NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN·CONN

Somehow I had hoped that Elsie had passed beyond the burial of banknotes. Perhaps it is her instincts as a gardener, and she thinks of a bill as a bulb. One can do nothing about her. All that is Swiss about her is now augmented by age. Think of the old squirrels you and I have both known.

Would you like me to write to Barbara Jordan about a new second-hand car. I can simply say you asked me to cope as from your royalty money. She would understand and I feel sure not stick you. Or you could get her a new economy one. I doubt that she wants a big one, though since she is apparently a big girl she might not fit in a mini-cab. But if hers is 14 years old it must be harder to drive than new ones. Why not leave it up to her brother and herself. I can even talk to her on the phone about it.

The Grindea really wants to be in touch with you as well as being understandably anxious to read what you will so well write about Ramuz. I hope he can get the number out, for the sake of R's reputation.

I was shown the other day a couple of 2nd edition of Development. So marked. I had not really realised that it had been actually reprinted in a different manner. reprinting from the same plates would literally , or bibliographically, be a second printing. Sometimes publishers like to give the impression that sales are booming. Do you remember anything about this. The local bookdealer is the one who asks.

I will try to get in a line tomorrow but am not sure whether time will alive. Time will allow, or I be alive.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN

30 November 1967

Dearest Fido,

I very much suspect that this will not be picked up to-
night, for it is snowing and freezing at the same time. The mail
trucks may well be cautious. Still, I shall have written. I took
the nine o'clock to New York this morning, and after leaving my brief
case at the Yale Club took a cab to Charles Hamilton who has auto-
graph auctions and I had been told had a Hawthorne letter in one on
the 12th. I should have had a catalogue, but was told that these
had gone out late this time. Anyhow I could see the letter--not an
important one--put my modest bid on it not in order to get it but
to show I remained interested. Then I had time to kill until one
o'clock when Martin Charlot's exhibition of paintings opened. So
off I went to Madison Avenue and took the bus north to Carlebach's
to look around. There were nice things as always, but too expensive.
However I bought a little Ashanta metal horse for less than half a
hundred, since I must have something to give Susan at Christmas. The
Worth dress from me is a stale present by now. After that I walked
down Madison to Klejeman's, stopping to buy Susan some chocolates
(which I found when I got on the train I had left at Klejeman.) Mr
and Mrs K came rushing out when I was announced, she breathless
because of emanations, saying he had just returned from abroad and
unpacked a few things he had found and they were about to phone me.
I think this may be true, for the things were scattered on his desk
and had obviously just come out of a paper box. The point of all
this being that years ago I asked him to keep his eyes open for a
tupilak. He had never heard of them. He has kept watching and never
found one. Now he has just bought in Denmark a collection of 31(?)
21(?) made by a now seventy-year old Danish artist who collected them
at the early part of his life in Greenland. He had four he brought
back, and I must say three of them were superb. The rest are being
brought out by a member of the American embassy, since K obviously
would never have gotten an export permit. I should imagine there is
nothing like the collection in the Danish National Museum. He of
course wants me to buy the whole collection but I am sure that would
be impossible. Anyhow he has no plans to put a price on the group
until they are here and he can get some one to assess them. And in
any event he promises me the chance to take two or three if I want
them, as the only begettor of his quest--so to speak.

It was snowing when I came out from him, and I was lucky
to catch a cab to East 88th Street by Avenue A. A little gallery kept
by a Spanish speaking woman who paints. I opened the door and a little
long-haired white dog came wagging up to greet me. He escorted me
around a corner and then barked down the stairwell until she came up.
At that he jumped up on his cushion and grinned with satisfaction. I
wish he could have barked in celebration of ap purchase. But I honestly
did not like anything enough to want to own it, and I would prefer to
give the boy money than buy something to store forever in the attic.
Painters may be appropiate there, but not their paintings. So it being
snowier than ever, I took a cab to pick up my briefcase and caught the
two o'clock train back after gobbling a hotdog in the sta-

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

We got to the cocktail party and home safely, though we went straight home and had supper there, rather than going out as we often do after a party. It was almost certain to get slipperier as the night went on. This morning it was 18°F when we got up. Actually very few did manage to get to the party, and I was glad we had made the effort.

Your letter of the 29th came this noon. I shall be eager to know, what if anything, you manage to learn from Elsie after her visit to the doctor. She is obviously in some sort of internal panic, though one cannot quite permit himself to forget that she is after all really aging. This does not help anyone, and some less than others. Blum of course will not discuss the matter with you -- it would be the same on this side -- but perhaps her surgeon can, under the circumstances. He would not search you out, but permit himself to be consulted by someone like you.

I had meant to ask Rota to search out the Watkins lacunae, as thanks for sending me the bibliographical list. But be sure to let me know what your Mr Fall manages to discover in the way of first editions. I shall have to, eventually, thank Rota and will want to know how to phrase it all.

What a pity that Simond should not have gotten his information correctly the first time from Grindea. But I presume G can now straighten it out. If one is not used to business forms and details, it is difficult to get things straight.

Interesting that Valentine should be reading Freud. Perhaps he will want an analysis later, but it is almost impossible to do that and carry out one's proper studies at the same time. He might want to take a year out after college and before the army. Meanwhile I don't think it will harm him any to read, especially since so many references are made to Freudianism in literary interpretation. He will at least be able to distinguish the palpably bad. # What a wonderfully warm and happy letter of thanks from Pup. I think she must have felt a great weight at the prospect of carrying all of the children simultaneously in private and boarding schools. This is an aspect of parenthood that young mamas and papas often forget in breeding seasons. But all this side and the situation being what it is I should think you deserved to be pleased by the reception of your idea.

I think I met Olivia Wyndham once with Edna Thomas when they were up for some James Weldon Johnson "do." But knew little about her.

