polite, they don't remind me of it."

Written

2

I found this rather moving. The author explained to me that he had first called her White-Tail Deer, but the publishers changed it. The picture is one I shall not soon forget.

Had a fine long letter from Islay yesterday, with full details of what he is doing with the photographs. I shall have parts copied, so that Wolff and Ingholt can each have one. Such a nice letter it was!

Last night we had supper with the Hotsons. "We had planned it for last Wednesday, and I hurried back from New York for it, but Mary had a cold and so it was called off. They were both in fine fettle. They have an immense capacity for enjoying life, which is most contagious. Mary's Christmas decorations were still up so that we could enjoy them. You know she won a 25 govt bond for her front door decor, in a contest sponsored by the Northford Democratic Party. "I voted for Eisenhower!" she told them. "We don't care; we liked the doorway!" Inside she had arranged a lovely woodland scene, with little animals and Christmas figures she has picked up here and there through Europe: all done with moss and wild things she had gathered from their land. It was truly charming. There are a few new things in the living room, and they have made themselves a real home. I asked about the aunt whom they had taken cared of. She still lives, but in a nursing home. When Mary left, it took two trained nurses to manage her, and her money soon became inadequate. And the niece who chivvied her away from Mary, with the will in her favor, has died before she could receive it! But the old lady is too no compos to change her will now, so no doubt it will go the niece's children. One shudders to think of what it would have been like had Leslie had to stay there. Leslie is in a tizzy: someone has written and wants to make a play out of his Twelfth Night book. He wants Gielgud in it, but I think he mistakes what it would be like, for he quite rightly has been told that one of the appeals of the book is the detective story of his finding the material, and he thinks that can be worked in. What I think will happen, if it does, is a script in which Duke Orsino, handsome young Italian, goes to the court of Elizabeth, falls in love with her, then chews his nails, while Elizabeth chews hers, as to whether he will exile himself to an English canopied bed, and she will relinquish her full duties to the kingdom; and, in the end, she will walk, lonely, from the stage, and he will go back to Italy for his penance. But you know, what with all that could be thrown in, and the Russian as a comic? something rather pretty could be made of it. It would delightful if a work of scholarship became a play or a film.

Mary was a little worried lest your check for this year should come after they leave for Holland. They were to have gone tomorrow week; a telegram while we were there last night put the sailing of the boat off until the following Saturday. Usually, it seems, your check comes promptly on the first of the new year, and last year had to be forwarded from one place to another before it caught up with them. I suggested that you could send the check(made out to them) to me, and I could deposit it for them to their account in the bank. We use the same one, and for a deposit of this kind no signature by them is necessary. But what I think was truly at the bottom of her question was a little worry as to whether or not they would get the annual grant, since their plans had been made on the strength of it; and she suddenly was afraid that the car was in place of the sum for this year.

3

I said it was not, and that the Tel and Tel stock was for their old
age, and not now. I hope I was right. Just let me know, since they
don't want you to know that she was scared; and I said I'd check the
matter. If easier for you, I can simply transfer to their account out
of the savings books (the last check for five thousand has been deposited,
and there is plenty). Just to complicate the matter a little further,
she did say that you had mentioned something about an arrangement after
they got to Cambridge, so perhaps you meant to do some of it in pounds.
However I shouldn't think all of it could be done that way. They are
all right for the moment, having eight hundred in their checking account
here, from which they will take five hundred for the three weeks in
Holland; and of course there is fellowship money at Coutts. As you know,
they can take all of the fellowship pounds out of England, but nothing
more. However, the Brit govt might object if they never seemed to spend
any of it whilst in the U.K., and yet lived, but from unknown sources.

Perhaps we ought to go over the long-range plans in the spring
when you come over. I could always give anything just under three
thousand from the savings account to them, without having to declare
it; and it might be simpler if I did this annually as I do the Hodgson.

I broke off before the last para, and went downstairs for the
afternoon mail, hoping for a letter from you. There was one from Hilda,
saying you had gone to Lugano, but no address there. So I shall perhaps
hold this for a day or so before mailing, while I pray for a note saying
you are well and happy.

Edith has written Yale saying she would love to come up on
March 2nd to read. Susan had an invitation from the Hights, last
night, to have dinner with her after the lecture. He is chairman of the
lecture committee, and I did not feel I could jump in ahead of him, as
her host.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

20 January 1955

Dearest Fido:

This is my second letter today; the third in two days, as the enclosed letter which I wrote yesterday will certify. I finished it without posting it, as I said; and when I went out of the building, there was a letter from you after all. Someone must have put it in the wrong box at 4 o'clock. Only Hilda's letter was there when I made my routine trip. But at any rate I am glad I did not mail it until after I had known your Bristol address. How it comforts me to think of you there, with your ten occasional companions. I only wish I could trot down for tea with you, and make it an even dozen and a cozy pair.

But the reason for the second letter today is that I never got beyond the first two paragraphs of what I began, first of all, this morning to you. I had a phone call asking for a booklist for a seminar I promised to conduct next month on British and European literature in the 1920's. It had never occurred to me that they would want it so soon. And the day followed in that pattern. Even tonight, and it is 9 o'clock when I have come back to the office; because I do want to write to you. Just as I was about to leave, two men came to the Goodrich Street door and introduced themselves as ministers. Before they got out the door they had said a prayer and given me a thought for today, as they put it. The thought was on Joseph Smith and the advantages of Mormonism. I should have shooed them out, but I discovered that the younger of the two, a boy of little more than 20, was on his first week of missionary work, just on from Salt Lake City; and I could not bear to disappoint him in his chance to say his bit. He used what he called visual aids, but since I did not put on my glasses, it did not help much to convince me. A nice lad, tho, and I said I would phone them if I needed further convincing. I did not say convincing as to what!

As for your letter, and René: I should neither cut him off from your occasional ten-minute-visit schedule on your trips to New York, nor from polite replies to your notes. It would only add to his satisfied sense of martyrdom were you to do so. Insofar as I am concerned the situation is rather comic than otherwise. René has been his own worst enemy as far as the public and the New York bar is concerned. If you wanted to be just a teeny weeny bit mean, you could thank him for sending the report to him; say that you would read it if you had time, but that you were busy with the new novel, and say that you were sending it on to Norman, because you knew he was interested in things like that. I do not think for a moment that Philip consulted him about the will. After all it was Philip who made a special trip to Branford one summer to ask my opinion as to whether he should not persuade you to drop René, when he discovered what preposterous fees René was charging. Granted that it took the tax official to shake up the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 January 1955

Dear Bryher:

I am disconsolate to think that five letters from me waited to come together like a flock of birds. You must have thought I had taken a vow of silence, become a Trappist. At any rate, however, they finally arrived. Only now do be sure at once to let me know whether you return to the Bristol, after your visit to Pully on the 4th. If you do, perhaps better, except for one letter, to continue to Bristol. Coigny seems to be indirect.

Am excited to know that Mackenzie will do a portrait of you. I trust his good taste in the matter. Do you think one could reprint it on this side also? If you did not tell Helen Wolff in your letter to her, where to send the copies of the other two new books, better let me know at once so that I can send. I dare not use Who's Who for an address of this kind, and you must know precisely where he is. All marches, however. One must satisfy a little curiosity on the part of the public, or someone will rush in with an unauthorized one. By the way, I saw Gissen at the Book Award shindig on Tuesday. I made a reference to the story about Edith, and he burbled all over about not having done you. I was magnanimous. I think RUAN, with a little luck, may get a review from them, without frills, simply as a peace offering. I had spoken to Marianne (did I tell you that she had invited me into the company of first-namers officially?) about the brief sketch I did of you, and she has asked for a copy, so I send.

As for the radio program which Helen Wolff speaks of, do of course by all means. I met the two young men who do it, at the Book Award (and we spoke of the matter, which Helen who was with me, brought up). They seemed nice, and I told Helen I thought you would. Am no Marquis de S., but would be tempted to snap a little whip at Fido's rump to encourage her. Seriously, all this is good protection against a true violation of privacy. One could talk about the new book. I am sure we could make the date work out to be just before or after the Virginia trip, when you come over for the last lick and spittle on RUAN.

I had lunch yesterday with Leslie, a kind of farewell. They embark Saturday night from Hoboken, and thanks to the new car are going to drive down with friends on Saturday morning, see a performance in the afternoon of Twelfth Night, then dine, and be taken to Hoboken, from where the friends will drive the new car back to Northford and storage. Hoboken being a bore to reach, this will be a godsent convenience. Your letter about the funds had come yesterday morning (the check itself arrived today) so that I could assure him all would be well. Thank you for being so prompt about the assurance; that was all that mattered. I will deposit to their account the first thing next week.

This pretty well disposes of all business at hand, except for the

2

matter of the books from Stonehill. The questions being: do you OK the purchase of the Elizabethan "flying saucer" book which was under the 500 dollars you spoke of; do you want to purchase the Eastward Ho! The latter we do not have in the collection; you must have given the other to Robert if you bought it. We have three, written by Chapman, but not this one with its American interest. I suspect one should, since it makes a good exhibition piece. If you say yes, I suggest that we have both billed to you as in pounds; all it requires is an English cheque from you, and the whole thing is handled within England in reference to their British branch. All quite legal and above-board.

Oh yes, one thing more. If you do go to Pully, could you or Elsie get hold of the Freud photographs for me. I have Hilda's Freud letters nearly typed out, and want the photographs before I take the manuscript again to the publishers.

This is all very sad news from Doris, and her letters to you of course amplify what you say. What a constant pull it is to run the farm. I am sad to think of her giving it up, and only wish she could find some small place where she could deal only in absolutely prime show specimens. But she has not the strength to cope with the big farm, especially with John unable to be of help to her. As for New York, certainly one can find a reasonable place for her to stay while she finishes the cure. There are many of them, either hotels like the St. George, where Mrs Fletcher found it reasonable to stay, or single rooms. Between Pup and myself there would be no difficulty. The Beekman is particularly convenient and pleasant for visits like yours, because Pup is so near at hand; but not sensible for a prolonged visit from Doris. Do not worry about this. We arrange if and as she comes.

Quite distressing to think that Osbert would take David back after this episode. But between us, I see a tremendous similarity to Eugene O'Neill's situation after the same disease. One does not lose reasoning power but only will power. The sense of helplessness is overwhelming, and he fears the future. O'Neill felt himself in a truly fiendish situation with his wife, and tried to break away. But he could not live without someone, and an overdeveloped reason said that it was better to go back to her, psychopathic as she was, than to shift from unfamiliarsto unfamiliarsto what was left. He does not wish to impose on Edith and her expanding life, and their relationship would be spoiled if he became too dependent on her. For him it is a question of enduring.

Have just been having a little drama in the office. One of the two charwomens, who come early each morning to empty my waste-baskets is colored: a woman of evident character, who dresses and speaks with refinement, and is obviously used to much better circumstances than she is now in. Her companion char is a slovenly, though nice enough, Italian woman. I am always nice to them, exchange brief comments on the weather, and the like. At Christmas when I asked the Negro woman if all was prepared for the holiday, she told me it would be a hard one for her, since her husband of 27 years had died that spring. She has a married son who lives on the floor below, and a daughter whom she had sent to college and is now in Alaska as a government biologist. At any rate, when I came in Wednesday morning, and was at my typewriter, she entered for a second time, having emptied the wastebaskets before, and asked if she could speak to me. She and the other char had decided that she should.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 January 1955 (afternoon)

Dear Bryher:

Your letter of the 25th came in the late morning mail. Just a note therefore in relation to the matter of the books, since I spoke of them in this morning's longer communication. If you think best not to get the Chapman, that is perfectly all right with me. I think however, if it is agreeable, that I will take the Elizabethan version of flying saucers, chiefly because when you said take anything up to 500 I told him that I thought this was the one. Very rare, as you know; only one copy known, and that in the British Museum.

I look forward to The Plain. Susan is already in it. The archaeologists name at Robert College was Robert Van Nice; but I suspect the name you wanted was that of our host for luncheon. He was David Garland. He sent me the card with a picture of the Karhia Djami on it, as I gather he did to you.

Now, my dear Fido, write all the introductions you want to to anything, but write your book first; and remember that even if it is a sea book and floats, as you say; nevertheless, pilots steer boats which float, and so should you do with your book. Remember that Martita, who is no fool, liked the structuring of FABULA; and you can shape this one as a new adventure, recalling Henty. What prompts me to cavil at the introduction is that it is being written before the book is composed, rather than afterwards when you know what you are introducing. I know that it is not true in your case as in some, but often I have found that writing introductions becomes an unwiiting putting off of writing the book itself; just as Thomas Wolfe used to spend hours writing out title pages for a book (showing me reams of them when I went to see him at the end of afternoons), and these were little more than an evasion of getting the book itself on paper. This I know is not true of you, for one of the jobs we did on the terrace of the Park Hotel, looking at the sea of Marmora, was to plan the outline of the book so that we got the hero on the islands. It will flow on from there, once you get the feel of your characters. Don't fiddle. If necessary, grab a plane and take a room in New Haven and write. You don't need any more time in the Scillies. Let your imagination use what you have. You're being very naughty to kill time with the introduction. The whole Scilly theme may be a little too close, too detailed. Metamorphose yourself backwards into an earlier carnation, and use your memories for the nice details of myth. You see, from the point of the novel, it doesn't really matter whether Arthur gets traced back to Scotland, as Loomis does, or not. In your novel he is Cornwall and off the coast of Cornwall and he lives for you and for RUAN there. That is your central point, your compass which gives directions for the characters who respond to it. And like the myth it gives all of the facets of birth and death, the rise and fall of the year and the sea, loyalties and fears. Goretainly there must be 60,000

2

words at least; 100,000 would be better. But smell the coastline again,
and see and hear the waves on the rocks. Tell Elsie and the boy to go
home, because taking care of them might come to have the same evasive
effect that writing introductions does for the ones I spoke of, and it
would become easier to worry about them than to lose one's self in the
past you are re-creating. And you must lose yourself, as though in a
trance; and you must not resist the transmigration any more than gnu
analysand should resist the couch.

Haven't read the Allen Glasgow autobiography, though I meant
to order it. I do sometimes teach her. I shall get it from the library
next summer and read it.

Don't worry about the dictaphone. The Dept has put in a
requisition for it, and included money in its budget. I should pay for it
myself, but it is both a matter of principle and principal with me; and I
have for so long been urging a practicality upon the officials, that I
want it carried through officially. I have the machine in my office now
and am using it for all routine matters and business letters. It will stay
until the budget is approved, and if it is approved then there is a fund so
that it can be purchased now rather than after July 1st. So you can see
your influence, for it is your goading which has kept me going in my campaign.

Love

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 H G S
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN

2 February 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Am working hard in the few days before the beginning of the new term, to get things tidy on my desk. It matches, but there is still much to do. On Monday I have to start lecturing again. You knew, that I did not give my lecture course during the fall term. As a consequence somewhat over 390 are taking it for the second term. Fortunately I have persuaded my last year's assistant, who has no job now, to come back from California and assist me again. Or I should have no chance to breathe, what with having to train new ones. He will work only for me. And of course I have my little dictaphone, which is proving to be a jewel. I hope it will go through with the budget, so that they can actually buy it. Now it is only borrowed.

Hilda wrote a most enthusiastic and excited letter about the recordings. I had spoken to Haydt about it when I was there. It seems to have given her new life. They will ship over the tapes, when finished, and I can have records made here. I asked the Yale people how to have the originals made, and they said: tape, by all means; and gave specifications. Much better for multiple reproduction.

I have written her that I have written to the Arche Verlag myself. Better, I thought, to do it as an agent; and if they wish to read her books themselves, as they no doubt will, I can have Haydt take them some from Hilda's shelf to lend them. I also had a most enthusiastic letter from some one in England who had listened in on the "Ion." Was it published, they wanted to know. The B.B.C. had given the man and his wife my name. I told them of the Chatto publication, and suggested that perhaps Bumpus could find them a copy. Then I sat down and wrote Chatto and suggested a new edition of the "ION." Spoke of the interest in translation today, and of the fine publicity the B.B.C. had given this one. We shall see. There will be no trouble when Hilda finishes more translations to have this included. I suggested to her that she keep on Euripides, so that the volume could concentrate on him.

Very troubling letters from Doris to you. She is distraught, and with reason. Pity that John cannot take some of the burden from her shoulders. I fought against the idea of giving up Trenoweth. I begin now to think differently. As for Rita, you are quite right in thinking that it will be a slow process. She has been driving herself overspeed for a long time, and the collapse was a symptom rather than an isolated incident. I think she will recover in time however. George worries me

N O R M A N
H O L M E S
P E A R S O N

2 3 3 H G S
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN

2 February 1955

Dearest Bryher:

I realized this morning, after I had posted my
letter to you, that I had forgotten to include the Stevens'
talk. So here it is.

But I can add one thing which I could not have
written to you this morning: that I have bought the car. It
was a wrench of the heart to give up my old faithful steed.
Perhaps people will feel that way in the future when they turn
in their old flying saucers. But mindful of your behest that
I must get one before March, and because this is already Feb-
ruary and my busy time about to come, I began to look around,
and dealers began to look at me.

So next Wednesday I will pick up a lovely super
88 Oldsmobile, a hardtop, black with red leather upholstery, and
a seat which wiggles up or down, backwards or forwards, as you
press a button; and best of all it has a little plunger marked
"Courtesy" which intrigues me, and which I daresay will intro-
duce good manners on my part whenever I feel irritated at my
passengers. There should have been a plunger marked "Gratitude."
But it would have worn out the batteries, for I should have kept
it always on in your name; whereas the gratitude I feel within
myself needs no batteries at all to keep it constantly fresh.
It was a demonstrator's car, in a this year's model, and had been
driven only 3000 miles. They give it to me with a new car guaran-
tee, and all sorts of little extras on it, for exactly $3000 plus
my old car. So your check was precisely used up.

If I am not elaborately rhetorical in my thanks,
it is because I am a Puritan. But I think you know without my
saying, how very grateful I am.

With all love,

2

I am most anxious to have a copy of Hilda's reminiscences of
Amy Lowell. Don't take time now; it can wait. Or send to me with
your other material from her, and I can have copied here, so that it
can be doubly filed.

I do wish Aldington would not sacrifice decorum for the sake of
the book sales. After all, in this case, unlike that of my char, both
parents knew what they were doing, and there have been many who did it
as they did. Ultimately it would come out, of course, but while the
mother is alive, I find it unfortunate. People become more conventional
as they age. Once in a while there are exceptions to this. A minor
American poet, but with a large reputation -- Charles Erskine Scott
Wood -- lived with a poetess named Sarah Bard Field openly and unmarried.
This was a matter of principle, mild socialism and free love of the sort
one practised at the end of the last century. He is dead, she still
living. But there is a secret. Actually they were married, but have
never wanted any but their close friends to know it!

In cleaning my office, I found some notes I made last summer in
my Hawthorne researches, which I had intended to pass on for your and
Hilda's bulldog edification. Selections from Ann and Jane Taylor's
HYMNS FOR INFANT MINDS. I saw the 36th edition, London 1846. I give
one or two verses:

from "Lands without a Bible"

And are there countries far away,
Where Bibles never go?
Fruitful, and beautiful, and gay,
But lost in sin and woe!

from "God Everywhere"

God made the world --in every land
His love and power abound:
All are protected by his hand,
As well as British ground.

I like particularly the climax of the last line of the second.

My love to Hilda and yourself, and general greetings to Heydt and
the others. And all power to Ruan.

Norman

2

Dec 12.

The first page was my limit yesterday, what with the usual interrupt-
ions. But now to your letters, and a kind of on-two-three in a nswering
and commenting. I am on the whole glad that you have done Pully first before
going to Kusnacht. Hilda's last few letters have had a real gaity to them,
such as I have not seen for a long time. My desire for the recordings was
sincere and long-standing, as you know, but I hardly thought of it except on
my own terms. But it has given her a particular pleasure, obviously. I am
most grateful to Heydt for arranging things. He makes good use of his almost
feminine sensibility in responding to Hilda's vibrations. I suspect it is
his forte with her, as with people like Mme Herf and her clothes. Probably
it is his particular psyche with his boy friends, too, and he is wise not to
thwart it. You will probably hear the recordings when you see Hilda. The
main thing in your delaying visiting her is that she has been able to enjoy
the experience without diversion from it.

I really don't know what to suggest about Ninon. In a way almost too
bad that you can't go with her. You do feel all this landscape of the mid-east,
and you might use it some day. But to find a person to accompany her, and yet
leave her alone, and be willing to pay one's own expenses, would be chiefly a
matter of luck. Of course if she is actually going to go to Istanbul, it would
be a simple matter to arrange for her to get into the Kahrie Djami; as to
permits, however, it would be difficult for an American to help a Swiss national
in such matters; though qua novelist, perhaps Van Nice could introduce her to
the proper Turkish officials, if their OK is needed. If the companion's
expenses were to be paid for the trip, then I could write Garwood and see if
anyone was available. Rather a chancy thing, though, in terms of whether she
would or would not like the companion. I write you these things for your
opinion, before writing to Ninon myself.

Hope you took notes (alas I never do) on Hesse's tale to you of his
youthful trip to Ceylon. I look to you one day for a three-quarter length
portrait of him at Montagnola.

I hadn't heard John's idea about the Atlantic Monthly (Press or maga-
zine?), but he spoke to me once about his regret that Pantheon didn't advertise
more, and suggested some, to my mind, second-class press which does. But then
you and I agree on all this, quite apart from the sentimental fact of the
Wolves personal enthusiasm in pushing the books and seeing that they are
dressed properly. I don't actually any longer think that full page ads would
sell enough more copies of the books to warrant it. As it is they strike at
strategic moments. If however you had a publisher who did advertise extensively,
one would soon find the moment when they would begin to pressure for their
kind of books (what they would think would go) and one would be tempted to
pacify them because of their investment. But it's quite natural that John, as
a literary agent, thinks in terms of advertising his clients. Nor is it
vulgar on his part to think so. But I doubt if he knows all the nuances in
this particular case, and his experience is more with the money side of
writing than with so-called "fine" writers. But tell me this particular suggest-
ion of his, so that I won't be caught off base when I see him.

To jump to your 16th century French ms, I shall have to make inquiries
about Saulnier. But if it is true as he says, that the ms must be printed,
then I suspect that he is right in feeling that it should be done in France,
and actually I imagine that it would be cheaper to publish there than else-
where. Also a better audience for it, since I imagine the audience is chiefly

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 February 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Not snow bei uns, but a beastly foggy and rainy
day. Not much helped either by the fact that we had to go to a
Sunday morning cocktail party at 12:30, and although I drank
very lightly indeed, cocktails before lunch are like a sedative
to me. A beastly idea, this: cocktails to replace communion.

Yesterday I slaved away at my typewriter in a
last spurt of cleaning my desk before I settle down to prepare
my lecture at Brown University, in Providence, a week from
Tuesday. The topic (assigned) is The Cultural Situation in
America, and the Development of the Arts. Why do Americans
want to talk about it all the time. Sometimes I think they
must feel that if the situation can be said to be "bad" that
will excuse them from not having created awe-inspiring things.
Just as juvenile delinquents are said to be such because there
are no proper playgrounds. Yet on the other hand, who has
produced much more of interest than Americans have in the past
half-century, in fresh directions, that is, and with vitality.
I wish they could get out of the idea that crops are bad when
there isn't a Nobel Prize harvested. Oh well, I think I shall
prove to be optimistic!

I managed to read through the typescript of a
third novel by the young man who wrote the frontier novel on
the Indian girl, White-Tail; or rather, if you remember, not
Indian really, but white at bottom. He seems to have a fascina-
tion for white, like an adolescent Ahab. The hero of this new
novel, a sea-faring one, is Captain White-Top (because of his
head of hair). One wonders what part of the anatomy will turn
out white in his next novel. Actually the young man writes his
sea fights with much verve, but gets terribly confused when he
tries much else. But I really shouldn't say this, because, in
paper-backs, his first novel has so far sold over 300,000 copies.
I daresay this is a condition of American culture!

All of Gladys's manuscript is at last here, and
I have begun reading that, having delayed until I could read
consecutively. She has brought together an immense amount of
information, but I fear it is a little pedestrian and in the end
does not amount to much more than a compendium of precies of
contributions to the magazines, without analysis or synthesis.
I have an able person at work checking on her dates etc, but
have not yet had a report beyond the surprise that she has followed
her secondary sources so closely. Not plagiarism, of course; but
not much more than a faithful rendering. As you once remarked, this

2

is a reflexion of her years as a government reports writer. I've
only read about six chapters, however, and I'll reserve any opinion
until it's finished.

A map might be a good thing for the jacket of RUAN, with a
puffin or a ship on the cover itself. I'll be in touch with the
Wolves. I blush to say so, but I forget precisely what century
RUAN is set in. Could you write me this, so that I could make an
effort to get things as straight as possible in the way of type of
ship or map.

I understand from the papers that Aldington's biography is
coming out after all on this side. I suppose it was inevitable
after all the British publicity. I read too that it had sold more
copies than any of Lawrence's own books. Am rather interested to
read Lawrence's THE MINT, perhaps just to boost the sales; but I
daresay it will indeed sell more because of the biography. It
hasn't been scheduled for publication on this side yet, but I
suppose it will be brought out in the fall. Will you have them
order me a copy when you write Bumpus?

I have kept forgetting to inquire whether Philip actually
did do anything with Hilda about her will. You remember he thought
of stopping off to see her on his way back from Christmas in New
York. You did not mention his being there then, but I thought he
might have done so on this last visit with you.

The reports are in for the sale of your books from May 1 to
October 31, 1954. Of OCTOBER: 315; of SANDS: 361; of ROMAN WALL:
4164. Of course the latter is really pretty much the total sales
for that period. Wolf wrote that it sold 300 last month. They
sent check for 239.65, which I will deposit. The 5,000 I will put
in the secondary savings account, and call the 10000 total an
account for the Sandhara volume.

A letter from John S about a young writer I had sent to him,
tells me that Pup has continued unwell. "I think this winter she
must be a bit run-down, since she has had too many of these bouts
with nameless fevers. This time she has had a fever for three days and
still has a bad throat. We are taying vaguely with the idea of flying
off for a few days to sit in the sun somewhere, but I don't know whether
we shall attempt to go through with it or not. The complications of the
arrangements are pretty exhausting in themselves." I hope they will
try to get to Bermuda or Florida or some such spot. A little expensive
perhaps, but one can do this quite reasonably on the whole these days;
and she does need to be away from the children and in the sun. Her fall
trip with John, you remember, was mostly spent in the rain. Would you
like me to send them a little check for, say, five hundred, for ten
days off together? There is plenty in bank for me to do it with.

All love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

12 March 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Sorry to have had so long an intermission between letters. But the talk for Pembroke College, at Brown University, seemed so dragged out in preparing, that everything was at sixes and sevens in the office, and I have hardly recovered. But I did go up to Providence on Tuesday morning, by an early train, and came back Wednesday morning in time for a full afternoon of appointments, followed by a lecture that night at 7:30 for some ninety-odd majors in American Studies who had to be told about their final examinations and how to prepare for them. Susan had made an error, and accepted a dinner engagement for Wednesday night, as I discovered at 6 o'clock, so I had to go for cocktails though there was no time to eat, and my first hot dog was at ten that night.

The lecture seemed to go all right, thank God, despite its crawling preparation; and on the way back by train I read the first chapter of RUAN which had come on Monday. Susan read it at once, and when she came to the kitchen where I was working on the last of my speech, she could only exclaim, "Byher's done it again!" And so I think you have, for the revised chapter clears away all the slight doubts I had as to pace and clarity, and it moves now with all the color and warmth that one could ask for. If the rest proves to be even a part so good, we will all be happy. It is much better, I think, to get him to the fair right away, and give the reader the full impact of the scene with its cross-section of the people and the landscape. The conversation with the priest afterwards gives all that one needs to know of the background to satisfy the initial curiosity. Susan thought that fourteen was a little young for him and his ways, but this did not strike me so, knowing how these things went then. She of course thought of it in terms of the reader's response to the age of fourteen in one's own experience. And if he is to have any stirring of the loins, this might prove to be a little awkward for you to carry off. I don't know; I suppose one could make him a little more indefinite as to age without spoiling the verisimilitude or seeming to suggest to Collins that he put another child's picture on the jacket. But the whole sweep of the beginning is splendid. I couldn't be happier than with this first taste. Somehow it seemed appropriate to read the chapter in the train, as we went along the seacoast which the tracks hug, since I had read the earlier version in the plane when the two of us were flying over the Agusan. Appropriate, I mean, for a book about the sea.

Perdita and John are all set for their ten-day holiday, as they may have written you. I have talked to John twice on the phone, and will send them the check when they tell me just how much they need: about 650 I gather, to cover the expenses. They plan to fly to the Virgin Islands, where they will take a small cottage connected with a hotel where they can eat, and lie in the sun. Plus an overnight in St. Croix, and then one in Miami, which John tells me that Pup lusts to experience. I am so glad that you agreed. It will

2

do Pup a world of good. As to the summer place, my feeling at the moment is, judging from one's experience, that it would be better for a few years to let them experiment with one locale or another until they find a spot and a group which they enjoy being with. At the moment the children are so young that it doesn't much matter where they are, but eventually it will, for they will need their summer playmates of the sort that have parents whom their own parents also like. If they have to choose now, they may choose wrong, and this is always an embarrassment. But I'll see if I can't set their minds working in the direction of an eventual permanence. Meanwhile I suspect it is rather fun for Pup to experience different locales.

I always like to think of you as having been in my attic, *our* attic, rather, as it has turned out to be. It is rather an island to which one can withdraw, and pound away to one's heart's content. Hilda is certainly most absorbed just now in what she is doing; it may be bad for her, but is certainly characteristic, and so long as she surrounded by Father B, and has her meals to go to, and her teas, I do not worry too much. And Heydt of course would be wrong in wanting to make her into such another-directed person (rather than in inner-directed person) as would not conform to her nature. In other words, I hope he will not become so enthusiastic as to "take over" her personality.

Never having read Urzidel's translation of Hilda's poem, I cannot really say how good it is or may not be. At any rate one cannot change the translation itself, nor even suggest it; since Suhrkamp accepted it, has set it up, and is publishing it without any subsidy. However I wrote him suggesting that he might like to use the English text as well, to which he replied in a letter which came yesterday, that he would indeed like to. He asked me to get him permission from Macmillan and cable him. When Macmillan remaindered the book, the rights reverted to Hilda; but I did check by phone with them to make sure, and sent Suhrkamp a cable of approval. Have suggested that he might like to send the galleys for the English poem to Hilda at Kusnacht. The prose text of the book is to be only in German, with bi-linguals for the quotations. I think that takes care of that matter, and hope Heydt will be pleased.

The Etruscan exhibition sounded superb. How I envy you for having been able to see it. I have always found something most appealing in their art, especially the little figures. The Etruscan, early Greek archaics, and the Middle-American figurines are most wonderful. We were with the Dillon Ripleys last night, after having been with them to Hartford to see the Flower Show, where Susan had a lovely arrangement in the French manner. They are now receiving the trophies from their bird-expedition to the East, and have a superb large bronze head of a Buddha. But I prefer mine in terra cotta. It sings to me. I have just given the ikon to the restorer at the university to clean up a little. He is quite excited about it, and thinks I got a very good thing.

Glad the science fiction still appeals. I brought a section on it as a genre into my talk on the development of the arts, at embroke, as an example of a form of vitality going on in an age, which the formal critics in the period do not speak of, but which a later period might come to think was the one new and interesting development of our time. The students were fascinated, and spent most of the informal coffee period afterwards, asking me questions about it. I will send on another, CHILDHOOD'S END, by the head of the interplanetary, which Susan and other friends think is quite good.

Packages of letters in for which thanks. Also Mrs Gough's article in

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 March 1955

Dearest Bryher:

There is really nothing to write about, since I wrote you at length last Saturday and posted the letter to Pully. But I am so happy to think of you in the garden at Anticoli, with the Pakistani boys, that I cannot resist a salaam aleikum to you all. Perdita and John will leave for the Virgin Islands on Thursday by plane. John called me Sunday night to say how the bill had toted up, and I sent him the check yesterday, special delivery. He should have it this morning, and with it the tickets will soon be in their hands. They seemed to find no difficulty in getting Mrs Wolf to stay with the boys, and John's sister is to come for a few days to make it easier for the Nanny. The final figure was $750, a little more than I had suggested at first. They offered to pay the difference, but I felt that this would not have pleased you, and so sent the larger sum.

On my way back from Providence, when I had finished the first section of RUAN, I read the *Times* more carefully than usual, and thought you and Kenneth might be amused by the review of Marc Allegret's newest venture in the films. Do you think it so overwhelmed him in the myth, to have been a character in "The Counterfeits" that he decided to counterfeit "Maria Chapdelaine"? One supposes that when the winter furs come off of Michele-"aria she will blossom like a blueberry bush into something ripe and juicy.

I had a nice letter from Islay yesterday, hailing your arrival. But before this comes to you, and with it my thanks to him, Kenneth will have had my letter to him, explaining that Archie had changed his mind again about the turtle. But I was, in the sense of my own interpretation of what he had written to me earlier, glad to have Robin Douglas's confirmation that Archie had indeed at one time agreed that I should have it. Tell Islay too how distrait I am to think that my long letter about the photographs never reached him. I sent it to what I thought was the Rome address, but perhaps I had it wrong. I will trust only the nest at Anticoli from now on.

I agree with you that all sorts of things are going on under covers just now, with the Eastern situation; and of course you could not be more correct than in your assumption that the Chinese Communists have gotten out of hand so far as Moscow is concerned. It was bound to happen. Don't forget the earlier history of the movement in China, about which Malraux wrote, in the days when Chang Kai was himself the leader of the Communists there. The secret history of what went on between Chang and the Japs during the last war, and between Chang and the Russians, would I think startle the world today. For it was then, as now, mostly a matter of balance of power slanted toward the eventual acquisition of power and a resurgence of the East. The Japanese aggression was only an aspect of this, with the working center concentrated for the moment in a tightly-knit, functioning and functional little nation. Now it has shifted to the infinitely richer resources of

2

the Chinese mainland, where, inevitably, it had to at last settle. But the difficulty for other nations is, it seems to me, a curious one. Both the Russians (who are not altogether westerners) and the Japanese have tried to play the international game by western rules of diplomacy: conferences, treaties, ambassadors, and the like. But the Chinese make no pretence of being western at all, and what little effort they might make has been shut off by the denial of a seat in the United Nations or the possibility of diplomatic representation at the various capitols. We speak of the Iron Curtain, but in any real sense it is made of gauze compared to the real barrier of the Chinese Wall which has stood from the beginning of modern times, and is made of more than stone or clay bricks. For the English in the old days of the empire it was easy to conduct relationships with China, because they were not really relationships at all: it was a matter of easy exploitation by a feudal situation. The English today are in no better situation than are the Americans or the Russians or the French or the Dutch for dealing with a people who have been awakened by the missionary message of industrial plenty which the west has itself actually been responsible for. The Chinese Communist Party has something to give to the Chinese and the East in the way of abundance, plenty in the sense of a promise of material objects and in the alleviation of distress. We of the West offer them nothing, and so far as I can see, are unable to offer them anything in satisfaction of their aroused hungers. Democracy in our sense, both British and American, depends upon abundance, but we offer it to them as though it would occasion abundance rather than be the result of it. This it seems to me is what the Communist Party was able to offer the Russians in the 1920s and 1930s, and what made certain aspects of industrialization on European and American terms attractive both to the government and to the peasants. If Russia is uneasy now, it is because in part that this hunger has been a little satisfied and in part because it has not been satisfied enough. The result is an internal strain which would not have been possible three decades ago. Something like this I daresay will happen in China too, and in the East; for only Japan is anything like being in the position of an industrialized west. Everything, then, at the moment tends to divide the two great centers of the modern world: a difference in ways of living and a difference in ways of thinking. So that we grope in the dark, and are filled with fear. It would not surprise me, in the long run of events, to see Russia and the west lined up on the same side; and I suspect that Russia already feels this. If people were wise, this realization would be enough to keep us from war with Russia; but, alas, people are not wise, do not operate with intelligence and sensibility; and, therefore, anything could happen: even Russia's desire to strengthen a western bulwark toward which she could retire, at the expense of Mongolia, and over which she would be in command for her self-preservation.

What a long letter about something I do not understand any better than you do, or anyone else can.

Much better to bless each blossom at Anticoli, and find the Corinthina bowls for Hildas, and make whatever world it is we live in a place where this one and that one can have fuller satisfactions that each might have had were it not for us; for in that way comes our satisfactions and the only tokens that can be rounded and glazed to be Corinthina bowls themselves.

All love to the Swiss girl and the Pakistani boys,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 March 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Spring came on Monday, and as though to thwart us
has held her finger to her nose ever since. It has done nothing
but pour down cold rain, and this morning we awoke to find the
ground covered with snow. Then it rained again, and the poor
daffodils in the courtyards of the colleges, where they always
blossom first, have been having a hard time of it.

I judge that Rome has not been much better, although
it must be pleasant to be with the boys, and I envy you the chance
to see them. I can scarcely remember when I took so pleasantly, and
so immediately, to anyone. But you know that, for you were with me
when I saw them.

The final section of RUAN arrived in midweek. My
fingers and my eyes fluttered, not knowing whether to read the end
of the book now, or wait until the middle sections were done, and
I could see it as a whole. But I have read it, and I do like it.
I am delighted at the way not only the Finn's story, for Ruan's
too, carries out the Gawain story at the beginning. I like the
search for something, somewhere—a Bellarion, from which one in a
sense came, and to which one longs to go: the restless surge of the
spirit, which is not progress, nor is it escape from decline, even
though one is willing to relinquish a tradition, whether to save
one's life wittingly, or to save an uncle's life unwittingly. These
islands are like Hilda's islands, save that they have always been your
islands too. And mine. We both hear them sing, and we spell each
other at the watch, you and I. So I see this very much as your book,
and it may very well prove to be a much better book that you think it
is.

The journey through the swamp was superbly told. I don't
see how you did it. But it was a godsend that took you to Ireland
after my visit. Only you could use it as you did. You're a good Fido,
and I love for it.

The copy of _The Mint_ arrived, and I have turned the leaves
and more or less read it. It is a little disappointing, because it
doesn't have the organic feel to it. However faked the arabian story
was, it was a thing Lawrence had lived in, as one can live in a myth
of one's own creation. It grew. This new myth of Airman Shaw was a
skin he tried to crawl into. But unlike the new uniforms he tells about
which fitted the men's thighs so closely as to make their flesh revealed,
this myth of the enlisted man has wrinkles, open seams, the buttons
will not fit. Nor will the words he puts in their mouths. They are

2

the words that such men use, but they are spoon-fed and unnatural
as he relates them; just as food becomes unnatural in forced feeding,
even though it is the same foodstuff that men eat when well. I see
that the English edition you sent me omits most of them: I picked up
the twenty-dollar American edition and found them all in (I suppose
on the basis that nothing corrupts a person who can afford so much for
a book). My own substitutions for the blank spots in the English book
were much more colorful than what he actually wrote, which only meant
that Lawrence really didn't listen to the nuances of their speech,
a nd could neither spit nor curse with their tongues.

By the way, I am told that if you really want to see what
Aldington wrote about Lawrence, one must read the French edition
to see what he wrote. The English edition, finally published, had
much cut out of it, but the text for the French edition had apparently
been passed around, and it was this which occasioned a good deal of
the hullabaloo.

Your account of the air trip down was most frightening,
especially when I think of how I revelled in our flight to Zurich,
a nd think, in retrospect, how easily it might have happened then.
Yet I enjoyed it so much! You were very brave about it; I am surprised
you did not get absolutely blotto once you reached Rome. I should
have, I know. Well, now you've had it! They say everyone has to.
I thought that something of the same sort was happening to me on one
frightful flight back from Lisbon, during the war, when we finally
managed to get down in a storm on a tiny Cornish air force base.
And since you've had it, it won't happen again. Have the Pakistani
boys murmur a nice Buddhist prayer of thanks for me on the steps of
St Peter's; or since they can see the dome from their lovely balcony,
let them chant the muezzin in its direction.

Affectionate greetings to all. I will write care Hilda,
next, and meanwhile hope this will reach the Grand in time to bring
you my love.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 April 1955

Dearest Bryher:

A glorious spring day outside, though a trifle cool. I hope it will warm up tomorrow, for we intend to have a clan picnic at the shore. Susan gave me a new portable grille at Christmas, for cooking steaks -- not lobsters, alas, -- and we shall try it out with our girls and the various families of Susan's sisters.

A glorious day, too, because of your two letters. The birthday card from the boys and you came yesterday, for which my thanks. I am so pleased to feel this *rapport* with both of them. At least it seems to me so; and it all becomes very much "family". Pup is good that way, too; but of course I had not really known the boys until November. Then it instantaenous with Islay, and now, increasingly, with Kenneth. I do not count that pre-Christmas party of years ago. It was all different then, and Kenneth has richer and easier in his spirit.

I am most grateful for the check; if I do not use it for a spin abroad I shall put it to good use with the Hawthorne letters. As I told you, I want one more good summer's grubbing at them. Last year's was wonderfully rewarding. Then if I get my fellowship for the academic year after next, I can finish them up for good and all. What heaven that will be! And to celebrate, perhaps you and Susan and I can go to Japan. She can take a course in flower arranging, and we could paddle through the rice fields to temples and shrines.

I trust my last letter about RUAN did not alarm you unduly. I believe in the book; all that I worry about is the constant pressure you have been under. It is not a question of having written it in un-chronologically. Normally no publisher ever knows how it has been written. Nor is it a matter of the beautifully glazed surface -- the making of a "pretty novel," of the sort you fear. It is only that being a poet and artist of strength, one works as from cartoons toward the wallscape; and this process has to find its own time and way. What I really worry about is Helen, who does need to have the manuscript far enough in advance to have all the material prepared before their salesmen's meetings, so that she can plan her advertising, send it to bookclubs even if they never take it, and not try to put it out on the rush as we have made her do with each of the three books so far. And it also seems to me that there may be arguments against a book a year, both of their part and on your; though you will keep on writing. You are no Angela Thirkell, with her novel on each year's list, thank God; and I don't want anyone to think you are, or having delayed to get your last book, decide to wait a few months for the next one. Let the last section sit for a bit, and then go back to it and to the rest.

2

There might be much to be said for the chance you always wanted,
of going back to the Scillies in summer to sniff the air once more;
perhaps even to Ireland, for you worked that in so beautifully. And
were you to go to the Scillies, it would give a chance to find some
appropriate late Celtic or Arthurian circular geometric design that
we could repeat on the binding as motif. I have been searching through
the volumes of Kendrick, and Art in Early England without finding just
what I want. Perhaps the B.M. would have it. As for the eventual
design for the jacket, I have pretty well settled on a drawing of the
islands, with a tip of Cornwall and a tip of Ireland. I have been en-
quiring from map experts, and they say there is nothing that early, so
I shall have to find someone to design it for me in order to suggest the
theme.

You will growl, of course, at having been whipped ahead and then
seemingly abandoned, but of course it is not an abandonment. It is only
that 1st of May date, which was the deadline, and which to meet now would
be to abandon all that we have learned to be possible in the past.

Your letters, Doris's, and Hilda's to you, have told me about Joan.
If ever I knew of a person who needed p. a., it is she. It was absolute
genius on your part to send her to Kusnacht, and it will be even better
when Hilda, having started her off, then leaves for Lugano and she can
be on her own with the Bapa B and with Erich. Everything has been bottled
up in her too long; one cannot hold such things indefinitely.

We will be looking forward to Doris's arrival, and with a little
luck she can see some of her daffodils in blossom in Susan's garden.
Bryher, Susan says, is doubling and will be in full splendor. Some are
out already, and it is a brave show.

This has been a week of vacation from the students -- or from nearly
all of them, anyhow-- and I have managed to get a good deal done. Though
one day was wrecked while I waited for some people from Greenwich to come
for the folios, and another when they actually came. The new Shakespeare
Festival is having a celebration of the driving of the first stake later
this month, with an exhibition to go with it. They had heard of the folios
and wanted to borrow them, and a few quartos to go with them. This seems
to me just what you wanted, and they will be doing good. The insurance
policy takes care of all. I shall probably not bother to go down. Did I
tell you that the founder of the Stratford-on-Avon fest val in Canada, which
has been such an immense success, came to lecture at Yale last month? He
was most interesting, and extremely nice. He wants to borrow the folios
some summer for a show there, and I am tempted to let him have them for
three months. When we are done, certainly counting the 17 millions who
saw the first folio on television, this will be the most widely seen folio
in existence. It would have made W.S. gasp!

I have Gladys' manuscript back now from the woman who did the checking.
I think I had better run thru it quickly again before I return it. It is
a little sad, and I am not quite sure what to say. She has done a good
deal of plugging, following out the hints from what little has been written
on the subjects The result of the plugging is a long series of summaries
of individual contributions to the magazines. But nothing coheres, and she

3

gives no unity of interpretation. The woman who did the checking was quite horrified at the amount of direct quotation that Gladys had put in her own manuscript without benefit of quotation marks. And the checklists at the end were simply culled from a number of books. Alas, too, she drifts from the contents of books to those of annuals to those of magazines, back and forth, without making any distinctions. It is rather as a reports writer for some governmental bureau would do (as Gladys did for the Ministry of Food), but I suspect it is not very good as even a report, since she tries to extend herself beyond it. I don't believe it could be published on this side, even with a subsidy; but I don't know about England of course. She'll have to work it over a little anyhow, and when you see her sometime, perhaps you ought to offer to pay for the typing by some able person who could regularize it en route, as some typists do on this side. Gladys is not only a poor typist but quite irregular in her mechanics of annotation. I feel very badly about all this, but am telling you more than I shall tell her. And if it could be published in any way, I hope it will be; because it means so much to Gladys. I could help the manuscript of course if I sat down with her, and helped her write it. But that would be months, and there are no months.

I am so pleased, to go on a happier note, at Hilda's pleasure in the possibility of a translation of the trilogy into German for the Zurich Press. I presume that the lady will get in touch with me when she is on this side, and I will see what I can do to clinch it. And of course the Buhrkamp will be out in the autumn, and I should be able to make arrangements for the Freud book complete by then, for the following spring. I hope also to do something with the recordings of Helen. There are a number of possibilities I shall need to explore. We shall have much to go over when you come in the autumn with the boys.

I liked your letter in the Spring Author. And did you notice Vera Brittain's article on literary executorship?

I enclose a review of Lough's book which you may not have seen. A young couple, a teacher and his wife, are going out to the Asian side of Turkey to dig this summer -- they have no experience but will be given room and board for helping. So I have loaned them the Kinross and the Lough for a little previous local color. What a wonderful chance for them.

All love and a pat on the rump,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

14 May 1955

Dearest Bryher:

This has been the worst ever, I think, on my part; and
you have been wonderfully patient as ever. If I seem to have gone
underground, I am certainly no bear who hibernates: for I have no flesh
left to live upon, nothing but a vast array of unfinished tasks connected
with the end of the academic year.

The life of a professional teacher is something so very
special, that I wonder if any one else can possibly understand what it
involves in the way of unceasing demands upon one's time. One is the
servant of a thousand pse-knowledgeable masters, with everyone free at
every moment to call upon one for everything. The wonder of it is that
so many of us keep any sense of good humor at all, at moments like this.
That is why we use our holidays not for holidays in the ordinary meaning
of the word, but as a way to re-establish an ordinary, normally familiar
rhythm of work.

I was thinking of this yesterday when your natural enough
query about Ingholt and the introduction came. For some one who did not
have his academic chores to do, the sudden commitments that are not
voluntary at all, it would be an easy thing to find consecutive time
enough to work out an introduction and to select and group the pictures.
But poor man! — he is taking off next year, and everything must be in
even more than usually apple-pie order before the end of the term. His
Easter vacation was like mine: too short to accomplish even a change of
pace. He has been grouping and re-grouping the pictures in what time he
could find, but I had known, and Kurt Wolff had known, that we could make
no final arrangement even of that until term was ended. And until the
arrangement is made, there cannot be even the first draft of an introduction.
I know how the boys must feel, but I can't look at this as really being
unfair to Islay. What would be truly unfair in terms of the kind of book
that Wolff has envisaged, would be a shoddy arrangement and a casual
introduction. For this is a most important thing that Islay and Kenneth
have done, and it deserves the greatest care in every respect. Kurt does
not believe, incidentally, in any particular celebration as having any
noticeable effect on the reception of the book; and since the important
reviews will be those by experts, they will be on the watch for even casual
errors. Had we forgotten the book, that would be another thing. But you
can all be sure we have not.

I was sorry to learn that Pup had gotten a case of the measles.
We had all spoken of that possibility when she was here. At least we can be
glad that she had regained some strength by her holiday, or she could hardly
have stood up to this new event at all. I don't remember what her plans for
the summer were, except for their letting of the summer farm not too far from
us. I seem to recall that she intended flipping over for the wedding of some

2

friend, but whether this was in spring or fall I can't recall. At any
rate John was not to have gone with her at that time, and this might be
the best way to let it work out vis-a-vis Hilda.

I have not heard from Hilda for some time, though most of the fault
lies in my not having written her. I rather think I was the last to write;
but once I get three immense dissertations for the doctorate in philosophy
read before the deadline, the comprehensive examinations made out, my final
tests done for the course, etc etc, I will be abother man. Susan goes to
Chicago next Saturday for a flower club meeting, and will be gone a week.
It will let me work harder, though in truth I have not been away from the
office any night for almost a month.

No further word has come from Suhrkamp about Urzidel, so I can
report nothing after Hilda's permission to Urzidel to withdraw the manu-
script. Although it half seems to me, now that I recall it, that in a
letter to you, he expressed a final and reluctant agreement.

I passed several pleasant hours with Frau Schnack, of the Arche
Verlag, and agreed to let her try her hand at translating Hilda's war
trilogy. Hilda and "eydt apparently felt that Arche did not distribute
books widely enough to make Arche a satisfactory publisher, so she talked
over the matter with Suhrkamp who agreed to take it on. Schnack is to
submit the translations to me, and I can whip them over to you and Hilda.
I lent her another set of the texts, since Suhrkamp had insisted on keeping
the ones Hilda had given her. This is another reason why I am anxious to
play ball with Suhrkamp, especially since he will do the publishing on his
own. I liked Schnack, who seemed a very good sort indeed. She has one
child married in Germany, and another, a son, in Canada. Now she is off
to be with Brets, in Taos. We both felt that the trilogy would make a better
introduction of Hilda's poetry to the Germans, than any selection of all her
work would be. That can come later. I shall have to scheme up a new
title, so that we can keep the individual titles for the three parts of
the whole. I will try to think about it once school is over.

The Wolves are basking in the success of Mrs Lindberg's book which
is now for the fifth week the number one best seller in the non-fiction
field. They sent it to us, but I have not read it. Susan did, but seemed
not particularly impressed. "Helen, I think, hit it on the nose when she said
that the American woman as a whole seems to have made a pact with Mrs L ever
since the kidnapping and death of her son. I have been in correspondence
with Helen about her own son, Christian, who graduates from Harvard and wants
to do graduate work in comparative literature. He won a Woodrow Wilson
fellowship, which ostensibly lets him go anywhere. He expressed a preference
for Yale, but was assigned to Columbia. He and his parents thought he had
been rejected for Yale, but I discover that his papers actually never came here.
The whole thing was arbitrary on the part of the Wilson Foundation. I have
told him, as is true, that he can insist on Yale (which is far and away better
in that field), and that if anything goes wrong I was sure that I could
arrange for him to have what was necessary. He has also applied for a
Fullbright to Italy (like young Cheney's), and if he gets that I think he will
go there instead. His Harvard teachers think it would be good for him to
have a year abroad just at this time. I hope I did not speak out of (your)
tune, for I remembered that you had told me to keep my eyes open and act
accordingly. I will let you know how things work out.

3

I am most worried about Joan. Doris went over the situation with me, although of course I did not say what you had told me, and what I had gathered from her letters to you. One only worries what will happen once Hilda packs up and goes to Lugano. I certainly do not think that Joan ought to go there. As for Kusnacht, the situation is ambiguous. Hilda both likes and is exhausted by a situation of this kind.

In Doris's case, I have to depend on news from you at the moment, though in a fortnight, when things are easier, I shall check up in New York from John. Quite obviously it is a good thing that she came over when she did. One fears what a further delay might have caused. This must have been an incredibly worrying spring: with this physical ailment of her own, on top of her husband's vagaries, and all the worries about the daffodil farm.

Our own daffodils, incidentally, made a splendid show for themselves, and we managed to have a number of people in to see them --our only form of entertaining for some months. At the very beginning, when the most blooms were out, we held almost a reception for "Susan Pearson." How kind it was of Doris to permit me to have the flower named in that way. "Bryher" was equally effective and admired. So were the new miniatures which Doris got for me from the man who wrote the new book on them. They are quite new in this section, and occasioned much interest.

I can get nothing out of the stream of Englishmen who come here now, about the likelihoods of the British election. They always dodge the issue by referring to the 25% of the voters who float, and continue to assert that Bevan has no influence. My own hunch, simply for your record, is that Bevan has far more influence than they are willing to admit or can recognize; but that this will not be at all overt in the forthcoming pre-election campaign. My guess is that Bevan will throw his secretweight to the Conservatives, either by a direct vote for them or by keeping his people from the polls. A smashing Tory victory would be just what he wants to show the Labor Party the weakness of their present position. Afterwards he can begin to reform a party on his own lines, with, as I once said to you before, the older Labor group drifting towards the void which the disappearance of the Liberal Party has left. Then we will have Conservatives, Labor, and something very leftist, with the latter treatying with both Conservatives and Labor as the case may be, winning concessions from each. But of course I may be more devious and diabolical in my thinking that the case actually warrants. I shall be interested to find out what you smell when you go to the U.K.

I am delighted to know that the new story marches. *Va bien!* I am eager to read it.

## Sunday morning

I have slipped away from the house, back to the office. This is a party weekend at Yale, and the house is filled with visiting girls. Just one of the long succession of finalities for the year, that keep us all busy. Every organization has its farewell dinner or party, and that incredible fortnight in which I could get home for dinner only twice, and even then had to go out afterwards, has pretty well continued. I even had to spend two nights ago in an hour-long interview over the college radio, on the subject of modern writing. All this, I suspect, comes from my having had such an unusually large enrollment for my one-term lecture course this

4

year. Over 400, which made it the largest term course in the university, and meant that a sample of everything and every organization was included. Next year, when it will be a full-year course, the enrollment is naturally smaller; but there are still almost 250 taking it, which again makes it the largest full year course.

To return to the many unanswered letters from you: I did not sent you *My Lady Greensleeves*, and if it was published by Ballantyne, I suspect that it was written by one of John's clients. He often sends them out, not for comment, but for whatever interest one finds in them. Probably receives a half-dozen copies gratis from the publishers.

Which brings to mind the fact that I received last night, when I got home, a copy of the Bellingen history of Indian art, which Wolff has published. A magnificent job which it took over three years to prepare. It was originally thought they could bring it out last spring (1954), but it took much more time to prepare than they thought. Would you like me to order a copy sent to Islay? My impression is that the cost is $35.00 or so, which is why I check with you first. Over 600 plates, quite formidable. And should I send one to Hilda? My feeling so far as you are concerned is that you will see it when you visit the boys.

Sylvia Norman's ms has arrived, but I shall not be able to look at it for a fortnight, until examinations are over. My chief job at the moment is to read the three massive dissertations. Last night I nodded over the one on the subject of Lawrence Sterne's critical reputation from 1760 to 1868. What a lot of research he put into; it just happens not to be my cup of tea. Alas, I have not had time to send back Gladys' ms, because I need to read it again to refresh my memory before writing. That is first on the agenda, after liberation day. Then I have a long succession of chores. To finish up editing a series of letters from early 19th century, for a relative of Susan's, who is almost 90 and weeping because she fears she will die before it is done. Then have Hilda's Freudbuch re-typed, since Merrill Moore marked up the ms so much when he had it that I can't submit as is; get the Freud letters copied to include; and resubmit to Farrar & Strauss. Do make another search at Kenwin for the photographs! Then see what I can do with Hilda's recording of the Helen sequence. Write a review of the Square Dollar Series which has been due for nine months. Go to Rochester, N.Y., to copy and check Hawthorne's letters to Delia Bacon, the Baconian (There are some new ones which have turned up); go to Washington to check the papers of Nathan Hale, early 19th century editor, who printed some of Hawthorne's things; go to Cambridge and finish up the Longfellow papers; go to Concord, and finish the footnotes there, and in New York finish re-checking the French and Italian journals.

You will see from all this why my tears prevent me from flipping over for Edith's party. Do give her my best! But what makes it particularly difficult is that my niece, or rather a niece, is getting married just about that time, and I have long since agreed to go to the wedding. Both my mother and my brother would be heartbroken if I did not. Actually Hilda will just be settling in, or about to move, which might make it difficult. Naturally it would be wonderful, but I am more than ever resolved to unburden myself from some of these duties which have been plaguing me for so long.

I enclose clippings about the showing of the books at Greenwich. I asked them to omit mention of my name, since that might seem an invitation to marauders. The books were returned on Friday, and are safely at the

10 June 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Am beginning -- just beginning -- to recover. You must know
the sort of period when one drags. There is simply no good trying to do what
one wants -- even if there were time for it; one can only pick up one thing
after another, with longer and longer intervals between deciding to pick any-
thing up and actually taking it. This last month, perhaps it is six weeks by
now, has been completely exhausting. I can hardly remember being so fatigued.
But at any rate I have now finished up enough work so that I have reached the
period when I receive letters like the following (in this morning's mail):
"Please don't think me a person who is dis-satisfied, and who complains of
grades .... but". Just imagine: the boy actually received an 87, which is a
very high grade indeed; but I suppose he is now out picking up additional
points, if he can find them, as a guttersnipe picks up old cigar butts.

I am still a little confused as to your plans, but I presume
it is safest to send this to Lowndes for you to pick up post-Orkney. I like
the idea very much of your jaunt there, and think you can hardly fail to pick
up some landscape or spindrift that will prove useful. But, oh! if I were to
do anything, I think it would be to stand alongside Lethbridge as he pokes
the outlines of his giants. His accounts of them are simply fascinating,
and in this morning's mail was his letter about the antagonisms on the part
of his fellow scholars. This is certainly international enough in character.

It is too maddening about the strike. I am anxious of course
to hear your views and your interviews. I should think it crystal clear that
it was to show the true power of the Left in matters such as this, in comparison
to the showing made at the Polls. Its timing is too appropriate for any other
explanation. And I have noticed too that little is being said as to the moti-
vations, as though one were a little scared to bring it out. (But perhaps in
this I am being too American!) Yet I am not altogether sure that it is crystal
clear whether the warning is being given by Bevan to Labour and to Conservatives,
or whether it is being given to Bevan himself: as though to say, look here old
man, you can't make up your own version of Left; you've got us to reckon with
and play ball with. Nor am I absolutely sure that to some extent, no matter
who is being warned, that the strike will not backfire. By which I mean that,
seeing this kind of thing so clearly evidenced by the strike, it may actually
swing strength to the Conservatives from the lower middle classes and the upper
lower classes. At any rate, at the moment I should say that the Conservatives
can count on winning at least one more general election during the period when
the new alignment within the present Labour Party is being worked out, and that
this new alignment will really be a split, with something from the present
right-angle labor making up what amounts to a middle-party filling the void
left by the Liberals, and the formation of a Leftist Party (not called Communist)
which will set its tent away from the Fabian, public-school socialism which
Atlee represents, and which has either long since had its day or been so absorbed
into ordinary thinking (including the Conservative mind) as to be politically
meaningless.

2

I'm delighted that you finished GATE TO THE SEA, and am eager to get the manuscript from Woolford. So will Helen be, and we will put our heads together. The present length, of course, is a difficult one. But probably better not to try to lengthen unless you see it as longer; then, it should be done anyhow _because_ you see it that way.

Osbert's letter about his party at the _Advocate_ was a gem, and some day will be a classic for all Massachusetts Cantabrigians. I had read an account of the party by a 'ale undergraduate who was also there, and had saved it for you to read when you come over. The undergraduate account was not very good, but makes a sort of dull footnote to Osbert's letter. "My glass was empty. I took the opportunity of a brief lull in the conversation to refill it at the bar. Dame Edith did not want another. While I was at the bar, (this time the whiskeys and soda tasted as though the bartenders had run out of soda some time ago), I saw three or four young gentlemen, dressed as medieval pages, circulating in the crowd. "Medieval pages" was as close, I think, as anyone could come to defining their costumes. Their leader, it turned out, was Corso, a poet from New York with a decidedly Bohemian flair. The group had not been invited, and, especially because of their attire, the Chairman of the Advocate asked them to leave. They did not want to leave at all. But the Chairman insisted. ... And it was time to go. The Sitwells shook every hand in sight and thanked everyone so warmly that even a guest like myself felt as though I had just honored her at a great banquet. On the stairs in the hall, the horn from the big dusty rhinoceros was missing. Someone said Corso and his friends had taken it. Now there was only a large white circle with a peg in it on the forepart of the rhino's black snout. Sir Osbert paused beside it, gesturing with his cane. "My goodness," he said, examining the bald spot, "this wasn't like that when I was here before!" We laughed, agreed, and walked downstairs."

I've been particularly grateful for all these letters, especially Hilda's to you, since I should not otherwise have kept in touch. Also for Doris's. Susan is in New York today and will try to have lunch with her. She has had no luck in trying to get hold of Doris at the Peekman, so last night we called John who was to try to make plans for today. How fortunate it was that she came over. You obviously had the crystal bowl before your eyes. I keep interested in Joan's case; I fear it will be a long pull, but I should think it was indicated in the end that she ought not to try to go back to her parents for any permanent basis, but build up a life in London or on the continent. However, that is still far off. Hilda has been a help with Joan, but I am rather glad she will be off when Belinda arrives. This will be a great relief for 'ethbridge. I am rather glad you had her shifted from the Steiner group. I don't know what Heydt or Father B thinks of them, but it is all too cultish for my taste. Suspect Lethbridge feels the same way, but was relieved to find anything which could help.

You will be seeing Gladys. Do reassure her that her ms will be coming back shortly. And I mean this. I read it of course when it first came; then felt it would be wise to have quotations and bibliography checked, and by the time that was finished, enough time had elapsed so that my memory of the book was dimmed, and I simply have been unable to re-read it until now. (It would be tedious to recite the intervening 600-page dissertations, senior theses, examinations, essays, and the like. It is a moment like these that I know how the chores of teaching tear the very heart and mind out of one. I do not wonder that I get nothing written or finished, nor that being a professor is with us no different from being a thin-breasted, cuddling house master at a school.) But with a very few chores left to do, plus a few pleasures like writing you and Hilda,

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I shall be at it, and the manuscript may well be with her before you leave. Once I have done that, I shall read Sylva Norman's, then get Hilda's ms in shape, then do that edition of the early 19th-cent N.Y. letters for the old dame, and then get to Hawthorne letters. You can see why I shall have to stick close to the States for the short period this summer. Disgustingly, Yale opens early in the autumn: just after the beginning of September, the 15th I believe. But the period just before that is always administrative, changing people's schedules etc.

I'm not quite sure when Collins is bringing out Roman Wall. Am I to gather from some letters to you that they have changed the title again. I am really sorry about not using the mosaic cover. It seems to me to be an error, but I am always completely bewildered by everyone except myself in matters of taste: despite all we said, they still seem to like the cover for October, and it would not surprise me at all if they were again to bind in white. De gustibus becomes disgustibus. But one can't go into a tizzy about matters like this. The words that make up the fiction are the thing, and these are ( god granting typography) your own.

Many thanks for Islay's photographs, which were splendid. I was grateful for having a set in glossy as well as the dull finish. Incidentally, Wolff sent me some correspondence with Islay about the Etruscan book, in which I gathered that he had already sent Islay (personally, from himself) a copy of the book of Indian Art. So no need one way or another. The release from academic chores is affecting Ingholt, with whom I have had several conversations, given him the check (for which he was properly gratefully and typically humble), lent him my copy of the Indian Art book, etc. He was to see Wolff in New York either yesterday or today, and we will meet next week (that is, Wolff, Ingholt and I) actually to begin final selections. My share in it will be about over, but the financing means I must be on hand to OK or cry halt. So things will march, I think.

As to Christian Wolff, all seems to be in order, although a different order from what one had expected. That is, he has the Fullbright (some one dropped out to make a vacancy) and so will be abroad next year, presumably in Italy. He can apply to Yale for a fellowship next year; and we can do what is necessary to make up the difference. It seems that, so far as the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship was concerned, his application for Yale had never been sent to Yale at all by the Committee. Everyone here said nothing could be done, and it did seem so when one saw the Committee's letter to Christian. But I talked to the Director by phone, and he did, fortunately, get it arranged for Christian to come to Yale after all; then the Fullbright popped up, so it was all done for nothing anyhow.

Sunday we have to give a little party for the club of undergraduates I sponsor, and on Monday is the graduation. It is a dead secret, but Stevens is to get an honorary degree, at long last. No one is supposed to know, but I have been asked to the President's little luncheon for honorary degree recipients, on the basis of having been Stevens' sponsor for so long. I have not seen him since his operation, though I had a pleasant note from him about a fortnight ago saying he was at home again. I rather think that Hemingway is also to get a degree. I know we put him up for it (personally I thought it was a little late -- post-Nobel --to do this). I suppose one does not speak of seeing Hemingway in the flesh, but rather in the hair.

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By the way, and since you are back at Lowndes, or will be, I am reminded
that I did speak to the Yale Library (as you suggested) about your Henty
Collection, and they said they would be thrilled to have it if you wished to
give it to them. And just today, looking at the bulletin of the Huntington
Library, in California, I noticed that they had been given a collection of 83
titles, to which they had been able to add some 26 of the others that they did
not have. So he will be having his day.

Will send this off as a first installment. Do give my best to Rita,
Gladys, and the rest. And of course to yourself all the accumulation of love
during the past silent weeks.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 June 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Yesterday was miserable: rainy and cold. So instead
of shifting my scene of activity to the garden, which so desperately
needs weeding, I continued on at the office, read Gladys' manuscript
again from beginning to end, and wrote her the letter, a copy of which
I enclose. I cannot actually send the letter and ms back to her until
tomorrow, when the post office opens; but I will send the letter and the
first half of the ms by airmail, with the second half by surface, so that
if there is any reason for the two of you to discuss the matter by phone
there will be sufficient basis for it.

I hope she will not think I was too severe, for there was
much about the manuscript I liked. Though I think this was colored for
my liking of Gladys as a person and as your cousin. Viewed coldly -- and
I say this only so that you can guide your own steps -- or mine, if you
want me to carry on,-- the manuscript has very little to tempt most
publishers. What she has done is to read the several books on children's
literature, take out their references to magazines (and much beside) and
then put them together. Her bibliographies are almost altogether taken
over from other bibliographies, or, shall we say, she has not been able to
add much to them. It is an amateurish book, redeemed for people like you
and me who can recognize that she has done it with real devotion. But
unlike many books by amateurs, it is not the result of years of devotion to
a hobby, which results in bits of information no one else would have bothered
to dig out, but which prove useful in the end. I think Gladys has indeed
gone back to original sources to which she was steered; but when she returns
to her writing she is like a school child taking an examination and repeating
what the textbooks say: not to get a higher grade (really) but because of
a certainty that what a textbook says must be right and most significant
because it says so in a textbook. Texbook qua Father (unless, of course,
one hates the father!). The final limitation is a difficult one to overcome,
and that is that poor Gladys has no flair for writing. By this I mean the
sort of flair that can use other people's material, popularize it, and
thereby make a contribution.

What do I think should be done? It should at least never be
submitted to a publisher without being tidied up by the sort of typist who
would do things for Agnes. These seccies know their way around in this
kind of material as Woolford naturally would not, and she could do much.
It is not very likely that any first-class publisher would take it; but there
are always, everywhere, houses that will take on a book to get it in print,
for a fee of course. I am not talking to the Pantheon type, for they won't.
But I mean the so-called vanity houses; and alas I don't know the names of
the British ones. Even if one of these were to take it, Gladys should do
some of the things I suggest to her. Whether that will really help (I mean

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 June 1955

Dearest Bryher:

The package from Woolford has come, and I have read it with great pleasure, real pleasure. I want to read it again tonight, however, before I write with a few ideas that struck me and which you might consider. Even then of course I shall not be sure, but it is good enough for me to want to hold it close and feel it.

But I write briefly because we have been moving to the shore yesterday and today, and this is always an exhausting time for Susan, and one an which I must at least be pretending to work physically at things around the house as an equivalent to her own really immense efforts. And I do want to welcome you back to Kenwin as I would have done had I been there to greet you.

How shall I set forth my reactions to Edith's conversion? It is of course her personal affair, yet just because it is an affair of her personality one cannot help but be interested in it, cannot resist speculation about it. There are so many facets. When you speak of her anguish because of the David business, and her desire to talk to a Philip about it, one is tempted to wonder whether in conversion it is her omissions she wishes to confess or some one else's. There is a difference. Yet I think she correct in thinking that this David business is at the root of the matter. But I suspect, however, that she is not correct in thinking that it is the morality of the matter that disturbs her most, nor that her definition of spiritual help is a profoundly religious one in any true sense of the word. What I think has happened is something which stems from Renishaw and the reliance which she, far more than Osbert, has placed on it. Osbert has this reliance of course, but he has managed to exorcise it in his memoirs at the same time that he has exercised it. But Edith in her loneliness -- and she has been a profoundly lonely person ever since she was left on the train by her father (to define by the syncopated doche of an instance) -- has had to invent. The one thing she felt she could relies on, and escape back into, was decorum. For her, decorum has been a ritual by which she could live from day to day. She might on her own occasions be a little elastic about decorum, but she could do this on Plantagenet terms; the reliance on decorum was there and spelled out in the name. The cry against failures in decorum was something she reserved for her enemies. I say that Osbert's morality, or 'David's, has not really mattered in a fundamental sense, because whatever is or is not between them has existed for many years now. But what has happened is that Osbert in his present helplessness, of whatever kind, has had to cast aside the strength of the Sitwells. Don't you see that even what Sir George did to his wife could be excused as an exaggeration of decorum; nothing on these terms can excuse Osbert for receiving David back. And with all this

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role of suppliant on Osbert's part, Edith has pathetically lost her
armor and stands stripped of her defense. To be a Sitwell is not per
se. as she has had to believe, sufficient. It is she who is suffering,
because the decorum which has been her punctilious ritual has gone with
what Osbert stood for. What she now means by her need for a "formalized
religion" and "spiritual help" is a substitute decorum dignified by its
parallel antiquity. Being a Roman Catholic is the next best thing to
being a Plantagenet or a Doctor of Letters. Poor Roman walls! Poor
Osbert and poor Edith! What has happened to them is a commentary on
what has happened to so many and to so much of the world which you and I
have known. And we see now, laid bare, what the robes (by courtesy of
coutourier and academy) and what the semi-precious rings have hidden.
What Edith is receiving is not instruction in the finality of faith but
in her last defense.

It is inevitable that she will want your approval, and certainly you
will give her your kindness and understanding. It is inevitable too that
she will want you to talk to her confessor and to read St. Thomas, as she
does. But it will not be for your sake that she wishes it; it will be for
her own. Not selfishly either, but as a final assurance to herself that
her conversion is an act of the intellect, for this is the final myth of
converts.

I do not have to advise you on these matters; for you have what Edith
has never had: not only a core of your own but a circle of those who love
you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 June 1955

Dear Bryher:

I did not get the letter written yesterday as I had hoped.
Too many interruptions, and the day infernally hot and muggy. Even a
thunderstorm last night did not really help.

But now, as of a third reading, let me jot down a few general
impressions and suggestions. I do like it. One can't help but like it.
It has a certain sugar, but then I am not diabetic. I think it is, and
will prove to be a real achievement. It is just possible --one will have
to ponder this -- that it might be wise to let something else intervene
between this and ROMAN WALL for the sake of avoiding the impression of
superficial similarity. That does not, however, count half so much as
its achievement, of which I am proud. What I would like to see, now, is
for you to play with it a little, and then we can go over it finally, and
in terms of my usual professorial picayunes, when you come over with the
Pakistani boys in November. (For you must come then, of course!)

With that in mind, let me suggest just a few things for your
consideration. I shall send a copy of this letter to Helen Wolff, and she
will probably howl, as you will. But since none of my suggestions are very
vital, you can both discard them as fruitless.

As to length: it will make a little book, of course, but that
is not an impossibility; and at any rate it ought to come out alone and not
in combination with anything else. I should not try to bulk it to any
large extent, and I was interested to hear from Kurt Wolff, when he was
he was here for Gandhara business, that he thought the length was just right.
Yet I think fifteen or twenty typescript pages could be added, to its benefit.
One could, for example, stick in a few more descriptions, which you always do
so beautifully, both as Myro remembers her country and as others think of
air and the landscape and even such flowers as the bee orchid (which you could
get from Jocelyn). Another way of building it slightly would be to divide it
into short chapters, which would mean the possibility of leaving some partly
empty pages, and give a kind of punch effect. To be specific: Chap. II on
page 6; Chap III at top of 14; Chap IV on 30; Chap V on 32; Chap VI on 37;
Chap VII on 41; VIII on 46; IX on 54; X on 57; possibly a chapter break after
first para on 62, which would mean you would have to end the preceding
para somewhat differently; XI (on basis you did not) on 73; XII on 76; But
you may wish not to make the suggested chapter break because this would make
XIII in all. However, another chapter may creep in, if you suggest another
suggestion or two I make about Myro.

As to particulars: I like the point you make on p. 56 that when
Harmonia doubted the goddess, she heard her brother's voice. This is fine in
every sense of reality. I suggest you build up the incident, originally, a
little more without giving it away; possibly build up the earlier voices a
little more too; and then when you get to 56, build up the recognition more

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firmly and philosophize about it a little. of "A sudden understanding flashed
in her mind. The gods spoke to man in many ways; perhaps she had sought too
narrowly for the moments of direction. Perhaps they had spoken at Cumae through
her brother as messenger, could speak anywhere so long as the spirit yearned,
even when it doubted for fear there would be no answer. 'Yes, Phila,' she
repeated, 'it was my brother.'" (This at the end of the para). This becomes
a kind of theme that can be picked up again at the end. You and I don't need
it spelled out, but it helps the average reader.

A similar build-up, in parvo, might come on p. 41 with the battle-cry.
Of course this emphasis will be help by giving a true chapter division here,
but spread it for a few sentences by a similar repetition. After what you
have, perhaps a few lines in which the air is vitalized for a moment, restored
to its old Greek freshness and invigoration. What I mean is that you use this
cry and its effect several times afterwards, and very well; but one is in
danger of not having the cry firmly in mind. It spells both the beginning of
the migration, as a carrying on of battle, and the end of the present slumbering
siege. Again it has a symbolic meaning, as does Harmonia's recognition.

Along this line, I should equally build up by a sentence or two, here
and there, the sense of foreboding on the part of Harmonia and others that the
annual procession may be the last: at first because of the dismissal of H,
and because of the local disruption; and increasingly because it would be also
a voluntary finality, ordered by the gods at Cumae through the instrumentality
of her brother and the removal of the relics. This is already effective; it
can be made more so. Don't overdo it, of course!

A similar symbol which might be built up more effectively is that of the
disk. Susan agreed with me that it enters the story rather abruptly for the
importance it assumes. One is suprised when on p. 26 (out of 82 pages) it is
popped in as the reason for Archias' mission. Harmonia knows why; we do not.
Therefore why not have Harmonia bring in some references to it and its import-
ance, that it is lost even though present in Poseidonia etc. After all it is
like the Stone of Scone, and you can philosophize for three sentences on that
basis. The main thing is to be prepared for it before it appears. The next
thing is to emphasize it when it is finally uncovered. All those who looked
at it then would have every detail engraved on their minds as they saw it. I
want to see it that way too, a whole paragraph full. There is Poseidon
described (you can pick this up from any catalogue) there is the gate to the
sea (since it is the particular image of this city) which in the end will be
seen to be a way out as well as a way in; and there also is the figure of a
moon, because of the tides and for a reason I will give you a little further
on.

Perhaps too, but not quite so lengthily, will be the description of the
necklace, precisely given (from any catalogue) because it is the symbol of
Harmonia's family and home in that sense, but when she takes it with her, the
home as well as the spirit of the city are moved.

For somewhat the same reason, I should like a more precise description
of the statue of Herakles, giving it is possible some little ornamentation at its
base on the folds of the robes, with perhaps a moon in terms of her duty
as protectress of women and of marriage. (reason, later). Also, and for this
same later reason, do the ritual with borrowings from Frazer, so that its
fertility aspects (metamorphosis from death to life with seed and city) are
stressed or indicated. You touch on this on p. 78, rightly, but the ritual

22 June 1955 (2nd half)

Dearest Bryher:

I have just re-read the preceding pages, all I intended for "elen, to catch her reaction, and I hardly know whether they will seem lucid, or even sensible if lucid. This day has been like yesterday with temperatures in the '90s and that awful mugginess that hangs on the fringe of a storm. I should have done it over, but I am too anxious to have it go out to you, and feel that I can re-define individual points later; for you cannot start on it for a bit, while you have your guests, and we can exchange a comment or two before you are free.

I repeat that I think all these things are in the book as you conceived it, and it is only a question of embroidering the design. The only exception is in the case of Myro as she now is. Myro is my Fido, of course; and at flashes, Harmonia is Fabula-Hilda. I could not mention this in the Wolff side of the letter. This is natural; this is what makes good writing; but looked at from the standpoint of fiction, the fiction in which she lives, I think I am artistically right in seeing something like the growth and resolution I mean. Otherwise she dangles as the book draws to a close, and the drawing to a close is a chronological fadeout without full significance. Well, think it over, anyhow.

We go Friday to Perdita and John's for their fifth wedding anniversay. They will be at their new place for the summer, the one they have rented. And we too are at Johnson's Point, Branford, rather than Goodrich Street, in case you need to reach me suddenly for any reason.

I must change my shirt and hurry across the street to a reception for Carl Van Vechten. Not my cup of tea any longer, I fear, but this is an official duty on my part. Even Susan has to come in, which she <u>loathes</u> doing in summer.

I shall write tomorrow on matters in your recent letter. But want this to go off to you. A pat on the tail for your success!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 June 1955

Dearest Bryher:

How nice to have a Kenwin envelope in the mail this morning. I always feel comforted a little when you are there. Sometimes I think that, despite its burden, it would be a pity to give up. Not, certainly, unless a truly irreistable offer came for it.

I sent off some rough comments and suggestions on GATE yesterday, which I hope will have reached you before this does. I ought to have added only that Helen, in her letter to me, in speaking of its length, thinks that as it stands it seems to have a perfect length: "the ending is a bit abrupt, but that's about all I found missing." She adds "there are not enough protagonists, there is not enough 'story' to warrant a larger canvas. If the proof of the story is in the reading, it is a fine story, for I read it with sustained interest in one sitting."

What I proposed to you falls, I suppose, a little in this line, since it adds to the strength of the protagonists, and does develop a story line somewhat more strongly through Archias and Myro. In case you did now follow what I intended for Myro it is that she should come to recognize that home is where you hang your heart, and that by coming to recognize the similarities between the ceremonials for Hera and Artemis (when she sees Harmonia performing them), and as she senses the meaning of the moon symbol as being ubiquitous: with Artemis, with Hera, on the disk, and connected with the sea. And this extends with her understanding to include her feelings toward Archias, Menis, etc. In other words, more and more she comes to the same sort of understanding that Harmonia reaches, and what we have at the end is a unity out of diversity.

Now for the other matters. How sad it is to learn of Adrienne's death. Despite all that Sylvia has written, I could never quite come to think of it as being a dying. Yet like yourself, I realize that her suffering must have been almost unbearable. I think with respect of her last, brave letter to you. I have you, you know, to thank for the privilege of meeting her, both through her writing and herself. But what of poor Sylvia now? I begin to wonder if in the end she may not return to the States. I had the feeling not only that Sylvia's emotional life was wrapped up in Adrienne (perhaps even more so than Adrienne may at times have relished) but that her social life became more and more limited to their meals together. I don't know who Sylvia's friends would be, now that Adrienne is dead. And there is not the bookstore any longer to occupy her, and the composition of the memoirs is all psychiatricly involved. I lunched today with Isabel Wilder (Thornton's sister) who is to fly over to Paris on Sunday for the opening of *The Skin of Our Teeth*. I asked her to keep her ears open for news of Sylvia's reactions, and since she will be seeing much of Alice B. she may learn something. Sylvia and Gertrude, anyhow, always felt a little

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I start on Sylva's manuscript this afternoon, and hope to finish
so that I can take to John to get his opinion. He very kindly agreed to
read it in conjunction with me.

By the way, the turtle (Uncle Norman's) is now mine. Or, rather,
Kenneth's as from you, but in my possession. I was not in my office on
Monday, but he brought it down. The price $250, which I originally
offered. Archie had come to try to get an advance on the letters from
his father, which, for some reason, the Library hopes to buy if they can
raise the money. It is to be a memorial to a young man who was a great
admirer of Uncle Norman, and his friends are contributing. Kenneth agreed
that the right to publish them would be Yale's, if bought. His letters
to the Library were most kind. I shall be writing him about the turtle.
Don't worry about the money. I shall simply shift from the account.

I had not heard of Ernest Maggs' death until you wrote. I should
imagine it might make a difference. Like yourself, I understand there
had been some shifts of control behind the scenes.

Hemingway did not get an honorary degree after all. I was quite
disappointed not to be able to pluck you a corsage from the hair on his
chest. Do you remember the memorial lockets, with hair in them, which the
Victorians had? Keats must have had a head of hair like Godiva's, to
judge from the souvenirs of his locks now in museums. How proudly you
might have worn one with a sprig from Hemingway's left breast.

The performance of Facade must have been brilliant. If it is to
be recorded, I daresay copies will be available here too, unless the
Victor people object that their own is still in print. I am glad that
you saw Osbert, though grieved to think him so wan. Personally I do not
place much faith in the likelihood of success of the New York doctor, tho
I am glad if it gives a ray of hope. Do write him from time to time if
you can do so without hurting Edith by seeming to take sides. Connexions,
just now, will mean much to Osbert. He simply could not choose, and I
often think how similar his helpless case is to that of Eugene O'Neill
who after separating from Carlotta could only allow her to return to be
with him in the years of his dying because he could not die alone. I suspect
there was simply no choice for Osbert either.

It is still wringing hot, and I think I shall take Sylva's ms with
me back to the shore, where I can at least lie on the hammock while I read.
And I shall not be interrupted there, in any event. Here it seems hopeless,
though how any one can venture out in this weather I cannot even guess. How
wonderful it is to have my new car to whisk me back and forth. Everyone
admires it; Marianne especially, though I did not tell her its source.

All love, of course, and a scratch behind the ears. Give my regards
and Susan's to Elsie, and tell her that Susan was delighted with her card
from you both, not so long ago. Try and rest a little.

Norman

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I had a letter from the *Wolves* this morning about THE GATE and my
suggestions. Helen said she was writing you, and she will be self-explanatory.
I do not think that they don't like it, and she seemed really enthusiastic
when she saw what could be made of it, but she is not used to first drafts, and
I think better perhaps in the future that we give it to her *only* when it is
completed. Her fears, if she has any, are that the pattern is a little close
to that of ROMAN WALL; and these fears are in the way of anticipating that
the critics may feel it is somewhat duplicative. With something intervening,
she has no qualms however. With this in mind, I spent the weekend re-reading
BEOWULF, and it impressed me more deeply than ever. I have quite sold myself
on making it the next book. It will impress the critics, I feel, with its
demonstrated versatility, the way in which you have so wonderfully caught the
nuances of little people of all sorts, both in their speech and in their emotions.
I know how true it is. And I should blurb it as being the principle of the
historical novel applied to recent events; for it is history now, of a sort,
and yet war and the fear of war is so much in our minds (expressed obliquely
through out cries for peace) that this book too falls in line with your other
recent work. I am not thinking of the English market so much as of the American,
and we have had nothing like this to tell is what war is like, especially on
the side of our friends. I know, of course, but that is rather different. If
we do do BEOWULF, this will give us plenty of time to get both RUAN and THE
GATE exactly as you want them to be. Would you object to BEOWULF as the next,
if the *Wolves* agree with me?

I have just been looking over a copy of a magazine called *Presbyterian Life* which Marianne gave me for the Library. It has that nice photograph of her, the one which Plank likes, in which she looks like a Revolutionary soldier with her tri-corne hat. The title is "Marianne Moore--Poet and Presbyterian."

An interview with her, and very nicely written too. I will have it photostatted so that you can read it when you come over. Looking at it, I suddenly realised that about one important clue I was ignorant. I mean: about her father. One reads between the lines without being able to make out the letters clearly. Can you help? Not as dirt, but for my understanding.

And, oh, I keep forgetting one mission I was saddled with, and which I
assumed many months ago in order to keep you from being disturbed in the midst
of your RUAN. A young man named Richard Ellman, whom you may remember worked
for my office, and went partly under my sponsorship to see Mrs Yeats in Dublin.
I believe Hilda met him anyhow; he knew Pup. He has written two very good
books on Yeats, and is now writing a life of Joyce, which the Oxford Press is
to be published. He is trying to collect scraps of memory about Joyce, the im-
pression he made on people, all that sort of thing, as you gave it for Uncle
Norman. He got hold of your name as having known or seen Joyce, and also of
the fact that I could give him your address. This I refused, because you were
busy, but said I would relay his request on when you were more likely to have
an odd half hour for a letter. This was last summer; he has written me a
couple of times since, politely, and I shall be duty bound to report. He is
actually a sincere and able young man, and would be most grateful. It might
of course prove on your part to be a series of notes for a portrait.

You should do one, also, on Adrienne of course.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 July 1955

Dearest Bryher:

An intolerably muggy day! I feel as though I were
back in the steam of the Istanbul bath, but without the sense of
adventure.

Speaking of Istanbul, we were discussing at lunch
yesterday the treasures which we were told of there as being in
the possession of the Greek Orthodox Church, and went on from that--
since one of the men was a distinguished 15th-century scholar --into
the problems of getting at what really must be in the Vatican Library.
To get at the treasures we agreed one would have to be converted, and
even then, my friend suggested, one would be put for five years on
old brevaries etc before being allowed to touch anything of import-
ance. My answer was this was a Catholic version of "guided missals."

I am glad you did, as you wrote, offer a ticket to
Sylvia. What a lovely and genuine letter she wrote you about Adrienne.
I was deeply touched by reading it. I somehow have the feeling that
what will happen is that she will come over, eventually, make a somewhat
longer visit, return to Paris, find that it has blown away, and then
return for good. I felt, when she was here, that she can be happy this
side; there are the doctors and she will be made of on various occasions in a way she has not felt for a long time in Paris, where she has
been a little like a ghost haunting a cherished gravestone of the past.
Adrienne's bequest of her books sounds eminently sensible, though in
Sylvia's case I should rather like what is left to be eventually in the
States. The trouble with the French is that they do not actually use
what they have.

As to Toklas, how kind and good you are. It rather appeals
to me as the sort of gesture only a world made occasionally good can give.
Isabel says she insists more and more on her Americanism, but describes
things only as they were on her last visit in 1935. All this makes more
difficult the writing of her occasional articles on cooking for American
magazines, since the analogies are now almost period pieces. I am only a
little worried about a tourist ticket for her, since she is quite frail
now, I am told, and has had her 78th birthday. And she is, as Isabel
said, a little difficult from having lived too long now alone, has bonne
trouble, and finds young people sometimes lacking in deference. My way
of getting at it would be to work something like this. Gallup, of the
'ale Collection of American Literature, can write to her in the fall (or
after Isabel returns, if you clear the way) and say that he had just
mentioned to me what a blessing it would be if she could come over and
help him with a few things connected with Gertrude's manuscripts, and that
I

2

I had come back a few days later and told him that I had a fund
(some of which was in Pounds), and thought that paying for a ticket
would be perfectly proper since it would be a benefit to scholarship.
I could later tell her where the funds came from, but it would not seem
to be too personal nor to emphasize her inability to do it on her own.
All this in rather the manner we used for Hodgson.