Your letters of the 26th, 27th and 28th had come yesterday, but I read only last night. My thanks of course. The dollar? I think it will stand all right; every effort is being made to hold it, with only France working to force it down. Blum's reports sound more suitable for Elsie to give you than as valid in themselves. For example, the remark on whiskey. But this is a good way to shift the causation from the personal relationships. Thus he might work back towards the immediate problem. # Was glad that Wendy's visit could be postponed. # Yes, a package of Civilians came over, as did Two Selves and many issues of Close Up. They are all in the metal cabinets in the Goodrich Street cellar. # I hope to be able to see Horace for a visit next week when I must be in town the night before Friday when I have a Council of Learned Societies

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

meeting. Perhaps I can get a better lineup on the future. Again I think
you must be careful in trying to pay for too much for them from a distance,
since they are still so unpractical. Really to set up an establishment
with fulltime and substitute servants is a complicated affair as well as
an expensive one. # Following your letter down, I agree that Ruegg can ad-
vise nothing for the moment. The New York market is quite unpredictable.
The new phrase is that the market declines because of "profit taking."
It is such an optismistic rhetoric. # In a way what fun it would have been
for you to go solo to Kenneth for Christmas. But alas one cannot have
everything and this year especially I can well believe you ought not
to leave Elsie and Ines together or there would be "pieces on earth." #
I was talking this afternoon about the Arts Council to a New Zealand
poet. He tells me the situation is much the same there. One sends a
volume to a publisher. Maybe he will say yes, but only the publishers
say "if we can get a subsidy from the Council." So one is voted on by
the establishment a second time. The format must be the same, the size
the same, -- to fit rules and standards. The result is indistinguishable
poetry. # I shall let Weinberg alone until he nudges me. # Many thanks
for Cuffing the Thunder. I doubt there is any point in sending the xerox
pages to you. I will try once more through other correspondences of the
apprropiate date to see if there are any clues. I take it the Cheyne Walk
address meant nothing to you. # Welch Guardsman were performing at the
New Haven Arena as a public spectacle. I presumably would have met them
more privately. # No, you really don't need to read Last Exit. # I called
recently my sister who says that Alfred has been back at work, had his
stepdaughter and her family for Thanksgiving dinner, and seems to be doing
very well indeed. # I am so glad you too liked The Hedgehog. The prose
is sheer beauty. # Young Susan's address is 95 Mansfield Street, New Haven,
06511. Lizzie's is R.F.D. # 3, Killingworth Connecticut, 06417. They would
be delighted to have cards, and I am glad you will send both.

People in general only mumble about the bad weather we are having;
I console myself by sending you my love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

2 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I started the day out as errand boy for Santa Claus, and took a number of packages to the Hamden postoffice to mail to you. By air. This is extravagant, but even had they been sent in mid-November I should not have dared the risk of their arrival in time. Alas, I could not insure the coat but trust the air route will be sufficient protection. One cannot insure what is not completely sealed. This is by the way Susan's gift entirely, paid and wrapped by her. She remembers your having liked or wanting one like hers. I whisper this of course. In the bottom of a book package is a little gift for Ines. Other packages will go later, including one for Elsie.

No letter from you today, but there was a Christmas yellow-
back, for which I gratefully bark. "Blessed be the tie that binds...."
as George would have said. I do thank you for making me so handsomely
Swiss. And thanks again, and now ahead of time, for my Christmas Korean
vase which you gave me in advance at Spinks. Susan has had crysanthe-
mums handsomely in it. Whichever I look about me your benevolence shines.

snow

It keeps cold, this morning only 18°F, and the sun remains
on the ground. (The sun fortunately stays in the heavens!)

I leave shortly to take Susan to Ridgefield to a luncheon
of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, a gourmet group to which I belong but
which I seldom attend. Usually they meet and eat at night, which means
a too-long return drive afterwards. Then for dinner we go to her sister
Jane's. She has now returned to New Haven and plans to build a house
next to the Hoblitzelles at the end of the point. A widow for many many
years she suddenly married a retired broker who had handled her accounts.
He turned out to be a chronic invalid as well as alcoholic, and she had
to support as well as nurse him. Finally she threw up her hands and is
getting a divorce. To everyone's release. He was impossible.

I have been meaning to ask your advice about Edith's letters
to you. As I gathered from our conversation with Sachie, it is now decided
not to give them to the editor. But I wondered if it might not be sensible
to keep them separate in case you decided to give copies to someone else
later? After all, you put so much work into selecting them that this ought
not to be wasted or you have to do it again. The alternative would be to
put them back in the right place after having had xerox copies made. But
this would be frightfully expensive, taking both sides of so many small
sheets.

Hope all has been well since Elsie's return.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

Last night I was called to ask if I would go to dinner after a lecture this afternoon by a one-time student of mine, Reed Whittemore who with another published *Furious* as undergraduates. He is a poet and critic and whilom professor and advisor to the Library of Congress and my absence would have seemed odd to him. (I hadn't bothered to see the calendar.) So I said yes, and this morning I was asked in desperation to introduce him. So what is the good of being on leave?

Yesterday was a deluge for the entire day, so I stayed at home and worked steadily reading applications for ACLS fellowships. For that reason no letter to you until today. Sorry. Last night Susan went with young Susan and Justus to hear Ravi Shankar, on the sitar. I stayed at home and kept on reading applications, baby sitting at the same time for little Susan who thought it was great fun to be put to bed by me. She spent the night and I took her home this morning in time for school.

Letters from you on the 30th and two on the 1st were in the mail today. I only hope you swallowaa tranquilizer yourself from time to time. It seems more than probable that Elsie, like most of us, so dreads seeing the doctor (the real one, the top one) that she is glad of any excuse to put the day off, by taking the train to the gentle psychiatrist instead, by seeing the assistant and suppressing symptoms (tho she perhaps does not see them herself). I still think it would be better if you wrote to Blum; then he does not have to reply but is nevertheless informed; and if you wrote to the surgeon himself. You can explain the circumstances and your fears; it will help him to analyze the situation better, or in any event to console you more adequately. You are not making the judgment but you are giving evidence that ought to be taken into consideration by the man who wears the wig. As to Blum there are no rules in a crisis. The only rule that would prevail is his talking to you, not his listening. But by mail.