Did you notice, by the way, that The N Y Times Book Review
for 26 June had a little interview with Eliot in it? "We talked about
Ralph Hodgson, the gifted English poet, now in his middle 80's, who
settled into an obscure life in Minerva Ohio. 'Minerva,' Mr. Eliot
informed us, 'isn't on the map, though it is rumored that a bus from
somewhere will take you to it once a day.'" "We could do better than
that in the way of information, but isn't it interesting how Hodgson
manages to fascinate. When you come out in the fall, perhaps we ought
to try to work in a visit. I must write and try to find out about his
health, though this is difficult since I cannot simply write his wife.

Glad you liked the Letter from McAlmon. Do not bother to return.
I have the original.

A letter from Gladys sounded cheerful, and pleased with the idea
of your jaunt to Oxford. A splendid idea. She is setting out again on
her book, working on memoirs etc. I will try to write her from time to
time, and make suggestions of possible material. She needs to liven it
up, and make it more original. Do stress that this is a long job. I know
she will find it, however, an interesting one.

Packages of letters have been pouring in: one of Herring's and
four of Doris's. I was particularly delighted with Robert's; they give
a wonderful picture of the opening of L&L, and he has such a nice
epistolary manner when he reays the gossip and manoeuvrings of office
politics that if they were ever published a century from now they will
be the things to make him famous, rather than his Shakespeare essays
or other books. They make a wonderful addition to the muniment room. Do
send them along as you can.

Doris's of course I enjoy not only for her sake, but because
being so full they make excellent social history. The only one of the
sets of hers I have read so far are the ones from '43, which are excellent
in terms of John's home guard duties, the bombings and alerts etc. Naturally
they made a nice corollary to Beowulf which I had just finished. The
other three sets arrived this morning. They will make good weekend
reading.

REST? For a Fido? Impossible of course, but I do hope you can
manage an hour or two on the roof in the sun, and take cod-liver oil
and whatever else is necessary to get a good coat before you come over
for the fall dog shows.

As to the GATE, do go on with it. I think you will find that
Myro is the point where you'll have to begin, because even the knowledge
that there is no resolution other than an Existentialist continuance of
action is a resolution, after all. To say that there isn't a resolution
for her, as you wrote me, is not to recognize what you yourself have put

3

there, and this: she and you should recognize. That is what a novel is for. In linking her at the end with Archias so that we think of them finally as together, I did not mean of course the kind of tangled knot of lovers' limbs that a cheap novel would give. I think of it rather as a development of the protective instinct toward him as it had been shown toward Menis (the crocodile). This is something you understand very well and it is something more than existentialism though it partakes of that too (whatever it is).

Since this particular disk is for Poseidonia, in the unique sense that a city seal now carried, you do not have to carry over any more than the sense of design that any Poseidonian coin might have had. You can invent it without disturbing verisimilitude, for a mere coin would not carry all the important burden that the disk does. Have the viewers see and say that it is a little like she described coin, but different, fuller of meaning since it is divine coinage, referring to the spirit of the place and not its coffers.

Don't stress the moon symbol unduly, but it is perfectly proper to appear here and there, and does become one of the links here as in Frazer's scheme. The worship of Artemis will seem on Myro's part as though she should have been a huntress instead of a sailor. My way of tracing gives her the chance to do as she has done, and feel the connections that she does feel: between cities, gods, and people. This is not a millenial optimistic resolution at all; it is simply a recognition of the inescapable bonds which tie the people together.

Now Fido, I did not say that Archias was a masculine Sybil; all I did was carry out what you had yourself intimated when you had Harmonia mention that Archias' voice responded when she called on the gods. So they spoke through him, as they speak through any unexpected source to show themselves around one. Harmonia would have thought this. Anyhow your present picture of him is a little rough and uneven. And you do have to build up his earlier connexion with Myro, my dear, so that the story hangs together as a whole. It is casual as an introduction of them en pair, just as Kenneth was absolutely right (with his fine sense of what can be done) in saying that Menis needs to have been built up before suddenly appearing at the end. I will go with him on a little more of Philo and Lykos too.

As to who Menis is, I myself think of him as the lonely one, the rootless one, without such traditions or memories as Philo and Lykos have on the one hand in terms of their love and his memory of triumph; and Harmonia and Archias have in terms of tradition, religion etc. Myro in caring for him in a way Harmonia as priestess could not do (though she feels his plight also) is doing for a younger generation what she is also doing for Archias. Menis's plight is something he is too young to understand for himself; it has to be felt by the others and understood by them for him.

I do not worry too much about Myro's rising a little above mere politeness for Hera one does not have enough excavations or history to make it impossible for human nature, especially for a human nature which as Frazer shows (and Miss Weston too) mixed and mingled their myths.

5 July 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Two letters in the morning post: the only refreshing note in a temperature in the high 90's: quite unbearable. The weekend broke all records for heat, and I was glad that Pup and the children could be out of New York. We had the house full, as did all other members of Susan's family at the Point. At lunch yesterday, at the big house, there were some forty-two who sat down to the meal. A very gay and full long weekend, which began Friday night (the I came in to work on Saturday as usual). The nice thing about such weekends is that they come to an end.

I hasten to answer your notes (a) in the hope that it may reach you before you leave for the Bristol; (b) since I have to drive to Gardner tonight for a 10 o'clock funeral tomorrow moring of a widowed aunt. Never a particular favorite, so grief is not involved, but she is the last of that generation except for my parents (she is my father's sister-in-law), and it will please my mother and her children. I drive back in the heat immediately afterwards. And (c) I fear I shall be melted into butter before noontime.

I enclose a copy of my letter to Islay, which is self-explanatory. He was of course quite correct in his reaction. I suspect that Wolff's English may have failed him. The procedure was (a) Ingholt would have cheap copies made by a little patented device such as we use to repdouce the book illustration we wanted slay to get better copies of in Pakistan; Wolff would take Rome prints to New York, to plan layouts with bookmen; Wolff would tell what negatives he wanted sent over, and return Rome prints to Ingholt who would use while he did first draft of the introduction. He will have finished introduction before he goes, but touch up a little after his return and his feel for the place.

A check for Hilda from Radio Corporation of America just in this morning also, and since it was made out to me I shall simply endorse and send on to her brother for deposit. This will give me a chance to explain Swiss citizenship to him. I think he will believe me; so far as Hilda is concerned, he probably takes brother-cum-male attitude that she does not understand these things.

Another letter from Gladys asking questions about style sheet. I fear she takes too seriously, but will write to reassure her. Any consistent system will do; her trouble is that she shifts from one form to another on several occasions on the very same page. A good typist, of the University of London staff, can put these things in shape if Gladys supplies proper data. But her job for a year, I fear, will be to dig in memoirs, correspondences etc to try to get new material to freshen it up. The form is the least of the

2

present weaknesses. You might give her for Christmas a little fund to let her to go provincial museums and libraries, where she can ask if they have any familiar correspondences (I mean of families) or records of the publishers like Beaton which would be profitable to her. I should have thought she might like to hear the Oxford lectures, but perhaps she can spend the time talking with people in the Bodley. Punt up the Cherwell for me; my rooms were on the kitchen staircase at Magdalen overlooking the Cher: my bedroom was Oscar Wilde's, my sitting and dining room on the floor above. I did use Wilde's rooms too for a while when their occupant in my time was kicked out (for non-Wildean, hence inappropriate, misdemeanours).

Thank you for doing me a letter on Joyce. I think Ellman is not so much interested in critical reactions to Joyce's books, as to recapture the personality, both in terms of your single meeting with him (it is important to know the impression of a single meeting) and in terms of what others you knew thought and said about him.

Your working plans are exciting, and I look for a good year. I like the Swiss idea and the Family Robinson (Did you see the *Life* article on this and on the ms?), so far as I understand. I long for your autumn visit when we can discuss it.

I think you are wrong about Beowulf, but we can see how the Wolves react. It does not need retouching; it is perfect as it stands. I can think of only a couple of strategic sentences, and these are mere suggestions. Let it stand as is. It is very good writing indeed; my whole intention is to keep critics from drifting into a rut of response. It would be most effective that way.

Philip has the real touch; congratulations on what he has managed to slip through.

All love as always,

Nora

5 July 1955

Dear Islay:

A letter from Bryher, which arrived this morning, tells me that you fear that Wolff proposes to use the Rome prints for the Gandhara opus, and that "Islay thinks the best reproductions could be had in the States, and he could send negatives; otherwise good prints could be done in England."

Well, it actually sounds as though you had been listening to the conference between Wolff, Ingholt and myself; for in truth that is precisely what Wolff proposed. There must have been a slip-up in communications, for what Wolff meant was that he would choose from the Rome prints (they are good enough to do that), and then would ask if we could borrow the negatives in order to have them printed here. It would give us the chance to reprint one or two if the first did not come out the way the reproduction people wanted them, etc. All the obvious reasons which you so immediately and sensibly understand,

I will send along a copy of this to Wolff and to Bryher, and
Wolff will communicate with you instanter. If you prefer to supervise
the printing yourself, then you could do it during your trip here with
Kenneth in the autumn. Otherwise, Wolff, I know, can cope.

It is absolutely sweltering weather in Connecticut: the tempera-
ture in the high 90's, with unreasonable humidity to go with it. However,
we find it pleasant at our shore place, and when I return there each evening
from the office I am given a brief respite of life.

Keep your eyes open during the summer for exotic seeds to
bring my wife when you come in the fall. We should love an Anticoi corner
of the garden next year.

All best to you both, as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 July 1955

Dearest Bryher:

A package of photographs arrived this morning, all very exciting to have for the muniment room. The one of Marianne was superb: the cardboard back had slipped off and at first I did not recognize her; then she appeared like a backward metamorphosis in time. Brugiere I did not know; McAlmnn, of course, I did. And what a beautiful young man Marc Allegret was; no wonder Proust was moved by his sensitivity.

And for the program, my thanks also. How can one deny Edith's beauty, of a different sort, in the photograph. Sometimes I think she will be remembered as one of the real beauties of our time; had she lived in an earlier century, painters would have made her famous as a lady of the court.

There have been packages of letters too. I wait for each Lethbridge communication as for an installment in a thriller. Not even the chalk figure itself could be so exciting as the circumstances which surround its unveiling. I do hope he will write it up.

I was grieved to hear of the death of Marianne's Marcia. I had often talked of her with Marianne, but wonder if it were perhaps better for me not to write her that I was sorry, since I can simply say this when we next meet.

Horace's and Marya's trip to the Hartford Foundation should be a pleasant break for them. He was to have come up for some Amy Lowell letters in the library, but simply did not appear. They were probably not important. The edition of Browning, which I got for him a number of years ago should be very good, and I am glad that he feels he can take another year off from Sarah Lawrence. I know how impossible it is for a teacher to accomplish anything while he is teaching. My only worry is that they draw farther and farther away from the literary group, not for Hodgson's reasons but simply because they raise more and more barbed wires between themselves and others. I am quite apalled at the reactions whenever I suggest their names in connection with any of the things they would at heart so like to share. But I fear it is Marya, and that there is nothing that could be done. A real analysis might help, but it would require a special sensitivity and knowledge on the part of the analyst, and I know of no one so equipped, with the possible exception of Merrill who is outlwaed by being himself a poet. Anyhow, I keep my ears open for any distresses the Gregories may meet, and will step in as required.

16 July 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Now I can't be sure whether or not I actually mailed
the letter to you about Heydt. Yesterday was hurried and humid;
this morning it is raining (worse luck for the wedding) and I have
come into town briefly to pick up some ice cream molds (of flowers)
for the bridal luncheon. I can't do this until ten, so will make
another installment on *less affaires* during the half hour I have free.
Really, for the moment I have quite turned into a wedding caterer.
Yesterday afternoon I collected wine, patty shells, chairs and tables.
Even wine and cocktail glasses enough for the 40-odd who will be there.

I am of course a little disconcerted about Kenneth's
letter and your suggestion that he advise on the lay-out of the
Gandharan book. Whether the ART OF INDIAN ASIA was designed by Wolff
or not, I don't know; it could be or need not be. But in any event
he would have seen it develop and could, one presumes, have stepped
in if he really thought it "a disaster" as Kenneth does. It is all
the more awkward because Wolff's old Pantheon Verlag was generally
thought to be one of the best art publishing houses in Europe. But
all this aside, Wolff was to do the layout for the *Gandharan book*
himself, working it out with Ingholt. And I think they have already
started, for we have been trying to rush it in order to keep Islay
happy. And Kenneth will not be coming over until November, when Wolff
will be abroad. One confusion I do think I see brought out by his
protest, which a little surprises me coming after the second expedition.
Your original intention was, it is true, what we would call a picture
book, like Hoynigen-Huehne's, or Islay's book of Capri photographs.
In such a book one does go all out for format, nothing but the most
artistic photographs beautifully mounted etc. But all of us agreed
that such a book would not reach the audience you wanted to enthuse
over the "importance" of the Gandharan material and its preservation,
nor have the permanent impact that such an affect requires. What we
decided on was a "record", the most complete possible of Gandharan
artifacts that now exist in Pakistan. That was the reason that Islay
made his second trip, and he did his job wonderfully ably and with
understanding. I suppose he thought more deeply about it than Kenneth
would have. Such a "record" has to be statistically impressive; that
is why we are using 597 photographs, so that this book will be more
illustratively complete than any comparable book which has ever been
done, and will always retain its referential value. Only in this way
will it be reviewed by learned journals, and made more or more widely
known. Not even the popular magazines will review a Hoynigen-Huene.
What follows then is that the layout has to be such as to sometimes
sacrifice the optimum from an artistic point of view for the sake of

17 July 1955

Dearest Bryher:

The last few days have brought several letters, and letters-
with-letters, and even a welcome package of KORA and the copy of USUAL Star.
Good to have these in the treasury, so to speak. Eventually one can see that
they reach the right places. I envisage eventually three or four good collect-
ions of Hilda's books in strategic spots over the country.

One starts this letter best, I presume, with the most recent
of your letters: that about Heydt. Curiously I am not altogether surprised,
for Hilda's recent letters to you from Kusnacht puzzled me a little by their
evident sense of strain regarding him, quite apart from the Joan-Belinda
situation, although no doubt each somewhat aggravated the other. Shall we
put it this way: the story is crude by natural. Heydt is a kind of war
orphan, without any security or roots, and unfortunately without any real
strength of will or character. His is a cleverness, with a kind of hermaphro-
ditic sensibility to situations. As an analyst he had no place to go back
to and no place to progress towards. Once his period with Brunner is over,
he has nothing, and not the will to make something for himself. An analyst
like Heydt, who has been for so long more or less of an interne, has been
sheltered almost as a child is sheltered by parents: his needs have been
met with, his apartment provided, his food given him, a center of attention
established at the dining table so that he is like a bright child with the
patients. All this is threatened. The easy outlet is through Hilda.

And this circumstance has been an unusual one, with one step
leading to another. In the beginning there was the usual transference which
all analysts know and have to use; and for Heydt in Hilda's case this was
coupled with the less usual but highly Germanic awe of rank, of Hilda as a
great person. One of his jobs was to direct her back to creativity, and as
he did it, and did it well, there was another kind of transference into her
creative self, so that he began a less desirable and possessive identification
with the creativity, a thing he has never quite achieved for himself in music
or painting. And you and I both encouraged him a little in bringing Hilda
out, perhaps I did it especially.

But there was still another circumstance that created an undesir-
able addition to the familiarity of his psychiatric work: that was Walter, and
all he had to understand and learn from him, all of the neuroticism that had
developed in Walter toward the end, and perhaps even the bitter and distorted
confidences. With this he was in constant contact with Hilda, as he became
too with Joan and Belinda -- so that he became aware of another kind of power
and strength on the part of Hilda and of Hilda-cum-you: that is the power
which enabled Walter, Joan and Belinda to come to Kusnacht; and especially
his little ausfluge to Lugano, Venice, Rome, and London. Why not then become
what he, misunderstandingly, would have thought to be Walter's position (not
knowing the truth behind it), especially when his own professional future was

3

and his increasingly historical letters is that he begins desperately to
sense a frustration of the dream he had nurses for so long. Of course one
does not even commence such a dream without being somewhat off balance to
begin with; but how many analysts are! A Freud or a Jung are remarkable
exceptions, and there are others.

No, you must carry on with your plans as before; but I do think you
ought to flip over here after the Scillies, since I suppose you couldn't put
that off until later. I simply don't see how I can manage it, for I couldn't
see you in London without going to Switzerland to see Hilda, and that would
come in the midst of teeth, or just on either side, and would have to be for
some duration in order to have it mean anything. Meanwhile I shall be trying
to type up the Freud letters for the appendix to her book; see what (if any-
thing) I can do about the recording of the "Helen" sequence; do the editing
of the Stillman girls' letters (1800-1801) for the old dame; amite the intro-
duction to the Italian Journals, once the checking of the transcripts is
finished in New York (I have someone working on it now); and especially write
my paper for the English Institute which meets early in September.

But if you could get over, even if for only a few days, we could go
over Hilda's situation, and discuss the matter of Kenneth's fears (of which
more in the next letter), and it would give me a chance to drive you out to
see Hodgson. He would love it, and it would give me the invaluable chance to
check on his health with his wife, and re-emphasize that she must let me know
if any physical crisis comes on him. I cannot write her directly, lest he
see the letter by some chance, and his pride be hurt. We could also pay a
visit to the American Stratford, which is only twenty minutes away; and you
could visit Pup at their nearby summer home. Can't you manage it? We would
cook a **lobster**!

I ought to go on with this and finish other affairs, but there is to be
a wedding of a Bennett niece tomorrow at the shore, and I have to fetch things
for the bridal luncheon, which Susan and two of her sisters are preparing.
Be sure to write me fully each day; that is one way of getting release. I
shall say nothing to Pup meanwhile.

All love, and my arm around you.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 July 1955

Dearest Bryher:

I found the enclosed letter, addressed and stamped, in
my brief case; having of course thought I had mailed it long since to
you at the Bristol. In glancing over it, in terms of your several letters
since, I am not sure that it has any very complete validity so far as
Heydt is concerned. Yest I send it on anyway, since it represents my
first reaction, and because I am not at all sure but that something very
much like what I have suggested may not be at the core of the matter,
aggravated by overwork and by his own analysis. The latter would have
uncovered all sorts of things, the direct facing of which may have brought
on the increased tempo of defence.

Yesterday's mail brought a short letter from Hilda, written
at Saipa, the hand a little tremulous and nervy, but nevertheless with
a certain degree of self-control resetting in. She spoke of having asked
you to write me about Heydt, so that she was able to speak of him. But
rather simply laid most of the trouble to his exhaustion, in which I daresay
she is at least partly true so far as the vulgar manifestation of the
difficulty is concerned: the latent difficulty would not be altered. She
spoke too of Heydt's reliance on her, and rather unorthodox sharing of
Joan's treatment; and (this is of course quite *entre nous*) I think that
Joan has been a real difficulty and source of emotional exhaustion, just
as Walter was. Or, rather, coming on top of Walter. That is why I am so
pleased to learn from you that Petrie is trying to find a London analyst
to take Joan on (not Glover, I beg of you!), so that she can leave Kusnacht
in case Hilda should want to return there for awhile. With all my glibness
for liking to analyze people, I should not want to try Joan, who I fear
finds it not uncongenial to be the center of attention as a kind of substitute
for the lack of attention in her family life and, so to speak, from her
fiancée.

I have not heard from Schaffner about Sylva Norman's book, for
we have not had a second meeting. Alas, I can't very well advise about
London houses, and daresay she would have objections to tying herself to
a small press now that she is planning another and perhaps more acceptable
one. Has she tried working through an English agent? I don't think there
is any substitute for one.

As to your absenting yourself from Hilda, I rather think your
English visit came at just the right time. Now that she has spilled out to
you, it is better not to have you around for a bit as a temptation to say
the same things all over again. She will settle in, in her own way; and
I should not be afraid of the American hop for yourself if you can possibly
manage it. And I shouldn't call her too often when she goes back to Kusnacht.

But you know best about this of course.

I never did write you about the letters from Sylvia and Rinette about Adrienne. I am not at all shocked, and she knew herself best. The past years have been hellish for her. Actually I should not like to destroy Sylvia's letter, as you suggested, simply because it is so honest and straightforward; and in the long run the greatest justification for Adrienne (if she needed one, which she does not) that one could hope for. I have no feeling at all about what she did: my uncle did the same; so did a brother-in-law of Susan's; so did my best friend, the son of O'Neill; and so did John Gould Fletcher. In no case, except possibly O'Neill's, did I feel any regret for the action as such; and in his case too, it may well have been the right one. I objected only to the dramatics, and to the horror of the fact that once he did the job he changed his mind, only too late.

You spoke once of sending a letter of Edith's along, but it never came.
Naturally your description made me curious. Perhaps you forgot it.

I shall be eager to see the new version of THE GATE, and only hope a
later plane will bring you with it.

My affectionate greetings to Doris, and to Rita, if you bare still by
some chance there, and of course and as always my deepest love to you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

25 July 1955

Dearest Bryher:

The rewritten draft of THE GATE TO THE SEA has arrived. I have dipped into it this morning, with great pleasure, but too many people have dropped in for me to get far enough along with it to say more than that I like it. The slow easy pace of the first few pages will go well against the increased tempo as the story goes along.

A letter from Wolff is anxious for his conference about the contract for the Sandharan book, so I hope you will let me know immediately when you have heard from Islay. Or shall I simply sign the contract anyway, as I suggested, on the basis that I am sure Wolff would be willing to rewrite it if Islay objects. Really what needs to be settled, I think, is whether slay prefers a private arrangement with me as for a flat sum or a royalty. I have of course never discussed the arrangements with him.

The weather has been beastly; last Friday when I went to New York to go over the first checkings of my transcript of the French and Italian notebooks which Leyda is making for me (or more accurately the last checking, since when this is finished I shall call it quits as far as the text is concerned), the temp was 97. Everyone wilted. It has been much the same here, and to make matters worse they have been breaking up the pavement with electric drills just under my window.

You will be amazed to learn that I am taking off tomorrow morning on a cruise until the end of the week with Susan and her sister and brother-in-law in a sailing boat they have. Another sister may go along; a little crowded, but it should be great fun. We hope to sail to Block Island (at the tip of Long Island) and then on to Martha's Vineyard before the end of the week. Susan is delighted, and the change will do me no harm. So we will both be sea-farers, you at the Scillies and I on the Sound.

God love us both! Give my affectionate greetings to Doris.

6 August 1955

Dearest Bryher:

A letter from you -- end of your Scilly jaunt -- arrived this morning, and I am glad to be in at the office this Saturday morning so that I can answer it. But you must forgive daubs of sweat on the paper. It has been incredible weather ever since we returned from our jaunt. The temperature has never been below 95 on any day, and often 97 or 98. Records are not being broken but melted.

But first of all let me say how much I liked the re-writing of the GATE. It seems to me to be filled out in substance more handsomely than in the first version, and to hold together very well indeed. I have nothing in the way of further suggestions to be made, and I should not look at it again if I were you until after you have finished the new version of RUAN.

The chief event of the week has been the death of Wallace Stevens. He died, quite unexpectedly to most of us, on Tuesday morning in a Hartford Hospital. You may remember that he had an operation rather suddenly in May, and one suspects now that it may have been cancer. I drove to Hartford on Thursday afternoon for the funeral. It was -- how shall I say it? -- somehow the suitable ending of the biography, suitable but extraordinary in the ordinary course of events when one would suppose the funeral of a distinguished writer to be accompanied by the pomp of an equivalent Abbey. But it was not in a church, with stained-glass mellowing of light and the strains of a requiem choir. It was in a commonplace funeral home: a red-brick sprawling converted cottage from the end of the last century, but situated in the center of the city only around the corner from his insurance office. There were perhaps some eighty people there, seated in folding chairs which faced the long end of the room where Stevens' coffin lay like a plaque in a solid wall of unmistakably funeral flowers piled higher than my head. A blanket of white crysanthemums dotted with red carnations against a green background covered the coffin three-quarter towards his head, where the cover was raised on the dark mahogany box, lined with some dull plush, and appearing like an old-fashioned open phonograph from which the droning undistinguished music of a mechanical organ (actually at the rear of the room) seemed to come. Only the broad forehead of Stevens could be seen. The audience was all from his insurance company: secretaries dressed up for the occasion, the Negro chauffeur who drove him regularly in the office car, and row upon row of stolid business faces of his fellow executives. The bearers sat in a line in the front row: the president of the company and five other vice-presidents. There was one older woman strangely there by herself, and a mother and daughter

2

who came from some social connection with his daughter. But there
were no friends of the family, so to speak, none of the neighbors,
companions and all those who usually come to the funeral of an old
man in whose circle they had been. There was only the business
relationship to associate him with the community. The funeral service
itself was brief --only ten minutes of reading from the scriptures,
selections given without enthusiasm or sympathy by a young and very
low Episcopalian priest, and chosen with so completely a lack of
reference to the identity of the person who lay in the coffin that
one would have had no sense of who he had been or what he stood for.
One could see too from the faces of the congregation that they had
no sense of the poet either. In the whole group there were only four
who could be said to be there as friends of the poet: Sam Morse, who
taught at a local college and for whose book of poems Stevens once
wrote an introduction; Donald Gallup, who came up with me to represent
the Yale Library; a Jack Sweeney who knew Stevens well and is curator
of the Amy Lowell Room at Harvard; and myself. And, yes, there was
one other. By himself sat a man who had never known Stevens, but had
come once to Morse to ask him about Stevens' poetry. None of Stevens'
literary peers were there, not even a representative of his publishers.
It was an isolated ending, aloof as he had always been from the literary
world in which his name was a planet. When the four of us stood outside
the funeral home afterwards, I could not help saying: "We have seen the
funeral of the vice-president of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity
Company; the other man will take care of himself."

But I have the sense of a great personal loss, and something
has been taken away.

Very cheerful letters have come from Hilda, and I think she
will be able to take the return in August to Kusnacht in her stride.
You were an immense help to her at Lugano; I can't tell you how grateful
I am to you.

The Scillys sounded like great fun, and the shipwreck was an
experience that belonged to another century. Or, rather, you proved
that it did not. Doris' health bothers me, as it must bother you; and
I rather suspect that there might be some point in a mid-winter return
to the States just to check. One needs to do it rather frequently just
now lest things get out of hand. When you come over, probably before
she does, I should think it wise for you to have a private talk with the
doctors.

I have talked with Wolff on the phone, still not having had
any official clearance from you as to Islay and the type of contract
to draw up. Do let me know, as Wolff goes on his holidays in a fortnight.
I shall want to see him before then. Because of the curious nature of
the book, and the difficulty of estimating costs as one can do with a
novel, we have decided to draw up the contract on a cost-plus basis.
He estimates that the figure should be in the neighborhood of $18,000,
give or take a couple of thousand. This is more than we bargained for,
but the book will justify it, I feel sure. The only problem for the
future seems to be this -- and Wolff is rather disturbed at the possibility.
Islay has been encouraged to go to prepare a similar book for Etruscan,
and Wolff says that he has other plans too. $18000 is a good deal of

3

money, and if one is to multiply it two or possibly three times
in terms of other books, the total is likely to get out of hand.
Especially if I am able to work out some arrangement with one of
the new smaller houses here, but a good one, to become interested
in doing some of Hilda's prose. I suggest this only for you to keep
in mind in any long-range subsidy of Islay in this way.

A letter in this morning's mail from Collins, saying that
they are sending a copy of their edition of ROMAN WALL. By the way,
it would please Pup, I know, if you would have a copy sent her. I
gave her one of OCTOBER as from you, and she was obviously delighted.
They are coming down to see us on Tuesday.

With all these matters I had almost forgotten our cruise,
which was a splendid success. We left on Tuesday morning and returned
Sunday night, hardly having left the boat. Once I got used to the
idea that I could not work, I simply relaxed and let my nose grow
red in the sun. Almost my only reading was the revision of the GATE,
which seemed to me a wonderfully apt situation in which to read it.
But of the cruise, more in my next.

Warm greetings to Rita, Gladys, Sylva Norman, Cole and the
others. And of course for yourself, and as always, my love and my
arm around you.

Zcoran

11 August 1955

Dearest Bryher:

I think of you already as you will be when you receive
this at Kenwin -- all Hellenics and Scillies past -- sitting back on
your chair in the sun on Kenwin's roof, and, I hope, relaxing. What an
immense ground of various sorts you have covered. I have been intrigued
with each letter, from the shipwreck on.

This morning brought your story of the repulse of Gandhara.
Don't you see it? Just as the Indians represent this pivot-point where east
and west meet, because somehow being mixed with political tempers they do
not wish to be, shall we say, "indebted" to the west which was its conqueror;
so, also, the British do not wish an indebtedness to a cultural strain
which blows into the west from whilom colonial soil. Greece belongs to
the West; the east is all right as a colony, but culturally we are self-
sufficient. I shall never forget my immense surprise when Sir Michael,
the master of University College at Oxford told me he could never admit
any Indian student to Univ because, of course, he could never invite a
nigger into his drawing room. How much worse then for your Guthrie to
invite Gandhara into his culture!

But of course there is another reason too, and that is the
snobismus of the "expert." Any one expert only tolerates another expert;
he will not even condescend to a person whom he considers an "amateur."
This is, I think, why British scholarship has, quite frankly, become
increasingly sterile. So far as Gandharan art is concerned it has not
gotten beyond the stage of souvenirs which Indian colonels brought back.
But it will be. The book will help to change things, not by being a
picture book (which is only another kind of souvenir) but by being so
complete that it cannot be ignored. The first reviews will be sniffy,
with the exception of one or two which will be menacingly (towards rivals)
enthusiastic. But from then on it will have to be reckoned with.

Still I am glad that you had this touch of Oxonian Hellenistics.
Haec olim meminisse iuvabit.

I was glad too that you had the chance to meet Masefield, and
see him in his home. It was great luck, I fancy, that Gladys was along to
take care of Mrs M. and leave her husband to you. She can be a devil, I am
told; and is very possessive.

Let me know what Weston is like. I long to hear. And when
did the boy get married, and to whom. He writes charmingly.

3

And do also let me know what you heard from Islay about the
contract. I had to let Wolff down, not having heard from you, but I
dare not face him after September when he comes back from his holidays.
I spoke to him on the phone about his layout for the book, and he will
make a special trip to Rome to see Kenneth about it, carrying photostats
of what has been done. Backgrounds, he says, might be changed when Kenneth
comes; the layout however depends mostly on Ingholt's ordering of the
pictures in relation to the text, and in order to finish his introduction
before he leaves for Syria and then Pakistan, we could not wait even for
a special pre-autumnal visit on Kenneth's part. Anyhow I only hope it
works out all right.

What a nice letter to you from Hodgson. On other matters I've had
an exchange or two of letters with Eliot, and in one of them (just after
his queries about Hodgson were reported in the New York Times Book Section,
I summarized for him the account you'd had copied from my description to
you. Eliot was most pleasant. "What you have said about Ralph Hodgson
constitutes a document which ought to be incorporated into any biographical
account of him, and Hodgson will deserve a biographical memoir--although I
fear that the suggestion is never likely to appear to many publishers. What
would be most admirable would be a new "Lives of the Poets" in which he
could appear with an essay by a new Samuel Johnson." I hope you don't mind
sharing the account with him; I thought that word might get around. I
still think we must try to get out to see him some time, so that I can
make sure all is all right. His letter seemed to indicate, however, that
it was.

Must close, and do a job or two more before going back to the shore.

All love, and a nuzzle.

Norman

to 150 pages, bringing in some Beowulf types along with the civil
service and ministry ones. It would have to be that long at the very
least to make a book of it. Or, of course, the alternative, redo it
and cut to 25pp. John, who knows better about these things than I do,
has discovered that anything longer than that can't find an outlet.
Don't scream! Or if you do, I shall throw back that old chestnut about
Renaissance artists and the available wall space.

What a good letter from the Goughs. Like her book which I did
enjoy for its unpretentiousness. And a nice one from Lethbridge. I
feel very much au courant.

All love to you, of course, now that you are back in your
kennel. No matter how much you woofed, I'd keep you chained up for a
few weeks anyhow. I pray for the sun and no fleas for you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

23 August 1955

Dearest Bryher:

The check in this morning's mail, plus the photographs of Freud and of Walter. For which, many thanks. The Freud photograph will go well with the book. It was not precisely the one I wanted, which was of Freud in his study, where the analyses take place and which Hilda describes. She sent her copy, but it has a corner torn, alas. Perhaps you will run across one of those.

I am delighted that they want you to do Adrienne for the *Mercure*. Of course you must; these things always come better as by request. I suggest that you do it in the manner of the Uncle Norman piece, letting your comments on her contributions etc fall into line with the presentation of her gestures, the little motions of the hand and carrying of the head that will soon be forgotten. This kind of a Norman portrait remains permanent; there is an Eliot for each age who will value and revalue the contribution. The French can do that for themselves, have actually done it or they would not be requesting this tribute to her. *Remember the particulars*, the nice particularities; let others be the critics. Make her come alive as she moved forward to meet you; taste her cooking again, picture her pride as she showed those superb silk embroideries of her sister; glimpse her again in her corner of *Les Amis de Livres*. Do it, do it, do it.

Perdita and John, the two boys and Woody were at the shore yesterday in the nice green station wagon with its sweet, if somewhat oddly inscribed "Spring Valley Farm" on the door. The boys revelled on the childrens' beach. "We call it beeza," Valentine said in his clipped voice; "Beeza, beeza!" Nikki echoed, as he does everything that Valentine says. They stayed until mid-afternoon when Nikki finished

24 August

his two-hour nap, and sleepily made his way to the car. They are really both charming boys; and Pup has done an excellent job in bringing them up. She is lucky too in having Frau Wolff. There house this summer has worked out fairly well, tho I think they long for something nearer the shore, and cooler. John intends to take a week off soon, so that they can look. Alas, I suspect they will be appalled at the costs. But if they are not impatient, something will turn up, I am sure; and I bear all in mind.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 September 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Havoc, all is havoc! During the past few weeks but especially at this moment when the moving men are suddenly here for a vast shifting of offices, including mine. Quite desparately, I have piled papers and ashtrays into desk drawers,-- your letters among them,-- and now I wait, praying that they will work with my furniture before I have to leave for the first class of my senior seminar. What will happen if I am not here to tell them where to put things, heavens only knows.

The move is hardly transcontinental, since I am only shifting to # 231. This will be advantageous however, since it puts the department secretary between the chairman and myself, and she can fend people off from my door. But the chief point is that I gain more space; and altho I shall have to sacrifice the character of my room, it will be worth it. I shall be needing more filing cabinets without present space to put them; and, as you may remember, the room is now jutted and angled with bookcases until it has the appearance of a scholar's maze.

Don't worry about the address. They sort the mail downstairs by name anyhow, and never glance at the particular address. Quite characteristically I have just ordered 1500 envelopes with 233 on them.

You were good to write so faithfully from Kusnacht, and I have blessed you for it. The news of Hilda's lesion upsets me, and I am anxious for the chance to talk with you about it in November when you come across. Like yourself, I wish she would come to the States, as Doris did, and

20 September

Dearest Bryher (all over again):

What a gentle innocence and peace the paragraphs above seem to indicate when compared to the days that followed. I stopped typing when a foreign student came in for advice; when he left, the movers began such a bedlam as you have never seen. Five offices in all had to be moved. Most of them were comparatively easy, but when the chief mover stood in my doorway and looked at the room, his comment was audible and painful:

Christ!

2

and I must say I sympathized with him, for in addition to the four filing
cabinets, the two desks, the table, and the vast masses of magazines and
books piled on the floor for want of a receptacle, there were eleven book-
cases. They worked valiantly but could only get half of it moved Thursday
afternoon, and had to finish Friday morning. I did not, obviously, get to
that first afternoon class, but sent a lad to inform my assistant (who was
there) to carry on, and to make appointments with the boys for me for this
week. But I did have a Friday morning lecture to prepare in twenty minutes,
which were all that were left after the movers had left; and on Friday
afternoon I found myself, "academically" at home" to a throng. Saturday,
although it was our last weekend at the shore, I came in and worked like a
trojan picking up books and things from the floor and trying to find room
for them on my shelves. Otherwise I could not have moved, having found it
necessary Friday afternoon to receive students while I sat on the edge of
my desk. But now the office begins to take shape again. I can't really say
whether it is actually larger than my former one, and certainly I have lost
a good deal of the character that the other one acquired. But this one
arranges a little better, and I have managed to clear a space so that two
chairs can be put together. You will see it in November and can make up your
own mind. At the moment I have an undergraduate dusting the books--an augean
task. If only I had Elsie to supervise the restoration!

To go a little farther back in time, I had the week in New York at
the English Institute, where I gave my paper and was in charge of the series
on the importance of bibliography to modern textual studies. And before that
a hectic, and therefore helpless week, in which I tried to write a paper that
would be presentable. I have to touch the paper up a little, and get a clean
copy made; but on the whole I think I shall simply save it until you come,
and you can see it here. I made mine rather general and essayish in manner,
giving examples of every type of confusion which can be found through bibli-
ographical study, in order that the audience would know how to listen to the
more professionally detailed examination of the state of texts for Yeats, Joyce
and Eliot. Fortunately, the series went off remarkably well. I was greatly
relieved.

To go back now to ... (but at that point came a series of students,
followed by an appointment in another building, so that it is now 11:55 with
only a few minutes before an invitation to lunch). But, as I had started to
say, to get back to Hilda: your later letters have reassured me somewhat so
far as the immediate present is concerned; but the possibility of this sort
of recurrence of the old trouble does make me wonder whether her flat, if she
gets one, ought not to be in the environs of Kusnacht, or at least somewhere
where she can have an eye kept on her. In other words, all I perhaps mean is
that if she should be inclined to chance another winter with Brunner, there
might be something to be said, faute de mieux, for not urging her elsewhere.
Naturally all this will be much easier to go over in person when you are in
the States.

I saw Perdita and John on Sunday, their last day at their summer
home, and they are both looking forward to the trip. I told Pup how much I
wished Hilda could come over here for a checkup, and she agreed, although we
both agreed also that the nervous strain almost makes it out of the question.
Pup is chiefly concerned, for the sake of the children as well as Hilda, that
Cat should see the boys. That is the main object. So that I suggested -- and
you might bear this in mind when she goes over -- that perhaps the solution

3

would be, some summer, year after next perhaps, or even next year, for Pup to take a small flat or suite somewhere along Lake Lugano for three weeks or a month, take the boys to it, so that Hilda could pop in to see them at her fancy, without having them on top of her. Pup could get a local bonne to take care of the boys, which would permit her innumerable meetings at Saipa, a deux, with Hilda.

My visit to the Schaffners was a little unexpected and had to do with your offer to get them a more permanent little summer home. John and she had been looking around all summer, and at last had found two possibilities which they wanted me to see. One was a remodeled old farmhouse, some fifteen miles or so in from the shore, apparently most attractive and with orchards, grounds etc. The other was a very modest cottage directly on the beach at Fenwick Point which is just outside of Old Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Being rather papa-ish in acting as your surrogate, I said that I thought the beach cottage much preferable for them as at this period in their life. And so I visited that with John, and gave them a signal to go ahead and see if the title was cleared and a decent offer could be made. My objection to the farm is purely practical. In the first place Pup has found it exhausting to drive the boys and guests back and forth to the shore; and one can hardly blame boys for feeling that Eden is a beach; a shore would mean that the boys need do no more than step off the porch. And since Pup likes the water also, the proximity would mean that she could dash down for a swim any time she wished. In the second place, they hardly know how much time and money it takes to keep fruit trees sprayed and trimmed, lawns mowed, fields hayed etc. Even our little gardens, I feel, sometimes take more than they are worth. It will be no weekend for John (who is distinctly not the farming type) if he has to devote himself to these matters; and for Perdita it would only be an added burden. The cottage we visited has no grass at all, only a long expanse of beach grass (really weeds) which come up to the porch. Neither you nor I would call it a handsome cottage, tho it can be made a little more attractive than it is, once the trim has been repainted. It is a box-like affair, with a largish combined sitting and dining room on the ground floor, plus kitchen; and four bedrooms on the second floor, which overhand to make a screened-in porch on two sides of the living room. The shingled walls of the house and the roof seem to be in good condition; the furniture is pretty impossible, and the living room interior needs to be painted. Its chief advantage is that it has its own protected beach of excellent sand, and the gentle slope and absence of surf is first-rate for the children. The area is, I believe, 100 feet long by 400 feet deep. It is a part of a colony made up mostly of good Hartford people, as not open to the public, and as also situated so that the shipping on the Connecticut River goes by close to the house and gives the children something to watch. Actually they already consider it a great treat to go nearby and sometimes to this very beach, so the S's already know it will work out. There should be another bedroom, but it may be a good thing for Pup is guests can be discouraged. The asking price is $18,000 which is a little staggering when one thinks of the house itself, but it is shore frontage, and my feeling is that it will not deteriorate in value; and should they keep it for only five or six years while the children are young, any small loss could be charged off as rent. I suggested they make an offer of $16,000 unfurnished, or an extra 500 for the furniture; and see if they cannot get it for less than the asking price. If they can get it, even at 18,000 I should think it best to take, and put another 2,000 into sprucing it up. I hope I have done right in the matter, and Pup will of course be full of it when she comes. I wanted simply to warn you. By the way, I should give it to Pup, and gently suggest that it be kept in her name. I always think this best, for a number of reasons. At any event, when you come over I will drive you up so that you can see it.

4

Perdita will perhaps also be writing you of Marianne's operation on her foot: a little spur of bone which she has had removed. You were strictly not to be told. John heard of it through a friend of his, and I had wind of it while I was at the Institute meeting in New York. I gather it was not very serious, though she characteristically got up out of bed in the hospital when her brother visited her so that she could walk with him. One would think he would have sense enough to keep her in bed. I sometimes think that he should bear a little of the blame for the difficulties between her and his wife. I think all these flatter his ego, as it must have done to be the heart's delight of a mother and a sister and a wife all at the same time. At any rate, this getting out of bed gave Marianne a set-back, so that John's friend felt she ought to have a maid, daytimes, when she returned home. Would I (which means you thru me)? And of course I said yes, but when the time came for her to go home, which was yesterday, she was told and refused, saying the maid was coming in four times a week anyhow. No good to badger, but I thought it was good of John to care and to keep tabs.

I understand that Dorothy Pound is not so well these days, and her younger friends feel the problem should she suddenly be invalided and hospitalized with no funds save the income from her small inheritance. I have said simply to let me know if any emergency came up, and one would see what could be done. One does feel that she has had rather a rough time of it, all things notwithstanding.

Which leads me, now that we speak of the flock, to suggest that perhaps you and I could manage a quick motor trip to see Hodgson when you come out. We might manage it on a weekend between classes. You could talk with him, and it would give me the chance to sneak off with Mrs Rafe to check on his health and finances. We discussed all this when I was last there, but I am anxious she should know that we remembered. I simply cannot write her directly, less the postoffice send the letter to their house instead of to the factory. If it went to their house, then he would wonder why I was writing, and his pride would be hurt.

The Collins edition of Roman Wall was perhaps not quite so horrific as the October, the Susan retched when she saw it. But really they do not seem to have any sense of style; and when I consider how beautifully they did the German edition of October, I wonder just where the bloc lies. I did think the latter exceptionally good, and look forward to seeing their Roman Wall. This really has been an international fall for me, with Hilda's Avon coming out as well. I was sorry if Urzidel was hurt by the omission of his notes, but I rather wonder, knowing the particular audience for these special editions, if the notes would not have made another sort and a more pedantic book out of it. My impression was that Hilda preferred it without notes, save for not wanting to hurt Johannes. I think it might be a good idea if we helped out Suhkkamp by buying a few extra copies of the edition for distribution. Especially since they did it without any subsidy at all. What would you say to my getting fifteen copies of the regular edition and five of the special edition to put away. One could distribute them judiciously: to Pup, Bryn Mawr, etc. Do let me know, and I will order. And I can send directly to Kenneth, George Plank, etc, and pay with the same money order. Wolff thought this would be a nice gesture.

5

I enclose a clipping from yesterday's paper about Burgess and McLean, on the possibility that it might be a fuller account than you were given in British or Swiss newspapers. My professional eyebrows are lifted with amusement, although it is of course a matter of the utmost seriousness, especially since people like Auden, who knew them, say that he was astounded at how openly they talked in a pro-communist manner while still in the service. Perhaps it was the best sort of cover. If they were actually recruited while undergraduates at Cambridge, this becomes a classical case of the game's axiom that recruits should be made long in advance of their moment of actual service, and their cover established and their careers helped by some cash which will seem to be their own resources. Ah well, and alack-a-day, this is all gloomy when turned against Albion.

Apropos of clippings, I was delighted with the reviews of *Fabula* you sent; they seemed more alert to your intentions than the reviews of *October* did.

And I particularly liked the clipping which began, as though in causative sequence: "Dame Edith Sitwell, received into the Church recently, will be making her commercial television debut during the opening weeks of the new surface."

The various packages of your letters to Walter have been arriving regularly. You were most unjust to yourself in thinking them commonplace. I can see the real spirit that existed between you in the early days, and the letters are filled with the wonderful details of trips and early wartime. I would not have had them tossed aside for anything.

I really do begin to feel as though I had caught up a little. It should not be so bad in the future, now that things have begun to get into their fall routine. But of course nothing can really be called "caught-up" until you have made your visit. Much better, I think, that Kenneth and Islay should have their flat, and that you have your kennel in the Beekman Towers again. That leaves each one his own master.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 September 1955

Dearest Bryher:

My last letter was so interspersed with ruptures that it
was a wonder it got written at all. And things which I omitted keep coming
to my mind.

As for example that I ought to have added that if you want
either Pup or me not to go ahead with the little cottage, perhaps you had
better cable, at least before John leaves; that there is no reason at all
why one should not take out a mortgage on it if it is more convenient to
make the chiefer payments at a later date; and, thirdly, that my private
advise would be to give the money (which means the house) to Pup rather
than to John, although I now think I did mention this before.

I did not mention the Gandhara book, though I spent my first
evening at the Institute, downtown with the Wolves with whom I had dinner.
Christian was there and we talked about his year in Florence. He wishes
he knew some American boys in Italy (or rather young people), so I shall
send him Cheney's address in Rome. By the way, Cheney had his Fullbright
Fellowship renewed, and so will be spending another year in Italy. I went
over the dummy make-up for the book, and Ingholt has been down since to go
over it more professionally, making some changes and altering the arrangement
the layout man had given. The revised layout will be photostatted and sent
to Wolff abroad so that he can show it to Islay and Kenneth. Then when they
come to the States, Islay will be able to talk with the Meridan Gravure
people about the prints, cut-outs, backgrounds etc, which can wait until
then. Wolff had a letter from Islay which I shall have to answer and try to
set straight if I can, though I am afraid they did not understand the raison
d'etre for the second trip; for Islay now says "better 60 beautifully printed
plates than 600 badly printed ones." Of course none ought to be badly printed,
but what he really means is the picture book against the important scholarly
contribution in which it is the number of illustrations that makes it definitive
as reference. However, it will be wonderful to have Islay here to make the
book as attractive as possible; and I think when it finally appears and he
recognizes it in its genre, he will be pleased and proud of it. I spoke to
Wolff about payments to Islay, and he suggested 5% royalty and I can give him
$500 advance when he comes. This of course will have to be arranged
between Islay and myself. Signal me if you approve, and I will write Islay
about it. I have made the first down payment to Wolff on the book, the second
to be made when the final photostatted dummy is turned over to me. This initial
output of $8,000 will about take care of making the prints and plates for the
illustrations.

By the way, I spoke to Wolff about the possibility of his
bringing out the Freud book, and we will discuss it on his return. He seemed
more interested now, especially with the Jones biography having reawakened
interest, and I suspect that this would be more satisfactory as an arrangement
than the Farrar-Strauss deal would be.

I did not mention the stock for the Hotsons, and I quite understand about buying in Switzerland which of course you must do. But I am asking around, and we can discuss when you come. There will be plenty of time before Christmas after you return.

The chief other news from my week in New York was that I had dinner at a small party which included Roger Loomis and his wife. We hit it off pleasantly well, and I told him about your interest in his work and have sent him a copy of *Roman Wall* for boat-reading on his way to England. He is to be a visiting professor at Oxford this winter, and I suggested that if you should happen to be in England while he was there you might run up to see him. A very lively man who has just retired from Columbia. His wife was well known as a scholar in the same field, and taught at Wellesley College, outside of Boston, commuting between there and New York.

We moved back to town on Monday of this week, just in time to batten the hatches for another expected Hurricane, Ione. It was described as the worst ever, and did immense damage along the Carolina coastline; but suddenly its 120 mile-an-hour winds faded out, and three hours before it was to arrive it had disappeared. We did not lament it.

All love as always,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 September 1955

Dearest Bryher:

I spoke to Perdita and John last night, and sent love by you and Hilda to her. How I envy her, and I shall think of you all at Saipa, or even perhaps on the giro if it is not too cold. Being just in the midst of reading *The Country of the Pointed Firs*, which by way of contrast and paradox I am including this year in my lecture course on modern American fiction, I have a kind of mixed vision of the Lugano holiday as being a compound of Maine and the Tessin: in any event a pastoral.

I should have called the Schaffner's in any event, simply for the magic of sending love by her; but I called also in answer to John's phoned request that afternoon, because of the developments with the summer cottage. I had, you will recall from my last letter, suggested that they offer $16,000 for the house unfurnished; but meanwhile John had gotten the landplan of the lot, which showed it to have considerably more than he had thought, being some 700 feet deep rather than the 400 he had told me about. Since the road goes through the middle of the lot this really means it could be counted as two lots, and the shore frontage works out to be entirely within the breakwater, which means safe waters for the children. I was prepared to tell him to offer the full price of 18,000, when he called to say the owner would not sell for less. Not having heard from you to the contrary, and being sure that the letter must have reached you, I told him to go ahead and conclude the deal. I can give him from the account whatever is necessary as a binder, and we can either take out a mortgage or make other arrangements as you see fit now or when you come. I hope I have done the right thing in carrying out your wishes that they should have a summer place.

Having been in an absolute rush over the weekend, I simply sent you the page from the *New York Times* with its notice of the F.O. twins; but I had been praying for you to do just what you did in ordering a copy of the White Paper for me, which is the only permanent way to have it. I daresay we will see mild fireworks when Parliament opens, and I will keep you in touch with what goes on. I have the feeling that the *New York Times* will report it about as fully and reliably as the British papers will have space or inclination to do. In some ways, having read the White Paper with an experienced eye, I didn't feel it to be as non-communicative as the newsmen seemed to. It is perfectly clear that the original tip-off on MacLean came from sources that could not be presented as evidence in court, and that, knowing what they were looking for, they were trying to find a path to it that was a public way. Of course they were rather startlingly lax in keeping track of the two men; but the shameful crux of the matter is the incredible tip-off which the two had, and the unavoidable conclusion that this tip-off could have come only from the counter-espionage service whose responsibility the search was. This is what they do not dare face the public with, and you will of

2

course notice that

(at this point it is Thursday night, 8:30, and I have come back to the office lest you not hear from me at all)

the White Paper reports that in respect to the tip-off the search did not provide conclusive evidence presentable in court. This means that there was evidence of a tip-off, rather than that there was none; although I wholeheartedly admire and approve the British determination not to bring anything to court which is not cut and dried in terms of the prosecution. From this step on, I think I shall have to wait until November to tell you what 2 and 2 I have put together in regard to a friend of mine who was let out of the service (a British friend in the British service) for his association with Burgess. This is only surmise, and of course I trust you not to mention even this in any public circles.

Well, I did finish that paragraph before saying that your letter of the 23rd arrived this morning, with its various news. And I am glad that you approve of the house. John called me in the afternoon after I had begun this letter to say that he had heard from the agent, who wants a thousand dollars down, which I will see that he gets. And during John's and Pup's absence I will have the title searched by my lawyers to see that all is in order before any deed is signed. As to the payment for it, it should be paid for directly by Perdita. Otherwise it will be a gift from me, and therefore taxable as a gift. But I think that insofar as you are concerned you are confusing the matter with the situation that prevailed when you had extensive funds in this country and were subject to income tax in the States on that amount. Had you made the gift then, you would have had to pay tax. Now, however, you can give out of Swiss funds (so far as the U.S. is concerned) any sums you wish to Perdita without having to pay any tax at all. Nor does Pup have to pay. I have checked this with my lawyers in terms of my declaring any of the sums you pay over to me for the savings account, since I did not want to get either you or me into difficulties if one had to explain where these sums came from. Mind you, I am not speaking of this from the Swiss angle; but when I warned you some years ago about the 3,000 limit it was simply in terms of your U.S. holdings; and this no longer obtains. So you can give Pup cash or stocks as you wish.

I should not mention the matter to Perdita, but the truth is that they are already falling into line with your idea of moving out of New York eventually with the boys as they grow up. That was part of her liking for the farmhouse. But I say better to wait on that for a bit, and be very sure where they want to go, for when they make such a step it should be reasonably permanent. Meanwhile this summer arrangement at Enwick makes a reasonable interim arrangement.

I think it would be a sensible idea to have a lawyer to take Rene's place, and, again, we can discuss when you come over. Perhaps my excellent New Haven firm would be a good one. They have the finest New York connections, are Yale's lawyers, etc., and their fees are certainly not to be compared with those of the city firms.

3

I do see what you mean about Walter and yourself. I have felt the inevitability ever since I have come to know him better through your letters to him. To say that he had the simplicity of the old Vikings is most apt, and I think it falls in too with the manner in which, when things began to slip rapidly, he clung to you and demanded you. Oddly enough, though I cherish Roman Wall as my book, for a number of reasons, it was still and perhaps more fundamentally Walter's book, more so than the one actually dedicated to him. For he clung to the memory of the mosaic, as bit by bit it chipped away.

I look forward to Alps and Elephants, and am delighted I did not send it to you. What I have sent is a little waggerie called The Year the Tail Came, which traces the problems and history of man's first growing a tail. If any book, by title, should be my Fido's, this sounds like the one. I did just receive from the Princeton University Press, with your compliments, a copy of John Zizka and the Hussite Revolution, but do not quite recall why you wanted me to read it.

Good luck with Ruan and plug away at it after Pup's departure. My love to Hilda, Perdita, and yourself of course; and scatter rosemary for remembrance over the lake.

Lorcan

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 September 1955

Dearest Bryher:

A rather hurried note at the end of a rather hectic day, marked chiefly this afternoon by the funeral of one of the library officials who died suddenly and almost immediately from bulbar polio. He was the chief reference librarian, a rather mildish sort of man, 41, not at all prepossessing. But I was pleased to see that the chapel was filled for every seat with a wide variety of types: students, professors, administrators. It was good to see their tribute to the service he had rendered. The poor fellow's brother-in-law had died of the same disease a fortnight ago.

Further conferences today on the property for Perdita, and I am to go to the lawyer's office Monday after lunch and sign the contract and give over the initial payment. All to be contingent on the clear title, and the final payment to be made by or before the 15th of November. This will give Perdita time to get back. I will check with the lawyer on Monday about the matter of how to arrange the exchange, so do not bother until I write you then. The owner, through an intermediary, checked with me by phone this morning on the social acceptability of John and Pup, which of course gave me great pleasure to affidavit. But there is no reason to mention this to either of them, since John had already thought he had settled this matter, and it might hurt his pride. It is all pro forma, of course; and I quite understand the wish of the owner not to make any unpleasantness for the neighbors. John will understand it too once they own property in such forced intimacy as the shore presents. One gathers something from the present owner's name: E. VanDyke Wetmore, which sounds very elegant indeed.

I was delighted to hear from you after seeing Hilda, and to learn how well she is. I am much in favor of her going back and forth between Lugano and Zurich, and especially hope that will accept the idea of a period at Kenwin. You letter to Loomis was challenging. I only beg the chance to be the second for each of you at the duel: one of my arms dedicated to each side. What shall we choose for weapons?

I had not heard of Watts' book with the chapter on Hilda. You'd better send me a copy for reference. Or bring it with you when you come. I do think your trip to the States is still indicated, though there is no reason why it could not coincide with the end of the Pakistani boys' visit, if that suits the progress of the novel better.

By the way, since Pup and John are to return to the States by boat, might not this be a good chance to send over by them the two or three B & F folios still at Maggs? A letter to Kenneth M to hand over to them would do the trick, and save both of us having to carry it by air. The group of new B&F quartos look fine, and you could or could not include them also. But they are a simple matter to transport; it is the weight of the others that counts.

Must close and dash home to dinner. A bus to Cat and Pup and

Fido, from

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 October 1955

Dearest Bryher:

Everything maddingly piled up, and this Sunday afternoon quite typical. Just as I was about to write you from the office, the door was knocked, and a young Swede, a former student, was there, just back in this country, wanting a long appointment with me. And when can I give it? Tomorrow; my lecture, then in the afternoon I must introduce Elizabeth Bowen who is giving a public lecture, and dine with her afterwards. Tuesday: office hours, then a 1:30 talk to the Jewish Community Center; office hours that afternoon, and at night to the theatre with Susan. Wednesday my morning lecture, a two-hour seminar that afternoon; and then pop into my car to go to Massachusetts for a two-day conference, from which I come back after dinner Thursday night; Friday: give an exam: then pop again into my car and drive to Burlington Vermont for two talks on Saturday, and drive back on Sunday. God be with me.

So I write hurriedly now, or not at all perhaps for a few days. As to the cottage for Pup, some complications have arisen which were not to be foreseen: I judge the present owner is most difficult. But Susan spoke with his wife in Hartford last Thursday, and she has said she would get in touch with Susan. Not a word to Pup, lest it fall thru. Or more truly, lest it work out all right; since they should be saved the anguish of wondering.

I picked up a copy of *The Bearing Boys* in the bookshop, and glanced at it. It does look as though Sands came from you; but the theme is Shakespeare's incestuous love for his daughter Judith (a perversion of Hilda's book), while the players' boys do not belong to the "group", but go out for Spanish girls. It looked like the horrors, with only the faintest feeling for the time.

We are both immensely happy at the knowledge that we shall be seeing you with the boys. If you get here on a Sunday or Monday, it might work out very well indeed if you went to Pup's (she would like this) for a couple of days, and came up to see us, say, on Thursday. Friday we might drive up to Gardner with Susan for the day to see my parents, coming back that night. They would love it, I know, and I'd like you to meet them. We had planned it, of course, but it never quite worked out. Then you and I could still take a quick trip out to Minerva, if you liked, which would give us a splendid chance to talk over matters en route. I shall not strongly urge Hilda this trip, though I have written her how pleased we should be if she could come.

As to what you should bring. You yourself are your best accessory. As to the B&F folios, suit yourself; I thought only that I had brought others out the last time without question, and if you were to have Maggs deliver them to Lowndes, as to you, then Pup could pick them

them up, and John carry them out and back surface. But it does not
matter except as a cobvenience.

The case of Gladys we had better leave until we can discuss
here. She is hard at work on her book, but I feel she goes a little
too fast and does not really understand how radixally she should re-do
it. You have long since been a professional at this sort of thing; with
her to write a book is like meeting Masefield: more of a quiver for the
sensibillties than the working out of a relationship. But it does help
her, and that naturally pleases me.

The White Paper is here, for which my thanks. Very little in
the news lately, except an article in *Time* which I ave to go over with
you.

Hesse's gift to you was *aus dem herz*. What a fine and deserved
tribute to you. Now he will really begin to know you, since he has read
your first book in his own tongue. *Roman Wall* he will like too. By the
way the reviews are splendid, and the British are reacting properly for the
first time. But I still hold to it that Americans treat fiction with
more seriousness.

The Freud (vol II) and the Gorer have arrived for which thanks.
I save Jones for a little later, but could not resist a peek at Gorer.
Very interesting, and I shall read with care.

Forgive me if I run. It is five minutes to seven, and the
pot on the kitchen stove will be screeming.

All love, and a pat,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 November 1955

Dearest Bryher:

I won't try to apologize, just send love to you and Hilda, and to say how glad I am that you will be here soon. The past weeks have been hectic, but you will hear all those details when we are together. The worst of it is that nothing glorious or exciting figures in what was hectic. Just too much of everything.

Now, however, I do want to give you a few details and plans of the visit so that you will have known them before you get otherwise involved. We shall be expecting you to come up on Thursday the 17th, and we have planned to take you to Gardner for the day on Friday the 18th so that you can meet my parents. And we will have tickets for the Harvard game on Saturday the 19th so that you can have your gladiatorial combat. For the following weekend, when you spoke of the complication of Thanksgiving, I agree that it would hurt Pup's feelings (and understandably so) if you did not have the feast with her and the boys. Alas little Susan is to be bridesmaid at a wedding on the Saturday following Thanksgiving, with us scheduled to give a cocktail party Friday night for the wedding group, which probably means you might like to stay over to Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving and then go down for the rest of the week. Possible too that we might work in your overnight with the Hotsons then; they are anxious to have you, and Leslie wrote that he counted on a supper party and song fest with you and the Pakistani boys. I do want them up too for a conference (as an excuse) and to give us a chance to see them in New Haven (as a piece de resistance). There is the possibility of the trip to Hodgson, with a stop-over at the market at Lancaster or a side-pilgrimage to Bethlehem (Pa.) to pay tribute to Hilda. We can arrange all these things when you come. The chief thing will be for us to a good deal of time in which we can catch up and lay plans ahead. I won't try to go into all that now.

Don't worry about RUAN. One does these things as they come. And I have ideas that way too. Hope you bring along whatever ms you have done.

The real sadness to report briefly is that the deal for the summer house fell through. It is too complicated to explain by letter, and I am heartbroken because John (especially) will be. I have not told them until their return; it seemed a pity; and I could not be certain until a week ago. Meanwhile your check has come; I shall not cash it until we have a chance to talk it over.

I rush this off now, and will write Hilda on Sunday. Give her my love. I always drink a toast when I know that the Swiss girls are together. And all greetings of course to the boys whom I look forward to seeing.

23 November 1955

Dearest Bryher:

A thousand thanks for your letters in this
morning's mail. I should have called you to find how things
were going if it had not been for the rush of classes. A new
book on which I had not lectured before; from now on, however,
it is all familiar stuff until after you leave.

I jot this off on the hope that it will arrive
in order to you wish you all the best of Thanksgivings as they
say. Your visit has already meant that to us; and Mary Hotson
called twice yesterday: once to Susan and once to myself (in the
evening) to say how delighted they had been. We all were!

A letter from Islay came also this morning, saying
that you would be up on Tuesday, and we will settle by phone when
I am to meet you at the station.

Have I over-extended myself? I settled yesterday
with the Library that next September we should have a full-fledged
exhibition of Hilda's work, like that for Ezra which you saw. They
are delighted, and I said of course that I would put it up. I shall
be thinking of it from now until then, and of course you must plan
to be over to see it. It would be just about the right time from
now. One needn't say to her that it would be in honor of her 70th
birthday, like Pound's, for that might distress her. But what would
be apocalyptic would be to persuade her to come over to see the
two new grandchildren, and for once give us the chance of celebrating
the birthday's on this side! As far as the show is concerned, she
could do as Wallace Stevens did for his: slip in a side door when
no crowd was there, and be left alone with it. Stevens was like a
rabbit, scurrying in the twilight from case to case, pretending to
do no more than sniff, but finding the clover delicious.

Wolff has the ms of the Freud, and will perhaps have
spoken to you about it last night. I tell my Moravian beads.

A most horrible experience yesterday afternoon in the
enclosed courtyard of the Hall of Graduate Studies, when a graduate
student suddenly went mad. I came in just as he had scattered his
books to the four winds, and taken refuge in a doorway out of sight.
I watched and soon he appeared, backing away from the men who had gone
for him, half-crouched as he moved, and clad like a combat soldier
with his old war uniforms. Heavy boots over his trousers, an ammunition
sack, and held as a gun would be held, a broom -- the brush at his
armpit. "Back, back!" he kept crying out. "I've got you covered, and
plenty of ammo." He would pat his bag. "Come on, men," he called to

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

an imaginary squad with him. "WE'll hold sector 21." "Over the river and into the woods! It's a great American custom. Get back you hoods! Where's my horse?" Finally he ambuscaded himself behind a bush, and crouched there, sticking the broomstick out against the group of his friends and the campus police who were trying to help. It went on for an hour, before they could get people from the psychiatric ward to come. There was no obscenity, no cursing, just a jumble of combat terms given with a ring of horror. "I want to see General Marshal. No armistice. No arbitration." Finally in the end, no persuasion able to get him out, they had to go in for him, and he struggled like a wild man. But with a stroke of genius, a friend had meanwhile rushed to his room and put on his full dress army uniform, and when the men were still trying to hold him, the friend marched up as on dress parade. "Pete," he said, "they want us at headquarters. Come on and we'll bring these men with us." It worked and the boy almost ran to keep up with him since everything was military now. They went to the guard's office, and waited until the ambulance came, and the officer got in the car with him and off they went.

What struck me with such horrible fascination was that all this broomplay was precisely what small children always do in fun. Only then one can say, "Come on in now; it's time for supper. Hurry now!"

Your pen arrived this morning, and since I was a little tired after my two-hour graduate seminar this afternoon (tired of reading and talking, that is) I took it down, and it is all fixed. I feel triumphant!

A look at my engagement book tells me that I, for luck, seem to have no engagements between the 7th and the 11th. Since Pup can't go to her spots, why don't we tentatively plan to go to ours. But we can discuss all that on Tuesday. How good it is to have you here. And the Pakistani boys as well.

Stuff the turkey with our affection for all.

27 November 1955

Dearest Bryher:

This will be only a note rather than the letter
you deserve, for it is already nearly seven, and I must still go
home for supper and return to work on a couple of lectures for
tomorrow morning. The senior professor of American Literature is
sick, and I find myself having to give his course as well. I do
him 9 until 10; then my own 10 until 11. I shall be willing to keep
silent forever after that.

The last period of time, since Friday afternoon, has
been hectic with the wedding of little Susan's friend; but for all
that, Tuesday will be soon enough. This is cheifly to say that I
will be at the station at the time of arrival. Wait for me if for
some reason I am delayed.

We can talk of the trip to Ohio on Tuesday also, while
the boys are in the greenhouse. At the moment it would look best
this way. You come up to New Haven on the noon train on Wednesday
the 7th, lunching on the train. Or take the one o'clock. If you
do want to have Mr Wiggin, the lawyer about whom I told you, on a kind
of retaining basis -- I doubt he would even charge a fee except when
and if you needed him --, we could make an appointment, and you and
Susan could go there, since she has a job to do also. Then at 4, or
a little after, we start out in the car, and drive for three or
four hours before stopping for the night. This would mean Minerva
on Thursday afternoon at 5, which is when Mrs H gets out of the
factory; we stay there until 8 or nine, and turn backwards, seeing
Hilda's brother late morning or lunch on Friday, and go on to be with
Mary Herr for late afternoon and evening. Do the market in the
morning, and start back, which lets us be in New Haven Saturday
night. You go down to New York by train on Sunday morning, so that
you can have the day with Pup and boys.

We must rather hang all plans on the peg of Mrs H's
free time, since she would never be happy if we visited her husband
when we were not there. Anyhow, we will check on Tuesday, and I will
get off letters then, with plenty of time for answers before we go.

3 December 1955

Dearest Bryher:

All is in order; pack your woolies and bring your new heavy coat ( we should paint a huge "Y" on its back!), and off we will go.

I talked with Hilda's brother on the phone Thursday morning, and he was of course delighted at the prospect of seeing you. Wished we could stay overnight with him, and all the rest of us. It was a bit of good luck on our side that he is back from Florida. I told him we would arrive late Friday morning, and would stop for lunch, but that we would have to push on in early afternoon for Lancaster.

I have written Mary Herr today, so that she will know on Monday morning that we will arrive chez elle before dinner on Friday, and leave late next morning or early after lunch. I have written the hotel and engaged a room for myself for Friday night, and told Mary what I had done, giving as my reason (not altogether false) that I would have to slip away at 9 in order to begin to prepare my lessons. For as you know, I am not only teaching my own classes now, but in addition giving Professor Williams' lectures as well. His come at 9, and I have only ten minutes between the end of his that lecture and the beginning of my own. This is one reason why I have been negligent in my letters to you.

But the most enchanting experience over the telephone was in calling the Hodgsons. I put in a call to him at Minerva, and the long-distance operator said we had to reach him through the Pattersonville exchange; so off we started again, the New Haven operator and I, and finally there was a faint voice at the other end of the wire, so faint indeed that one could make out not a single word. Then began a most amazing dialogue:

New Haven operator: "Tell him to hang up the receiver, and we'll get another circuit."

(the faint voice went on and on).

Pattersonville operator: "It's no good; Mr Hodgson (she always put in an extra middle syllable) won't talk to you."

N.H. Op. "How do you know."

P. Op. "I tell you I know, of course I know."

Norman Pearson: "He'll speak to me."

P. Op. "He won't talk to anybody. He lives way out there, and he's a typical Englishman!"

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 December 1955

Dearest Bryher:

What a wonderful visit it was we had from you, -- and I especially. We have never had the chance to talk this way before -- that is, without interruptions from anything except the landscape. The next time, we must do New Hampshire and Vermont (maybe en route to the Hotson's), or Virginia, or Dinosaur Park.

Last week was busy with the end of term, and on Tuesday night I had to be on a radio panel with Robt Penn Warren and a Frenchman named Guicharnaud, on the rather silly topic of whether or not American writers, by writing what they do, are selling America short to foreigners. Obviously no one thought they were, but all in all the talk was not so bad as it might have been, and some interesting irrevancies were handed out. Wednesday night there was a Christmas dinner at Jonathan Edwards College, after which we went to the Drama School to see a production of an Italian play which had been a huge success in Italy. I'm not quite sure why. It was rather polemical: re-trying Christ again on the part of Jews, a preliminary verdict of guilty, then vast protests from stooges placed in the audience, and the final verdict on the part of the law professor that Christ has a message and value for all men (Jews or not), and that we ought to accept and practise it in these troubled times. Etc. I don't question the conclusion, I was only bored by the dramatics, or lack of them.

The rather horrendous weekend I have written Hilda about, and she will pass it on to you. Actually, it was lucky we turned back, for altho a broken fuel pump permits travel on easy grades, it won't make the tough ones, and there would have been those. How lucky it didn't happen on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the blizzard! Perhaps the car was disgruntled because I hadn't gotten the snow-tires you promised it. I have them now.

But all this will account for my failure to write to Lowndes, or before this to the Bristol. I hate to think of its not arriving before Christmas, but there's no help for it. I'm typing this the first thing in the morning, and will take it by car down to the postoffice. If only love could carry it, it would arrive in seconds.

I hope all went well in London, and I am as eager as a beaver to hear Rita's reactions to Otto John's return. Was there ever a man of such gall? All gall is not divided into three parts, but compounded in him. And I daresay he will get away with it, though it seems to me I have never read so unlikely a story as that he gave, forgetting his earlier interviews and statements to the press.

I didn't try to see the Wolffs in New York yesterday. I had shopping to do, and presents to take down for the little boys. As I wrote Hilda, John's sister Mary was there, en route from Bryn Mawr to her parents

2

in Vermont, and obviously reluctant to go. She does really worship
John. I was particularly glad to see him, because I was afraid his
letter might have indicated a bit of a peave, and I wanted to suggest
that I was sure you would be willing to pay a summer's rent, and why
didn't they do that this year so that Pup wouldn't have the trouble of
trying to get a house in shape for Woody and the boys (as she would have
to do). Much to my relief it seems that they had just about decided on
this themselves, altho they said of course you musn't chip in. But I
think perhaps better you should. Fortunately, Mary agreed whole-heartedly
that it would be a mistake to try to buy a house under Pup's circumstances.

I will be seeing the Wolves after Christmas, and will have a
stack of details to get in shape: Beowulf, the Freudbuch, and catch up
on the Gandhara. I'll re-read the Beowulf, and see if I think anything
needs changing; but, as I told you, my impression is not. And pLeaSe
pay no attention to Helen's suggestions about "yet" etc. She wants to
be helpful, and I'll certainly listen to anything she says, but don't
you do so. Write the things in your way; if you stop to think of every
possible ambiguity of definition for an American you'll go crazy. Anyhow
I'd rather trust my instincts than hers on these matters.

I had a chance to ask about our friend Tom Gwynn, and have ordered
a copy of an article he wrote on local Indians. Will send when it arrives.
He's been around here for eleven years or so, and my friend at the Peabody
Museum says he really is exceptionally well informed, and is a stalwart of
the regional archaeological society (he is its treasurer). Came from New
York where he didn't make a go of it (no one seems to know at precisely
what), and has actually been in the postoffice most of the time since. I
gather his farming is, or was, on the side. I asked about the figure, and
Rouse said that it seemed almost certainly to be colonial; though of
course that doesn't prove anything.

I thought of you yesterday in New York when I made an excursion
to the basement of Brentannos, and came away loaded with science fiction
for the Christmas tree. I hope our little packages have arrived at the
Bristol, and of course your magazine will be coming along soon.

All possible love to you both,

Norm

QUERIES

**Dedication?** You spoke of wanting to dedicate it to Sylvia and Adrienne, which I think would be nice; but can you give it to me, precisely as you want it to read. To .... and To the memory of ..., or vice versa.

p. 14: I wonder if it wouldn't be better to recast the following sentence, so that it becomes a little clearer (tho the sense of course is obvious enough):
"Selina turned, not the pages of the ledger, with the fish account nor the note with the indecipherable signature but a great photograph album of the Warming Pan from the first moment of creation sitting opposite Miss Humphries in a dreary Bournemouth hotel to walking down the road and seeing the empty shop."

It is the "to walking down the road and seeing the empty shop" that seems almost too syncopated to be clear at this point of the text. But suit yourself.

p. 15: I had been tempted to suggest you change "homely" to "homelike;" but on second thought, you should use the words they'd use.

p. 61: "This driver ought to put an L on his bonnet." I don't understand this locution. If it stands for lumatic, why not add a second sentence, the American equivalent would be: "He's certainly crazy" or "He's bats." But keep the original phrase; it's good documentation. STOP PRESS. Just asked the little English secretary next door, who tells me it means "Learner." Do I blush! But perhaps it proves my point. Certainly keep, but add the sentence (or whatever you supply): "If he isn't a learner, I don't know one." This purely for the American trade, and for historians a century from now.

p. 78: Perhaps "You could get arrested under, what is it, 18b?" is a little like this, and might stand a subsequent, glossing sentence, like: "Isn't that the statute?" Mind you, in any event these should be kept in; I'm thinking of just the American audience; they needn't go in an English edition, if there is one.

p. 39: "Such a different type from our regulars, Burlap thought, wishing that his previous secretary had not joined the A.T.S.; prone, as the less educated classes were, to exaggeration and violence." This reads, after the smi-colon, awkwardly to me. Why not just delete the remainder of the sentence after A.T.S.?

p. 117: "Dear Cousin Horatio," how she loathed his name, so unlike your namesake, had been a stock joke of their childhood, "here is your monthly allowance."

A few problems come to mind: viz, the shift from "his name" to "your namesake", which might be confusing, though it is certainly sensible. But more importantly, this is a musing on the part of some one off the stage, whereas the others have been more directly in the action of the paragraph. I don't think I'm saying this well; but what I mean is, that my attention is on Horatio as he responds to reading the letter, rather than on her as she wrote it. So I would more naturally have expected: "Dear Cousin Horatio" — how she had always loathed his name, and made it a stock joke of their childhood —" Your next aside: "that was not true", which is H's, would then fall better in line.

p. 120: "I will, therefore, say farewell as it will not be unnecessary to continue this correspondence." A typist's error, obviously; which negative of the twins do you wish to drop?

p. 126: "Perhaps she was a fool to bother about Horatio and Cook. If the poor old gentleman wanted to die in his bed, it was really more sensible to leave him in peace; only then she felt guilty all night, knowing that he was alone in that insecure attic." Would it be better to say: "only then she would feel guilty all night, knowing..."? or was this habitual, in which case: "always felt guilty"?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 January 1956

Dearest Bryher:

I still cough and blow my nose, but my cold is (I think) over the hump, and I begin to feel a little more like myself. Fortunately there has been a new drug, which though it does nothing for the cold does do something for the patient, and by quieting him thru drugs lets the cold go its own way. Susan is pretty well over hers also, although Thursday she slipped on the ice, while shooting pigeons from her bird-feeder, and received such a sprain of her right wrist that she now has it in a splint. We emulate the world condition.

I am happy that Hilda is sitting up and even taking a few steps. But you must be prepared for her nerves being a little on edge, from frustration now at the slowness of complete recovery. What silly fools people are to try to console her by relating the falls of other people! I wonder if they realize that, quite subtlety their accounts are confirming this sense of guilt or punishment you say she feels. For they keep saying in effect: you see, you are *not* guilty of anything because so many other people suffer the same ill. But the negative always presumes the possibility of a positive. However I sense Hilda's feelings; she had come to believe that the fates, so to speak, had arranged the proper time for her last trip and her trip to come. She had done well in relation to both. Surely there must be a *reason* for things, although in fact one of the fundamental aspects of life is its unreason.

I do think Heydt can help with some gentle psychological massage. It seems to be very good that way. I am really sorry to learn about the affair of his visa. Actually you had warned me of this some years ago, and I have continued to be a little surprised that the immediate danger has not come up before this. I agree with you that he has lost his ties with Germany, and I doubt that he could successfully return there. The best solution of course, and one should continue to try for it through Brunner -- would the help of a good lawyer, through you, be of any avail? -- would be a permanent settlement in Switzerland; he has that kind of international tone and sympathy which makes him right for the post he has. A difficulty in the States is for his kind of person to understand the emotional ambience of the more, and inevitably, provincially minded Americans who have remained in their own climate. But if the Swiss arrangement finally cannot be made, I do not doubt but that he would make his way successfully on this side. Melitta is the one to know the ropes, but my own experience with Dr Mayer (the German psychiatrist whom I helped to bring over in the '30s, and sponsored then -- I could of course do the same for Heydt -- was that the best solution was a connection with an institution for two or three years after arrival; then to break away into private practise. And, if I am not mistaken, there are many jobs in institutions (Mayer had two) which one can fill even before he has passed his state boards. But I really trust Melitta's judgment and sponsorship most.

What an error to have sent the American lady to Brunner. To my
mind it violates a fundamental of adjustment to the situation in which
one has broken down -- or at least, the Brunner treatment can only be
principialy, and must be continued once she returns here. That may be
the rationale, but I suspect instead that it is simply a question of
relatives on this side wishing to duck responsibility. It is so easy
when there is an ocean between.

Elsie, too, I think, like Hilda, can be helped by some talks. I
fear she suspects the end of Kenwin, and sees a future which may be
lonely for her.

The _London Magazine?_ Dull, if the truth must be known, but I like
looking at it as one way of keeping in touch with the London literary
scene. There is almost nothing else, I fear.

The Whitall retirement is a real blow. I could weep for you, since
I agree that the Montreux consulate may well be closed. The currency
restrictions prevent the long-term replenishing of the British colonies
in Switzerland (of which Montreux has been so classical an example), and
eventually the raison d'être of a consulate will become purely commercial,
and restricted to the larger cities. But certainly Lausanne will continue
to have one, and be reasonably accessible to you. Or doesn't Lausanne
have one?

We were so sorry that the various packages were delayed. It is
maddening, for in normal times they all should have reached you. The
photographs I sent off the very day the man finally finished them. The
Mayan book of course is sent as a temptress to you. There are excellent
accommodations now both at Chi-chen and at Uxmal. We stayed at the former,
and visited the latter (there was no place then to stay), and counted it
among the exciting experiences of life.

The Middle-Eastern situation seems to be in an interim period at the
moment. I enclose a series of three articles from the _Times_ which will
give you the more or less unsatisfactory popular view of the matter on this
side, and you will notice that the North African situation has not been
emphasized as a factor in reference to the British-French-Israeli coalition.

Enclose also the announcement of the Prescott boy's engagement, a
further episode of giraffes, and the announcement of a new book on the
scullies in case _you_ are interested for yourself.

All love,

Norman

17 January 1955

Dearest Bryher:

A half a blizzard here today, starting before dawn; the
trees are heavy with bolls of snow, and the streets are thick with slush.
You would not like it at all. But the snowtires gaklantly took me down
the hill and to the office. I only hope they will get me back there in
not too long from now. I have just come out from an English Department
meeting — quite maddening and frustrating, because I felt they were be-
coming too professionally minded in thinking of literature as something
**only** for majors in that subject, with only a left-handed attention to
the undergraduates in general (majoring in other subjects) who might be
drawn into a circle of adult readers who could support serious artists.
It is all a part of some of the less fortunate aspects of the training
given by the all-too professionally minded academic critics who look for
nothing beyond the intra-mural praise of a coterie.

But enough of that! Your letter of the 13th arrived today,
and I was at least glad that Hilda's letter had finally arrived, if for
no better reason, having been so long delayed as to be newsless, than to
show that I did write it and send it. My long, and by-me-delayed, letter
will have reached her before this does, however, and she will know how
splendid I thought the "Helen" notes were. And I do think so; they add
immensely to the line of the poem, and provides it with a superb contra-
puntal effect of prose and verse. As to the *Medrigel* manuscript, I can't
help but think she has forgotten not only the various comments on it by
letter, but our conversations about it when I visited her in Lugano. I'd
need to look it over again when I get it back from Perdita and John, but
I will try to see that comments on it get interspersed in my letters from
then on. Meanwhile I will drop a note to Perdita and get her to comment.

I'm sorry George couldn't have stayed a little longer, because
I think you might have enjoyed his visit too. It does seem to me that
things altogether are becoming a little rough on you, but I don't see how
you can leave for a while yet without Hilda's becoming disturbed. How much
blame can be put on Heydt personally I don't know; but certainly a lot can
be laid to the door of the Heydt incident. My own feeling is that he went
a step beyond that of decorum; Hilda of course realizes this, and yet at
the same time there is nothing quite to replace him. You can't do that,
you have another role; neither can, and for the same reason. Oh dear!

I speak to my mother each night on the phone, but it is not
very satisfactory. The day after I wrote Hilda, he did not seem so well;
but yesterday, altho he recognizes no one, he drank some fruit juice and
some coffee, and ate oatmeal. They do not want me to come up, for if I
saw him and he should recognize me, they say (and I see their point) that
he would think it a signal of death or I should not have come. Since he
cannot recognize the difference between a week day and a weekend, my having
even come on a Sunday would be no differentiation. And I am a little leary
about going up solely to see my mother, for in between her visits to the
hospital she says she chiefly lies down and tries to rest, not sleeping
very well at night. And were I there, her long dwelling on the subject
of this illness would, I fear, only exhaust her the more. It is all so

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 December 1958

Dearest Fido:

The combination of snow this morning --not much but enough to make little hummocks in front of the garage door -- and the necessity of running through several of Eliot's readings from the Four Quartets on the phonograph in order to time them, with the t.v. program on Possum in mind, brought me to the office too late to phone you. But I try again tomorrow.

Meanwhile however a pleasant letter from Rose Odle and another from Powys came in, which I thought might interest you. So I send them as to New York rather than airmail them to Zürich. There was also a letter from Maggs saying that four packages, containing 62 boys books was en route, as well as the 1679 folio of Beaumont and Fletcher. So you were correct -- I don't think I argued it -- that Maggs had still another. My impression however was that you thought this latest package had been sent some time ago--long ago enough for it already to have reached here--and that the ones I had must therefore include the last. I do wish you could see the glassed office bookcases when they are completely filled with the kinderbuchen. It should be most impressive.

It does look as though this would be a wintry winter, and you will be glad to have been here only at the beginning of it rather than in full drift. And if Hilda and George can be with you at Lugano, and you can get at the reworking of the last pages of Artemis and the reworking of the Cathaginian book, you will be much better off than at the beekman in a blizzard.

Congratulations on your gamesmanship with Viking. I am afraid it does not surprise me, since even Faulkner works over his manuscripts at Random House with an editor. Poetry often has it a little easier, but there is much mulling and mauling of any table of contents; and I noticed that on the Wesleyan University Press poetry committee, of which I am a member, the other two members (younger poets) have not hesitated to query particular lines in poems accepted. Altogether I suppose it becomes a habit on both sides, in publishing. One of the good things about the Wolves was that they asked for so little of this. It may be difficult to find a new publisher who will not dare to question, but I will do my darndest.

Must get back to my preparations of selections for the t.v., which must go to Hartford at noon. Alas, I have to follow later in the afternoon for a meeting at the Mark Twain association.

All love,

18 December 1958

Dearest Fido,

A perfectly ghastly evening in Hartford at the first attempt to t.v. the Yale programs on poetry, from which I did not return until one this morning. Consequently I am a little sleepy, and shuddering at the thought that we must go back tomorrow simply to retake #1 on the series. We arrived there at seven, and with one thing and another it was eight-thirty before we could get in the studio. Then there was a period of consultation about props, the arrangements of lights, the positions to be taken, the script for the announcer etc. I stood and waited. At last we had a dry-run without the film. Everything went wrong in the period before I came on. It would have gone wrong with me too, for I saw myself in the monitor as a timid rabbit of a professor. At last we began in earnest, and ran through the preliminary matter up to the moment when I smile at the air-waves. Alas, there had been a slip up. So we waited while they erased the film, and began again. This time we reached the same point, and they again muffed the introduction. The third time we got beyond that, but my predecessor forgot to leave enough time for the commercial. By now the announcer had disappeared. It took fifteen minutes or more to find him. Eventually at 25 minutes after ten we made our final try, with five minutes to spare at the other end before the studio had to go on the air again. But they had forgotten to tell me they were clipping five minutes off my part, so we ended by having the illustrative matter not matching my words. I had not eaten since noon, and was dead tired. But I still had to wait to see the unsuccessful film run through for our edification. It was not bad in parts, and they used the camera especially well. But oh oh oh! And now I must get to my stop watch so that I can pare down what I am to try to say. God deliver me, once this is finished.

Hope the trip to the airport, and the flight itself were not too unpleasant, and that Hilda was well when you saw her. Do give her my deepest love.

Had a card from Norton which said he took the seven weeks trip on the Rupertsland to Churchill from Montreal, but gave no further details. I sent him a clipping of our trip, and so perhaps will hear more. But seven weeks is a little more than I fancy!

20 December 1958

Dearest Fido:

Here is your second Christmas present after all. Alas, it is unwrapped; but having come in only this morning I hasten to send it off so that you will have a Greenland Christmas, not white except in the goodness of memory. There are probably more pictures than you require, but I hope I have not added too many to the ones you chose. Did you take with you the prints of Dr Viebaek's dig and Dyrnes? I do not seem to have them at the office, or at least only the set intended for him. They come with my love and gratitude.

What a day yesterday in Hartford, for the re-take of the television program on Pound. I left New Haven at ten-thirty in the morning and was not home until six. I shall be a dead dog before the series is completed. A long conference with the officials of the station during the last of the morning, with many references to the "intelligent uninformed" who were supposed to be my eventual audience, and to the United Illuminating Company of Connecticut who are hoped to be the sponsors. At last we got before the camera, and I had the ghastly experience of trying to be sincere and lively for the second time with identical material. In each case ad-libbed so that I could keep my eye on the camera. Then -- suddenly in the middle -- my tired mind became confused as to the number of a particular canto and I stammered and finally lifted my eyes in despair to heaven. One had to keep on without interruption however, except that soon one of the camera men began to paste over certain lines on the electric prompter which the introducer used, and it was absolute hell to be looking at it and not watching it and remember what I was saying. Finally with relief and triumph I ended with a mellowed passage from Canto 90, at the end, the last Latin line being given with great conviction on my part:

UBI AMOR IBI OCULUS EST.