I am delighted that Petrie's memoirs start off so well. I shall be eager for the day when they are finished. # Infinite thanks of course for the Pro Juvenute. They are always strikingly good. # Many thanks for the Anderson book, but I could have read some time at Kenwin. No need to do extra these days. Or shall I not read and post back to you surface. I had two yellowbacks from you last midweek, as from Switzerland. But nothing you sent at the end from London of this sort has as yest arrived. And yet the Atlantic is as wide from one point as it is from the other. # For the moment, then, there seems to be sufficient dames-dough. I agree the little ones should be upped. And I daresay that Herring deserves a little uppance as things settle down and become clearer. # I believe Helen's letter with Christian's London address must have gone in a yellowback, for I do not recall having seen it. I will go back through the two just arrived and see if it is there. But I think I should have notice that Christian was in London. I gather this must be a sabbatical for him. # By separate cover I send a magazine including the talk that Folsom gave at the second Dusty Diamond talk at the Grolier Club. I have another copy for myself and you might like to have this for your Henty Collection.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

This is one of those days that doesn't seem quite to come off. And tonight I shall have to take Susan to the symphony, so nothing much will get done in the way of reading. I had a temporary secretary in for the day; she arrived late having thought she should report to the personnel office of the library, and indeed was (although nice) both slow and not too bright. As a result the cost per letter was unusually high, and though I had planned to have her tomorrow also I said the job was done for the moment, and will hope for better luck next week. What else? Posting Christmas bundles to you as a first job of the day; getting a flattening tire changed, taking stock certificates to the brokers for a sale and replacement by other stocks, getting furious at the savings bank for charging $5.15 for converting a $50 Canadian cheque (even my regular checking bank charges $3.80, so I shall not save hereafter), but putting in a permissions fee cheque for Hilda to her account. Then at noon I mistook everything and thought I had a lunch with a young teacher first, went to Mory's but he did not come, so I realized I had probably made a mistake about the doctor's appoint for a flu prick after lunch -- which indeed I had. So tomorrow I can fare forth again.

Your letters of the 2nd and 3rd came in the afternoon mail. I wish I could be with you to hold your hand. All I can say is I am glad Philip could help a little with a sooth or two. But at least you have gotten Elsie to write to her surgeon. I only wish you had added your own letter, and still think you should if Elsie's appointment is postponed enough. After all, with brain conditions they can only go on the basis of a patient's own report of her condition, and I suspect Elsie is, like most of us, not a very good reporter on herself. Quite obviously there is something basic and seriously wrong with her. You know what her doctors do not know unless you tell them.

You are right of course---you cannot leave her now. But I think it perfectly proper to ask her brother to take a hand as for Zurich, or even more so if she has a period of recovery.

What a series of episodes, indeed, you are having. Nicholas may be right in thinking a bit of arterio sclerosis. It is hard on him to be left, and always hard on Ines. Though if it does turn out that Elsie is truly ill, you will see Ines all care and devotion. And I think with a certain amount of going out you could manage for quite a bit with Ines. It is also possible that Mlle Coigny might find you a temporary cook -- some woman who doesn't want to keep on forever. She could come in to do one big meal for you a day.

I shall either call or write Barbara Jordan, probably both. For it is too much to expect her to give an appropriate and immediate answer over the phone. I shall write her and then say I will call, or ask if she will and reverse the charges. Don't worry about the money. I will not have to touch your account.

How odd of Waugh!

as to my stay here; I've made much progress, but need a bit more, and there's talk (nothing settled yet) of my undergoing further surgery. I may be able to get home for Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day. I fear my recovery is terribly slow, yet recovery it is, and no mistake. One I get on my feet, I'll be stronger than I was when I left Gaylord's. The toughening up process is very thorough here." I hope to see him tomorrow afternoon when I go in town for a meeting on Friday.

6 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I have been having a blissfully quiet morning at the office, after having piled the four winter tires into the back of Susan's station wagon and taken them myself to the garage, leaving her car to be re-tired. Somehow yesterday's tempy unnerved me, especially when I read a letter in which I was reported as thanking someone for letting me know about "the SA's for the festschrift." I carefully spelled out the German but couldn't imagine what I had said until, clairvoyantly, I knew what it had been "essays." Her mistakes were of this nature; her experience wasn't such as to let her question what seemed wrong. Anyhow at the end I said we had cleaned up everything for the moment (her day's accomplishment ten letters, mostly short). Better luck next time.

Still I must remember, and perhaps you can too in this time of distress, young Susan's suddenly unintroduced statement to me Sunday night, "I'd rather have a broken bone than be dead." Solemnly I agreed and cited the case of her grandmother's broken hip. "I know," she said, "it takes a while!"

There was nothing from you in the morning mail, and little new to report from me. Last night's concert was splendid, at least the begro singer Leontyne Price was superb, especially in Verdi. She has a truly great voice.

A few oddments I could not mention yesterday. Miss Lidderdale, to whom I wrote about Thelma Wood, asked for permission to quote the letter from Miss Weaver to you. Since it was Miss Weaver's letter, I said yes; but that you should be credited for the permission. (People might otherwise think it odd and illegal.) But do continue to shift the burden of decision to me; I love nothing better than playing the ogre.

I managed to buy the *Arrow Music* and fortunately had enough credit left from the exchange of Elizabethans to pay for it. So since the original were as from you, after all, think no more of it. I shall not, however, destroy it but save it for the right destination. Eventually. I don't know what that should be. Perdita some time? She would cherish it.

A volume of Swedish translations of *Anetry* in general in, from Goethe to H.D. I only wish she knew how she is getting around.

I looked at the list for Michael Joseph in the latest TLS and think you would have been out of place and lost with them. Groucho Marks' letters; *Parlour Poetry*; *Come Reading*; *The Queen Mother's Horses*; *The Dolly Dolly Spy*; and Dick Francis, "his best novel yet", *Blood Sport*. No, I don't think it would have done.

I had a letter from Horace, returning some checks. "Should you drop by, I would be delighted, as you know, to see you. Meanwhile, I'm uncertain

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN-CONN

6 December 1967 (2nd)

Dearest Fido,

Being lucky, I found a letter from you in the last post of the day. Midafternoon, and usually I do not pick up until on my way home. But after lunch I phoned the garage and had Susan's car come to me, and then drove to Dr Swift for my prick. I had completely forgotten an appointment a week ago; and although it doesn't matter because really I am a squeeze-in, still I felt like a cardinal who had missed mass for a month. Once pricked I took Susan's car home to exchange for my own, which then was re-tired. (Alas, the one that flattened yesterday has reached the end of its life; another item to replace but not until spring.) During the car's retirement I went to the office equipment shop I several times took you to. Only now it has moved and no one could find anything. I needed an engagement book chiefly, plus string, carbon paper etc. By the time I was back in the office the day was mostly gone. Especially for I am slipping out to hear Auden read his poems at 4:30. I haven't seen him for several years.