No sooner had I finished and the cameras stopped then in ran the first vicepresident. The "intelligent uninformed", he said, do not know Latin. Why in God's name didn't you translate it? Finally after much discussion, we retook the whole last three minutes, and after the Latin, with a dramatic pause I crooned

WHERE LOVE IS THERE IS VISION.

Everybody is happy, except that splicing will make it jump a

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 H G S
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

little. Thereupon we repaired to the v.p.'s office where the whole thing was run through on the tape. If only you could have seen how incredibly pathetic I looked at the point where my eyes lifted in despair to heaven. It had to be cut. So for fifteen times we ran this portion over again while some compromise was made.

Well, that one is done, a little for better and mostly for worse. And with all the possible mistakes having already occurred, I now beg of you and Hilda that you kneel together nightly and ask for divine intervention and protection when it comes to do our Tom, Cummings, and Stevens. Really, only professionals should do this sort of thing; but the trouble is that the results are too slick when they do. How glad I am at any rate that you will not have to suffer, because of a sense of obligation, from having to listen to them.

They wanted me to do the second one on Tuesday, but I begged off until after Christmas. By then I may have found a little rest and composure in my Christmas stocking; or can play the four quartets on a music box.

How deeply and closely I shall be thinking of you both on Christmas Day, with petals of love strewn over Hilda's room. Tell her, when you give her a blossom of my love as well, that the pictures of her room and the roof did not come back today but are expected on Monday or Tuesday, and I shall rush them to her as for, if not by, Christmas.

PERSONAL

26 December 1958

Dearest Fido:

Knowing that you would probably share the rest of the letter with Hilda, I thought a separate one might be in order which could be more entre nous.

I suppose, really, that I am not altogether surprised that Hilda wanted only to talk about herself and l'affaire Heydt, rather than what you had done or about Pup and the children. There are, I think, two reasons for this which we must keep in mind; just as I had to keep them in mind on my own visit, when she really refused to discuss or listen to or mention Greenland and anything we had done there. Both reasons operate simulataneously. The first is that if she talks about things that go on outside of the schloss, she reminds herself that she is physically cut off from the world. As to an extent she is. Your trip to see Pup, to see me, etc is something she could not do. Maybe she wouldn't want to if she could, but the decision doesn't seem hers. The second follows from the same situation and is both natural and induced. "My world," the world of Kusnacht, the magic mountain world of the invalid, is an interesting one, and it revolves around me. All life is played on the miniature stage, with drama, intrigues, comedy, possible tragedy at shifting moments. Since I am at the centre, godlike I will share it with you. Or kinglike I will consult in order to confirm my judgement. I have one other world however, and that is the world of history, my history. Since this is a part of me too, and I remember it as it was around me, I will discuss this too: Aldington, Pound, London, Bethlehem. I love Fido because she can be at my right hand in the priviest council, and no one can enter my world better than she because she has always been in it. I can love Norman because he can so quickly make himself a part of my world when he comes to me or writes to me.

It is not that you are nothing to her after forty years. You are everything to her. But in her world, while your world is a bigger one. The death of a mouse is tragedy enough for a nun. With the exception of yourself (and me by proxy), Hilda lives like a nun. The orbit of most people grows smaller in the seventies, and when there is only crutch propulsion the orbit diminishes even more.

But little worlds can be exhausting, I know. Bless you!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 December 1958

Dearest Fido:

Your gay cable came on Christmas eve, so to
speak, and there was a letter from you on the 24th and
again today. For all of which my loving thanks.

We really did have a pleasant holiday, all
things considered. It was great fun having the little
boy there to enjoy himself, his toys, and us, and he was
infinitely in good humor until the moment he fell asleep.
Little Susan and her husband spent the nights of the 24th
and 25th with us, and they were both overwhelmed and
deeply grateful to you for your cheque. As I was, and
Susan. I explained that this would be for the remainder
of Jim's period of study, and was to be for the rent.
You will hear from them, I know, but they are off to New
York for a few days during the vacation. However we are
not taking the baby this time. Monday is Susan's birthday,
and it seemed a little too much to tie her down in this
way.

Alas, Lizzie did not come home on Christmas
Day after all. She called her mother on the afternoon
before to say that she wasn't coming. I suppose one will
hear more about it at next week's meetings with the
psychiatrist's assistant. There is a little mystery which
I haven't told Susan about yet, thinking it was no Noel
gift. Liz called home at two, but when a cousin called her
at three the cousin was told that Lizzie had gone home for
overnight with her parents. She was obviously back by the
time we called yesterday morning, for her mother spoke with
her again. What happened meantime I can't imagine, especially
since the Institute knew she wasn't coming until Christmas
morning. My own hunch is that she made one of those little
gestures of escape by tricking some underling, really intend-
ing to come back in a short time (I mean an hour or two) so
that she would be penalized. But wanting to be penalized so
that the burden could be shifted to them, and by this means
permit her to escape the possibility of a fiasco at home
after so long a period of not seeing us. In other words she
was frightened by the possibility of failure, and ran in
order to avoid it. This is rather a pattern, and her memory
will be that "they" didn't let me go home, not that she did
what made them act in this way. Always the old story of
refusing to bear personal responsibility for actions. But
this is familiar to you through your p.a. experience.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

To shift: The envelope with Edith's poem in it only arrived earlier in this week, after my letter to you -- although you mailed it on November 16th! You were right, there was only a single manuscript. I hope my interest in the poem is not too much heightened because she uses the title and an epigraph for Lovelace's La Bella Bona Roba which was one of my discoveries for Poets of the English Language and which she so enthused about to me and in the review she wrote for the TLS. But the truth is, in any event, that she has written one of her very best poems out of it, a little masterpiece I think, and one to rank with "Still Falls the Rain." Her nursing of the germ has really borne fruit.

Speaking of poems, you must watch the Christmas issue of the New Yorker, for Marianne's little poem on what she wanted for Christmas. A charming thing and not meant to be consequential. But you do figure in it indirectly when she gives her negative desires to Santa Claus: "Do not give me a trip to Greenland" or "a trip to the moon." You will be amused, I am sure. Marianne does these little things very nicely indeed, and I have come to think that she is really that rare creature in our age, an "occasional poet." Perhaps however one ought to expand the definition so that it includes not only an occasion like Christmas, or the Brooklyn Dodgers, but a poem on a walloby which celebrates the occasion of her seeing one or imagining that she sees one, which limits itself to the seeing or imagined seeing so that it is really an event or an occasion and not really a meaningful symbol. She would really make a delightful and perfectly safe laureate for us. She could describe the gown of a visiting queen or potentate, without getting into their politics or religion. She could make every engineer at a reception feel complimented in verse composed for the day. Again this seems to me the province of an occasional poet. Leave it to the cardinal to coerce the creed at the coronation.

Did I ever tell you that I enjoyed reading the account of Melitta's work. Thank you for sending it. The three books arrived, and Susan is wallowing in the book on Victorian gardens.

Sorry there was such a welter of bad news in your pipe of letters. I shall be much happier when you are both in Lugano.

If the American vice-consul hasn't informed Hilda about the State Department's okay, I suggest she telephone and inquire. Or you could for her. Otherwise he will drag his heels as before.

Love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 December 1958

Dearest Fido:

A yellow envelope in this morning, for which thanks
as always for keeping me in touch with things. The programs
where Nilda's songs were performed will be valuable additions to
the muniment room of course. Part of the record. Interesting,
isn't it, how many of her poems have been set to music!

Sorry of course to read the ghastly details of the
Richards' accident. I meant to ask some member of the Harvard
faculty how they were progressing, but, alas, forgot.

Wendy's letter interested me in its details of their
confusion. I fear very much that their affairs will become more
confused as time goes on. He, it would appear, has very little
initiative of his own; at least one would not glean it from anything
she says.

Marya's letter, too, was rather pathetic; but of course
was written before you saw her, and she was no doubt much improved
afterwards. I gather from her references to the Wolfes and her in
"won't the 2 Wolfs become pompous" as a result of the two best
sellers, that they have somehow slighted her as she sees it. But
they are such different types, Kurt and Helen on the one side and
Marya on the other, that it does not surprise me to know the lack
of accord between them. How insecure Marya is! I can only imagine
how she will interpret their leaving the New York office.

All this an odd way to begin a letter, but I am clearing
my desk and wanted to give the letters to Mrs Wohlenberg to file.

My two days in New York at the convention of teachers
of modern languages was as exhausting as always, but a necessary
part of my administrative duties. Unfortunately one tries to find
jobs for graduate students, or faculty members who are being let
out. Since some 5000 teachers attend, and mill about a single
hotel, the possibility of finding any particular individual are
nil. Yet one pushes through the crowds, staring, staring. The
only amusing interlude was on Saturday night when I found myself
taking Walter Starkie to dinner downtown. You probably know of
him, the old gypsie man and the brother of Enid Starkie. Actually
a professionally wild Irishman, whom I seem to have known some-
where in the past, since he hurled himself at me and fastened on
as an old friend. I believe he teaches Spanish now at New York
University. Otherwise I simply gritted my teeth and was cordial
to everyone, and got through the one little talk I had to make
before a meeting, and came home late Sunday night to collapse.

11 January 1959

Dearest Fido:

Sunday morning, not in the peignoir but at the office, and with several dossiers having been gone through, and an article rejected for *American Literature* on whose editorial board I have been forced to be, I can at least write to you after so many days of silence. All the worse because of the excitement and hellfire at Küssnacht, though God knows it mixes the elements of high comedy and tragedy. As I wrote Hilda, I am grateful for the chance of my September visit to meet the characters in a prologue.

Poor frustrated, essentially passionless Gonzales! She is a figure out of a novel, which means (I think) that a good deal of the pattern of her life has been cut out of novels. What agonies of assertion she undergoes in an attempt to fill nothing. And Early? The worm caught the early bird long ago, when the bird thought it was after worms.

My week was shot to bits by Wednesday night and the second of the t.v. filmings. The problem was to find some new slant, a new angle to Eliot about whom so much (too much) has been written. In the end I took the *Four Quartets* and tried to ficus on their iteration of the problem with words, worn-out periphrastics etc, when one was faced by something like World War II. In the end I think it came off all right, and the dove decsnended on my shoulder that afternoon to give my my opening and closing. Alas, with my final word on the film the wrong one came inadvertently out of my mouth --as tho to prove the difficulty I was discussing, so that I had to refilm the last minute and a half. But there were some camera failures in this final section anyhow, so I did not feel guilt in addition to my shame. And suddenly, just as the cameras were about to roll, the director casually announced that they wanted a three minute break in the middle. I had planned nothing of this sort, so had to quickly reconstruct in order to get a middle climax and a second beginning to follow it, as though I were turning a short story into a magazine serial. I was furious, but this may have given an added intensity. I have a week's interval now, and then do the last two: on Cummings and Stevens. I shall be glad when they are finished. I can't judge their quality, although those who have seen the first two films are kind about them. I'm sorry you and Hilda can't give yours.

Four packages of children's books have come from Maggs, including a few duplicates of Henty and some new Ballentines. The shelves are now filled. I will have to seek some new spot to add the future arrivals to.

A letter from Rose Odle pleads with me to get back some material from the same Joseph Prescott, of Wayne University, with whom Sylvia ran into so much trouble. She has gotten no answers any more than Sylvia did. I think I will try to call him on the phone, in the hope that this may work. By the way I don't think I told you that I had talked with the professor from Buffalo --at the Modern Language meeting in New York--who had flown to Paris to begotiate with Sylvia on the purchase of the Joyce Collection. A young wealthy doctor and his wife were putting up the money. But this was on December 28th and Sylvia had not let them know, although as I thought the gift was to be made in 1958 for tax purposes. There is a real pyschiatric angle to her silence, along the lines I have written you about before. At least it seems to me still that she cannot let these things go and close the chapter. I told him I had recommended that she accept. I hope she did, or wish she had.

I am troubled about Elsie and about George, but I still hope very much that Hilda will want to go to Lugano for a little change of scene. It does seem to me on every account that this is the right moment, and for a month or two..

Edith must be having hell from David at Montegufoni, but she still has life in her. In today's Sunday NY Times Book Review section she has a wonderful letter to David Daiches who reviewed her anthology. It is in the best tradition and manner. You must not miss it. She ends: "Finally, he must expect me to be exasperating. He should pity, not blame. It is terrible to find oneself a solitary, highly unpopular electric eel in a pool peopled by worthy, slightly somnolent flat-fish." More power to her!

I am not much for Zen Buddhism as you will know, but if you happen to be ordering from Bumpus could you have them send me the enclosed. I also enclose a clipping of a review of Rosemary Sutcliffe's book which Mrs Wohlenberg cut out for you and her.

Susan goes to New York for most of the week for a judge's refresher course in flower arranging. I shall be busy mornings watering the greenhouse, and evenings finishing correcting graduate school papers.

All love as always,

Norman

Private

Dearest Fido:

I should have sent you the enclosed letters, one for Nelson and one for your own files, had the week not been what it has been, and if the question of citizenship could have arisen for the Bollingen Prize. But at least that does not come into question with or without a passport, and since your trip to Lugano has been put off I did not want to send them unaccompanied by a letter. Obviously Nelson is a stuffy little bureaucrat who is afraid of his own shadow on the one hand, and wants to throw a big shadow at the same time. I don't want to seem to push him into anomosity, but I do think you could send him one of my two letters so that he can know that Washington knows.

I must say that everything which has happened chez Brunner leads me all the more to believe that Heydt's marriage was an escape from involvements which got out of bounds with him: a little with Hilda, more with Joan and Gonzales, and a lot with Melitta. And it is quite clear from his letter to me that he really intends to stay in Switzerland. And it may indeed be the right thing for him to do. Always a little on the feminine coast of Greenland, he needs just this kind of eiderdowned umiak. I can't help but compare him, a little unfavorably, with some one like Marc A, for the latter had a drive and initiative of his own. I have just been reading Justin O'Brien's excellent study of Gide, in which he quotes some beautiful, unpublished descriptions of Allegretti, as a boy, clothed "with the pollen of the gods." What a charming boy he must have been when you knew him.

The Bollingen committee met Saturday --it took our Friday night as well-- and gave the prize, alas for my hopes for Hilda, to Theodore Koethke. But he has a new collected book out last year, is a good poet, and (ironical as it may seem to call a poet of fifty one of the "younger" poets) marks the first prize outside the ranks of the old guard. It had gotten to be as though only these established poets were to be recognized.

Horace was here and very very much worried, since Marya was back in the hospital for more examinations. Everyone is bewildered, and without his saying so I have the feeling that he fears the ultimate worst. But he hoped to have some report from the doctors last night when he returned. She is in a room where a woman is dying from cancer, and this upsets them both. She wants to go nome, but he is afraid of leaving her until he knows things a little more definitely. He shows the kind of strength of despair.

You are right. If Hilda won't go to Lugano, stay on at Köncht, and come earlier for England. All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

6 January 1959

My dear Bryher,

After receiving your letter about Mr. Lloyd Nelson's
uncertainty as to whether Mrs. Aldington could be given her American
passport except under the circumstances of her return to the United
States, I called Mr. William Rogers, my Washington lawyer, to check
on the matter from this end. He has consulted with the State Depart-
ment and has been told that there is absolutely no reason why she
should not be given her passport immediately, so that she may have
it on hand for any emergency or to meet any requirements of the Swiss
in regard to any temporary or permanent shift of domicile. Her status
as a repatriated rather than a naturalized American citizen is not in
question and reverts to 1936. She may therefore come and go as she
pleases, and retain her residence abroad for as long as she chooses
to without the requirement of any periodic returns to America.

I am sure that if you show this letter to Mr. Nelson
he will remember our discussion of these particular points at the
time of our September conference, when he agreed to the interpreta-
tion which I have stated above. I do of course understand his con-
cern that all steps should be properly taken, and I am glad to be
able, through Mr. Rogers, to confirm his earlier opinion.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 January 1959

My dear Bryher,

18 January 1959

Dearest Fido:

A stupid week of chores, nothing but chores. But at least I was pleased to know that you might be, or have been, in Lugano to catch the lay of the land. On the whole I suspect that Hilda might well want to stay in Lugano for the time being, at least while you are in England, especially because of the turmoil chez Brunner. She and Heydt can talk it out, as well as re-establish. That she is doing a new poem is important. Writing is a real cathartic for her, and pleasantly a benefit for us.

The news of Elsie sounds reasonably re-assuring, but I am still puzzled and troubled by the turn of her events. George's situation is even more troubling, but he still speaks of coming to this side later in the spring or summer, as indeed I hope he will be able to.

The passport is simply maddening. I await further news, but expect none.

Wait TWO SUMMERS IN GREENLAND with delight. Now that the filming of the last pair of t.v. programs has been put off for a couple of months, I can take a breather. But hope to get to work on the postponed Italian notebooks beginning this week. Trouble is that graduate school fellowships etc loom, and this takes infinite time and pondering.

Lawrence Durrell's ESPRIT DE CORPS is out on this side and has had excellent reviews. The American edition is illustrated by Vasiliiu, the husband of one of my wartime secretaries. But the book which looks as though it might be your cup of tea, not for research reasons but just as a reminiscence of what you already know, is the one I enclose. I hesitated to order it for you until I heard, but will do so instanter. Tell me where to send it. I gather that it is first published on this side, but it may be coming out in England as well.

I was interested to read an interview with Nabikof, in which he damned the Pasternak novel as old-fashioned, cliched, and clumsy. Rather your idea of it, as I recall.

It is now three in the afternoon, and I must go home for lunch and then shave and dress for a reception in honor of Roe's 150th birthday. Sometimes I feel as old, but unburied.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 th January 1959

Dearnest Fido,

My poor old newly substituted type writer has just shipped its ribbon, so you must suffer my letter in a longhand. Like you, I always feel crammed without a machine. But as level as has made me settle down yesterday and today at the stack of student papers next combed over Christmas, and the great mass of them (only 2 sets left) have now been finished.

I note your warning in your letter of the 21st and will not send along the drawings. No - not the Express and Corps - I can take it out of the library here if I have time; but given time I much prefer going Greenlands in print - and I still have some to go. You ask about the Blumond and Flitlerer folios. The last maggus shipment of children's books also included the superbly bound 1679 folio - so there are now three folios on this side - the lot, I believe.

Two yellowb come in which I have read with interest. Was delighted with Robin Shellon's review of Hilda - a copy of which I shall send to Grove here. Also the account of the Ford Program on Mechlenburg Square, which I should have given much pleasure. Lorna's letter about Robert was greatly encouraging, but I have heard. Lorna's letter about Robert was greatly encouraging - I am dazzled again. Rita's letter was interesting, especially her comments on Jewish money coming in England. So then the beginning of an anti-Lentice movement there. I can never quite get up with her thinking, but she does reflect what is going on in certain circles. - And I like O. B.'s little story - it has a nice touch. - Echthi was card of her land is truly beautiful - now, I did not have one - I am out of her grants, you know. I did not have one - I am out of her grants, you know. I am likely to bid "Chirality" was a new word for me. Had one I am likely to use often, I imagine.

Now lack & the wonderfully full two letters of the 15th and 18th. The account of your visit to the Netherlands was a delight. How I should love to have perched on your shoulder. Sanzeco sounds formidable, and with things going a little at a time - and Heyd's again on his regular visit, I imagine it will be better to let things go

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 January 1959

Dearest Fido,

I try this at Tregarthen, since it is a little clipped
for time, and in any event I want to hold out the hand to welcome
you home to your islands.

It is a puzzle about Elsie, but on the whole I think
she must keep closely under her doctor's eye and orders. It will
at any rate give her confidence. Whether there would ever be any
point in her seeing American doctors I don't know, especially since
confidence is so important and I doubt she would feel the same con-
fidence on this side.

Will take a look at the casson which they must have at
the local bookstore, or if not in now I will glance at when it comes.
He is chiefly known for his t.v. educational programs --not alto-
gether a scholarly recommendation, but one does not know the circum-
stances. The review seemed favorable, although naturally popular.

I haven't read William Goulding, but he is supposed to
be one of the better "angries." Amis spoke of him as the most
promising of the younger English novelists, so I should think the
Travelling Award would be a good one.

As to Hilda, I shall do my best to find something.
There was of course the hotel near Johnson's Point that we spoke of
for her before. It has an atmosphere I think she would like, with an
easy slope to the beach and chairs to sit and bask in. There is
always the local group of psychiatrists to call on in an emergency,
and I could pay (would have to pay, in any event) daily calls on
her. She might go for a week to the Long Island hotel which Pup
and John spoke of before, which would give her a glimpse of the
children, and not tie them down with any sense of responsibility.
One might also manage a week in New York at the Stanhope for her.
And I will ask at the Institute to see if they know any sanitariums
which would fit the geographical requirements of being near the
shore. I fear the mountains would not do, unless I were to move
there too for the summer; for one could not drive 150 or 200 miles
each way more than twice a week at the best, since it would take the
entire day each way. One's hope for this sort of place would
probably be on Long Island, and I will inquire as I can. I think
she probably does want to come over, but I still think not for
good at the present time. My own feeling is that Heydt is re-
establishing himself else with her, and this is probably a good thing.
More than anything else she hates what she describes as "people
taken from her."

If she is to come this summer for any kind of a visit

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

it would mean that she would want you to come over for a week or
two, and in any event would involve my time so completely during
the summer that I think we will have to put off any visit to the
East coast of greenland or elsewhere for a year. But one advantage
at least for you, and an important one, is that we would give you
the chance to concentrate on your writing so long as you could
keep visitors away from Kenwin. And I do think, vis-a-vis Kenwin,
that one has to take Weney's advice about keeping it for the time
being, or until the exposition. When the exposition comes you
can use your experience in Borderline, and by playing the role in
real life make such absolute packets that we can both flip to the
moon for a weekend!

Give our affection to Doris, and think of me when you paddle
in the sea.

1 February 1959

Dearest Fido,

I waited until today to write on the hope of a
letter from you since yours of the 25th.

But "The Spider"! I knew it was our boat for next
summer when I heard a little flash over the radio. And since then
the air and the newspapers have been full of it. One really feels
like a Greenlander in grief. I suppose we must know some of the
crew and officers and maids. A few were almost certainly to be
transferred as a compliment. The Lynge, who went down with it,
was the man who shared my cabin, and with whom one had a little
rapport even though he spoke no English. But one feels it for
the ship, and for Christensen of the Trade Company who spoke to
us so proudly of the boat, with its double hull, its seven separated
water-tight compartments, and its superlative radar equipment. I
keep visualizing the scene almost as though we might have been
aboard her, as though it had been the disco with her list. I
think of Hansen telling me about oil on the waters in times of
distress. And I think of the spot itself where it happened, 37
miles off Kap Farvel. Do you remember how eager I was to take
the Kap with that great floating mountain of a berg in front of
us. The scene was "ordinary" we all thought when I showed you
and Susan the pictures in New Haven, and we set it aside. Now,
now can I fail to show it: the arctic re-asserting itself. Of
course the papers here are full of analogies to the Titantic,
which is only natural. They refer to it as a freighter. I can
only think of it as the pearl of the north.

It will hit at the heart of all the Greenlanders and
the Danes, cut off that added contact which might have made
Greenland nearer. Will they not, a little subconsciously, think
of it as the Vikings must have when the boats from Norway did not
come, when they were islanded. And every one must have known
some one who was on it; every one must feel a little tremor at
the thought of future voyages; every one must shake his fist
silently at the glaciers when they calf.

Your letters from our friends of last summer came just
before the news did. How pleasant they were.

Actually the yellow envelopes of letters were full of
good things and interesting ones. I found Pat's letters more
mature than others. They are still "literary" but one has the
feeling that that one can soon drop the quotation marks, that he
is beginning to find himself, and that he may indeed be a writer.

Am glad that Rose Odle is keeping busy with the rowys correspond-

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

ence. I have just sent her a copy of the Library Gazette with an article in it by her and Sylvia's bete noir, Jospeh Prescott, printing his letters from D.R. Since you would be away for a while, I sent yours to Milda (she was mentioned by D.R. in a letter) so that she could have a diversion in your absence. I was much interested in the Christmas card from Reresby. I like his looks. He will make a first-rate baronet one day. And was pleased with the second of U.B.'S "Reverend Mother" stories. They have an uncanny female touch. Laurie Lee's account of his travels was superb. He really can write. And of course, Masefield's little watercolor and Christmas poem were delightful. What a good man he is.

I tried to buy you a copy of the maritime book you wanted, but all had been sold locally and so I had to order. It will be here in a few days, and will send to Kusnacht to await your return. So nothing will be lost.

Poetry bought two of Milda's poems, and were delighted with them. I excerpted them from her long *Sagesse* sequence, when she asked me to find something therefor. Bryn Mawr. I got one for them too, and they are saving it for the 75th anniversary number in the fall.

I have asked at the Institute about the kind of place you are looking for to put Milda next summer. They will inquire. If only she would bring a schwester or a swiss maid with her, it would be much easier of course. But I hope we can find something, and with the east Greenland trip now sunk with the Spider, it may be just the right time to make a move for the summer months.

Not a great deal to report, except that we have little Justus with us again for the weekend, while his parents take a little holiday in Boston at the end of the examination period at Yale. He has been wonderfully good, with great smiles for every occasion. I have taught him to wave goodbye, and this is an accomplishment he delights in. But not half so much as his new found ability to take as many as four or five steps upright. He finishes in one's arms with the look of triumph of the first man to step out on the moon.

The Elizabethan club had an immense banquet on Tuesday night to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the coronation of the first Elizabeth. A special masque with music written by a local composer, tumblers and entertainers, and a vast meal which went on for nearly four hours. The first course: 12 "Salmon cold and Spyced," "Oysters in Stoffado," "Sundry cold meat Pasties," "A Grand Ballet of Greens" and cyder and a muscadet. The second course: "Roast Beef," "Boiled Colliflories," "Sparagras," "Hot Pyes of Sundry Meats," Cyder and a red wine of Bordeaux.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

Actually I feel rather a novice in the matter of such subsidiary rights, although I am pleased enough that he has recognized its essential dramatic qualities and paid it the homage of a dramatization. And I suppose there is nothing against such a college production if you do not have any objections to it. Will you write me at once about your feelings, in abstract--no reason ot be coy or modest about it -- and if you say you have no personal objections (so long as you never yourself have to see it), then my plan would be to send along the correspondence to my New York literary lawyer and ask his advice and to draw up the proper contracts. Obviously no money would be made from any college production, but I should not like to tie ourselves to a similar arrangement for whatever that was done with this or later scripts written for it. I always have a sneaking feeling that dramatizations or films will come some day, and as you know tried to interest the Italians into doing Roman Wall-a natural spectacular. I trust the lawyer completely on such matters, and my own rather callous view is that one writes a novel which remains a novel, and there's no harm in letting the films or stage translate it into their medium, so long as no violence is done. I should naturally want to see the script for the play for this reason, tho hardly to rewrite it for him.

It's all rather fun. And of course, whatever one thinks it is a
tribute.

25 March 1959

Dearest Fido,

This week seems to be marching better. As I may have written you, the doctor has ok'd my coming down at the regular morning time and staying until evening, so long as I took mid-time snacks with me. So I bought a thermos, and I bought a child's school lunchbox, with flowers on it rather than the Lone Ranger-- I'm afraid it's a little girl's -- "You'll take a ribbing with this one," the clerk said -- and put one custard in it for morning, and one jello in it for mid-afternoon; and I eat whether there is someone in my office with an appointment or not. I get a little tired by nightfall, but the doctor says this is to be expected. My blood count has not yet made that final little surge to normal, but this does not worry the officials and so should not worry me. And I weigh more than I ever have before, so the effect of six snacks a day must be good for me.

Susan arrived home safely from Florida, much rested altho not very brown. For the sun shone only two of the ten days she was away. The rest of the time it rained. However, she was glad to have gone, and had long sleeping times at night, and relaxed in general. Now that we are likely to have good enough weather to work in the garden, I hope this will not be too much for her.

Glad you refused to consider a foreword or preface to Artemis by Edith, but only because the book requires none. To have it there is actually a little infra dig for an established writer like yourself. Moreover, the book is itself a preface to your later life; I mean in the sense that you used to refer to Queenwood as "Preparation for Freud." I have always thought that a good title for a book recapturing youth would be PREFACE, but you are in the curious position of wanting to describe the end of something (an age) which is at the same time the beginning of something (your age). I guess you have to take your choice.

I spoke to John Schaffner over the phone this morning asking them to dinner at the Yale Club after the presentation of Hilda's medal. They accepted, and I will probably ask the gregories also, since I had them sent invitations as well. John said that Rup definitely was going over at the end of April, and that she wouldbe able to talk to me about it at dinner. It will be a good chance; and if not then, I will make a special trip. Perhaps will anyway. Let me know any non-alarmist warnings before the seventh.

Delighted the Mediterranean book was of some interest. Alas, I am still so deep in unfinished student papers that I will be lucky to get them cleared away before the end of the holidays.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Am in the midst of a tizzy of unanticipation, since the customs have just written and phoned me about the batch of books they sent as from you from Lowndes. Alas, they did not separate the ones published twenty years ago from the newer ones, and since they put a value of L250 I am going to have to pay a duty on them, rather high for books. Individual new books coming to the office they never touch; with such a value they pounce. Anyhow I shall have to go to the Customs House, then list each book separately (fortunately I have the list Maggs sent, then take a customs officer and drive him to the post office, go to the pound in the cellar, open all the packages, and presumably somehow repack them and take them to the car, and then carry them to the office. I fear I was rather rude to them over the phone--I find my temper a little short (post) u (lcer); but this will improve until I am the same sweet self I was on a cloudbank. No matter anyhow, once it is over the books will be nice to have.

You ask about Lizzie. It is a little hard to say of course, and I lost a month of interviews whilst I was invalidated. Two or three weeks ago she began to open up a little with her analyst, and they thought that perhaps my ulcer might have had something to do with it. And her social relations with the group in the hospital are a little better. But it is sometimes hard to analyze the motives behind each move, and on the whole I at least am resigned to a minimum of three years. At least I tell myself so; one can't help, of course, straining one's anticipations a little.

About the new Usbert book. I leave to your judgment. Presumably you will send yours over eventually, and one might as well be thrifty. Satire, I agree, is not really his strong point, and his portrait of his father is not really satirical, no matter what some may think. That is its peculiar and particular strength.

I must bring my diet book down and describe it to you. It's complicated and simple at the same time; easy for me, and rough on others.

Do bring me really up to date on Elsie. Judging from the letters to you from others, I feel you may have been touching her case only lightly in order to spare me.

Mary Gough's analysis of the watertight compartments sounds reasonable. And it explains a similar comment by a navy man, which I had not quite understood when I heard. Oddly I suspect the Danes are rather conservative on such matters. They are used to small budgets and living in yesterday's schemes. But having written that, I am taken aback. For it is true and not true, as one knows from visits to Denmark. Still I do think they are conservative in certain unexpected ways, which is perhaps what makes them such good engineers to hire for odd countries.

All love, as always - Norman

27 March 1959

Dearest Fido:

Good Friday, and an appropriately gloomy sympathy of nature. However everything is quiet, there are no students around, the offices are closed for the day -- all of the influences evident of growing Catholic pressure that would have set my grandparents' hearts to chill. The sympathy of nature comes with the occasional sleet, snow, and rain which keeps me at my desk and every one else at his hearth.

But I still struggle unsuccessfully with my desk. I make progress however. Have written Hilda's 50th anniversary exhibits chairwoman ("we cannot all be Marianna Moores", she wrote) to say that the Bryn Mawr Library was putting on a show in Hilda's honor. And to Charles Norman answering his letter to Hilda about Pound, Etc.

Was much impressed by the ministerial dignity of the communication to my "Dear Madam" re "Therapeutic Substances Act, 1956." Whenever you are tempted to try such a hideous thing again please try to remember 3D (2)95015/5/4T.F.785. AND DON'T YOU GET ONE DIGIT WRONG EITHER, YOU HEAR ME MADAM'.

I was troubled at Gerald's letter about Cole. But I suppose really at her age there is nothing one can do, except to turn over one's life. She has certainly given up hers as a thing in itself. Somehow I am sorrier for Gerald than for her, but I know that is pagan of me.

Much impressed by Hilda's Villa 'erena paper used to you, and Küss-nacht. I like the tenderness of the spelling, but will let it be spelled in my thoughts rather than on envelopes until I hear orders from you and her.

I wrote Harold Doolittle that he could bring any uninvited members of the family he wanted to, by telling them at the door I said so. Rather cheeky of me, but I don't think anyone will ask. I like the Tierra del Fuego cruise idea. Do find more about it.

Nice to think that you will be seeing Sylvia and her exeebeeshe-un on my birthday. Do drink a bovril in my honor, and think of me as you bend over the showcases. Sorry you must run on to London, but do not see how you can avoid it. 9/6 seems a lot to pay for the best essay ever written on Dickinson, but could you have Dumpus send along the enclosed.

I weep to think of the end of the *dried* ties. Even Switzerland now succombs. I shall not dare to wear this last one but keep it as a sacred relic.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 March 1959

Dearest Fido:

Two notes from you were at the house last night when I got home, and the nice card to Susan from Hilda and yourself.

For once my memory served me correctly about Louise Theis. Her husband is, I believe, Hungarian or Austrian from that part of the old empire. Wallace Notestein, to whom she referred in her letter to the Library, was exposed to him both at one of the Inns of Court. The husband I think was, is, an unsuccessful lawyer. He did not seem particularly impressed by them, and said the husband's chief activity was to lead him (he is a British parliamentary historian) to pda and antique pubs, although Notestein is no bibber. Well, we see what can be done.

I am much intrigued by E.M.Goldberg, Family Influences and Psychosomatic Illness, Tavistock Publications. Why don't you order sent to you for a glance, and then forward on to me. I was a little confused by the review, and the association of duodenal ulcers with a predominantly stable background.

I will try to see that an invitation goes to Dorothy Doolittle. Thank you for sending me her New York Address. I will drop Harold a note to say she is coming. Perhaps they could team up.

Any dragon for Hilda, which is absolutely necessary and should look towards a permanent one, ought to come from your side. It is far too difficult and uncertain on this side, and in fact they are nearly unobtainable. Actually Hilda will take interest in explaining the states to her.

Yes, I too grieve over the grieder ties, but the one you sent will make a happy birthday, and one lives for the moment.

Rapers are now full of reviews of books by and about A.E.Housman, this being his centennial. I don't know how you feel about him. Two Sundays ago I watched a highbrow t.v. Sunday morning program in honor of him, where they were to read his poems. Maybe I could learn a lesson, I thought. I did, but it was only to confirm my distrust. The three, working in groups of two, chanted them while doing ballet movements: the men in loose Greenlandic-bohemian shirts and leotards, the girl in peasant costume. Bend, bow, flex the muscles, my strong lad.

When the girl chanted the lines stood out so clear that
one knew that the real utterer of the choral response was
cross-dressed. Now all this has nothing to do with
Greenlandaphobia (speaking as a muslem), it only seemed
terribly phoney as it was presented, and thus probably as
it was written. The commentator said that Housman's poems
appealed most to the "young." Rot. I'm sure it really appeals
most to old men in Green Park waiting for the guards to
walk by.

With this happy thought, I make my bow.

All love, as always.

(I enclose two clipped sheets of the review of G.
Stein for your amusement and nostalgia of the Disko. Send
along to Hilda if you think she would be amused, and eventually
back to me. It is my only copy, and I should stick it in
my ready-reference file of reviews. I keep this so that I
can space out the cliches over the years.)

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 April 1959

Dearest Fido,

Now that the second week of coming down more or less
full time to the office is over, I feel a little more as though I
should be settled in again. I still get a little tired at the end
of the day, and am happy to get to bed in good season; but the
fatigue has diminished each day, so that I feel quite content about
it. So apparently does the doctor, whom I saw yesterday, after a
fortnight (his spacing). I now weigh some 148 pounds without clothes,
which is of course immensely heavy for me, and rather more than
the 140 pounds which the doctors have always said would be ideal,
but which I have never reached. So my mid morning and mid afternoon
meals have been reduced from jello and custards to to the milk and
biscuits which used to accompany them, although I resisted his advice
to drink nothing but skim milk. He said I might have cream in my
morning cup of coffee, rather than half hot milk (I am allowed neither
coffee nor tea after that), and can have meat stock and gravies, which
will make it easier for Susan to use left overs. There is no trace
of bleeding from the ulcer, and although my bloodcount has a little
way still to go, it is now 40(as against the 42 it should be) and
he feels the differential is wide enough anyhow not to make it
matter. You ask about my diet. I do not smoke, or take alcohol in
any form. I may have nothing fried, no berries, no chocolate, no
nuts, nothing of the cabbage family, and there are an number of other
vegetables that are proscribed. Oh yes, no pepper or spices in
seasoning or by themselves. But what was most difficult was not
having meat stock or gravies, since almost everything is served that
way. Oh yes, too, no ham, bacon, sausage, cold pressed meats, etc.
So you see I do quite well. I take a thermos jug to the office, and
keep a set of medicine bottles and pills there which I swallow from
time to time.

I went Friday to the Customs, who were pleasant about the
whole thing. Fortunately Maggs sent a list, and their letter mentioned
that the packages were gifts from you. Which means leniency on their
part, so they are having the packages delivered to my office, and I
will let them know so that a custom's man can come to open them with
me, and I can then put down a value for each book whether tax-free
because of being over 20 years old, or dutiable because of being
new. This is because they have to separate the cryptic valuation by
Maggs of over 250 pounds, to include both what is dutiable and
tax-free. Obviously it is because Kenneth was ill, and some substi-
tute was asked to arrange it. It is just bad luck, and I am sure
won't happen again.

The Cultural Office of the Paris Embassy sent a copy
of the exhibition of Sylvia's things, probably at her request, and
I am full of admiration at the illustrations, etc. It must be a

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

very good show indeed. If you think of it, pay for a couple
more catalogues and have them sent to me. Gallup wishes one for
the Yale Collection and one for himself. I am sure Sylvia could
cope, or even the girl at the desk. I still think of it as a
fine birthday celebration for the 13th that you can be my eyes for
me.

I do agree that one wants to know what has happened to
Faith. And indeed why not do the Stratford stroll. Their 100th
anniversary, my 50th;...

Macmillan does seem to be weaseling a little. I see why the
Swiss fear, and perhaps the informed shake.

Was much intrigued about La Gonsalez, and that her husband
was fetchable. I had thought of him as having disappeared into the
mist.

Copies of the Hotson Entertainment, the Fuchs Anatarctica,
and the Ellis Dance of Life arrived, safely, for all of which
thanks. My memory falters for the moment. Is Chron Ellis himself?

And I am not really sure--life having recently been what it
has been, that I informed you that the three superb Maggies
arrived long since. Dekker, Brome, and Marston. They are all
good, the Dekker is superb.

Nor --and I shall soon be over this indiotic interlude in
my life--did I mention Lidegaard's letter, with its pathetic
paragraph about the Hans Hedtoft. Only yesterday, in the magazine
of the Manuscript Society in the states, did I see a notice that 13
crates of greenlandic archives (dating back to 1780), being sent to
Denmark for safety, went down on the Hedtoft. What an irony. In
this case I really can't see what was being gained by sending them
to Copenhagen, except of course that they may have regarded the
archives like artifacts. Greenland can keep little of the latter.

Income tax period, and I am up to my ears trying to keep the
various accounts separated. Fortunately I have a good accounting
firm to do them.

Hope all has gone well. I somehow feel that you are ex-
hausted, but only hope it is by the manuscript.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16th April 1959,

Dearest Fido:

And, oh!, there was to have been a letter at the
Sesame, waiting for you. And it was to have been written on
my birthday, because I could not be wanting anything more than
to be writing you, unless it was to have you here. But, but, but.

Well, anyhow. The presentation of the medal to Hilda
went off very well. Susan had gone down earlier in the day to
have her hair done, and then joined with Pup and John at their
house to go with them. Melvin's wife was along with them also,
although frightening them by not appearing at the S's until 4.
Fortunately the beginning of the award was late. I was to be
at the hotel at 3, and dutifully appeared to find myself more or
less alone except for the artists-medal-winner (Edward Dickinson)
who was cute in a morning coat and carrying a clean shirt in a
paper bag. Ernest Bloch, the musician, could not be there for
his medal, and the fourth winner was the uncle of Grace Kelley.
He is a playwright whom you might not have heard of except for an
American success called *Craig's Wife*, but is much respected as a
journeyman and cited as an example of the new professionalism in
the theatre (American) in the 20's and 30's. Alas, for the sake
of gossip I could not ask him how his *niece-princess* liked the
Clinic Cecil, but I got along swimmingly with him just because I
didn't mention her. Hilda's award was preceded by a very pleasant
and fulsome tribute, of which I have asked a copy for Hilda--
using a set of the war trilogy as a bribe, the last of the three
as you remember never having been published in the U.S. I was
asked to reply, and fortunately a few spontaneous words came.
Mme Katzibah and her daughter were there, Jean Starr U., John's
assistant Hubert Creekmore, Miss Schmidt of Grove Press, all to
make up a little table for the reception afterwards.

Henry Rago, editor of *Poetry*, was there, and had been
a member of the committee. Said he had been touched by my letter
after Hilda won the Harriet Monroe Prize last fall--in which I
said how pleased I was to have her begin to receive awards--and so
had brought her name up for the Brandeis Medal, a suggestion
enthusiastically received. Odd how the little wheels turn. I was
annoyed however that the publicity man for Brandeis seemed to have
fallen down, for there was no notice of the award in the next day's
*Times*, nor in the following Sunday's book sections etc. All these
things mount up.

I had called Horace and Marya about coming--they had
been sent invitations--but although Marya is much better, Horace

2

has an attack of this deep-seated flu which has been bothering
people this winter, and was seeing the doctor.

Miss Schmidt's presence gave me the chance to ask again
about the status of Hilda's two manuscripts with Grove, not having
had any answer. Apparently they have been so engrossed with the
publication of *Lady Chatterly's Lover* in his fig-leaf-less
unexpurgation that they have thought of nothing else, and have
fifty manuscripts on which "Barney" really ought to make up his
mind. "Is that Mr Creekmore? I hardly dare speak to him. We've
had the manuscript of his novel for two years without ever
replying about it!" I made a case out for Hilda's special circum-
stances, in terms of her age etc., and think it may work one way
or another within a couple of months. I really must say that
having had Pantheon (under the Wolves) to work with for you has
been a blessing.

Susan and I took Pup and John to dinner at the Yale Club
afterwards, on the roof as with yourself and Kenneth. A good meal,
I eating very sedately while they had cocktail and wine. You would
be pleased with my present Spartan manner. It was a little diffi-
cult to get too deeply into Hilda's visits to the States, without
seeming to bear down -- as you must watch out against doing-- but
it is obvious they (both) are not anxious to assume any responsi-
bility. I'm afraid the matter was confused by Dorothy Doolittle,
who told them (expecting confirmation on their part) that she had
assured you or Hilda or someone that it would be absurd for Hilda
to have any companion or the like, since she could just take a
small apartment and there would be Pup to look after her.

I mentioned the necessity of a dragon, which was a little
easier; the fact that Hilda found it hard to walk, which would
mean that she would not be able to drop in on them all the time
(Pup has become very American in this dislike); and that the Stan-
hope seemed an ideal place. John spoke of the difficulty of the
summer, since there was no hotel anywhere near them. When I
emphasized Florida for the winter, this made a difference. I just
warn you that there will be no great enthusiasm.

I do think it is fair however to remember one aspect of the
situation, of which I am giving my interpretation rather than
repeating any statement on their part. That is, that in a household
without a staff and with three small pups, it is difficult to fit
any schedule at all. Let alone one which must be constantly re-
adjusted to meet Hilda's whims. And you know that she does act in
this way, and throws a scene if it does not work out to fit her
individual convenience and mood. She is an artist, and this is
understandable; you and I jump to conform. But a daughter cannot
treat a mother as an artist, except in very rare instances. A
daughter can sometimes treat a father that way, but usually only

3

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

233 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

when she maintains a semi-incestuous relationship with him, or in other words moves into a relationship not unlike yours and mine with Hilda. Of course they ought to recognize the difference between a fortnight's visit and the responsibilities of a lifetime, but it is the latter they fear--especially if Hilda did not have a circle of her own around her such as Joan and Heydt and the herfs provide, plus above all your daily phone calls, your visits etc.

You are self-sufficient, therefore your visits are another matter. You have done everything for Perdita; she is grateful. Again, I am saying only what I sense, but I do not think that Pup is grateful to Hilda, or in fact that Hilda ever really did anything like what you have done for her. Again, it was the precedence of the life of the artist, but that having been Hilda's choice -- and she having been cushioned and encouraged in this choice -- a Perdita will think of it as a disownment. Just as, in the first place it was an accident, not at all like your own case where your mother and father were together always as a unit. There was Perdita's grandmother to take responsibility, and there was you: as teacher, trainer, provider, decision-maker. Hilda was none of these; she was the incubator who bore her, and a famous poet. But not a mother in the sense that unconsciously both you and I expect her to see Hilda.

Well, all this doesn't help any. And one can understand everything about the whole world of man and its mechanisms, and not be any better off for it. What about you in all this? What about me? I am only talking, talking, talking.

Anyhow it was a pleasant dinner, and an important one for me to have had with them before Pup flies over --not only because for your sake and Hilda's I like to keep an eye and ear in, so that I could help in an emergency -- but also because Pup can give you a first-hand account of my blossoming health.

Alas, I have gained so much -- 150 pounds in the costume of Mellors -- that (oh dear, I weigh that much now, not gained it) I am having to be careful of my diet in order not to become teutonic. And I have been promoted so that I can have things with meat stock in them, which makes the matter of diet much easier. And tire less each day, although I am still glad to go to bed at the end of the evening.

This has been the period of final comprehensive examinations for seniors (given early this year), making out the schedules for next years classes, and the like. And foolishly I allowed myself to be persuaded to do a review of a book called *Neiress of all the ages: Sex and Sentiment in the Venteel Tradition*. A perfectly chaotic book although with occasional interesting observations and percept-

4

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

233 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

perceptions; but difficult to put into any shape for a journal like the Saturday Review. Why I said on the phone I would do it, I don't know. It will I'arn me! I had to read it twice, and couldn't seem to get it written Sunday as I hoped, or Monday (my birthday) which was intended for letters to Hilda and yourself. I finally got it done, chiefly by the expedient of quoting apercus, almost as though I were Marianne Moore. Quotation can be helpful, but it is often little more than a crutch.

It snowed Sunday, to the disgust of Susan's daffodils, but we luckily did not get anything like the five inches we were warned of. But Monday was pleasant, and it was good to have sunshine on one's birthday. Originally (by which I mean some months ago) Susan had planned a largish party for friends, as suitable for a 50th, but this was obviously impossible, so Lizzie came, and little due and her husband and the grandbaby. I had your cable from Hilda on the mantelpiece, and had saved the Grieder tie in its package to open for the first time with my other presents. You belittled it: it is stunning, and quite of its own. It is sad to think there will be no more, and I shall cherish it especially as from you and as last survivor.

Much to my surprise a great bouquet of flowers came on my birthday, "with love and congratulations" from "Dori and Erich."

*All's Well that End's Well.* A mighty good observation, but a mighty mediocre play. The truth is -- let me whisper it beneath the stalks of rue--that I have never thought Shakespeare would be the Bard of Avon if we had only his comedies to go on.

Glad you are going to London. Much better always to take the ms in one's jaw and deposit it at the chief kennel with a warning woof or a friendly wag. Especially worthwhile gnawing a bone or two over the title.

Delighted that Doris may have found you a boat. Take it and go alone, unless Hilda can go. Or is there one of Dean's boys who would like to go along. Otherwise I am the only one I trust you in a boat with as company. Your eyes should be on the water and your pencil on the notebook. But why not fly back from Ireland after you have landed and crossed the swamp on foot to Petrie's?

Enclose a couple of items for your entertainment, although I had expect the Eliot to go to you before you were in England. It is the dedicatory poem to his new play, as printed in the book. The little group of us who know T.S.E. here shudder at it, and not deliciously. It is really incredible. Indirectly you must see if Dame Edith has seen it, and I would give anything to know what Marianne will do in picturing our Tom in his "leaping delight."

5

I sent a copy to Hilda, and as I said to her: perhaps all right written by hand in Valerie's own copy, but in print it is embarrassing. Under circumstances, Hilda might be interested in the play.

Second item, a review of a concert at which a composition by Christian Wolff was played. He is evidently very serious about his music, and one wonders whether he can manage the teacher career and it. I am afraid I had to ask little Susan what a prepared piano is, but was told it was one in which the placement of loose nuts, bolts, sandpaper, bits of scrap metal etc gave the possibility of what is described in the review. Somehow all this seems very un-Kurtlich and un-Helenisch.

Last night I stayed up a bit later than usual to hear the Baroness Lixen be interviewed on television. Curiosity of course because our inability to meet up with her in Denmark. A very little person, her face so wrinkled from wasting that it seemed scarred on the camera, but dynamic and bright and obviously one not to sit back or anyone anywhere. She might have been your cup of tea, but I rather doubt it. She is the lean feminine type who acts like a man without going over, and like a Catherine of Russia allows a man into her bed once or twice before she throws him to the wolves so that he will not confuse himself by thinking a stallion takes precedence over a mare.

And so, this is the way the morning has gone; and I have let my desk go to hell, but it has been worth it when at last I could sit down.

Do give my greetings in London, and I shall be anxious to hear all.

19 April 1959

Dearest Fido:

A surge of housekeeping (economy?) is upon me, and you will have to suffer through it for months. You will not recognize this paper, but it is what we bought for ourselves in Winnipeg, took with us to Churchill and Chesterfield, and then came bag in the duffle bag and has been in my desk drawer from that time on. I cannot bear to let it go to waste. As a child I used to fear that some of my toys would be hurt from not having been played with. So, now, I know that writing paper only fulfills its destiny when it is written on.

No letters this week from you, naturally enough, with all your travelling and settlements and resettlements, but there are odds and ends to tidy up, and this Sunday gives me the chance.

One of your older letters got buried in undone papers on my desk. It was as of the 1st April. Not much to comment on in it, except (1) I did talk to Dorothy Doolittle about the Tierra del Fuego cruise, which sounds superb. Only, alas, it is almost certainly during my term time, which makes it impossible. But can't you, as my surrogate? I think the thing is not to wait too long. (2) I think you may have shown me James Reeves' Songs of the People last September at Zurich. I remember taking back an anthology of this nature to the Swan to read. I liked it, but of course it had only a very little restored of the original bawdiness of traditional folk songs. As The Merry Muses of Caledonia shows when you compare its songs with what Burns did to them. John Anderson, my Joe Jon, was a different man in the original complaint; and when a body met a body coming through the rye, well .... (3) Thank you for the kind words about the review. Yes, somewhere in the distant past I used to plan that when I was fifty I would retire from teaching and the information it had given me, and write. But one gives hostages to fortune which I guess can never be redeemed. Well, anyhow...

There was so much to write about in my last long letter that I forgot completely to report about my morning with the customs officials and the outcome of the scrap over the five packages of books. Like most squalls it blew down before the meeting. After the chief lady clerk at customs discovered that I had an ulcer like her own, we became intestinal pals, and it was arranged that the packages could be shipped to my office where an official would come, on the cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die that I would not open them beforehand. They arrived on Monday afternoon but I did not have even a single free hour unscheduled before Friday morning. But he arrived then bright

and early and uniformed, and we uncut the strings, and undid
each of the superbly and individually wrapped books inside,
and then solemnly separated the sheep from the goats: that is,
those published twenty years ago, and those since. With a
third little pile (only two altogether) which were cross-bred
by being books published abroad in English but by American
authors. These, as being infertile, were allowed in duty free
along with those who had come of age. The inspector was interest-
ed in all the books in my offices, and agreed that the ones
you sent would be useful to me, and that it was generous of you
to have sent them, and that even those less than twenty years
old were often (we shrugged our shoulders in rhythmic affirma-
tion) after all written in and so could only be disposed of
as second hand books. So for histtrip to and from, and an
hour at my office; plus my hour or more at their office, the
great government of the United States of America received the
total sum as duty of $2.90. My gratitude to you for the books
is so great that I will not bother to charge the savings account
for it.

Actually of course it was a dream of packages, with so
much that was so wonderful to have saved and together. I will
not try to comment on them all at once, but in parcels. It
was nice to see the Paris 1900, Egypt 1903 again, particularly
with the memoirs in mind. And the book of reviews of The Death
of Adonis will be important. It was rather a wrench to think
of your sending over Hilda's books to you, but they wait for you
on this side, and I agree better and more accessible here than
in a storage spot in London. Some day some one will be grateful
to you for having saved a *Heliodora* in wrappers. My copy did
not have the wrappers any longer, and although I do not go
into a trance about such nonsense I know people who do and so
try to accomodate them. Seeing the ms of typescript edition
of Herring's St George made me a little sad, but thank you.

Thanks also for the *Mischief in Patagonia* which arrived
Friday. It looks fun.

Several yellow envelopes in, which I have read with
interest as always. Doris seems a good deal brighter, and I
am glad she could get some first at the show. Actually I do
agree with her feeling that a little building up of the name
of Trenoweth will be a help in selling. As to the house in
Scilly I cannot really give any advice, but on the whole tend
to agree with what I gather to be Philip's feeling that she
might do well not to take on another house until her affairs
are a little more settled. She will have to keep some kind
of an eye on Trenoweth, and she might even enjoy the Scilly
cottage more when she can concentrate on it.

What a simply marvelous time the Rosslers have when they go anywhere. Perhaps when you come over next, we could skip up to Montreal so that you could see them and it, with a side excursion to Quebec.

A onetime protégé published an article on Hawthorne in the Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa -- which is certainly an odd place for it to appear--and sent me a copy. Much interested to see one of a series of articles in it on "essai de toponymie oblate canadienne". The magazine is apparently oblate, but not the mission branch. was amused to find the following listed as item 185:

Mission (lac). Territoires du Nord-Ouest. Lac situe a l'entree de Chesterfield-inlet. Le Canadian Board affirme: "From where the Mission obtains fresh water" et que les noms dont il est question dans le dossier ont ete fournis par le pere Courtemanche, o.m.i., missionnaire catholique a Chesterfield. Le nom a ete approuve le 6 mai 1954.

I hadn't even known it had a name! Certainly it isn't a very stimulating one.

Lizzie how has a volunteer job for two hours, twice a week, with one of the clinics in the hospital. Not very interesting I guess, chiefly with filing cabinets. They feel it worthwhile as a test or even a kind of strain. I gather she is dissatisfied, having wanted a job that would take all day every day, but none were available. She appears to have told her supervisor on the job that she is difficult to get along with, which is perhaps a way of murdering the job to escape it. It will be interesting to watch.

Hope London hasn't been too much of a strain, and that things have been accomplished.

20 April 1959

Dearest Fido,

Your two letters of the 16th and 17th were in this
morning's mail, and perhaps there is still time for one more to
you at the Sesame. Does it mean that they will never, under any
circumstances, forward a letter? It is frightening.

Not surprised at all really at your silence, only
that you have managed to find time to write at all. Have never
heard of anyone managing to crowd quite so much into a Paris
visit as you did, and rather wonder--it having turned out so
favorably, theatre-wise etc--whether you will not want occasionally
to stop off. I had had a nice note from Alice Toklas, saying that
she was looking forward to seeing you. She had heard from Gallup
that I was ill; it was nice of her to write. The matter of her
poverty is a subject of speculation amongst her closest friends,
with just a little suspicion that some of the expressions of it
may be a manifestation of her age. There are many who want to
help her, and who have conducted investigations. It is hard to
say. Of course too, Gertrude provided in her will that Alice
could sell any picture or pictures needed to help her. Since the
collection only goes to the children of Alan who will sell them,
and the group will not be a memorial to Gertrude, sentiment can't
enter in. She got some money out of last year's cookbook, and
is receiving advances on her own memoirs which she is writing
(with help) (John is in on this).

Did I tell you that I spoke with Sylvia's editor at
the Hildafest? Said that the book was definitely coming out in
August, that she had had to work like a dog revising it and
dressing it, but that it was really Sylvia's and charming and would
do well.

I thought you were going to see Pat Gregory. Or did
you, and forget to write about him.

So sorry about Bumpus. I know what you mean. The
Yale bookstore now provides baskets, like a supermarket, when
one goes shopping for books. "Perhaps I'd better take a can of
'amus." "Two frozen Butors will come in handy." "With every full-
size Pasternak novel, you get an extra little Pasternak memoir
free. Yes, it is a bargain!"

Thank Edith for her greetings. She was most kind in
a mention of Auden-Pearson in a letter she wrote to the Saturday
Review. Ordinarily I don't see the magazine, but some one mention
it to me. Her anthology is excellent; it's too bad that reviewers

want everything wrapped in a "balanced" academic robe. That
kind of robe is what one earns by peasant labor in classrooms,
not the kind of robe which is given for honorary degrees. I
believe that Gregory is doing, or has done, an enthusiastic
salute.

I enclose a reply from the Clancy who is translating
*Gate*, and will send you the copy when it arrives. Nothing else
to be done at the moment apparently.

One matter has come up for you okay or onay, as a result
of the income tax. Rather to my dismay, my local lawyers and
the accountants say that I must declare as income all the returns
from Pantheon even if they are against advance subsidies given
in my name. This, because the source of the subsidized was the
author of the book, etc. I am going to check the matter with
some accountants who specialize in literary matters, in New York,
but meanwhile had to include the usually large check due to
the Gandharan book. Of course it won't be as large again, because
the initial sales won't be equalled in any other year (presumably)
unless they make a musical comedy out of it. As you know, I
have always deposited any checks from Pantheon in the savings
account, and only drawn from it for sundry expenses connected
with the different affairs. Since the $902.97 was paid out of
my own savings, may I withdraw that amount now, returning it if
I should ever be able to claim a rebate from the government.
I also ought to withdraw the sum of $152.52 which was my tax on
the interest from the deposits in the savings account of $472.
56, which I had to declare as personal income and pay taxes on.
There are also taxes on whatever homes in from Hilda's fees,
which counts as my income, but I just deposit all these to the
special account I keep for her. It wouldn't be more than fifty
dollars or more. I ought to explain perhaps that naturally I
don't withdraw the interest on the savings account but simply
let it be added to the capitol involved.

Sorry to bother you with all this, but you would have every
right to be curious as to why there was suddenly less than I had
told you. But there is still enough, especially with nothing like
the Ghandaran book looming. Actually, from a business point of
view, there is probably more than should be kept in a savings
account with its low rate of interest. There will be a little
over 14000 if I take this sum out.

Hope you have been able to see George. I am anxious to
have a first-hand account of him. I have my worries about him.

All love,
Norman

3 May 1959

Dearest Fido,

Such an agglomeration of things to write about or even simply to answer since my last letter that I am almost frightened by the mere bulk of it. Perhaps I tire a little more easily than I used to --probably it is simply the spring-time surge of activities and decisions to be made in a university that leaves me too short-timed to write letters. Hold with me, for it may go on for a few weeks longer. But classes end on the 15th of May, and although duties go on it is decreasingly congested.

Let me run at random through a few items piled by my typewriter, so that at least they can be filed away by my secretary tomorrow morning. First of all many thanks indeed for the copy of the catalogue of Sylvia's "expo". It is really a pity that the catalogue can't be generally available in this country, for it would sell many copies. The photographs are particularly good.

I am delighted that the Vebaekss are so pleased with their trip, but you shouldn't have included me as a beneficiary. Certainly however I would be one in spirit, and therefore am.

I was shaken to see Faith's letter to you. What a document it is. Poor child.

Mary Hotson sent along an article from the Daily Express about northern Hudson Bay--some one who had an adventurous flight in an airplane. But really I like our kind of reminiscence better. A publisher's representative stopped by yesterday to ask what manuscripts were around and if I planned anything. Somehow it got on to the Arctic, and he was keen on a book about Greenland. Which only goes to show that the interest mounts. I do not send along the article as it is really very minor.

Speaking of the North however, I was in New York on Friday to see the Wolves -- of which more later--and visited a show of Eskimo carvings put on uptown by the wealthiest (Rockefeller, Harriman, etc) protestant church. Everything for sale and brought together by the Canadian Handcrafts Guild (we visited in Winnepeg) and all from the east side of the Bay: Cape Dorset, Sugluk, Povungnituk, Port Harrison etc. Some really very fine pieces, the best being much better than anything I have in the way of pure quality. They ran generally from 60 dollars to 200, with pieces being bought by the Smithsonian in Washington, leading art collectors etc. It had been well picked over by the time

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I got there, with only some twenty left from the 589 that had been sent down. I might have been tempted, despite the high prices, had there been anything to which my heart really went out. But if one buys in that way, one should only buy the very best except when one has a sentimental interest in a piece, as in most I have. You have always said this, and proved it so wonderfully with the Chandaran head at which I hesitated. I am always the one of faint heart at this sort of thing, and then go out and buy a chocolate nut sundae instead of a simple desert. (That, by the way, is a figure of speech: I am still not allowed chocolate or nuts!)

An example of the best however--and I mean it-- seems to be your aid for Mrs Macpherson, whose champion I have become ever since I read her letter to you about her affairs of money and carbuncles. She is a dame to whom my heart goes out. But one is curious as to just how all this happened, and whether or not someone took advantage of her. It would be interesting if Philip or Paylis took a look at the London side, but I suppose not worth it really to upset her by uncovering anything even if it really had happened.

Robert's letter was balanced and quiet, but really I forbid you to get involved in that direction again. It would do him no good and only drive another spike through your arm.

NO word from your evil genius about her Dorothy Richardson and other letters. I wonder if she won't suspect, since no doubt R.O. may have told her that I was a friend of yours.

Rather liked Margery's letter of apology about her friend who had tricked you. But not quite sure what the trickery was.

Package of artistic etc books came in, but unfortunately have been taken home and I cannot cite. Susan busy reading them, and I will be, I hope, when classes are over.

Poor Cole seems rather to have given up. But what can one do! I feel rather sorry, though, for her husband. But Gerald is certainly a patient soul.

To run back over your trip. I was delighted that the Paris stop-over worked out so well. As I wrote you before, I feel a little that one might experiment with an occasional night or two in Paris, especially if one could stay with Sylvia. It would delight her, and relieve the problem of finding a decent place. I had not known, or had forgotten, that Chamsun was now an academician. Will certainly take care of him and of Baillet if anything happens.

The Sesame apparently worked out as well as we had hoped. I really must try to do something about the Cosmopolitan Club in New York, though it is not quite so necessary to have a place there.

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as in London. particularly pleased that Edith seems so much better in spirits. To what do you lay it? As to her discarding her friendship with Eliot, Waley and Spender--waley I don't know enough about to guess, having only met him once with you. Spender is a four-flusher, and if he is malicious it is because malice covers an innate shallowness. Of course he is verbal and clever, in a kind of university high polish, but there has never been any real core to him. The Eliot story to which Edith referred has an element of truth in it, although the precise dramatic details might be difficult to work out. Eliot has a cousin--third or fourth or something--named Emily Hale (I think it is) who is headmistress of a girls school in Concord, Massachusetts. How far back the affair went I don't know, but she never married and used to see our Tom in England during the thirties after he and his first wife had separated. The memory of the rose garden in Burnt Norton is a reference to a trip there with her, insofar as it has biographical rather than general significance. She certainly was in love with him, and it was often said that if he ever married it would be with her, after Mrs Eliot died. Whether he ever told her specifically that they were too old to marry I don't know, but no doubt she still hoped-- or at any rate, and it is a little sad, when Miss Hale heard of Eliot's marriage to Valery, she gave his letters to her (sealed) to Princeton University (not Harvard where they would have been absorbed in his collection) and sold the books he had inscribed to her.

Why he would have done this I don't know, except as I suggested at the time of the marriage. Osbert of course several times referred to Eliot as Greenlandic, painting his eyes green for policemen--I think it was Forster who made a specialty out of firemen--. But I still think he did not intend to marry, and was led to it mostly to escape John Eywood's clutches. Now I am told he writes little erotic verses to Valery, no doubt to help the aged eagle flap his wings. Share all this with Hilda if you like, but you'll be popped in gaol if you spread it at the Sesame.

Now as to Collins. I am delighted that you liked AN ALPHABET OF COLOURS, which was of course you own anyhow. Probably Collins won't like it, and will prefer WHEN I WAS DOLLY. But the more I think of it, the more it seems to me that A A of C was what you always intended: an alphabet is what one builds with, the colors are the palette for later life, and the color of the past, and of course there is the tie-in with Mallarme which makes more sense now. The new man at Pantheon likes it very much too, especially since it can be retained as a section title for the whole.

I slip now to Friday when I was in New York, going down really only to see Kurt and Helen and meet the new managing editor. Took the noon train and the five o'clock back, since Kurt had a bug and had gone back to his flat. They do not leave, now, until

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June 20th, so I will have time. The new man, who came from Harcourt, Brace, is excellent. You will like him, and I am sure he will be splendid to work with. He has the right instincts, and anyhow Helen will be managing promotions etc on a few authors, you among them, so I have no worries. They were anxious to see a copy of the book, and so I suggested that they write Collins and have my copy sent to them. Some magazine is interested in parts of it, or think they might be. In any event I am anxious for Kurt and Helen to have read it before they leave on the 20th. I'm sure Collins will be willing to let one out of their hands before then.

Now the one thing I could not tell them was what kind of a contract you had signed with Collins for it, and whether this included the American rights etc. Helen was anxious to know, and I wonder if you could have a photostatic copy of it sent to me, or have a copy typed out. It might make some difference in how Pantheon went about it all. Better have Phillip look at the contract if you haven't, by some chance, signed it yet.

I am really quite worried about your news of George. I don't like the forecast at all.

Will put aside your letter asking about how Lacerda can go about getting a job teaching Portuguese here in the states, and will get at it later.

Your description of Stratford was first-rate. Butor and his pals must have guided your pen.

No reason why All's Well shouldn't be what you say. At any rate it would give it more interest.

Very curious about Pat. I really hate to have him get his clutches on you as I think he must somehow work it out on his own terms. Perhaps some one like "eydt could help him, but again I rather hate having him in Zurich or ambiente so long as Hilda is there. Clutches is perhaps not the word I really meant, he would be more apt to cling. I have always sternly told you that I thought the relationship with his sister an unfortunate one.

One gathered from Kenneth that it would become rather chic to be received by the new pope, and I shall be interested to hear of it from you. And I rather agree with you that he may slip in for old age security, but he will handle it well, and not with Edith's manner of wearing her confessor on her sleave.

Am simply sending this to Kenwin, as on the whole simpler
If I find from letters in Monday's mail that I can send elsewhere,
I shall. And so wait at least until tomorrow morning before
mailing this.

All love,
Zion

5 May 1959

Dearest Fido,

Your two letters, of the 1st and 2nd, arrived yesterday, and even though you will not be anywhere to receive an answer I match a moment or two from the morning's chores simply to put down my first impressions. Naturally I am disturbed at Brunner's fears, and your own, especially since I cannot be there in person at this moment to make my own assessment. And it is hard for me, of course, absolutely and without question to accept Brunner's conclusions. I am not sure just how "sensitive" he is --not quite, I feel, of the sensibility his father had. You yourself have suggested this. Nor, although I suspect that he himself does not know about the future of the santiarium, is it impossible (quite without sinister implications) that he is reluctant to lose Hilda's steady and on the whole easy patronage. Much more essential is the fact that Hilda has never been "his" patient, as she was much more his father's and certainly Heydt's.

So much for the quandary on that side of the question. Now as for Hilda herself: In the first place, I can usually tell the advent of strain on her from the tone, even the syntax, of her letters to me. One can have calm before a storm, of course, but the truth is that her calm in correspondence, both to you and to me, has steadily improved ever since the breaking of her hip. Ferdita has noticed this too. Susan regularly comments on it. If one wished to put a different interpretation on what is going on in Hilda's mind, from what Brunner sees with less intimate knowledge than let us say Heydt has, one might (and I wonder what your reaction to such an explanation would be) surmise that you and I had done everything over the past year to encourage her in just such a plan as she now has. In the first place we have stressed the importance of her new passport, and this is a symbol of travel. We have spoken directly and indirectly to her over the past, since her birthday visit, that she ought to come back to the States for visits, and even held up Florida and its warmth as a temptation to her for winter months of shivering at Kusnacht. We have urged her to go to Lugano, where she almost certainly would have gone if you had not found the sanitarium impossible. You have urged her to go to Kusnacht (although I am not surprised that this does not appeal to her). You and I have set her an example of bobbing about here and there, with little adventures which are tantalizing to a person who feels herself beginning to become ambulatory again. So has Joan with her little trip and her plans for trips. And, although neither of us had anything to do with this last point--Heydt's marriage was like her divorce, and the depth of this I think I understand more fully than perhaps you can--since she both talks to me in a different way (inevitably so)

about him and has shown me the various journals she has kept to
record her emotions. Thus another tie that might have kept her
bound close to Kusnacht does not have the same strength as it did
before, especially during the period when he would be with Dori
in the States.

What I am trying to puzzle out for myself is whether one
must inevitably regard Hilda's desire for the shore and sand as
either "fantasy" or "flight." All winter long she has been think-
ing of the West Indies or Florida for warmth, and that was all
right; to shift the visit to Italy or the South of France need
not, therefore, be anything but an extension or variation of what
is still right.

I agree absolutely and completely with you that Hilda
ought not to buy a car for Joan to drive her in, although she
might perfectly well hire a car and driver to take her to some
resort. She has enough money of her own to do it with, and there
is no reason on god's earth why you should take your own funds for
this. She has three to four times what most of us has, simply
piling up and if she is spend any of it on herself as her father
intended she must begin to do so soon. Even Harold urges her to
stop being squirrel. However much more important is a dragon,
and if Brunner would let her have a dragon for a fortnight in
Italy or the south of France, why not let her try it. Joan could
go with her and the dragon, and it would be a good time for her
to go when you were on your boating trip or in England. I do not
think you ought to go on the same trip or visit her during the
time, because you would worry too much. If she went to Italy,
and there are marvelous beaches there, I am sure Islay would be
willing to jump up if anything happened; otherwise there is no
reason for him too. Or Kenneth. I would be inclined to let her
make her plans, rather than seem to have led her towards just
such a break from Kusnacht only to snatch it away.

You will say the States, and I would say to this, but
rather in December, January or February. Not during the summer.
Certainly Heydt would be very foolish indeed if he were to agree
to bring Hilda out with him, since he would know he would have to
be chaperone and companion while he is here. This would hardly
make him mobile, and hardly be pleasant for his Dori. If he is
thinking still of even a remote possibility of moving to the States
they ought to be free to explore them, and if it is only a pleasure
trip he will probably feel that his marriage ought to be given
every chance to succeed under optimum conditions. As I recall it,
the American trip was planned before their marriage, and I am sure
Hilda was not included in Dori's proposal of matrimony. I am
trying to be realistic about this. I rather think Hilda might
object for the same reason.

So far as Rerdita is concerned, August is no better than July, and they insist there is no nearby hotel where she could stay. It would be impossible for them to keep coming back and forth to New York while Nilda was at the Stanhope, and Nilda herself would find New York too hot. She could of course visit Susan and me for a fortnight or three weeks, but she has never wanted to do this; and May is too late to get reservations at the Pine Orchard hotel we showed you both and talked about before. She might like the Lawn Club in town however, and I could see her there and take her out to the shore evenings; but this would not take care of the problem of Rerdita, and you and I are old enough as conspirators to know that we ought to consider very carefully before risking the destruction of whatever feeling there is between them.

My own feeling would be for her to try a beach in Italy, which slay could arrange for -- if she can take a dragon. Or a fortnight at the hotel in Lugano, --if she can take a dragon. Not in any case a visit to Kusnacht. At least my feeling would be for her to plan for it. She might never actually go, but do not press her to make up her mind one way or another, even if it would be more practicable to do so.

Then as alternative or follow-up, a three weeks visit to the States in winter, accompanied by dragon, with a week in New York and a fortnight in Florida.

All this sound very firm and easy. I know it is not. But I urge you not to take Brunner absolutely literally. Somehow I wish you and I could both learn to take things more in our stride. But we are like peas in a pod.

11 May 1959

Dearest Fido,

One runs in the middle of the usual spring rat-race, and I seize time after the office has closed while I wait for a young Englishman to take to dinner, Susan having left Saturday to be gone until Thursday night in St Louis for her annual national meeting of the eggarden clubs.

Am glad that Rup found Hilda a little better, and hope that she may have helped a little to balance Brunner's pessimistic account. It is curious too that I find her letters to me continue to be better balanced than before her accident, and without sign of tension. If she was nervous beforehand I think this was at least partly due to some trepidation (natural enough, god wot) as to how Rup would fit in, especially with Joan. I judge this from her sense of relief that all went so well. As to the ritualistic side, perhaps this had something to do with the nervousness and partly to do with, after all, being along in her 70's. You, being younger than all the rest of us will probably find it increasingly difficult to to realize that we are not as we were.

Very sad about Kenneth Maggs.

Rose Udle wrote about the D.R. in Braille, which pleased her naturally. Still no word from Louise Morgan, and she may smell a mouse.

The description of Kenneth's new apartment sounds ravishing. If indeed the msgr and the rope are trying to bring him over I am sure it is because the rope wants to move out of the Vatican into the flat. What good taste he has! I am not surprised that you moved nearer the Spanish steps. The Grand was really out of the way and, seemingly, not near much of anything.

Your tomb-card filled me with jealousy, for that as well as having seen Kenneth and islay. It is good to know that Kenneth will be over in the fall, but I long for more than an evening's dinner. We shall see.

It has been 80° today and one becomes unseasonably exhausted by the heat. Forgive the incoherences.

A scrap or two have been laid by to mention. One I enclose, just as an affidavit that such things do exist. Do not save. I will know to turn to Abercrombie & Fitch.

Rather more intrigued by the mention I saw in the paper the other day that the young Boswell had written a play about two eskimos in greenland in the 18th century. The ms is among his papers at Yale. Then, in a book catalogue which came was an item by one of me macquet, called THE HISTORY OF A SAVAGE GIRL CAUGHT WILD IN THE WOODS OF CHAMPAGNE. Newly translated from the French of Madam H----t. London c. 1784. "An account, probably fictional of a rygmalion-like savage girl found in the woods of France, supposedly born a Labrador Eskimo." The price is $75 and aboard, altho I may sometime look it up in the library, or you might try the London Library. The point is, what do you know about the 18th century vogue of the eskimo in England. One presumes it comes from.....?

We had the Hansens out to dinner last Saturday night and then took them to an undergraduate musical show which they seemed to enjoy. She is radiant, and apparently in perfect health. The truth of course is that with herticular trouble she has by chance come to the very place anywhere for taking guard against it. I have been able to get them a quonset hut for the summer and next winter, which will be much cheaper for them. People have supplied them with all necessaries for the baby, which is expected at the end of this month. Erik has done well with his seminar work this year, and in the recommendations for fellowships which were made while I was in the hospital he was given the strongest kind of support, and although they will have to watch it they should be able to carry on all right. Naturally I keep my eye on them. He has been having some psychiatric treatments which he claims, and which seem to, have done him good.

Some turnover in personnel, which always makes this time of year difficult, and tomorrow I spend the day giving oral examinations for the doctorate. But classes are over as of this Thursday for me, and from then on nothing but dissertations and class papers to correct before I am free. Plus graduations etc. Still, it will not be too long.

All love

14 May 1959

Dearest Fido:

Sometimes you yelp; now I yowl! For a letter
came today from Ingholt in which he says that there is a chance
for me to fly to Greenland this summer with the American ambassador
in a plane, and he wonders if I would be interested. He has been
talking with the Public Relations Officer at the Embassy. Think
of it: sashaying down the streets of Godthaab again, and this time
perhaps really getting to Erik's home, and retaking the picture
or two I ought to have got of the church ruin from the slope above,
and saying how-d'ya-do to the Bastiensens, and then --really Mr
Ambassador, it would be a pity since we are this far not to go to
Thule, don't you think, really as Americans it would be improper
not to pay a duty call.

I have been reading Little Dot which just arrived.
"And they looked down into the grave at the little white coffin
lying amonst the daisies. Then all was over, and the robin sang
his song on little Dot's grave." All my bubbling dreams have be-
come nothing more than little Dot in her grave. "What a very nice
place Heaven must be!" But I should have liked it better to be in
Greenland. Weep for me, sweet Fidoling.

My last class was finished today, and now I have nothing
but the great mass of papers to correct, and the countless oddments
to finish. And the etceteras.

Apparently Mrs Ingholt came back a fortnight ago be-
cause of her mother's health, or presumably lack of it. He will
stay an alone until the end of the summer. He hopes to finish his
report on the Bronze Age before he leaves, and do the Iron Age
later. I correct myself; he hopes to return early in July. He
apparently has had two reviews of the Gandharan book. The one in
The American Journal of Archaeology he feels is unfair and unsatis-
factory, but had his spirits revived by the one in the Journal of
Near Eastern Studies. I shall try to see them when he gets back,
and will have for you when you comeover.

The newest group of Maggettes has come, with no quest-
ions from the customs. One arrived in a superb British official
Mail Sack, which I think I shall have to save to use as a duffle
bag.

Also a yellow envelope. I had not realized that you
had changed title to A Coloured Alphabet. I am not sure that I like
quite so well as An Alphabet of Colours, in terms of harmony and
meaning; or perhaps Alphabet of Colours with the article omitted.

Most interesting letter from Rosemary Russell about

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Faith. The whole thing is heartbreaking, but at least Faith
will be nearer at hand if you care to see her the next time.
Marianne's letter made it difficult to know whether to be optimis-
tic or not. Obviously she must have had a light stroke of some
kind, and recovers slowly. Curious how the rhetorical pattern
of her letters comes to resemble Emily Dickinson's.

I forgot to write you that I had sent along to you the
Harold Loeb volume of reminiscences about Paris. Hilda might like
to glance at, but I thought particularly of you and your own
memoirs. Loeb published *Broom*, and was the Robert Cohn of *The
Sun Also Rises*. Also a little book by Kokeritz on the pronuncia-
tion of the names of Shakespeare's characters, as in Elizabethan
times. Simply as curiosity. Again Hilda might be amused, as
diversion. It seems to me there was another enclosure but I
can't remember it.

I also forgot to say, some weeks ago, that Susan had
taken some daffodils into the N.Y. Horticultural Society Daffodil
Show -- all specimens of Doris' bulbs, and won two firsts, three
seconds, and two thirds. Since it was a rotten season because of
cold and rain, I thought this was quite good. It was her first
appearance.

Kurt Wolff called this morning to say goodbye. He
leaves on the 20th. I had told you wrongly, thinking it was to
be the 20th of June. But because he was sick for a time with
his cold, and there are so many people for him to see, and his
strength is of course weak, I shall not try to make an extra
trip down to see him. Helen, he says, will be back in New
York in September and I can see her then for any business that
may come up. I urged her to come back frequently, both to keep
in touch with the business and because I think she will need a
change from such close confinement with Kurt, The Dolder Grand
can be all too little a world.

Susan returns to New Haven tonight at 7:30 and it will
be good to see her. She will find all the lilacs out in full
blossom, although it has rained and been cold most of the time.

I do hope for a long retrospective letter from you about
Rome and the Pope and the ruins and the flowers there. I think
we will have to have a Christine Jorgensen metamorphosis performed
on you somehow, so that you can be turned into a Latin.

All Latin love,

31 May 1959

Dearest Fido:

Oh well, how could anyone hope for forgiveness except at such a
time of the year. I know how you feel about not being able to get to your
own writing, but in my case the regret is that I could not get to the letters
to you and Hilda. Not of course that anyone conceivably wanted to publish them,
except that when read by you or by Hilda my letters reach the audience their
limited edition was intended for.

As so frequently, there is too much to recall, to try to go through
in any order. Instead let me think of my desk, and my efforts to clear it of
papers so that grades can go in and students can graduate (one hopes!) I only
reach for the pile of memoranda by my typewriters, that for days and days has been
waiting for your letter. There is no order to such a pile. These, then, are
random notes. The only name of interest to you on the new list of Guggenheim
Fellowships is that of Lionel Casson, who is given a grant to write a history of
maritime commerce in Hellenistic and Roman times.

I am sending you separately a quite wonderful British catalogue of
"Voyages and Travels" Mainly to the North." I checked the few we had in the collect-
ion, at least on this side, and ordered a few (indicated by "buy") since I wanted
to see them and thought they fitted in. But there are a number which you might
like as well. It's rather fun running one's eye down a catalogue of this sort.
Just toss in the wastebasket when you have finished.

Very grateful for the copy of *Spoon River Anthology* you sent with the
batch from London. One of my graduate students unexpectedly did his term paper
on it, and I had not read it for years and had never owned a copy.

1 June 1959

Was pleased to see Hilda's notice of her 50th reunion, which for
a time so involved me that I thought it was my own. It gives me a particular
delight to see that they "now" particularly want souvenirs of H.D. and M.M. with
Hilda first on the list.

Nice that Pup could visit Cole and Gerald. She seems to have had a
good visit. Of that, more later.

Edith's letter reminds me that your GATE is now long out in London,
and hope that you will send me a copy. Now that Kurt and Helen are no longer in
New York, I shall not receive one of the ones sent them; and Collins is not
anxious on their own to acknowledge my existence. I joke, of course; but they never
did understand the arrangement. Naturally I am most eager to see what they have
done with it. As to the contract with Collins for your memoirs, you should probably
show it to Helen since she is now at hand in Switzerland. Then you can have every-
thing straight, and I know it would please her to be consulted. I have heard
nothing to my request that a copy be sent from Collins to Pantheon; as I understood
it from her, they were anxious to see one in order to submit it to one of the
national women's magazine. Helen can explain in more detail.

Horace's letter was interesting with his account of Win Scott and
the squabble with Edith was interesting. Horace did think that Edith had had no
good reviews of her anthology and told me he was going to publish one in, I think,
a *Catholic Review, Commentary*. I imagine she must have written thanking for this.
They both, naturally, admire Edith's work; and Marya especially is proud of the
friendship. As well she might be. The interview with Edith in the Sunday *Observer*

2

I would not have missed for anything. Edith has a real flare for saying what will make good copy. She has the true instincts of an actress on and off the stage (or is seldom off it, except to intimate friends like yourself. At its best it adds style to her deepest thoughts in poetry; at its worst, in poetry, it takes the place of deepest thoughts.

Am much amused at your "Dear Winifred Bryher" letters from Chester Page. Obviously he has taken a real plunge, and before you know it you will be "Winnie" to him.

I more or less assume that George will not be on this side this year. I had rather hoped to see him again, but obviously he is in no shape for a trip and, anyhow, will much prefer having his favorite sister with him. I am somehow a little pessimistic about his prognosis. Somehow the difficulties appear to compound, and his cheerfulness is a little forced. But, even when forced, how much finer it is than what is natural to most of us!

As you will gather, I have not written the Hogdsons for some months, but it will be one of my first pleasures after graduation. I have to go in to the hospital (only one day) for another set of x-rays (purely a routine follow up), on the 12th, and will not get down to things until that is out of the way.

Your Alberto sounds like a good sort. I rather think I fancy him more than your Chester. But then I have had no pudding.

Gather you got a Swiss sleeping bag for Martin. He sounded as though his cries of delight and gratitude came from a seventh heaven.

Interval of most of the day while I corrected some make-up exams. Full of pity (that is, I have been), and so passed them and let them graduate.

Now to the various letters, at least as much as I can get in before supper time. Tomorrow I have to go to Middletown to the Wesleyan University Press for a conference on next year's volumes of poetry. Have read some twenty volumes in the past week, and drip metres.

Mr Anderson, the alcoholic at Brunner, seems well up to the standard of wildness. But I can see that he must be annoyingly evident. It is all rather rough, and Rudolph does indeed seem to be in some sort of crise.

Still not a peep out of Grove about Hilda's manuscript. It is still this wretched hullabaloo about Grove's edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover. It is the Grove's equivalent of Pantheon's Anne Lindberg. Ponder this, or pander it as you will. They had promised to let me know by fall at the latest. Horace can do nothing, I presume, because they are bringing out Marya's book of poems soon.

Glad you liked the Kokeritz. No it probably isn't Hilda's cup of tea. Horace didn't like the Loeb book, and neither did I from any absolute standpoint. But I sent it to you for professional reasons, as for your own memoirs. I found the final section, giving his version of The Sun Also Rises, I am told it has been an obsession on his part to get it straight in regard to himself as Cohn in Hemingway's novel. The result is this memoir which has a good deal of the tense casualness, and desire to tell the truth, that comes after long periods of analysis such as he has had. But he is really psychotic, I think, basically. Interesting in that way, and it does contain a good deal of interesting data. I was glad for the Berlin section since that has not

been documented so well as Paris has. Or London.

A curious place to insert this bit of information, but I was delighted to learn that Y ale is giving an honorary degree to St Jean Perse. I was asked to go to a small party for him the night before graduation, but we always give one ourselves for my group of senior Pundits. I suggested his name last fall, and believe that the French Department also had. Yale is very good on its honorary degrees in literature so long as the author writes in a language the members of the corporation can't read.

Back to the letters. Probably a good thing to help out Aldington's daughter. She seems to have been left rather on her own a good bit.

Eskimo art collection in New York. No, all the fine pieces were gone (that is, sold) by the time I got to the show. Had I been an early worm, however, I should have been hooked. There were some superb things.

Curious that Kenneth and Islay should have taken up with Donald Downes. I knew him very well indeed when we were graduate students together in the early thirties, and it was Downes who got me into O.S.S. I must have sent you his book, *The Scarlet Thread*--published in England, but boycotted here by the F.B.I. Have an extra copy and will send if you like, or you can see on your next visit.

Wonderful that the boys will be over in October. We expect you and Hilda of course.

You had written about the Wyndham book before your package arrived. That John S had sent it. Susan approved, and she like yourself has become rather choosy in regard to science fiction.

The O'Hagen is here and will be guarded.

Have not read Golding, but must give myself a little seminar in angry young men.

Must run: but a few notes.

Will try to do something about Herf daughter.

Delighted at good news about Hilda's health.

The letter from Verdita about her trip. She was so happy with Hilda's condition, and enjoyed so much being with her, and hopes she will come over in October. Sent Grieder tie, which was a beauty.

The boat for Ireland is superb. And fills me with jealousy. You must keep a detailed diary.

I did re-query doctor about ambassadorial trip to Greenland, and he said no -- very calmly.

4 June 1959

Dearest Fido;

A wedding yesterday afternoon, and tomorrow Susan goes with me to Andover to the last of my Alumni Board meetings. Fortunately the committee of which I am chairman turned out to have no assignment for this session. I was delighted. Originally it was supposed that we would turn in a report on how to improve the morals of the Andover boys. I shuddered and protested.

Two letters in, which more or less have to do with my last letter to you. The first came from Fantheon in New York, saying that they were shipping two copies of the English edition of Gate to me, and three to you. No harm if you have already ordered another from England, but if you haven't I am already content. It has not yet come of course so I cannot comment.

Then a brief note from Helen Wolff said that she had talked with you about the contracts for your memoir, and that I would be receiving one from the New York office. This of course means that I must get on the ball with you, and so enclose one of the usual contracts between us, which you will please sign and have witnessed by two witnesses. The last contract you had only one witness, and this is not enough for making things certain.

A yellow envelope of letters came today, and I was pleased to see that O.B. seems to be having nibbles and bites for his things. I liked the Oswellisms with their punch lines: oswell that ends well, as they perhaps say in the espresso bars. I'm again worried by the news of George P's reoccurence of his difficulties. It sounds amoebic. Somehow I wish he could have a spell with Prutting, or in the States. Naturally however it may simply be a situation that cannot be cured.