I write chiefly to continue my condolences. I certainly see no reason why Hans cannot watch out for her in Zurich. After all! What a pity it is she is not in the States for a thorough Prutting. I would give encephalagrams, check blood condition for arterio sclerosis and in general put her through the mill. But you Swiss don't seem to go in for this kind of overall checkup. If it should be arterio sclerosis you simply cannot become her nurse and housekeeper. She must go with family or to a nursing home. You speak of going to the boys, but I agree with you that this wouldn't help too much. You would simply continue to worry and be uninformed. Odd how Elsie's illness comes to interrupt this second volume of the memoirs, as Hilda's illness and death did the first volume. My unk tells me that a period of your life is about to end. I am only glad that the next will bring you closer.

And, yes, you are quite right about postponing the decision on the disposal of Kenwin until after you know what the present outcome is. Better to let it stay and in the general estate (your share at least) for the moment. I have always expected to take care of Elsie as she needs help. Without Horace I can do this easily on what I already have.

Many thanks for giving me the Wyndham history. I remember seeing her only once. Edna Thomas was
inconsolable. # Don't do anything about Horace until one really knows what the situation will be.
I myself have a hunch he will spend out the winter at the Rusk, which might indeed be a good thing.
As in his early stages alone at Gaylord his mood seems good. Basically he likes being with people.
Marya is afraid of them and so withdraws into intellectual elitism. # Not sure about tomorrow's
letter. # I liked it before.

All love, Zorn

7 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I found I simply could not get my papers in order in time to
take a morning train to New York. So I go by the 2:02. In any event it
is drizzling and the weather man threatens snow, so like the last time I
went to town this is no occasion for wandering the streets. I have one
erand to do, and then will perhaps stop in at a movie near Horace's
hospital since I cannot see him until he has had his supper at five.
Such a nuisance for an out-of-towner, which is why I have not been able
to see him since he went. I look forward to it now. Afterwards I have
a Japanese couple to dinner at the Yale Club. He was at Yale a number
of years ago and wanted to come back on his present ACLS. But so many
others were coming here, I was to be on leave, etc that I advised his
going to NYU to work with Edel. he apparently hates it. I sent a wire
asking him and his wife to dine at the Yale Club. When he phoned back
to say yes he would come but not his wife, I fortunately discovered that
he was about to set out for New Haven and Mory's. Now both will appear
and a duty will have been done.

The dining hall at Pierson College was crammed at Auden's
reading. Fortunately they had stacked the tables at the far end, and
by crawling up I had both elevation and a seat. He did an excellent job,
having become more and more professional until now he is the academic's
Maurice Chevalier. Much heavier and jowlier but of course highly recognizable
in features and manner. We greeted each other warmly afterwards, and I was
glad to see him even briefly after what must now by four or five years.

I should like to have seen Helen Woolf this time, but I know how
busy she must be. Her lists seem to do well, and I would guess that Simenon
alone could carry her. The first volume of the Casanova, alas, is now being
remaindered. It was first-class, but I noticed I did not bother to buy the
second. The trouble is, when Kurt made the original arrangements for the
new translation from the original the book would have seemed risqué and more.
Now Casanova's exits are pretty pale stuff alongside the paperbacks that are
being issued. I know of very few established pieces of pornography that
are not now generally available. A few are interesting; for example, Venus
in India which does give an interesting picture of the Anglo-Indian situation
in the late 19th century, even outside of bed. Or especially so, since beds
are too common a denominator.

I enclose a clipping of the last cruise of the Queen for your and
possibly Elsie's amusement. Toss.

Your second letter of the 4th was in the mid-morning mail. Elsie's
malaise does sound more and more like arterio sclerosis, though a tumor might
have the same effect. Obviously Elsie does not report well on herself or the
Zurich assistant doctor might have guessed. But a complete checkup is anyhow
indicated. You must insist on this.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I am in somewhat of a flurry this morning, so you must excuse any incoherences. I managed to dash across town yesterday from the ACLS office, near the UN, in time to get the 5 o'clock back to New Haven. Susan was leaving with friends for a dinner party just as I arrived (this had been arranged) so I struggled manfully into my white tie and drove out to meet her in time to sit down for the meal even though having missed preliminary drinks. After the dinner we went on to the ball where this year's local debutantes (from the upper crust, that is) were introduced to society. This is always a great event for women who enjoying seeing their friends' offspring or grandchildren making their cortsies.

To return to the visit to Horace. I did think he looked better and was in good spirits, although Patrick said, on the way uptown afterwards, that he was terribly restless and anxious to get back to writing. He confirmed that they really wanted to do the operation, and so I guess eventually they will. This being so, and since they have not yet dared let him try even the walker (as too dangerous) I should think it altogether likely that he would remain in the hospital until spring. And this may be just as well from a practical viewpoint, but awfully hard from a personal one. Patrick thought that with the help of a neighbor's boy, they could manage at home without a nurse or housekeeper. But I wonder. Nevertheless I felt only confirmed in my feeling that one will simply have to wait to see what the situation actually is. I trust no concept of reasonable order in life.

My little Japanese couple were delighted at their first time out together since coming to New York. But they do not wither. One stays at home, and the other goes with some friend to the theatre or a concert. Indeed they see twice as many, I suspect, since baby sitters double the cost of everything.

The meeting ogf the Council of Learned Societies (hat is, the committee on which I served) went smoothly, and there were really no fights about the awards. Only one from Taiwan was thoughty up to scratch. There were some fewer from Australia and New Zealand, and none of these bound for Yale. Amongst the Japanese, much the largest group wanted as usual to come to Yale, and I was embarrassed that in the literature group the highest rank four or five all wanted to study under me. We had money enough however for only two so it will not be that burdensome next year. The authorities may push some of these elsewhere.

Your letter of the 6th was waiting for me, and perhaps came yesterday. What was really astonishing was that the yellowback you posted in London on October 24th only just arrived. Two sent just after you returned to Switzerland came a week or ten days ago. This can only be the English mails I fear. Imagine six weeks to cross by surface.

Am still troubled that Krähenbuhl does not answer, and still
wonder why you feel you cannot yourself telephone him. At any event the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

tranquilizers may help Elsie and (I hope) you too. Seriously there is no reason why Elsie should or even should have to make all the arrangements for her treatment. Even Joan could go in person to Krahenbugl's office and speak to the assistant.