You may perhaps be wondering about my health. I go for checks only every three weeks or so now, and my blood count has been entirely okay for the past three visits. I have been able to lose a little weight, and then keep to where I now am: about 148 without clothes. It is enough. Naturally I still have neither smoked nor had any alcohol since the onset of my illness, but I can at least accept food that has been prepared with wine if served me, can have deserts that include chocolate, eat lobsters and other shellfish. But still nothing that has been fried, no berries, no nuts, no tomatoes or various types of vegetables, only two cups of coffee (or tea) a day at the most, etc. This seems like a good many prohibitions, but in truth there are so many things I can eat that it doesn't matter too much any more.

2.

All this is just enough to have made any trip to Greenland impossible. I did try the doctor once more after Ingholt's letter; he simply shook his head and smiled.

Most of the past few weeks have been spent with conferences, papers, degree-giving, interviewing of students, banquets on the retirement of members of the faculty, spring weddings, spring funerals, garden planting, praying for rain and the like. One afternoon we went to the arts and crafts exhibition at the Psychiatric Institute to see what the patients had made. Lizzie had done some excellent work in enamelware, knitted endless and complicated sweaters made tile tables, and a 300 piece dinner set. What she will do with the latter I can't imagine. however, at the moment she seems well and makes plans for what she will do when she gets out. I have sent Milda a description of the set-up at the Institute which I thought you also might like to see. It was done jointly by patients and staff, and is remarkably thorough and complete.

I also sent Milda a description of a New York cocktail party to which I went, going down just before the party and taking a train straight back from it. Had a long talk with Elizabeth Bowen who asked to be remembered to you. I rather gather she is settled down in New York and will be teaching at Vassar College for girls next winter, beginning in February. She was much interested in the daffodils that Doris had named for her, since she had never seen a blossom. The only bulb she had had, died. I will try to send her a blossom next spring. She was wildly excited to have me describe it, although Susan would have been more meticulous than I. I know all this because she kept telling everyone else in the room, who would then come to me. Horace and Marya were also at the party, Marya looking very plump and somehow unnaturally girlish in complexion and expression. Almost like a reversal. They are anxious to go abroad again, but probably will not go this year. Horace was still suffering from his virus, but she seemed to be in fine shape. She got onto Conrad Aiken for some reason, and led toward the question of how Aiken got all this money for analyses--not good for him, made him into a non-poet. I said I didn't know. Oh, she knew all right: there was a woman who gave him five thousand a year for it. Suddenly the dawn came, and I murmured a query, expecting the worst. I was right. It was supposed to be you: all a hangover, I suppose now on reflection, from that grant made once for not so much by the Dry her Foundation. I assured her with some emphasis that it wasn't so, and Marya was disappointed. Although she probably didn't believe me, and simply thought that you were too sly to let me know. Where can she get such ideas? That's stupid of me, where does anyone get ideas like this. Marya would have found her heaven in a small village.

3

I think I wrote you that I had gone Tuesday to Middletown for an editorial meeting on the poetry series. Fortunately we had remarkably congenial agreement on the two for next spring, and one of the two for a year from this fall. I am still not deeply moved by anything that the younger generation, in their thirties, is writing, though from a purely technical point of view their performance is remarkable. They know far more about the sheer manipulation of metres than Americans ever have. The only trouble is that they do not feel very deeply, or -- if they are angry like the young British, like them also they are not angry against anything in a fresh or meaningful way. But perhaps better angry than limp. At least the reading of the manuscripts is a kind of seminar in younger poetry. The secret influence seems to be E. A. Robinson, at least the Robinson of the shorter poems. Round, Eliot, Cummings are out--which is a good thing, seeing how mannered these poets are, and therefore how contagious. There is an occasional strain of Stevens, and in the less interesting (more derivative) poets there is a strong strain of Marianne. Never in the history of poetry have so many strange birds and animals been described by so many strange birds and anti-males.

Did I properly thank you for the drieder tie? It was really a superb one. I hope the restoration of self-rule in driederdom, by which I mean a return to their own materials and designs, will be an omen for the world.

By the by, I saw in tohight's paper (I simply had to come back to the office after dinner to finish this) that the Palace had denied the story of Prince Philip's good humor. So you will have seen this anyway.

Also in this afternoon's mail when I went home for dinner was the package with the English gate. All I can say is that you should celebrate a triumph. For the first time they are willing to use the Pantheon design. Do make them submit the jacked for Alphabet to you, so you can consult with Kurt and Helen.

All love,
Norman

Many thanks for your card from you and the boys.

4 June 1959

dearest Rido (a second time),

This is only in order to separate
the sheets if you want to pass the rest of the letter along to
Hilda as you sometimes do. I am pleased about the report on
Hilda's leg, and delighted that she got along so well with the
doctor. This ought to carry the situation, I think, until she
comes over in October. That is, if she will. I rather think she
may, especially if the boys will play along with it. I think the
Utanhope is indicated, with perhaps an inexpensive suite. I can
arrange for this when I am signalled.

Rerdita wrote very nicely about her
visit, and seemed to fall in with my suggestion to her that Hilda
might come along --I said in winter, but October is perhaps easier.
I think the Utanhope helped in Rup's mind. Here is what she wrote:
"Hilda seemed just fine. I was amazed. I'd braced myself to find
her aged and broken and struggling with the crutches. Instead I
found her infinitely younger and calmer, witty, thoroughly delight-
ful. In fact, so much better, even with the crutches, than when
she was all in one piece and running around loose. She is somewhat
stir-crazy, of course--and who wouldn't be after months and months
and months in the same place, the same room. So I was very positive
and encouraging about a visit to the U.S. I got the impression
that she really would like to come, that it's just a matter of organiz-
ing the practical details size of it, and giving her a powerfully
helping hand onto a plane. So we'll all think about it and work on
it."

I do think, in addition to the other
side of the situation which you see so much of, there is also this
side to Hilda of a greater conference which is different from any
approximation of ritualistic behavior. But we have been all over
this before. The main thing is to work on her now to come. Let
Rup and me urge her from this side; then Hilda can let out little
screams of how impossible it is, how little Rerdita and I realize...
and in the end she will come. Meanwhile you can be our de Factors,
and this will not make Hilda feel she is pushed from very near-to.

9 June 1959

Dearest Fido:

Your letters of the 4th and 6th are in, and I am
happy now we are back on the trolley together. It was as mad-
dening for me as for you and Hilda, although I admit I did know
the cause of my silence as you hardly could.

Sorry of course about *Gate*, but could not know that
copies were about to reach me. As to *Fantheon* business in
general: all will be in order when you have signed the contract
with me and returned it to this side. And, naturally, have
cashed the munificent check. The tax matter doesn't actually
matter; all I wanted was to be sure that you knew why I had
(actually have not yet but will) withdrawn from the account to
cover it. Since I have an accountant make out my income tax,
it doesn't matter. A small part of his bill (just in) covers
questions of this kind, and I will add to what I take out. I
have simply left in the savings account to draw interest until
the end of this month. Up to then I had saved enough to pay the
current hospital bills. There isn't any reason why we should
change from *Fantheon* at the moment, although your year proviso
is a sensible one. I got along very well with their new man,
and he is highly thought of in publishing circles. Apparently
he has the same kind of an ideal of a publishing house as Kurt
and Helen, and also has the practical experience which Schabert
lacks. But we will see. Shall I put it that the balance is at
the moment on the side of optimism.

A copy of Freud has been wrapped and will be mailed
this afternoon or tomorrow morning to Alberto; and a copy of the
Donald Downes book is in the mails to Kenneth, mailed to Anticoli.
You did indeed send me a copy when I first saw it advertised. A
little later, when Downes was hoping to get it reviewed in this
country, or perhaps published here (the F.B.I. were able to thwart
it) I ordered six copies and had one extra left. Parts of it
are very well written.

How could Collins advertise as "Bryer." Helen has
such good things to say of them, but they do seem odd without being

So sorry about Whittall. You had written about him
before, but why does it have to be so prolonged. We are a mad
world to worry about mice and torture men.

Have not read the new Greenwich Village book, but
imagine it must be good for the memory. I shall be curious about
it.

2

Suspect your captain is sensible about wanting to spend nights in port; we always do when we are cruising. It is the only way for them to be sure of a few hours of good sleep, supplies and water can be kept up, and, frankly, it can be pleasant to stretch one's legs. Remember the possibility too of hiring a car and seeing the area at the some of the more remote places.

The graduation exercises yesterday were very hot, but fortunately it did not rain so that all 8000 could witness it. Some 2,300 degrees--which makes Sale a small university these days. Leger looked very much like a true elder statesman, and Edith Hamilton was remarkably spry for her 94 years. Myrdahl was given a degree, as was the ambassador to India etc. The Leger was the only truly distinguished one, as I think it was his first. I was so hot inside my robes that I felt like a smear of butter to test the writing powers of a paper-mate pen on.

I am delighted with the remark in Paris to Rose Odle that D.R. was an early Robbes Brillet. It is of course just right. It is what Miss Trickett was after in her article, and indeed she does say some good things but not quite so good. The Vincent Brome was not uninteresting, although I felt he had little feeling for her--what he learned came from her loneliness, her intensity, her hope (perhaps) that he would understand. What he was capable of was to take it down; that is at least something. Even for a remark like "He was rather ugly without his clothes." She did not say it to him, but to herself. Or she talked to him as if he were a woman; perhaps he's The picture is still there. Only I wish all the more of course for the time when you can do your portrait to hang alongside Uncle Norman's. Perhaps the memoirs will do it well enough, but somehow D.R. deserves your full length small canvass.

Have spent last night and this morning going over a dissertation on Christian Darwinism with a graduate student. He wants to rewrite it for publication. Alas, for one's time. Tomorrow I have to take the train to Boston for a late afternoon editorial meeting. But at least I can read another dissertation to be reworked on Horatio Greenough the 19th century American sculptor. I hope I can finish it on the train coming back tomorrow night.

The package of Islay's letters came in today. He does write charmingly (that is, an appropriately functional style).

16 June 1959

Dearest Fido:

Wretched weather over the weekend, and now the
temperatures are down to 50° at night after a period of 90°
in the daytime and 80°s at night. However it does make for
good sleeping, and all this is likely to be as close to Green-
land as I shall get this summer.

My little package of four books from the Arctic
catalogue have arrived. I have only had time to glance at
<u>The Greenland Minstrel</u>, but the first page I saw is appetizing.

Britannia, seated on her ocean-throne,
Bids the vast sea her wide-dominion own:
Tempestuous storms her mighty pow'rs define,
As waves successive roll from line to line.
Her chief desire is, by intrinsic worth,
To make her isle the centre of the earth;
And, through her genius, industry, and art,
To ev'ry land her varied stores impart.

I am mad with lust to get on to more. Why, my dear Fido,
cannot you and Robbe Grillet write like that! I rather like to
turn over in my mind just how Marianne would put it?

I rather think I forgot to write you that I did
have a copy of Steffansson's _The Friendly Arctic_. I bought it
as a duplicate from the Yale Library. Maggs reports a new
batch of children's books en route, and included is at least one
additional Dallantyne (from Charles Rare Books) which I think
I mentioned to you. If you approve I think this is a good way
to get at it. I will tell Maggs of the new Fenn arctic children's
book. They can record it and so not duplicate.

Great excitement on my part to learn that Mme Herf's
daughter had arrived. Your news came quite literally just as I
was about to sit down and try first with a long letter--aus dem
herf (herz)--in which I asked if at least I could not be her
liaison, explaining etc. If that had not worked I was quite
prepared to hop in a plane to St Louis and see what was up,
after (of course) determining that she was at her address. That,
I could do through connexions. I would have felt a little silly
certainly if indeed I had written the letter, but not sorry. For
I do like the Herf, and whether she grumbles or not at her
daughter there should be some kind of contact. Heydt, I recall,
said that the herf had however treated the children rather
badly. No doubt this was at least partly due to the condition
which finally led her to Brunner's, and certainly the children
could come to realize that.

A nice letter from Patheon in New York, and they were delighted to hear from you that they would have Sikelia in the fall. I am glad the rewriting is going so well.

I was absolutely enchanted with the letter to you in May from viola Jordan. The Las Vegas joke left me in complete delerium. I still have no idea what it was about. Let oddly she does give a sense of vividness to her pustules and grandchildren.

Glad you are not taking on Pat at the moment. I think he might turn out to be your Pat to a degree that I suspect you don't want. At least I don't want you to have. Not in terms of him in particular, simply a matter of enough under your wing already.

The Irish trip seems to March, and all I beg and bully is that you keep a full journal for me. I'm sorry Doris can't make it. It might not be a bad idea to have a week longer of the boat for Jean and the boys. It would be rather fun to poke in and around a little with this larger boat

Was disturbed again about George's Foul Fiend, but at least his sister will insist that everything possible be done. It could so easily be anything at the base of it. The British have always been good on tropical diseases, to which this may be a kin. On the other hand not quite so good perhaps in terms of anti-biotics etc. If it keeps on it might be worth sending him back to the States for a quick visit and a stop in at Prutting. He could fly back to England after they worked on him here.

All love,

22 June 1959

Dearest Fido,

The end of a day and one feels a little punchy. Especially because the weather, after at least a tolerable weekend Saturday and Sunday, has settled back into the pattern of rain and mugginess from which we had not had a break for ten days or so. And so cold most of last week that we huddled by our fireplace at the shore.

However it permitted me to read in the introductory "narrative to The Greenland Minstrel", and perhaps you would like to share a little of it with me:

"A fine intelligent-looking Esquimaux boy, three years of age, at the same village, took the attention of the author: he repeated, in English, after him with surprising accuracy: the author put him on his knees, placed his little hands together, and he repeated after him a prayer, that God would look upon him and his benighted countrymen, and send them the light of the Gospel, the blessings of civilization, and cause those to feel for them who possessed the knowledge of salvation, that they too might enjoy mercy, and have a hope blooming with immortality and future glory.

"The courage of the Greenlander is often put to the test;..."

I had to stop at that point, but that is the sequence as given. Reading these insights into the minds (and souls) of these people (and one might also say, the privilege of glimpsing their aspirations) is to help me to understand why you like to call yourself a Greenlander. And you can always know that whenever you kneel and put your little paws together in this way I shall always be there to comfort you and to lead you.

Your letters of the 17th and 18th were in this morning's mail. I must say I think the reviews of *gate* are incredible; but the stupidest angle really is, that I have a hunch this will outsell all the others despite them. I am afraid the News Chronicle reviewer cannot write English in addition to not being able to think or to read. This is a handicap even for a reviewer.

It does seem to me to make sense to get the notes for the second volume of the memoirs into shape, particularly while Woolford can type them for you. One is lost, quite literally, without such notes; yet they are hard for a new typist to get on to.

2

I am not altogether surprised about poor Helen. She was pre-
pared, but the actuality is always a little worse. The thing I
urged on her was a business return to New York four times a year.
This is altogether reasonable, and would both give her a break
and something to look forward to. The Dolder is, of course, quite
impossible for a person of her temperament or of yours or mine.
And quite impossible I feel sure, for Hilda. She would be bored
to death. Despite all the annoyances of Chez Brunner, it does
have a giddy quality of life to it. "Never a dull moment," as
Viola Jordan would say. But to return to the Dolder, surely (if
the Wolves are to be there more or less permanently, they can
get two rooms together or a modest suite. I suspect it would take
a Swiss, like Denay, to arrange it.

I should not worry, however, about signing the agreement with
Pantheon. I have had a nice letter from their new man, who wants
to follow in Helen's footsteps. One only commits one's self to
submitting the next manuscript anyway. All I should do would be
to hand in one of your children's essays. It is rather ruthless
but it can work, and I have been ruthless in your behalf and
Hilda's before this.

By now I think I wrote you that I did have Stefansson's
*Friendly Arctic*. Perhaps when you come over in the fall we could
*run to Hanover* to see the old boy? Would you like to do that?

When the new batch of maggestics come in, I will try to figure
out just what the policy should be in instructing them. Fortunately,
Mrs Wohlenberg has now been able to catalogue all the boy's books
we have, so one can have a true idea of them at a glance. I did
know what you meant by "the country."

The usual yellow envelopes are in, and with their arrival I
always feel as though the Disko had come in for the first time
after the ice has melted. I wallow of course. What a charming
person Ada is! I feel much better about George knowing she is
with him, and only wish she might manage to stay longer.--Much
amused about wendy running the bar while Archie bikes back and
forth policing her. I do think there is a novel in them if not
by them.--The news of the boat sounds exciting. I think the
stars must have been crossed in your favor. Ethel will be a good
companion; it is a little late for Doris, with her eyes etc. She
really longs for a chimney corner; the strain has been terrific.
--Lethbridge wrote wonderfully as ever, and I never read a letter
from him without thinking I am in the midst of a novel--this time
of a ghost story. The picture of the chalk figure made complete
sense, not quite for the first time but more than ever. --I rather
surmise from a letter from Hilda to you that Marya must have reported
sadly about my state of health after seeing me at the New York
party. I have not seen her letter to you, but recall that when I

3

came up to her there she greeted me with an exclamation of how terrible I looked, "you poor thing!" The truth is I never looked better since the age of seven--my cheeks filled out, the strain gone from my face and replaced by a beatific composure, etc etc as everyone continues to assure me. It is certainly true that by her butterball standards I look like a will-o-the-wisp; but the only thing my doctor asked me over the phone, when he told me the x-rays came out well, was whether I had put on any more weight. "Good!" he said, when I replied in the negative. He does not want to see me until September, although he disappointed me a little in not increasing the range of my diet for the rest of the summer. Somehow I felt more than ever when I read Rosemary's letter that she had more courage than anyone I had ever known, simply by appearing not to have it come into question at all. What a lonely thing she is, and how much she yearns for the vision of marriage which she conjectures.

Last Thursday I drove to Gardner to see my mother, for the first time since I was in the hospital; although we have talked on the phone many times. She is really failing rapidly, her strength slipping from her but her spirits as good as ever. She had been put to bed by the doctor ten days ago but was downstairs to have lunch with me when I came up. I brought her the last batch of the London Illustrated News you sent me, and she was delighted to look them over. You might send her a card from Ireland when you get there. She loves to have mail.

Am now reading a book on the San Francisco Beatniks which I thought might interest Hilda because of the visit Heydt paid to them while he was in California. Very lively language which might interest you however, so ask for it from her when you come back from your voyage.

Resume I should have Lesame address in London. And a few days I wish mail to Petrie for you to pick up, or send runner for from the store.

All love, Be sure & clear your hands.

Hormon

25 June 1959

Dearest Rido,

You will at least be pleased that my thrifty
pilgrimage now reaches the beginning of the second of the
two pads of flimsy we took to Chesterfield with us. If only
I can be faithful enough, and you be still enough to receive
letters, I should be through with this by mid-autumn. This
anxiety to clear my desk is my only regret in your planned
cruise, for there will be too long periods when mail cannot
reach you.

No letter from you directly this morning, but
three yellow envelopes which I have already looked through
in order that Mrs Wohlenberg could file them away before she
starts on her vacation at five tonight. Rather less than
usual to comment on. Marya was not so detailed about my appear-
ance as I had feared. The rest of her letter is not untypical,
and since she chiefly quotes Horace there is much truth in
what "he" says. Tell Hilda that since Horace sent you the
copy of the latest Evergreen Review with his poem in it, and
you will no doubt pass on to her, I will not send another along
unless she specifically wants it. Sylvia's letter was inter-
esting, and I hope the honorary degree from Buffalo will speed
up the Joyce transaction with the library there. They are
smart in being patient, but it must be irritating all the
same for them. If only she would sell them the Joyce at the
price they are willing to pay she could give away the rest of
it and declare a passing out of cake for the public to eat.
But the reason for her delay is of course clear. I can under-
stand her annoyance with the publishers over the memoirs;
Margaret Marshall, a nice old girl who is her editor, told me
at the Brandeis shindig that she had had to sweat blood with
Sylvia to get it out or edited into shape--that (I gathered)
"writing" was not really Sylvia's metier--and indeed her letters
would lead me to believe that this is true. Of course if she
could give structure and retain the kind of innocence of her
epistolary style, this would make a unique document; what
usually happens is that such a person becomes "literary" in
her effort and spoils all. I think she's a marvelous person,
with great enthusiasm, a desire and a capacity for doing
good (as indeed she has), but she comes the closest to being
a second Harriet Monroe of anyone I have known.--- Did you
want me to order an Anne Lindberg volume of poems for Hilda?
She spoke of it in one of her letters to you.--I was pleased
that George's insides were behaving. I have a hunch that Ady's
cooking and presence will have a lot to do with his recovery.
It is not really a matter of psycho-somatics, but more with

2

the sort of meal a solitary person prepares for himself
meal-in-and-meal-out. In fact I only wish she could stay
on until well into the autumn, or even into the winter.
One could sound her out perhaps when you see her. It may be
that you will squeeze time between the Swinburning and your
sailing date, or will you also be trying this time to see
raith in Edinburgh? ---Edith seemed exceptionally pleased with
her t.v. success; she always restores my good humor by her
exuberance of reaction (so long as it is not against me, of
course). What a childhood and young womanhoof she had, so
to fill her with inescurity and the desire for revenge).

There is really very little to write about, this
being my clean-up period, after which I move across the
street to the Library. Everything is pretty much in order
except for several hundred words I promised to write about
my old school -- it would take memoirs like your Kingswood
section to do it justice. The article is two months overdue,
and I shift to anything else rather than get down to it. All
p.a., I presume, unless one interprets this properly to
mean all Phillips Academy.

The weather has been foul. Rainy all the time. It
depresses the spirits. Night before last however we drove
back into town and saw a revival of Chaplin's Gold Rush. It
stands up very well; there has been no significant improve-
ment in the use of the camera since the older days. Color is
a matter of film, and doesn't much interest me. The only
depressing thing about the revival was Chaplin's dubbed-in
explanatory monologue which followed the action of the
picture. It was like an adult reading the newspaper comic
strips to a two year old illiterate. The tone of his voice--
a carefully elegantly British achieved after years of straining
the cockney out--gave an oddly schizophrenic vision of
Chaplin, since the voice was announced to be his and so was
the image of the leading character. How shall I put it? It
had the same split that nigger talk would have coming out of
the mouth of Queen Elizabeth (only in reverse). The Chaplin
humor demands a great deal of secret empathy. As it is one
senses an immense condescension, especially by Chaplin's
reference to himself (or the leading character) as "the
little fellow." Despite all this I was glad to see the film
again.

For some reason I have never mentioned the Hanson
child, a very sweet little black-haired baby girl whom they
named after Susan. Elsa told me that you had sent a birthday
check, which they very deeply appreciated. Erik had an excel-
lent record for his year's work, and impressed all of his
instructors. I am now hoping that he will be prepared to take
his oral examinations in October, and so be pretty well able

to finish his dissertation before he has to leave a year from
this coming July. His spirits seem to be improved, although
he likes to cast his eyes downward and tell me that he was in
pretty bad shape earlier in the Yale. I daresay he was. I shall
try to draw him out a little more on the whole problem. Chiefly
I think it is a matter of insecurity, from having to work so
hard to fight his way up from the farm and from working his
doctoral studies in a foreign language (both more difficult in
one way, and yet easier--tho with a slight aspersion therefore--
because it is taken abroad than if it were taken in Denmark.
You will recall that Torsk Hansen had only just gotten his
doctorate, and the geologist came on the boat more or less from
taking his degree although he had been chief for a long time.)

Trust you have not been utterly exhausted by your stream
of visitors, and that you find all well chez Hilda. Don't forget
to tell me whether to write at Sesame, and if letters to you in
care of Petrie will reach you midway on your voyage.

29 June 1959

Dearest Eido,

It has been cold--in the 60's, but suddenly we share your heat wave and it is in the 90's today. I walked among the tents of the New Haven Arts Festival and wished I was in Chesterfield or on the ice cap. Yours of no date, but postmarked the 25th is the only refreshment of the hour.

As to Sikelia, you are the only one to say, or feel, what is right for you to do. I am not mystic, but I do know that one cannot simply set one's self to a piece of writing especially of this sort. No good will come of it. My own hunch is that something needs to set you off again on S. It may not have come. It might be that the summer trip will put you back on the Scilly volume again. It may be that a newspaper squib will suddenly send you back through the centuries. All this of course is quite different from simply making outline sketches or rough drafts of this or any story. I am talking about the thing itself; and usually you don't need quite the rough draft: it comes swiftly and with powerful thrusts.

Had already sent beatnik book toilda thinking it could not arrive in your paws until August and that she might be amused beforehand. If she likes it and you don't, send yours back to me. It makes good reference. I found it lively and interesting in terms both of reporting the scene, which was very good, and in a wide-eyed rationalization of what is being done--sometimes sincerely, sometimes cynically, but always--as you say--with a sense of boredom. Since Lipton goes back a generation or two he helps to keep the line straight. So much of what they say is what Lizzie says, but what she does has no will power in it, it is only a rationalization.

She is by the way now working at a half-time job, or perhaps longer, as a laboratory technician in the hospital, and being paid enough to take care of her spending money allowance. At the moment--characteristically, because they change doctors at July 1st, she is much set on getting out. That is of course with their permission, and not before mid-winter. We have simply said it would not be wise for her to come home except for occasional overnights or a weekend. It just won't work. She was allowed to spend last Saturday night with her grandmother, and began to slip drinks again. One knows that there have to be these tests,

2

and that nothing can cure her if she doesn't want to, but
it's too hard on us to take and has become a matter of self-
preservation.

To change the subject, did I write you about the husband
of one of my former graduate students. The husband is a cuneifor
specialist at Berkeley and has an excellent reputation, is an
assistant or associate professor I believe, but the chief man
at the University of California. He is finally having a year
half year off next year and felt at last he could go to the
British Museum to work on a collection of cuneiform tablets
in an important collection they had had 80 years without
publishing. After three years he has given up. They hope
eventually to get them out so that everyone will have an
equal and simultaneous first glance at them. Oh no, they have
no plans, but it is a policy that their own men will do it
when they have a sufficient staff and time and money to publish.
Meanwhile..... It does seem rather absurd, and I can't believe
that a fair chance to all lies quite behind it. Oh well.....

I am excited to think you will be hearing the Swinburne
reading. Swinburne has been coming back into his own in the
last few years. It requires careful pruning by anthologists
or critics, as Wordsworth does--probably even more than
Wordsworth does, since Swinburne can be bad while W is chiefly
dull. But this Edith will have done, and you can have a fore-
taste from her anthology. I am sure she must have made in-
teresting selections.

Am including an amusing interview with Sylvia which I
thought might interest you.

Norman

3 July 1959

Dearest Fido,

We are girded for the Fourth, but fortunately
the party we have to give for the assembled clan comes tonight
and is being shared. Anything for Sunday has been called off
which is sensible. The amount of family, in repeated doses,
becomes a little stupifying over a long weekend.

I wish I could still say, as I did, that I would
come over for a bit in September, especially for the birth-
days. It is not so much a matter of diet any longer, for a
civilized cook or restaurant can take care of that now, nicely.
But I have just had a letter from my brother saying that my
mother has not been downstairs again after my visit, and does
not even try to answer the phone or her floor any more because
it takes her so long to get there. Her spirits are perfectly
good, at least outwardly; and she does not want the radio or
t.v. brought upstairs, or others gotten, since she will be
going back down "soon." But I realized when I was there be-
fore, and from what my brother said, that she worried about
my going off, and would not like me to be away if she were
dying. Alas, I fear this is just what is happening. I cannot
possibly tell how long it will be, but I have a strange pre-
science that it will not be many months from now. I think you
will understand. Especially I hope that you and Hilda will be
over for a bit when the boys come.

It is disappointing to know that things seem to
be going to pot at Küssnacht. Probably all the more reason for
taking advantage of it while we can. That Herf should have a
breakdown after her daughter left is entirely to be expected
isn't it?

I spoke to John Schaffner on the phone yesterday
about Sylvia, of whom he had written me. John says that the
new school for Nicky seems to be found. It is a United Nations
School, and Nicky adores it, because, he says, "I can learn
all the languages there are!" Sylvia had begged John to find
some foundation to contribute 40,000 dollars to bring her
exhibition to the States. Harcourt couldn't help because
people would think the exhibition was being tied in with her
new book. (At another moment: "It's such a pity it can't
be shown now, just when my new book...!") There are several
difficulties. One is that it is hard to see why it would cost
so much. The second is that it would have to have a sponsor
even if a foundation would pay for it(John has actually spoken
to a friend at the Ford Foundation). This sponsor would not
see why it should push Sylvia's book, or go to the work and
expense of its personnel for a show of things that Sylvia is

selling to Buffalo; especially because if Buffalo does
pay this extraordinary price they certainly will want to
have a show of their own. The other aspect is of course
that Americans are already more aware of Americans-in-
Paris, and their importance, than the French are. Nor do
we go in for vernissage with such a vengeance. Anyhow I
told John to forget it. I hope you won't be angry with me.
I do want to help Sylvia in every way, but she is quite
neurotic about it. Buffalo has been patient long enough.

Edith will be interested that the heirs of John Quinn
have suddenly emerged with the manuscript of Our Tom's
Waste Land, which is being offered for sale for $100,000.
Probably it is priced so low because it is only a typescript,
even though that is all there is. The Morgan Library has
turned it down at that price, as did a middle-western
university (but it was offered to them at $125,000). The
worst is, theyheirs will probably get it. I understand that
Quinn payed Our Tom $100. As with paintings, there really
ought to be a rule that on resale of manuscripts (I mean
for both paintings and ms; now there is nothing for either)
the creator of the painter or manuscript ought to get a
certain percentage of the capital gain. This is not socialism
but justice.

I must say that I should think that in any instance but
the case of a book by you, Edith would be furious at Collins
in their ads for running a phrase from her statement about
another book onto their borrowing of my blurb for Gate, as
though Dame Edith Sitwell had written the whole thing. I
don't of course mean that she would object to its being "me",
only that there is a kind of advertising cunning which I
think is objectionable. Anyhow you must congratulate them
on at last learning how to spell your name.

The yellow envelope with the correspondence with the
Society of Swiss Authors is here, and will be most useful.
Several smaller yellows also have been in the post, but
mostly routine correspondence. One is sorry to read about
S.L. however. Man the hopes is here too, and the three
latest bundles from Maggs. I shall leave them to open at the
end of the month when my secretary is back.

Distribute my greetings appropriately, and send me full
notes whenever you can unclasp your little paws from prayer.

9 July 1959

Dearest Fido,

I still stick to my office, typing away at this oddment
or that, and chiefly going over papers, reading things sent to me
and thanking for them, and otherwise _cleaning up_. I should be at
my desk in the Library, and will be soon.

Your two letters of the 4th and 5th came today. I
hope mine arrived at the Sesame before you left. Unfortunately,
because of the 4th, it was my only one there; this of course goes
as by Doris, as others will for some time. I adore your description
of the Sesame and THE DAME. "There's nothing like a DAME", as they
sung in _South Pacific_. I must force you, sometime, to do a secret
sketch of Edith in her haunts. You see, it is a fact of history;
she is a datum. I am glad that the reading went well, and only
wish it could really have been a Swinburne "do" and therefore
historically significant. Edith is not quite right about A.S.
being uniform in his verse, or that it sounds alike; although
naturally his verse (and it must be chosen at its best) may not
at all be suited for her voice. But she is a great reader all
the same, and her dramatic appearances give her (as for most artists
a catharsis of sorts.

The Holy Barbarians is quite a book. I suppose they
actually do speak a language of this sort; the extraordinary part
of its plea for liveliness and non-conformity is that it is nothing
more than the jive talk that hep-cats have been talking for years
(without philosophical overtones), not something individually
arrived at or created. In other words it represents an effort to
"belong" rather than to be independent, and to belong to a minority
group because that involves the least responsibility. (I do not
mean by this that one should belong to the majority, and conform in
that way, as you sometimes think I do.) Actually Lipson's book
interested me mostly because in the efforts to get a new language
by the beatniks they are impelled by many of the same motives which
propel, or at least stir, you. I don't mean you're a beatnik; I
just mean that overt experimentalism is not unique as a manifesta-
tion, and often is not experimentation at all. All of the old
cracks of the last thirty-year pot are to be seen in the beatniks,
and it is rather fun to see Reich's orgasms-box re-stained. It is
rather fun but not rather funny, however, because it is just this
sort of rationalization of irresponsible conduct that makes the
Lizzies of the world defend their conduct as efforts to find
themselves, to shake off the concentrations on money, and so forth,
at the same time that they want hi-fi sets, dope (not Lizzie) and
drink, all products of a capitalistic world. As you say, it is
the Twenties gone to seed (sterile); do you see a little why I say
that one can be forward without needing to be haywire just at this
particular time. But of course there were many in the 20s who

2

were just as wastrel. As someone said: whenever he looked at the conservatives he could sympathize with the beatniks, until he looked at the beatniks.

Your report of Faith was horrible. I doubt very much that you need to make many visits to her. If I suspect correctly, she would actually prefer letters to be read to her and answered. I am happy that you can help her with her secretary. I am not sure that Monty overextends himself in her direction, but one does not know the circumstances of course.

Sachie's new book has arrived, for which many thanks; as well as the review of it. I look forward to reading it when I get the next four-to-be-thanked-for acknowledged to their authors. I suspect that it is a very good book indeed, and perhaps the fact that he dedicates it to Georgia indicates how deeply he has felt it. I think of him sometimes as existing in a kind of limbo (which is a disembodied state where death is always on the horizon). As a Sitwell, he is neither dead or alive so long as Edith and Osbert continue. Being a Sitwell writer, the situation's intensity is compounded. The title will not be heaven's halo when it comes to him, but it must seem almost as remote at his age; for he might die before he ever lived, or be to old to care about his identity when it became his. Sachie is in a real sense a de-racinated man, for being deprived of being a Sitwell in a full-bodied sense he is deprived of his nationality. So he wanders between the arts and between the continents, writing appreciatively, talking charmingly, and never belonging to anything. He sits at the side table of life, while another lunches with the t.v. magnates; and he hardly even needs to be told not to interrupt! Why shouldn't he, then, know death before most men do?

Three yellows in, with their general news. I do not always read Wendy's letters with care, so must have missed just how she shifted from being barmaid to housekeeper of Richard, whose father did so much for the isles. (what?) (how?) I wonder if there will not be ructions eventually in the wendy-Archy menage; it never works out very well when the woman works and the man does not. Is it impossible for an Archy to find something to do? I am full of questions. Another has to do with Agnes' Pat, for I could not make out where it was, or on what continent, that she had applied for and succeeded in getting the post as manageress of the university bookstore. It surely is worth trying, but will be very hard on Agnes (as one can tell from the latter's "I doubt whether she realizes what it will mean to be quite cut off from me.") For this: read what she really means: "I cannot bear to think of what it will mean to be cutoff from her." Lethbridge delights me hugely. It is obvious that the wizards of old, the Merlins, were the temperaments of Lethbridge; so why should not one believe in either. If you need a character for your Scilly book, you are mad -- my sweet one -- not to put Tom into costume. He might even be your hero (in fiction). Hulbert I adore, and I

3

thank you for helping her. She does attract one.

The list came for the last three (still unopened) packages
of boys' books. There are some excellent additions. I will try to
make up the suggested rule of thumb for selections so that you can
discuss it Maggs after your cruise. At the moment I should say
no Kipling, Lang, or Quiller Couch; and no author's predominantly
after 1900, unless you have a special preference for any of them.

I have liked many of the letters you have received about
the *English Gate*, but none more so than from the Goughs. And they
should know. I hope this set you up in good spirits, as it did
me to know they liked it.

The Perse article was excellent. I am still sorry I couldn't
be at the little party of six, for him.

Do let Helen read the proof for your memoirs, if she is still
in Switzerland when you get them, and if there is not time to send
them to me. She would be an excellent reader--better than any of
us--and it would please her to do.

I enclose an ad for a new edition of Birket-Smith? What do
you think. In any event, if you order send it to yourself first
for reading. It is one of the best, altho Boaz contains much
material that I think fully as interesting. I thought you might
like Willie Maugham's stimulus for inspiration.

My memory was a little bad, and I had forgotten that there
would be a bill against the savings account for the reprinted
edition of *October* which it had seemed to Kurt and myself ought to
be kept in print. The final costs were $1,586.56. There is plenty
and to spare in the bank, so do not bother to send more. It only
gathers a low rate of interest.

How I do envy you the prospect of your boat, and how I
should love to sit beside you on the deck watching the waves. I
had lunch with Ingolt today--he is just back--and it seemed almost
as if one were in Copenhagen and the north sea near. "An ice berg,
blubber chaw, and thou sitting beside me in the wilderness!"

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

There is not a great deal to report from this end. Things were all in a bother when they painted my office, and for two days or so, long after they had finished, I could not find a thing--the books having been taken off the tops of my bookcases; my filing cabinets locked, and the like. I was perhaps fortunate in that only four of the larger pictures had their glass smashed. Instead of putting them in the secretary's office they piled them on top of my desk, covered them with books and celophane, and then dropped the scaffolding on them. It was an effective debacle. Now I have to wait fornight for the glaziers to come back from their holidays.

The weather up until Saturday and Sunday has been absolutely wretched, with rain and humidity, and alberante heat and cold so that one felt completely enervated. Now however it has cleared up, and I was able for the first time this summer to unveil my body to the sun. As a result I am rather like a lobster in spots, but I have the satisfaction of not looking quite so much like a cloistered nun.

I think I wrote you that we went to Gardiner again to see my mother, last week, and she seemed much frailer again. She spent all the time we were there lying down, and her legs and arms are absolute skeletons. It is really fortunate that I had not planned to be away this summer, for I shall not really dare go much of anywhere for a while at least.

You can see, alas, all sorts of errors in my use of the electric machine, but you must forgive me. The truth is, I can hardly bare to use my old portable typewriter in my graduate school office any more, for it seems as though I were driving a model T Ford when I try to type on it. One can, and I do, of course! It is only the awfully slow pace and clatter clatter. When you come across I shall have to set you down in my library office for a day while you try it out. Or rather the successor to this one, which is now on order. The draft from the bank has come, and I went to the bank this afternoon to get it. Many thanks.

All love, & Donis

Hormon

30 July 1959

Dearest Fido,

Your card from Waterford arrived, looking very cool and tempting
in this now broiling Connecticut weather I often wish I were back in the
North again--our North--; and then I remember the swarms of black mosquitoes
and I wonder what I will ever do about them now that I am not smoking.

My nose is deep in 19th century Italy again, and I work away at
polishing what notes I have and trying to fill in chinks where my information is
missing. And, of course, there are a number of books, published on the general
theme of travellers in Italy, which have appeared since I finished my disserta-
tion. A number of them have consulted my work and benefited by it; at least I
am now able to benefit from them. I only wish however that you were here to
relish the language of ecstacy with which some of the very old accounts were
written. In the best high Victorian manner of course

No real way of telling how far I have progressed; except that each
step is a step done, and one taken now I hope for the last time.

Tuesday night we had a visit for supper and the evening from
Elizabeth Bowen and a youngish grandmother from Greenwich, named Ruth Walgren,
whom I first met some years ago when she was editing *Tiger's Eye* and was a friend
of Horace and Marya. I should say, her name is Ruth Stephan; it was Walgren as
a girl. She did a very successful (from the point of view of art) novel on
Christina of Sweden a year or two ago, which Knopf published. Stephan called
and wanted to bring Bowen up, simply for the ride. We did have a pleasant talk;
Susan was able to describe her namesake daffodil to her; and there was much
general talk of writing and linked matters. She volunteered, out of the blue,
extravagant praise of Roman Wall which seems to be her favorite, and gave a
lengthy speech to Stephan about how you and Hilda had meant everything to her
at the beginning of the war I had not realised you were together with her,
visiting at Renishaw on the day of Pearl Harbor. I gathered you were staying at
Robert's. Bowen has a book out at mid-year on Rome, and the plans are for her to
be at the American Academy in Rome from September to Christmasish while she
blocks out an Italian novel I did not mention Kenneth or Islay. She kept
saying she hoped she would be in London some time when you are, and indeed she
will be there until mid-August more or less. Address to be gotten from Curtis
Brown, but I did not commit you.

Last night I had to attend a picnic on the lawn of a church in
a nearby town given jointly for the high school teachers in our summer American
Studies Program and the 40 or more foreign students now here for their orienta-
tion course. I had to go because of both Rather pleasant, although my diet
made my meal a little skimpy. The Thailand monk seems to have taken quite a
shine to me and his 5 feet boyishness was all enthusiasm as he asked me if I
wouldn't give the same speech all over again. He cannot eat after noon of any
day, but compromises by giving himself up to one o'clock daylight saving time.
He is also not supposed to go to the theatre, but decided to see Stratford's
Shakespeare because it would be educational. Buddha only knows what he will
try next! His monk's cell will seem very small when he returns to the monastery
My love to Doris and all, and warmest regrads to Joan if she
made it.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 August 1959

Dear Fido,

Saturday in the office - my day now for correspondence and clearing my desk, since the library is closed and I cannot excavate for data - and very ill. But I have been reading, last night and today, the letters of condolence to your mother on your father's death. It was a great privilege - I should have admired him immensely; and the many letters and a great warmth of humanity to his strength. But of the various tributes he emerges in his many dimensions: so, interestingly does your mother as they appear to her dimensions. I send a few words...

had you ever received Mr. Macfarlane's letter? It sounds
very much like a novel of intrigue. I will have Mr. Wohlberg find a
few things aside for identification when you come in the fact. the
artist of the infinite tube series etc.

Not much to add, except that we have a series of
games for dinner to pay off debts. Last night I took Susan and
I eat, & give her relief from cooking.

I do hope the party is a good one, with the usual on
Sunday.

3 August 1959

Dearest Fido,

You really have had an adventure. Your letters from
Milford Haven and Dale -- or rather, the same place, as I see on second
look -- were in this morning's mail. I mean by this just the right sort
of tiresome, uncomfortable, delayed voyage which everybody must have
grown used to. If you can catch the spirit in your S'lly book it will be
a coup. All of the mounting detail in a true Robbe Grillet passage. Actually
you already have it, for your letters begin to make me see all these details,
and I only hope that there was a notebook to be copied out. Anyhow I shall
want to see it all, and only hope that there was at least one camera so
that I can see the boat. Naturally I didn't want you to have too idyllic
a cruise or I could never take you under my arm again.

This was really a mysterious illness which Petrie had. One
wonders if all the antitoxins have not broken down our resistance to
certain new maladies at the same time they immunize against others. I think
I actually mean antibiotics, but my vocabulary in this field is week.

A rather ambiguous phrase or two from Hilda had led me to
believe what your letter confirmed: about Pup's new litter. It is always
difficult to know what is right in such cases, and I daresay she and John
are prepared to trim sail as needed. Now that she is forty, I should
think this might be the last of her pregnancies, but even so the New York
house would seem to be too small for a family of four children. Perhaps
Valentine will be sent off to school when he is ten.

Little Susan expects another child in April, but of course
this will be only her second, and she is very opposed to the disadvantages
of being a second child. And there is indeed much to be said against it.
I think she also feels that since she is tied down while Jim is still a
student, she might as well be tied down by two as one, and be a little
freer when he takes a job and they have to be a little more social.

Lizzie came to the shore yesterday. Rather tense, but I under
stand she is going through a critical period of her treatment, and they
hope she is really beginning to look at her own problems. Meanwhile it
is a little rough all around. The psychiatrist who is middleman between
us and Lizzie's analyst, and whom Susan and I each see separately for an
hour a week, is staring today on a fortnight's holiday, so I shall feel
as free as a lark. It really rather kills a half day, and has ever since she
went in.

I am anxious for details on Joan. Give Doris our love, and
you always have it of course.

2

sure that once I go through them I will find nothing more than
a scrap I can insert to show the world I have been faithful.
What a bore! Amd what a way to feel about something which I
ought to kick my heels in glee about, since it has been found
at last.

But I pick up little Victorian oddments of information
which amuse me at the whatever moment it may be. For example
that Walter Savage Landor, speaking of "Rose Aylmer" one of
the beautiful simplicities of English poetry

(Ah what avails the sceptred race
Ah what the form divine!)

What, every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine...)

said that they "were written when I was cleaning my teeth before
going to bed."

And as a euphemism for dying: "to pass over to the
majority." A nice Victorian touch of death in the House of
Common.