You have the dates for Copenhagen and nothing could be more fun than to have you with me. And of course it would delight Chris immensely for you to see his wife and their child. I shall stay in an international hotel myself, for several reasons. Alas, I do not speak Danish; and when they speak English it is international. Secondly it is certain to be warmer, and I was never keen on the porcelain stove in the corner. I have lived with them and it was OK when I was younger. You, I think, are hardier than I am. I don't mind cold outside, but I prefer comfort within doors.

This is very good news indeed that the collie has returned. I assume it will now stay put. But Italy must have been frightening to him, even though an Italian castle ought to have gladdened the heart of a Scottish dog as well as a Scots laird. I am not too worried about Kenneth; I think he is likely to hibernate winters now. Eventually I think both will want to have a villa in the South of France. It might make good sense from the point of view of health.

Being in a hurry at the end you did not mention what the check should be put away for. And did not enclose the letter from Johnson Reprints, so I cannot advise on that. I shall probably consult my New York lawyers, since this is the firm I protested to before through the lawyers. They said then they were only selling originals; I knew this was not true, but we did manage to scare them. The lawyers will know what the right answer is, whenlycan give them the data.

Writing you as I did yesterday in my hurry I did not thank you for thinking of me and the replacement of the Oldsmobile. Poor Susan will bless you too since she has been after me to change. It has stood up seven years, but I did have to pay over £100/-/- for repairs to it this fall at the seasonal cleaning. And you may remember that the dashboard has begun to split open.

A nice letter from John. He knows that his operation will be both more painful and inconvenient, especially in a multi-stpried house, than he describes it. But he is being a good sport about it, and obviously the operation should be done. I approve of putting it off until after Christmas. The house would have been too disrupted, and weekends in the country impossible. And for the help for Valentine he is honestly grateful as I knew they both would be. It is hard to think of its being easier to enter Harvard than Yale. I don't know. In the end I do know that it doesn't much matter where one goes; one educates one's self. Anyhow I'm glad that Valentine doesn't choose his curriculum by the ease of getting good grades. What sort of an education would that be!

Enough for the moment. I must go out to lunch and then home to dress to go to a wedding, rather delayed, of a younger daughter of friends. We will plow to the church on the campus. And then to the Lawn Club for the reception. Susan will show off her Worth dress.

What a good clippin' about the creation of the Arts Council.

a geologist. We have always liked them but our schedules are too complicated to meet often. Later this afternoon we have to go to the Christmas party of American Studies. We have carefully stayed away but feel we mustn't on this occasion.

10 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

Am back at the office this Sunday afternoon to pay a few bills (this seems endless), wrap a few packages (a rather floppish book on Kiki I had bought you as non-fiction for your Paris shelf, but which turned out--so it seems to me--rather cheap fiction but no doubt with a little flavor to it, so I send anyhow; you need diversion), an envelope of goodies to help you pass what must be hours impossible for work-- this containing a good account of how they found out about the Metropolitan fake; I even thought the Boys might be interested afterwards, but leave to you--I was fascinated); a book for Sachie and Georgia I had promised them, the expensive biography of Pavlov T. with so much about Edith in it); a package of three large magazines of art for Brimmell as a gift; and, oh yes, in the package to you the xerox of galleys of my introduction to the collection of Randall Stewart's essays. Unless you desperately want it, I won't send you the book itself in the spring. I can't believe you'd be interested in it, and his point of final view was not mine at all. But I did owe him much, and so I was pleased when his widow intensely liked this and wondered at how well I knew him. I just let him speak for himself.

More immediately I enclose my review of the Carenevali book from this morning's New York Times Book Review Section. I daresay it isn't very good, but being by me it might interest you to glance it. Is the book something you would like for your own library? Or would you prefer to glance over when you next come and decide then whether it's for your teacup.

The London yellowback had nothing in it but letters I had read when still there. But thank you for sending it for the archives.

The wedding was pleasant yesterday, being fortunately small as such things go. The groom was the Jim Houston who got all the Eskimo ivory carving going and is now an associate director of Steuben Glass. He is somewhat older and has two sons by an earlier, now divorced wife. The new wife is the younger daughter of a local physics professor. Decorously I rubbed noses with the new bride as I went through the reception line, which made the groom give an Eskimo grin. I think you met him at the Dusty Diamonds vernissage. He is a member of the Grolier Club.

At the actual ceremony we were hooked by a friend Mrs Hilles into taking her to the reception and then home. But it didn't stop there. She is well known as an art collector who buys expensively and well, and show her things with a nervous desperation. One of the Yale colleges (where her husband is a Fellow) was having a show of morceaux choisis. Yesterday was its vernissage. Wouldn't we take her? What could we do. So we did that and stood while she rearranged everything. Then home to a piece of steak by ourselves, but at ten o'clock Lincoln Washburn and his wife, who had been at the wedding and were leaving on the 15th, came to see the eskimo stories. He goes each summer to the northern eastern coast, knows all the archaeologists though he himself is

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN, CONN.

11 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

In rather late this morning, what with delayed Christmas errands to do, a transistor radio to be taken for new batteries, and two small checks to be deposited in the savings bank on the last possible day for getting interest. I am so Yankee I cannot bear to toss this away. THEN, when the mail came a larger amount arrived as surplus from some stock the investment counsellor sold, and it is too late for that. (I much prefer the W method by which they keep the extras and then reinvest. This way I may not spend because they can re-use at will so-to-speak. So I dare not spend myself. Still, only five hundred which won't buy much in the way of stocks.)

The enclosed pictures were to have been wrapped as a Christmas present, but you have been so wonderful with all of the difficulties that you deserve the fun of pre-holiday diversion. I wish they were better, and they are better on the screen. Ballinamona, for example, comes out luminous. But the weather was bad, and my shutter finger has lost its touch. The round tower is at the shrine one passes after the Sallygap en route between Waterford and Dublin. Anyhow they go with my love.

I forgot yesterday when I wrote to say that we wakened yesterday to temperature in the 20's and the furnace broken down. Fortunately the repair man came promptly, so we were being warmed actually before we had finished breakfast. Meanwhile I had lighted a fire in the study, fortunately having persuaded the wood dealer to bring us a half cord last week, after a three week's delay since it was ordered. It is maddening; Susan will order and they often do nothing--- then I phone in a gruff voice and they do what was asked in a day.

I forgot too to write that I took Sachie's ms with me for Horace to read and then Pat will give it to the poetry editor at Knopf. They both like Sachie's things very much, although Pat was worried because there was no prior British publisher to supply sheets (the usual American dodge for cutting costs to nil), and they had just taken a book of poems by Richard Murphy who is Pat's Irish friend. But I always respect Horace's reactions, and his and Knopf's would give me a good line for another house. I thought Knopf first, then perhaps Viking second.

Three letters were in the morning's mail, two of the 7th and that for the 8th. And a mystery yellowback from England, tho perhaps not. It was posted 6 November. I had thought you were not there when I began the paragraph but of course this was posted after Ireland. I have been back through the two from England and the two from Switzerland (since I left in early October) and find nothing from Helen with Christian's address. Perhaps it is in one that will come still later.

Naturally I can't tell you how glad I am that you finally called Krahenbühl yourself. Now we will at least have known if anything can be known. And I am not at all sorry that you went with Elsie to Zurich, for you will be there to get a first-hand report. Not from Elsie but from the doctor directly.

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

I think you must insist on talking with him both about his opinion and the
prognosis. He will be fair with you, and this will help not only your own
plans but those for Elsie's immediate family. Men like Hans, everywhere, have
a habit of not wanting to take over--especially if as you say Elsie has
habitually bullied him. I expect his wife does too.

I agree that I see no reason why you cannot manage with Ines
alone at Kenwin until the next fall. She can cook well enough for your guests,
an you can simply use Nicholas or another oftener to take guests out for
dinner. As we do. Susan seldom has anyone to the house for meals, except
for the two girls and the grandchildren. It is the way of our time.

Good for Kenneth! I know he would come up if he could help. And
I'm glad the doctor is dropping the depressants and urging a little mild
exercise. Sluggishness is hard on anyone.

Christmas! I must get at our Christmas cards now that the shopping
is chiefly done. I always hope Susan can do a few but she is so busy around
the house that this usually falls on my fingers.

Poor Ines. But surely she does realise that Elsie is not well, and
not to be judged on normal terms. You are lucky to have her. Don't forget the
little present at the bottom of one of your bundles. All are wrapped except for the
record, which I thought you might want to play pre-Christmas.

Depp snow with you--drizzle, sleet and slush with us. I only hope
the weather doesn't turn to freezing.

All love and courage as always,

11 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

Had a luncheon meeting of the council of the Connecticut Academy. You remember I was enveigled into councildom by Ingholt. My friend Frederick Pottle is now president, and so I remain. Not much of earth-shaking importance was transacted but enough of the afternoon was consumed so that I shall get nothing done. And tonight I take Susan to see the Joseph Heller play "We Bombed in New Haven." In academic communities one hears only the war.

On the way to the luncheon I posted packages, those I had
wrapped yesterday. Plus the photographs to you. I apologize for their
quality, but thought they might give you a fantasy life to relieve the
chill of Kenwin. My only excuse is the weather. Yes, and the quality of
the reproductions -- that of the fence with the Sallygap waterfall in
the distance is breathtaking when projected. I have a set for Petrie.

Your letter of the 9th was in the noon mail. I was wrong. I thought Elsie occasionally cooked the roast, as when we are there, knowing that she always repeated how poorly Ines cooked but that we have always thought the food excellent. One thing I do admit, she (Elsie) is a most meticulous shopper. Well, one can't hire a temporary housekeeper, so you will have to take over for a time, using your apprenticeship with Tigerli. I am sorry about your having to take over the accounts too. Would Marie Anne be pleased to be asked to do that?

I had almost forgotten Lester Littlefield. You recall that
he was the one that wanted to share a palazza with you on the canals of
Venice. He must be prospering to be able to send Marianne checks. I
agree it is better simply to ignore the letter. What can one say without
becoming involved in a dialogue. At eighty most of us begin economic timidity,
and there is even a certain dognity-cum-modesty in so doing. Half of New
York alternates calf's-foot jelly and carnations as tribute, and are equally
happy to bring string-beans and greenbacks. Her retaining fee from the New
York is equal to an upper middle class income. She has been generous to her
brother but you can be sure she has kept a piggy-bank. And she does get
really immense fees for sports books and things of that sort. No, if there
is money to give, Horace and Marya need it more and the old dames who are
not great dames still more urgently. Don't misunderstand me, Littlefield
isn't at all trying to con you, nor is Marianne. And it is rather touching
both that he gives and tries to get others to help. (What bliss it must have
been to Marianne to have a $50 and then $89 a month Brollyn pied-a-terre!)

A nice letter as always from Perdita. (I am trying not to call her
Pup.) I am delighted they have the rowboat back (one is to be my birthday
present to Justus next spring on his 10th), but I must say I think Mrs Bashkin
might be tweaked as well as praised. One does not sell any honest rowboat
for $5.00, and therefore one does not buy one without inquiry. She had reason
to be contritite, and perhaps a stimulus was the fact that others too might
have read the ad and later recognized the boat. Ambrose Bierce defined

constance as "that little something that urges you to confess when you know you'll be caught."

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I have spent what there has been free of the day in writing Christmas cards. I cannot imagine a comparable way of attaining Scroogedom. My fingers ache from the cliches I have written. And, in the end, only some fifty were finished. I always hope that Susan will have time to address some of them, but it never works out that way. And when I look at my desk and what needs to be finished there, I simply groan.

Last night we went to see Heller's "We Bombed in New Haven," and although there are moments when I am tired of Vietnam -- the writers unite only for that -- I must say this was a lively and pointed play. It was done by the Yale Drama School's repertory theatre, and had its first performance here. Whether it eventually will be done in New York I don't know. But I should think it would.

The rain has poured steadily since last night, and everything is chilly and damp. I shall have soup tonight at the Lawn Club to warm me up, for we eat there before going to the Woolsey Hall concert series. Sunday night, as I think I told you, we had the party given for American Studies by my successor as Chairman. Our appearance, at least, was called for.

No letter from you today, but there was a nice one from Hilda Quick thanking for the bird book I asked you about and you thought she might like. On a sort of gull which is common to the Scillies as well. Ur, no, becoming uncommon though still there. I will send over. She really did seem pleased. This was not a charge to your account tho she may mention it since I cited your permission to send it to her.