Many thanks for sending back the copies of the contract,
and for being tolerant of my badgering.

I will be interested in Lady Vyyvan's manuscript. Send
it along and one will see what can be done. Who has been her
British publisher for her other books of travel? If only she
has had a few experiences like that on the enclosed clipping of
life on the St Lawrence islands. Do not return of course. I
thought you might be interested.

Have sent you and oddment or two of reading as for the
second of September. Direct to Kusnacht. You can open when you
arrive and pretend to hold for the 2nd, or be a good Fido and
wait. I like good Fidos and bad Fidos, so it doesn't matter.
I promise nothing except perhaps the satisfaction of curiosity.

Have been having a hassle with Prentice-Hall, Inc an
American publishing house who brought out an anthology I saw
thanked Constable for the right to reprint a poem from Hilda's
Collected Poems which Liveright published and Constable had nothing
to do. "As the owner of H.D.'s copyrights I am curious to know
why.... etc" I wrote them. They couldn't trace her they said.
"Odd, said I, since Grove, Panthen, Macmillan, have published
her within the last few years. But why didn't Constable refer
them to Authors? That would have been the sensible thing. Anyhow
I now have a check from Prentice Hall with an agreement to publish
corrections in the next edition and the like. I think however I
will recommend that Who's Who in America include Hilda. I hope
they'll agree and that she won't squeel. I can give my address
as her mailing address so that she can still be spared school
children of all ages.

I have been to see the Hansens once or twice recently, and we had them to the shore for dinner last week. The baby is growing and is nicely tanned, and all seems to go well with them. In one of the batches of books you sent over there were duplicate copies of two of Thomas Wolfe's volumes, and I have given them to him as from you. Better, I thought that they should be put to some scholarly use, and it will be important for him to have as reasonably workable a library as possible.

if you happen to stop in at Maggs do tell them to tighten up on the quality of what they send in the way of children's books. In the last batch is, for example, *Doctor Alec's Son* by an Irene Barnes, published in 1912. I haven't had a chance to work the subject up yet, but I think 1900 might be an outside limit, or whenever you think your girlhood reading began to give way to Havelock Ellis case histories. Seriously, I think it begins to go spindrift. Also tell them no Kipling, no Andrew Lang. The Henty, Ballantyne, Mayne Reid, types are the things to concentrate on. Otherwise it will take a memorial building.

Went to a luncheon with the foreign students last Tuesday and heard Eleanor Roosevelt address them. She has grown into a rather impressive person, speaking with great charm and warmth, rather like an ample grandmother passing on her wisdom, serious if not profound.

We have little Susan and her husband and the grandchild with us until next Sunday. It is very pleasant and he begins to talk understandable words a little. But I daresay Susan and I will both be exhausted by the time they leave. There is too much concentration of one's eye on the little fellow, and we are used to dozing over our books.

Greet the appropriate ones in London. Edith, I imagine, will be in the country.

11 August 1959

Dearest Fido,

Welcome back to Kusnacht. I only wish I could be there so
that I could hear it all at tea table. You must each think of me when
you munch a cake or sip a sip.

Your letter of the 5th was in yesterday's mail; I was happy to
think that at last you would have a missive or two from me in your hand.

The whole U and no-U matter, the "in" and "out" details, are
wonderfully reflective of a certain basic insecurity even when joked about
as Robin did. Of course we have evidence of it on every side! But a
settled-in air comes whenever it begins to develop its own language. I
suppose "beat" talk is the same.

The matter of wine intrigues me; when I was a boy all the old
dames used to brew these sort of things, including non-alcoholic brews like
raspberry shrub" and give them to my mother when we went calling in the
country. But I never got anything much except a sugar cooky. Even though
"I don't think a little elderberry wine ever hurt anyone, do you?"

Really not much to report. I have just seen Heydt and Dori, and
they are en route again for the White Mountains in New Hampshire. They
looked well and happy, and I liked her. More details of all this in my
letter to Hilda.

The General's book, WAR AT THE TOP, was in this morning's mail---
for which many thanks.

What have I forgotten! It seems as if there were something.
I would never forget to send you my love,

15 August 1959

Dearest Fido:

I presume you will be staying on at Kusnacht with Hilda, and so am sending there. It will be forwarded at any rate.

I really wasn't surprised that your trip had made you an "in" so far as the islands were concerned. It was all rather in the manner of the value of the chesterfield Inlet excursion to our Greenlandic Disko. If you remember, Bret in The Sun Also Rises always has as her highest praise: "He's one of us." So did Zeus in speaking of Odysseus. Bret's friends, and Odysseus, had done the proper things, passed the test; now you have. It had to be just this way for the Scillies; greenland helped but wasn't enough on its own.

But as for your having a boat, don't let Philip talk you into it. The boat itself doesn't cost anything in comparison to dry-docking it winters, having it overhauled annually, paying insurance, paying a crew or a man to watch it. I would be very much surprised if it didn't amount to nearly a thousand pounds a year for maintenance. You are going to find Doris's farm expensive enough.

I really was sorry that she bought the farm as well as the bungalow, although I think at heart she still itches to make a thing of it. What one will have to watch are the things that now become necessary: an adjoining piece of land which will make the whole more valuable in the long run; the tractor which will eliminate the men who weren't needed in the first place. Wouldn't you persuade her to lease the farm now she owns control of it, so that the tenant farmer could manage it completely on his own? Do be careful. Put the money away for her if you want, but don't implement her fantasies. As to the long run, these matters you will have to decide for yourself. As you know, I will see that she doesn't want, and if anything happened to you I would probably make a semi-annual run-over to see that the chickens were warm.

George's good, or improved health, is a blessing. Would it be a good thing to encourage him to run over to this side during the worst of winter so his sister could take care of him here. I wish she could stay on at his home, for I think the difference in his diet makes an immense difference. He thinks he cooks well for himself, and can cook well for you, but doesn't really bother when he is alone. For George is human, and it is his greatest glory.

2

I was amused at Rita's charge of the Lowndes dilapidations to your account! She is too used to expense accounts, I fear. It is a little preposterous, to be sure.

I still bristle when I think of the *Times* review, and so cannot join with Collins in finding the reception of *Gate* as splendid. However I daresay that 3500 copies so far will put the sales eventually higher than the others, and if they will hold on until Christmas then it might set a new record for England.

I leave the decision about the Paris part to Helen and Kurt. They will have better judgment than I could. I think I still tend to see it as the beginning of the new life you found, to carry on to the onset of World War II. And in this way to be either the beginning of vol II or the beginning of the second part of your attempt to find yourself and use the alphabet of colours, or colored alphabet. I take the search for the self to be the theme of the whole, with World War II and the theme made clear serving as the end of the search and the establishment of *Dryher*. Maybe I feel this way because you have been "dearest Fido" from that time on, which is a recognition of identity.

No word had come to me of Mary's break, but I have called the Cleanth Brookses, friends of theirs in Northford, who had also heard from her, and say they are returning as planned on the 5th or so of September, asked to be put up overnight and then are off to Sorrento. I do hope this is wise for her to do, but their life seems bound up in it. Have heard from them occasionally, but gather somehow that the book is not yet in the hands of the compositors.

I keep to my tenth floor Italian island in the library, and go over quantities of reminiscences. Constantly I bless you for my glimpses of Florence and Rome, which help to make what I am doing at least a little intelligible to me, and certainly something I can visualize and feel all the more.

I enclose the copies of your father's letters. How interesting they are. He had character from the beginning. A letter came also from Vebaek, but obviously you will have had a similar one.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

way or the other. Don't forget also that Collins is very close to the Wolffs and so would feel they were indispensable; also that he would be likely to say what he thought you would like to know. I may very well end up with the whole new outfit at the end of a ten-foot p... But I must wait to see, and meanwhile know of no publisher in New York who is as little likely to interfere.

I will be interested to know what Han and Kurt feel about the limits of the first volume of the anthology. If it goes through the Paris days, then I should say postpone afterwards until you brought it up to-date. From Paris days to World War II onset does not seem to have enough or the right material to stand by itself. However it might.

I think I wrote you that Mary Hotson and Leslie plan to go to their Maine camp as planned. At least according to their neighbors. I fear only for the slippery pine needles. But they love Sorrento so much I realize they would rather be put in deep freeze than to miss it.

It has been brutally hot here for the past few days. We have been feeling as you must during your most hectic Kenwin hostel days. The grandson and his parents were with us, enjoyably but noticeably, for ten days, near the end of which a professor from Los Angeles came for three days, leaving Monday, after which a couple from Ohio telephoned to say they were en route and could they.... and last night the Heydts came up for a swim and dinner, from New York! Tonight the director the art gallery and his wife come to dinner, tomorrow I drive to Gardner to see my mother; no one comes Friday, except that I have an early dentist appointment (having cracked a tooth for which I am now being treated in the hope it can be saved) then a group of six Indians (Delhi etc) to receive and discuss American Studies (of all things) with. Saturday night we have guests again. Oh for the chance not to live in a house by the side of the road. Boor Susan is sick of cooking for the masses.

All love,
Norman

22 August 1959

Dearest Fido:

Whew! The letters from the Hansens were in this morning's mail. Actually just at the right moment--Saturday morning--for me, so that I can write to you about it. (As if you did not have troubles enough of your own without having these saddled on you! Sometimes I think we are identical twins, for surely no two people before were ever such magnets for the crises of others. God must surely have intended us to join hands lest either of us be bowled over.)

Hansen is right; I have suspected something going on, but not this particular facet. However the precise symbol hardly matters, except that knowing it one can perhaps alleviate. Obviously eventually he will need analysis, but not I think until he returns to Denmark. This for two reasons: financial, since he ought not to "feel" in debt any more than necessary; he will then have completed his American experience, and more or less obtained his degree, and will have a certain success behind him and be in the situation for Denmark and the future to which he must adjust. His basic difficulty is insecurity; the job of climbing from the bottom, socially etc., is much worse in Denmark than here in the States. He is also insecure sexually, with a long period of "lack of manliness" symbolized by the absence of children. All of his siblings have had them for some time. I am sure there is a latent homosexuality, indicated both by his obsession (pretty well unwarranted) with what his fellow students are supposed to say, (as a member of the board of International Student Center I would have heard this, quietly, at the time they left; and the fact that he did more or less pursue this man even though he was unwilling to recognize why. My hunch is that he has been curious ever since the one meeting as to what further adventures would have been like; this is a common fantasy among students of any age, as I know from others who have come with the same fears that he has.

Once he can get through his orals and on to his dissertation a lot of this angst will have passed. BUT, it is very important that I should have known the contents of this letter, both as his supervisor and because I like him and Elsa as human beings. And it is important that he should have an outlet. Will you permit me to say to him, that since you and I are close friends, you have sent me his letter to you. I feel pretty sure that I can handle it from this point on if he knows that I know the details rather than the somewhat different stories he has told me in explanation. Onepoint at least is that I can explain what an American would understand about the remarks to him by the resident director, and especially the joke about the baby's paternity. Actually I am sure the latter type of

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

22 Aug 1959

Dearest Fido:

I hope your days at Kenwin will not be too filled
with your usual stream of guests. Last night was the first
evening Susan and I simply sat alone for exactly two weeks. And
we had to refuse an invitation (the first possible to refuse) in
order to do so. Having a place at the shore puts one in a most
vulnerable position.

Am glad things come a little smoother with Collins.
I think, despite his friendship with the Wolffs, he has always
resented having to deal with a fellow Britisher through an American
intermediary. This becomes infra-dig. I notice with what relish
your Adrian House jumps to ask whether the copyright should be in
their name or yours. They have no intention of dealing through
Wolff for this, and will be shocked if you decide to do so. The
rest of the questions you will have answered for yourself.

Several packages of letters in, most of which require
no comment from me. The letter from Horace explains why I was not
sent the galleys for his Whistler book, which he asked me to read
for any corrections I might make. Secretly of course I was glad not
to have to. I have been reading ms after ms, when I should prefer to
be back at Hawthorne. Both Horace and Marya are in for a restless
period, with his energy and hers rather leaping out ahead of the
capacity of their bodies to sustain it.

AmX deeply grateful to you for having spoken to Maggs
about the children's books. As you know from their invoice of the
29th, they are now including childrens' books from 1919,1918;
Wm Morris, Tales from the Earthly Paradise, in 1913 (what sort of an
edition to send; it is simply a book which can be charged to your
account;) another book c. 1920. They have really gone beserk. It
would require a building if one is to pick up so haphazardly as this.
I will formalize the list however, shortly. The last shipment came
in two more of Her Majesty's Royal Male bags. Shall I have a suit
tailored from them for Philip the Good Duke?

My electric typewriter is (or rather will be) an IBM,
although the Yale purchasing agent said many secretaries preferred
the Royal Electric. I looked at it at their salesroom and liked the
heavier IBM better. I say "will be" because my own has not yet
arrived. It was to take six weeks for delivery, and that usually
means longer, especially as I had extra keys put on it: accents, pound
mark, brackets, usw. Why don't you take a whirl with mine when you
come over. It might be fun. One difficulty (not for me because it is
on a table where it will always stand) is that the machine is almost
too heavy even for me to lift.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN, CONN

Wednesday, August 26

Dearest Fido:

This finds me back at my office in the Library after ten days of
being shanghaïd back to the Graduate School. A young Englishman whom I had hired
in the spring to teach two seminars next year (this coming academic year) suddenly
wrote to say he thought he had too many commitments to come, and trusted it would
not prove inconvenient to me to find a replacement. Another Englishman who had
sent his dissertation from Leeds for me to read ("I thought you would like to see
it.") arrived to reclaim it. And so forth and so on, including my trip to Gardner to
see my mother last Thursday. She is much better, I am glad to say, and comes down
every day now for her noon meal, and has even put on a few pounds of weight so that
she now weighs 80 pounds. Many visitors here every day now, as New Haven (like
Vaud and Zurich is en route to and from everywhere. I am glad to see them, though
I wish the visits could be instantaneous. Fortunately I do not drink, so when I
am invited to such a way of passing the time of their call I can pretend that it
wrings my withers.

I must say it is pleasant to be back at the Library, and to have the
IBM here. My own still has not come. Had they not lent me one I should have had no
benefit from it during the summer.

Your letter of the 22nd came, yesterday. You have done it at last! I
mean, shocked me. I mean by "The odd birthday of Mr de Sola." I suppose, really, all
this is because it follows so upon the heels of your having sent me the envelopes of
condolence on the death of your father, with their sharp picture of his career and
character. And the little diary, too, which also arrived yesterday; as well as the
boyhood letters. For somehow I have the feeling that all this steeplechase in
nightgown and nightcap really comes from the fruits of your father's life. One somehow
sees him appalled at the hunting pink and the white horse, as by some sort of evil
the de Solas have cast over your brother. Certainly John at the birthday ball must
have been a mouse out of land. Surely the de Solas didn't have this kind of money
on their own, and surely the Dispatch hints this when they introduce him in the first
line as "brother-in-law."

Much intrigued that Natalie Barney should have stopped in on you. Per-
haps the Fates sent her to give you local color. She could always contribute a
mass, I have been told. Glad the Paris progresses. Don't forget my awful advice in
writing about it: that is, don't pretend you were a roisterer, but keep your own stance
as a Puritan who was intrigued by it but never quite able to enter in. Bobby McA
was more the type who could enter in; I suspect really he found himself this way as
in his truest metier. I never could quite believe that he was a ruined artist. All
this is not to say you did not learn, were not liked, did not have a place. But you
must put yourself on the couch to find your special identity.

Halfway through the last sente ce Ingholt came in, with two reviews of
the Gandharan book. The learned journals (where I always expected to find the real
interest) are just ready to burst into fruit. These are excellent; I will have them
duplicated and send on to you for a glimpse, and you can then forward to Islay.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

233 HGS

Much pleased that you had heard from Leslie, and that his book is due out in November, or as the strike will permit. I will of course keep an eye on them. Isn't this the last of his Cambridge years on a fellowship?

Had planned to see Helen in New York shortly after she came back, if I go down to see Heydt and his wife on their return from California. In that case will try to see her again just before she goes back in order to have as complete a picture as possible of the situation. If you think of it, tell me what answer you gave to Collins' question about how to enter the copyright. I have heard nothing from New York about this, which is natural enough seeing that the scheduling for publication in England is not final.

Herrings novel *THE PRESIDENT'S HAT* was a surprise to me. I had not known he had written it. Obviously this is important for the archives, and will put with the rest of his things.

Monday afternoon, late, I drove out to Hansens and brought them various magazines etc. They had been able to spend last week in the country with a widower friend of theirs whose wife--just dead--had been nursed by Elsa on the previous trip. I said nothing about the letter of course, and will not until I hear from you with permission, but he brought up the subject of probably needing analysis eventually. Mrs Hansen is obviously a little irritable with him for discussing nothing but this at home, so I suggested he come in to talk to me about it sometime. It may prove to be an escape valve for him at least during the rest of his graduate study. One sees so many familiar reflections in the whole situation. I shall of course be careful not to step out of line; but it will be much easier if he knows that I know. He has always liked to talk about himself, is a little narcissistic, etc., but still an able student. We shall see.

I was delighted that your father's diary arrived safely. It will be guarded with care.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 September 1959

Dearest Fido,

If only I were Mary Hotson I should sing the Doxology
for you and Kat en the 10th. Mary is the great Puritan. Now I know
what is must have been like when women sang on the way to being
beheaded, or burst into amens in the midst of revival meetings. No
wonder the nurses joined in the affirmation as she was lowered into
the bath. My mind has swum ever since I read her letter. I could do
no more for your birthday than to repass this great gift back to
you.

I trust my cable reached you without involving you in
an international incident. The cable office here was completely
intrigued, I am told, --it being the first cable in eskimo ever to
have been sent out.

My thoughts go back in our lives, as I find that Hawthorne
once owned a long poem on Greenland. I have it out of the library now,
and will report.

I have had two two-hour sessions with Hansen, on which I
will report later. But he is really in a bad way; I ought to keep
my hands clear of it, but cannot for various reasons including his
own preservation for a fortnight or so until he re-registers as a
student. If he went to a doctor now he would not be allowed back in,
I am sure. The voices continue, and the conspiracy against him grows
in his mind. Yesterday morning he took the young couple across the
road into his home and accused them of telling everyone that he was
not the father of his child. He also accused me of having mimeographed
the letter to you and distributing it widely. Because he heard another
set of neighbors reading from it late at night and giggling, and in
the library heard students do the same. However I have convinced him,
I think, that he really intended the letter for me, had written it to
me (au fond), and I think this is true. We shall see. But I find it
a little exhausting for my ulcers, and take an extra phenobarbitol to
quiet my nerves afterwards. It is possible I can help him.

Delighted to hear that Aldington's daughter had passed
her examinations. That it was due to you goes without saying. I shall
be curious to learn more about her.

Do send along any books of interest to students. The pro-
fessional ones in the graduate school will be especially glad of them.
I hate to see them go to waste.

Many thanks for the beautiful manuscript of Edith's poems,
which will be carefully stored. Also your father's sketchbook. Do

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

you know the year?

I shall have to look at *Extraordinary Women*. If you write Romaine say how honored we should be to have her things at Yale, and an exhibition would be in order--of hers and hers and Miss Barney's as they preferred. I believe Natalie Barney plans to give her things to a French library.

AS I wrote Hilda, I have been busy with manuscripts for the next set of poetry for the Wesleyan Press. I rather think Hilda would like the work of this Vassar Miller more than you would, but there is a great directness and force in what she has done. She is uneven and sometimes even corny; but somehow she gets away with it. Tuesday I go to Middletown for a meeting on them all.

A card from Switzerland said that the Wolffs were actually making the move to Locarno. I suppose you will want to go there occasionally. I have never been.

I accept your own conclusions about the memoirs. I think you were probably right in seeing the first volume as an emotional entity in itself for you. Naturally this affects the composition. AS to taking a breather for awhile, why not? You have worked harder and at a steadier clip than almost anyone I know--and this despite the many interruptions. There will come a moment and you will seize it when it is at hand. I am not a romantic but I believe this. We can discuss better later when you come over. But I am not angry, or disappointed. What I want is whatever you have to say when you *want* to say it.

Doctor felt I was improving, and has taken me off many of my dietary restrictions. Now I can eat almost everything, so long as I am reasonable. A few denials, but these do not interfere. What I have hated is going out to dine as though I were an orthodox jew and could neither eat the food or take it off the dishes that were used.

The Hawthorne work goes slowly, but a bit gets done. I have been having my son-in-law search out books for me. He had a job with a construction company, but the steel strike spoiled it. This gives him the chance to keep on earning a little during the summer.

How I wish I could be with you. I see every inch of Kusnacht, and see it with the two of you to fill the corners of my heart.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

9 September 1959

Dearest Fido,

Again I shall be thinking of you and Hilda tomorrow,
she with her calendar day and you with your royal shift. I do
think it makes sense to arrange in this manner.

Your own birthday sounded gay. I like the picture of
you en haut, and was delighted that you could see Rinette. I never
met her, but did meet Marie (I think). Remembering this because I
was always so impressed with Marie's embroidery pictures. Again,
"always" may be an exaggeration. I saw several however at Adrienne's.

I slipped a copy of Sylvia's book out of the Co-op last
week, before it was supposed to go on sale, and so had a chance to read
it over the Labor Day weekend. One had mixed feelings, altho on the
whole it came off well. I was rather surprised that there was no review
of it either in the Sunday Times or *Herald Tribune*. And none so far
by Prescott or his pals. This will disappoint the publishers, and
Sylvia. On the whole the picture of Joyce is one of the best and most
human. And it shows Sylvia up well too, not as a paragon but as a
worshipping human being. Her picture of Joyce is quite different from
anything else I have read. I liked the picture of Hemingway also,
which again makes him individualized. LaLaud is good; Gide is rather
wasted--she does not get him. The Stein and Barney portraits are
actually a little amusing to me, but will be had as "histoire." But
don't you see, Barney and Stein were the real rivals: the American
women who also stood at the center groups. Perhaps they a little
rebuffed Sylvia; who knows. No she is really malicious and even
knife-turning. No editor ever added these touches; they are Sylvia's
own armory. Where most of the editing was done, I imagine, was in the
later part of the book where Sylvia could not quite carry the overall
biographical line. Probably it was an editor who suggested that she
treat them as customers dropping in. In this way Sylvia's notes and
nail-finished portraits could be used. It was the only way. Yet the
final result is worth it; there is a balance to the picture of Paris
that I find important, and she manages to give the feeling of what the
excitement was to her.

As to her snide remarks about Miss Barney's Lesbianism,
and Gertrude's, I take these not as considered opinion (as you might)
but rather as rusty nails. Sylvia picks up to scratch with. I told
you she was a prude at heart, but otherwise this meant nothing to her
except when it occurred with an enemy. And what, in the name of love,
was her own relationship with Adrienne--implement it now she may have
done. It may just be--and I am serious, since she isharsher on Miss
Barney than on Gertrude--that what she objects to in Miss Barney is
a certain inconstancy over the years. For Gertrude was as faithful
as a rabbii, and Adrienne never wavered once she pledged herself.

we can speak of all this later in reference to your own

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

I really blush to think of you slaving over the eskimo cable. My linguistic powers in that blubbery tongue are minimal. However I daresay my obscene reliance on the dictionary makes it possible for you to recover my path, and the nature of cablease comes close to what I gather is the syntax of esquimo. At any rate I should have been disappointed if you could not have gathered the freight of love even without finding the meaning of a single word.

The books were hopeless. I found nothing that really fitted the bill. The best was the Saturday Evening Post article which came late. Today I bought Marianne's new fifteen-page book of poems: *O to be a Dragon!* I haven't read it but it sounds coy. Does it go: "O to be a dragon, now that George is here"? But that sounds Freudian, and I fear Marianne would never let herself get speared like that, even if she couldn't distinguish a lance from a glance.

Yes, do send the Dickinson leteters along. I will give them to the boy who took my seminars over while I was ill, and to whom I gave the poems. The publishers had sent me the Letters for having read the manuscript for them.

Having been so busy this week that I could not go to my office until now, when I have rushed over in order to avoid the small wornout typewriter, I haven't seen Hansen. But I will drive out by their hut tonight on my way home, and see if I can gather the lay of the land from there. I speak to Heydt and his wife about Hansen. By the way, she makes a very good impression. I have a feeling she has a real quality, and a "feel" for personalities.

All love,

Norman.

Many thanks for the Greenwich Village book, which arrived. Did you actually send your copy of *The Holy Barbarians*? Now has come.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 September 1959

Dearest Fido,

A book package was in this morning's mail, with a copy of *East of Eden* for whom I can find a grateful owner, and Etta Blum's *Poems*, more mysteriously in your possession and with an inscription to some one else. Oddly I had just read a new ms by her among those submitted to Wesleyan, although I did not think it good enough to oust Miss Miller as a choice. But I shall be curious to see these earlier blums.

Last night I read Marianne's new book--not fifteen pages, but thirty. Although some 4 line poems use up a page. I talk as though verse were valued by the inch. There were several that were charming in the "occasional" way I have spoken of. That line of describing her obviously becomes the right one after seeing this book. Most you will have seen: the baseball poem about the Dodgers, the Christmas poem, a Valentine poem, one on the Boston Arts Festival. She is our new Miss Oliver Wendell Holmes.

After writing you I stopped by the Hansens Nissen hut on my way home. Almost his first greeting was that they, neither one, had not heard from Mrs Bryher. He seemed a little, a very little more at ease, although he insisted on discussing it with Elsa present. Poor girl, she is having to carry a shoulderful. But I think it would be a good idea perhaps if you dropped a note to Elsa saying that you were pleased with the news about the baby's progress, thank her for her note, and say that (as she knows) you sent her husband's letter along to me since I was so good with such problems, or something of this order. Since you will inevitably have to see them for five minutes if you come over this fall, a note from you will be better than having to talk it out. And he feels that his letter was in answer to your advice for him to seek a psychiatrist, and (indirectly) a compliment to you of course. I explained that you had just gotten back from an adventuresome cruise, had been having to have many guests, and were trying to meet a dead-line on your autobiography.

We had a telephone call this morning from Gardner, saying that my mother had fallen and broken her shoulder. Since she weighs little more than 80 pounds, I should think there was no chance of the break mending; but a call at noontime says her spirits are good, she is sitting up in bed in the hospital etc. I am trying to makeup my mind whether to go up tomorrow. Alas, we are having Justus for a week, and I am afraid the shock will begin to settle in on my mother on the second rather than the first day. And if this were so I ought not to go. And yet how to go during the week just as term is about to begin and my calendar is loaded with appointments. I am really worried lest this begin the end for her, and I am sorry that she will be so uncomfortable. I will call again tonight after the doctors have conferred once more and see what has been said.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 September 1959

Dearest Fido,

I always feel a little as though I were in a Model T Ford when I come back to my office typewriter, but I do not really find it difficult to use after the electric--only one becomes somewhat impatient. However, undergraduate classes begin on Wednesday and so the Library will be open weekends, and I can get to my office there more easily.

Just an item or two I had meant to mention, and had not. I ordered a Fenn, *In The Teeth of Adventure*, plus a book on Children's Books of Yesterday through Maggs, as from another catalogue, to add to the collection. But have paid for this myself. And from Charles, a bookdealer, ordered directly, an inexpensive first of Ballantyne's *The Gorilla Hunters* and a presentation copy of his *The Norsemen in the West*. No doubt both of these will be sold by the time my airletter reaches England.

A cheque from Pantheon came in at the beginning of the month for $878.10, which includes $10 for Hilda's *Freud* and $90 for Gandharan Art. But I will go over all this when you get to this side. I have deposited the cheque, so it is safely with the rest of the account.

What a series of adventures Rose Odle has had with her French lady! It is good to know that some one besides Americans can be rude. Edel's suggestion did not surprise me; he would do an excellent job but I am not sure he really wants to. However, I have just been at a new local rare book dealer and saw several first editions of D.R., immaculate, in dust wrappers, and some signed. Shall I not give over to go with the manuscripts your copies of the books, or at least tell them which ones they will get. And buy from the dealer and give whatever he may have that is not in your collection. Then Yale can keep filling out until they have everything which a scholar will need in the future, whether he be Edel or someone else. The books run around five dollars apiece. The only reason for not giving yours would be if you needed them for your promised portrait of her. However the library would send you back anything you had given of this sort, and meanwhile have them available to others. Let me know what you think both about the library, and filling out from the dealer. I will do nothing until I hear.

Broke my glasses this afternoon against the door of the car when I opened--stupid of me, androtten luck, but at least I was not cut, only bruised slightly.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

21 September 1959

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 16th was in this morning's mail, and
having a minute or two at the Library and near my IBM I hasten to take
advantage of it to write you. Thank you for speaking of my mother. As
I wrote you, my visit and subsequent reports indicate that she is doing
well. But it cannot be anything but difficult for her, and one could have
wished for better luck for her last days.

What a pity about Grace Irwin. It is sad and touching to think
of her wandering in search of you. But do not, I beg of you, try to carry her
burden too. You have so much more than your share. Your various guests among
them.

Yes, please. You must drop a note to the Hansens, and mention
Eric's letter. He came in last Friday and mentioned again that they had not
heard from you, and feared they had offended. I suspect the curious and
anxious one is the man, but she too will have a kind of agony for what her
husband might have done. Yours need be no more than a note. Remember it is
not her fault; she tried her best in her letters to you. Having had to be in
my office, I have not heard any more confessions from him, but no doubt they
will come again. He does however look a little calmer, as though the pustule
had been vented for a moment.

I think you will find several of Marianne's poems pleasant to
read. Only do not expect too much of them. I always think how much more Hilda
has to offer; but Marianne is expert and delightful at her best.

Everyone is watching the Russian K like a wolf as he crosses the
country. I think they are beginning to be friendlier simply because he has
had a rough time of it on the part of several groups, although at the same
time the revelations of his hot temper (not unHitlerlike) indicate just what
sort of a person one is dealing with. What comes out chiefly is the desire
that Russia should be openly recognized as one of the two great powers, and
dealings be made only and directly with them. He talks with the psychological
of a powerful parvenu, certain of his strength but not of his status. I shall
enjoy being near television again for the evening newsreels of his adventures
of the day.

All love as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

25 September 1959

Dearest Fido,

Still not a chance to get back to the library and the
IBM, but I am glad you approve of it. The only thing I insist is
that it is not at all impossible to use the Model T, so that part
of the worry is not justified--unless, perhaps, one was a professional
typist. But then I'm not. I will try to check up on the Cornerns.
Were you think of an office size or a portable. If the latter I will
rent one for you to use in New York when you and Hilda come over. I
agree that I would not try an IBM if it cannot be serviced at your
side.

I drive to Gardner tomorrow to see my mother. Susan had
a long standing engagement to judge a show at Providence, Rhode Island,
and so cannot go. She has already left and will spend tonight there.
She must start judging too early otherwise. We are now moved in from
the shore, but no rugs back on the floors as yet, nor no silver from
the bank or books from the bank either. I think she is tired, since
she has to carry it all on her shoulders figuratively and sometimes
literally as well. My brother writes that my mother is usually
tranquil and comfortable, but has almost no memory now, wonders if
I know she is in the hospital altho she has a letter from me more or
less every day, and has forgotten my earlier visit. "Hope I'm wrong,
but I think she's just hanging on by a thread."

I was most sad to hear that Kenneth Maggs had died. I
have told several bookmen who knew him, and they are shocked, having
thought he was improving. His letters were encouraging and I thought
the same. I am glad you were able to make the last months more com-
fortable for him. We shall see, but I rather fear for the firm.
However, they make take a new turn. Otherwise I see it fading.

You ask if I can read Miller. The answer is: no. I have
never seen the raison d'etre of Eliot's praise etc. Durrell is differ-
ent, is an artist. I shall be curious to hear accounts of Catha. How
we all change! But perhaps Aldington would always have preferred
others to be Puritanical.

Even tho Kurt does not like Helen to have too many
visitors--or perhaps just because--I do think you ought to drop over
to Locarno. Helen will be quite shut off. She says however that Kurt
is much better now that the tension is a little off and the psycho-
somatic aspects can subside.

Lizzie seems to get along reasonably well, although
neither Susan nor I have seen her since early July. She is always
"busy" etc., "will let you know when..." And still alienated from
most of the patients, but they say is beginning to talk a little more
to her analyst. In any event she has kept at her job and done well
enough so that she was offered a full-time job at regular pay. But

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

her doctor thought she was not quite ready for that. She was angry
at first and then agreed. Perhaps that is a good sign. It is all
very hard on Susan, but as for myself I have done what I can, try to
carry a share of the bills, and refuse to stick daggers into myself.
If she can only learn to stand on her own feet, it does not matter
very much whether she sees us or not. It is fixed in the wills that
she will have some income, but no capitol to squander. And the banks
will do all the administering (at my insistence).

I have really tortured you unnecessarily. The two last
bags of childrens books from Maggs did not get opened until last week.
The Swiss Family was amongst them; so also was The Holy Barbarians
(I hope Maggs thought it was by Henty!) Thank you for both. Also the
latest O.B. which looks delightful. Also Rollins' The Obelisk, the
Eliot Paul, and Rermor's Mani. One can always find a home for these
and the American things, so send as you feel inclined. I will act as
inclined, but nothing will be quite wasted.

Interested in your opinion about The Ugly American. I have
not read it but presume I must.

Several chapters of sikelipop have arrived from the woolford,
which I have read with pleasure although not with the others to fill
in. The writer is, I think, firmer; and clearer: possibly the memory
of Richardson or Robbe-Grillet. Anyhow it works. Yes, clear up the
scraps, although I have a hunch you will get at something else.

A note from Charles Rare Books said that the two Ballantyne's
The Gorilla Hunters and The Norsemen in the West were en route to me.
I shall present to you as a welcome to America present. You can give
me an aluminum tape of your pennant planted on the moon.

Thank you for writing Elsa Hansen. I have seen him only
once in the past fortnight, but have talked with him on the phone
and given them my tickets to the football game tomorrow. He claims to
be working hard and to be adjusted. Only temporary I am sure, but at
least this is something.

Will not pass on the Connie Aiken volume; that belongs with
your things.

Two yellow envelopes in, with their bounty of news as always.
I am intrigued by the idea of the Leper's stepmother in correspondence
with Edith! This is really something, and I gather she does not find
her husband as irresistible as he seems to hope little girls will.

Doris does seem wonderfully happy with her home, and I hope
all will fall into order. I did not realize that she had actually
sold Trenoweth. But the price is really low isn't it? Yet I imagine
what it is better to get out for any price.

My best love is Hilda to whom this letter is also
dedicated. I wish white her Sunday after my visit to Gardner.
Hormen

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

29 September 1959

Dearest Fido,

Have managed to spend a good part of today at the Library, which accounts for the access to IBM. What a pleasure it is to use. When you come over you must spend mornings at least in my office using it; and I can arrange for you to try a Smith Coronna.

You ask what I think about the Glynn excavations. One would really have to see them first. But this will be one of the temptations some year when you come with a little free time. They might possibly remind one of Hvaløø. I never have the slightest doubt that the Vikings landed on the continent; the question would simply be whether they had anything like so elaborate and unrecorded a settlement on a permanent basis.

What fun with the Goughs! When we finish the Alaskan and ekkimo sprees, it might be fun to hook on to them for a trip, or at least visit them. The bronze arrowhead will be a treasure for you; something to pick up and rub, to cherish like a Christopher medal.

I am amused at the Goughs' description of "auto stops". We have them here too, especially from the young Englishmen. Later this afternoon comes a typical example. He phoned yesterday from New York, asking if he could see me today en route to Boston. I said yes. Then he said he would like to stay overnight, and asked if I could get him a room. Then with that settled he announced he would be arriving at dinner time. Obviously: would I, would I. Unfortunately Susan and I have to go out to dinner tonight and then to the symphony, so I could not ask him to dinner or overnight, and it would be most inconvenient to meet him at the station. But I found a willing one to feed him, give him free lodgings, etc. This is all right, but what usually happens is that these visitors settle in, and it is not at all unusual for locals to find that they have a young Englishman on their hands for two or three weeks, while he is resting, studing, writing, waiting for a position, or simply getting to know the States. Then he moves on to another "auto stop." One man has been here over two years, moving from one part of the country to another, like a minstrel without a song.

Wretched weather and the gardens are parched for lack of rain. There was a bit of drizzle last night, but only enough to make sleeping uncomfortable. Today Susan is trying to put in new plants just arrived by mail. I am rather assuming that because of Doris's moving the bulbs will not be coming from her this fall, and told Susan to go ahead with her replanting. She has lifted and divided.

Hope all has gone well, and is not too exhausting. My love to Hilda and yourself, and greetings generally and to "erf in particular.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 October 1959

Dearest Fido,

The weekend rather interrupted, and so I could
not write you, because of going to the football game Saturday
afternoon, and having an English Departmental tea on Sunday
afternoon. The rest of yesterday I spent trying to weed a garden
bed I had let go since July. The neglect was not due simply to
laziness; we have not had any rain until this week brought a
light sprinkle and enough at least to loosen the earth.

I presume you will be eager to watch the results
of the election. Someone writing for the Manchester Guardian
wanted my reaction to it, or what I thought the reaction would
be if Labor won. I said that under the present world circum-
stances I thought the election was really being fought over the
choosing of leaders and not policy, Therefore I did not think
Americans would be disturbed either way it went, since either
would end in the same spot.

Yours of the 30th in this morning's mail. The weekend
always makes for a delay. I really am not very much surprised at
Watha's reaction. You see you represent power and authority; you
are helping to decide things for her, as her father would like to
do. Hilda on the other hand smiles from the frontier of heaven at
her. No you must not be surprised either, but take whatever small
satisfaction comes from surrogate authority.

I do not really take the journalism recommendation
very seriously. What it means is that she is literate. There is
nothing for her in it, although if she chooses to write (much as
Pup keeps plugging at it) that is another matter. I take much
more seriously the kind of test that tells me what I already know,
for examples that I get along well with Fidos! I suspect however
that Wori may be right in thinking that a year's good conversation
sitting on a woman's knee will be just what she needs, especially
because she must have missed this sort of thing as a pup herself.
And Aldington of course as you and I both know, would duck any
responsibility even if he could recognize it when he saw it.

Yes, I suspect Helen is really happier in Switzerland
so long as the present uncertainty of her relationship to Pantheon
exists. It does become a rather impossible snarl, I'm afraid; but
so far will not affect us.

In yours of the 29th you speak of a portable typewriter.
Electric, that is. Obviously the thing is for me to rent one for
you while you are in the States. Then you can try it and if it
works you can then order one in Switzerland. I rather imagine the
weight would be excessive if taken back by air.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

Lizzie came out to the house yesterday morning to pick up her fall clothes, but preferred not to stay for a meal. We took her back to the Institute and saw her new room. She had decorated it rather prettily; but she has always had good taste, even though sometimes rather an expensive one. You ask about the expenses: she was offered a full time job but the doctors thought she was not up to it yet. But evidently she has been doing well if they made this possibility of advance. I am not sure how much her part time job pays her, but enough so that she no longer needs her fifty dollar amonth allowance for expenses and entertainment. Her clothing is also supposed to come out of this. But the hospital costs have been generally advanced to $200 a week, not including her psychiatric treatment, so we still keep jumping to pay the bills.

This is shocking news that Joan cannot get an annulment. Really the British law is rather inhuman about it. Surely a judge could use his discretion and *know* that what the Pole did to her was at least manslaughter of the spirit. I do hope Philip will find some way out; it seems to me important to bring the marriage to a conclusion. Have you discussed the matter with Heydt. Why not Reno?

Talked with Horace on the phone Saturday. He was calling to find a Greek instructor for Sarah Lawrence. Said he had heard that Pat did get his promotion, and will be in charge of guide books on the publishing end, which will mean interesting travel around France, and especially a rise in salary and a cut in the number of hours. Pat counts on this as a step to Gallimard.

I asked him about *Helen* and he said that *Grove* would do it and preferred it in hard covers. But say nothing to Hilda until I can write it myself, probably tomorrow. Probably several months after *Madrigal* however before they can do it. Thank you for swinging Hilda over to letting me use her own name.

Have just finished reading James Purdy's new short novel, *Malcolm*. I am really impressed. I liked it much better than the short stories, whose high praise seemed somewhat exagerrated to me. Shall I send or will you wait and skim through when you come over? It is hardly a night's reading.

The Paris section of the reminiscences have arrived. It is a better first draft than you permit yourself to think, but it is still the outline of what you will later fill in with the richness of detail which is important. I fear that Sylvia's book rather inhibited you for this precise moment, and of course you must not look for eternity into her eyes while she looks into yours, with the only difference being the color of the eyeballs. But I repeat this is an excellent outline, and I like the idea of your running through

9 October 1959

Dearest Fido,

The interviews with Monty and Dame Edith were of the finest. What a nervous talent for showmanship they have, almost as though showmanship had become not only a prerogative but a profession of nobility. I am thinking too of the image given in the autobiography of the Duke of Bedford. Yet I am a little sorry too, as I am to see the royal family turned into a t.v. soap opera.

The elections were pretty much as I expected, altho I do not quite know how to console you--since you did not, naturally enough, like the leadership or policy of the conservatives; and, equally naturally, find Gaitskell as impossible as I do. Well, I suppose there is nothing for one to do but to be a little Liberal and pray to hold the balance of power. I rather gather from the letters that the majority of your friends (with the possible exception of Rita whom I cannot quite place any more) probably voted for Macmillan. I am interested to hear your reactions, and to know what the Swiss feel about it.

The bundle with the Miller, Paul Green etc arrived safely. I gave the green to the special collections of the Library where they did not have it.

The yellow envelopes have been full of interest. I rather like Isobel Hutchinson, not the least because of her admiration for you. What a difficult hand she writes.

Should I make overtures to see your friend Lorna Lewis, or let well enough alone? I am glad to do anything you would like me to.

Much amused by George Plank's quotes from Jean Starr's memoirs.

Hope you were not upset by Mike's announcement of his engagement. To me it seems the right thing for him; he is so obviously a family person, and his care of his daughter has been most touching--but done also to fill an emptiness he feels. But won't this rather let you out, now that he has passed his crisis?

Why don't we all go out to Ceylon and enjoy Cousin Jack's nest egg. I am sure that must be many suffering under much the same situation.

We drive up Sunday to see my mother.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 October 1959

Dearest Fido,

We drove to Gardner yesterday, and found my mother a little weaker I thought. My brother feels that at last he must admit her mind is not getting things quite straight, and Susan noticed that during our entire visit she never moved her feet once. It is very sad.

Your letter of the 8th was in this morning's mail. I shall pray that Mrs Van Johnson wants the best possible place. I always did think that someone from the cinema world would be the best likelihood. I know very little about this particular person except that he has been very popular and is, I suspect, a little passe now. This is when they come to live abroad and save taxes. Van Johnson was an actor with curly hair, the healthy type. Perhaps he produces now. These men do much for television in the way of films, and the camera work for much of this is done abroad. I would say buy yourself a little villa if you manage to shake Kenwin, except that you would then be crowded out by Elsie and her cousins and her woes. I take it she did not put the money aside from the earlier house you bought her, but regards that as capitol. Why not get her something suitable so long as she does not become a great lady in her own mind. You can see about your own accomodations, other than two or three rooms, later. The chief advantage will be rid of the upkeep and the strain of Kenwin.

It looks very much as though the Electric Corona would be the thing for you if you like it when you try it on this side. You might inquire as to prices at your end, just to measure the advantages.

Catha's solution looks reasonable, and will be a help to Aldington as well as to her; since he will not have to feel he need help her beyond pocket money and clothes. Otherwise good for her too, since she will feel freer knowing she is not tying him down. I agree absolutely with you on the schooling, for practical if not abstract reasons.

If Philip can arrange for Joan's annulment or divorce in the Argentine, so much the better. And it will sound somehow appropriate to the situation, under the circumstances. Joan will continue to be jealous of Catha, even though withholding any gift of affection or gratitude from you. This is natural enough. But not to be avoided, so you must face it in the best experienced p.a. way.

But I tell you, despite all the joys of polygamy, now