I took another lot of magazines to Gallup for the Rare Book Room Collection. None as from you, simply those I had once subscribed to on my own. Plus a couple of old books I bought years ago and which no longer really fit into my or our collections. I must keep on weeding, or there will be no room for next year's flowers. Two bundles have come from Brimmell, but I mentioned the titles to you some time ago.

Hope you got through your Zurich trip safely. Needless to say I am anxious for the next letters.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

Another day of haphazard Christmas preparations. I drove first to the bank to get clean bills to hand out variously to maids and others. Then out to the jewelers to have a new battery put in the Accutron. It had begun sometimes losing sometimes gaining a bit, and it has been over the period of a year when one is supposed to renew it. Then to my HGS office with mail collected at the mail room, only to find a man putting down the rugs in the hall and secretary's office. It looks fine but is so thick the door can hardly be opened from outside. But fortunately the administrators have said (rather surprisingly) that they will trim off the metal door sufficiently. The rest of the rug, in my own office, is to be put down Saturday I am told. I only wish you could be here to hang your stocking Christmas Eve on one of the bookshelves. But all this done and arranged for, there was not much time before noon and my taking out two of the Jonathan Edwards editors to luncheon.

But I have mailed a Christmas book or two to my brother, and one or two elsewhere (you are now finished with I think), and from then on I have been carding.

Oh yes, I did forget to tell you that a priest came up to me yesterday bearing greetings from my former student who is now a bishop in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The priest was full of gossip about Father Shannon, now Bishop Shannon, said he had been made a bishop to keep him from being President of Catholic University (in Washington D.C.), was expected to be Archbishop of Saint Paul, and now was even being mentioned as Archbishop of New York to take Spellman's place. What éclat to have had a cardinal for student! But I suspect the red hat is somewhat distant for him still, so I must be careful not to die until Shannon can arrange matters at a high level for me in Heaven.

I was delighted at noon to get your last letter from Kenwin, and then in the late afternoon your first note from the Glock. We have been lucky not to have your snow. You were lucky to make the trip without being snowbound. Sorry that Joan was not feeling so well, but I dare say she has now used up her store of cached energy accumulated during her convalescence. So long as her spirits are good this counts most. Was glad she could make conversation with Elsie. It is a blessing not to have to carry all conversation under strain. #Many thanks too for the clipping in your letter of the 10th. And for the rolled newsprint which arrived today and had been sent by you from London. All Philbytis material. I had not seen so much made about the quota. I agree that we ought to look into the matter, but also with the man who thought the ones wanted would manage to get in. Fortunately for you you are much wanted. We can discuss all this in Copenhagen if you manage to get there.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I write only briefly, after the gym and before going home. I made plaintive little crawls to the mail room today, hoping that perhaps there might be something from you as of after Elsie's appointment. Alas, nothing all day. But perhaps tomorrow morning there will be. I only hope everything went well, though I am not sure how I should define this except as well for you.

Took a Japanese visiting scholar to lunch today, but aside from that spent the hours dutifully with cards. I have a number left which require more or less of a letter (the shorter than a true letter) and I will work on those tomorrow. They at least reduce my backlog. So far I have done somewhat over 250.

I weep a little to think that the Congress has raised the postage again. Not on the guff sent third class to "Householder." There is too great a lobby on that. Nor on the airmail rate to Europe. But from 5 cents to 6, on first class, and some other changes. Only two days ago I bought a new roll of 500 five-cent stamps. Think of the penny stamps I shall have to lick. Meanwhile I am using as many as I can on greetings. And will send nothing but them, in multiples, on letters to you. It will be a nuisance later, since 6 cent stamps won't multiply evenly for letters to you.

Last night was greeting cards too. I am becoming stupified by them. The poor King of Greece doesn't seem to have called his shots very well. But what a royal history there has been ever since Otho. And Queen Fredericka was a recent terror, too recent I think. I doubt that all this will make the slightest difference to tourists but I am glad I saw it before. History repeats itself. When I was at Oxford the Greek royal family was being supported by the Horlick malted milk family. Am Ursula Horlick went about with my clique, and I recall how once in rage she hurled a can of rival malted milk through the glazed window. Not my can, I never drank her or anyone else's malted milk. I found it loathsome.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

15 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

At last a letter came from you in the noon mail, or rather
one-for-two since it took care of both the 12th and the 13th. I only wish
I could put my arm around you, or rub under your ears, or woof to make
you smile. This is sheer hell, and hellissima that you should have to
carry this burden now.

I do hope somehow that the doctors will not simply give
examinations but sit down to every possible test, to see whether she
has had a slight stroke or whatsoever. It might, just might, be worth
bringing her over for a Prutting. At least one knows that he would
keep at it until the answers are known. At any event I hope that you
yourself will confer by word of mouth in his presence with the head
surgeon, and not depend on Elsie's transmission. It is worthless to
trust to the other; she would not understand and he would not tell
the whole truth. If you haven't done so, I beg of you to make a
special trip to Zurich to do do. Something is very very seriously
wrong, and it must be identified.

But then I don't need to tell you all this; you know it
too. Telling it simply relieves my own sense of helplessness in not
being there to take over for you. Not that you would work on the memoirs
or your secret new novel, because your mind would be too much on Elsie.
But at least you could play your records. Do for God's sake play the
Tolkien. It is not wrapped so no virginity is being violated by breaking
a holiday tissue maidenhead.

Yes, of course you are right. It was deGaulle's joke about
a naked Brittania crawling to him. Not, as he said, that he had anything
against nudity--certainly not as a Frenchman. Only that Brittania wasn't
in good form yet, one gathered, and neither excitable to him nor worthy
of his embrace. I gather he is at last being slapped by the other European
nations!

We go this afternoon to the engagement party of the daughter
of one of Susan's first cousins, the engagee a Susan herself. Then Susan's
sisters and the husbands of two come to Goodrich Street for dinner. Fortu-
nately we have a maid who will serve and wash the dishes.

Usually Saturday's mail has nothing from you, but perhaps
tomorrow I will be luckier, for I long to have you back at your typewriter
even if only for me.

All love and courage,

Norman

A letter (airmail) from young Susan to us at the Greenvill,
which arrived there Oct 24. It was returned airmail to Goodrich, D.
and arrived yesterday!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I feel much better now that I found your two of the 13th in a Saturday's mail (when normally there is nothing). "Better" that is, because one feels a little more au courant, but hardly better because of the news. I am sorry about Blum's kick, but find it simply one more example of the chasm that exists between the doctor and the patient. There was much to be said for the concept of the old "family doctor" who did feel a personal interest and sense of responsibility. Today the specialist, and oddly enough the psycho-analyst considers himself a specialist rather than an ecologist, will hardly volunteer even a suggestion. Certainly he does little to suggest solutions for the problem. I think it a basic failure, for if a Blum does not really understand the total situation of an Elsie how can he effectively help her. Somewhat the same objections prevail to the surgeons. But the more fundamental source of weakness is the disappearance of the general practitioner. In England the idea of a g.p. is actively discouraged by the government; but almost everywhere the young doctor knows he will go farther and easier as a specialist. One reason Prutting succeeds so well is that despite panache he has an old-fashioned heart and sense of personal responsibility for his patients.

Do risk another kick and talk to the surgeon. Ask him *how* you can manage to get her into a home, and *what* sort of deterioration she is actually suffering. Then with whatever you can glean from him and Blum, go to your own local g.p. and throw yourself on his mercy to persuade Elsie she must retire to a home. Otherwise I see no alternative but to put the whole thing on Elsie's own family, on Hans and whoever else there may be. You simply cannot be expected to go on coping.

I was probably unclear about my procks. Like yourself I have one flu shot in early fall, with a booster in mid-winter. What I get monthly are shots against the common cold. With some people they don't seem to work; with me they do, or I think they do.

As I indicated in a recent letter I don't think there will be even the question of helping the Gregories for a good many months yet. I doubt very much whether he will even be out of the hospital before next summer. I certainly don't think there is any call on you for more, and as for myself I really can't either. Before it was a matter of life and death with him, and now we are all glad he is alive. But they must somehow learn to cope with what is after all, on a comparative basis, a better than average net income. No, I suppose not that really. But perhaps you and I both have accustomed them to think of cornucopias.

If Marie Anne is good at books, might she not be willing to add a little by working over Elsie's accounts until they are in order again? It is most disconcerting to think Elsie has not drawn out her salary recently.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Sunday, 17 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

The Library has been closed all day today, and so I have
been at HGS trying to read offprints and books in order to thank for
them belatedly on Christmas cards--a great convenience since the length
of the missive is curbed. I ought of course to write you a card to
thank for the safe arrival of the Olivia Shakespeare novel. I have not
read it yet but will at least look at it, and regard it as the beginning
of a collection. Fortunately not an extensive one.

The carpetmen came yesterday afternoon while I was at work in
HGS and finished laying the golden fleece on the floor. Now with the
help of a sleeping bag the rooms would make an elegant dormitory. Alas,
for the moment the aut orities still haven't trimmed the door into the
hallway, and now the rug is too thick for the door to close into my per-
sonal room (it will into the secretary's) so this too must be shaved.
Meanwhile the rug is lifted up into a curl against the door. Things
march and I am already tempted to do most of my reading here. Next week
or after New Year's, more probably, I shall go into New York and see if
I cannot find two standing damps that will do.

This being shut out of one set of offices, without having both
properly supplied is a black mark against my administrative abilities.
For I have run out of ink, my fountain pen is dry, and were it not for a
ballpoint some workman left I would not even be able to give this letter
a terminal salute.

But before I do what ballpoints can, let me face up to another
facet of disorderliness. I keep chiding you for not speaking directly to
Elsie's surgeon in Zurich, or running to Blum to talk about the future,
or speaking with whoever is her G.P. in Vaud. This is nonsense on my
part. Would you like me to fly over for a few days and do it myself,
and somehow help you to find some solution for the problem. Susan too
feels that if it would help you in any way I should. The real question
is whether it actually would help you to be able to discuss the matter.
If it would disturb Elsie or give her suspeciō to have me in the house,
we could meet in Zurich or even in Lausanne. If it is just to discuss
the matter I could fly over one day, have a day with you, and then fly
back. Thanks to what has come back from Horace's insurance I have
plenty in the bank to take care of the fare, so this doesn't enter into
the problem at all. I have been stupid in not seriously having offered
to before. But I have been waiting to hear the reports from the surgeon
and Blum, since all was mystery before. Now I fear it still is.

All possible love

Norman

full of unpleasant gossips about a disgusting crowd of people." Strachey's England is not their England, obviously.

18 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I may have to sit guard in my HGS office this afternoon if they come to fix the door into the hallway. I had another conference with them earlier in the morning, and they promised to phone. So far they haven't. Meanwhile I don't know whether to go out for an early lunch or not.

Your letter of the 14th was in the early mail. We must have some sort ESP between us, for it must have been just as I was writing to suggest you play the record in advance that you said you had done just that. I'm glad it entertained. Perhaps if I ever get to Kenwin again I can hear it there. How odd it was about the letter that slipped into your package. I re-posted it this morning. Some lad in Vietnam will have been waiting for it. Am glad you liked the Carnevali review. Sometimes I think readers don't recognize just how much I try to pack into a sentence, by implication or by ton e as well as by statement. For example, when I wrote that most of the lonely ones read Jean Christophe I doubt that many stopped to think what that book was about. Carnevali did treat it like a bible, and himself as a Jean.

How interesting that Elsie should be suspicious that you were talking with her doctors, and that she should feel you ought not to. I have an awful feeling that taking care of her in her later years is going to be a problem for anyone. She will make life hell for everyone. If I come I am sure we had better meet in Lausanne rather than at Kenwin. Elsie simply would not permit it. As to Blum, I agree--he ought to have told you or Hans. But many analysts are irresponsible in the g.p. sense.

Cards pour in and a few get sent out. I have been reading offprints and thanking for them. Eric White sent a card with a poem about a hermaphrodite and a picture of an ambivalent monument. But is it a picture of a hermaphrodite? My experience with one is too limited. I thought one might be fun, but this particular example has little appeal. I sent Miss Bowra a draft for £10/-/- instead of the cartons of salmon I gave when Miss Hitchock was alive. Your example of the usefulness of the pound. She was delighted, and is buying a rug and curtains for her bathroom. She continues to be grateful for her new flat. It was a blessing you could help her. I enclose a note from the Lidderdale which you might keep for your records in case of any question. # A card from Marya. People, she says, are asking for the chance to reprint their history of American poetry; it should be. She says "Harcourt refused to reprint it--or to let anybody buy it--so far. As usual we found we gave away the copyright. We never read contracts--never thinking of books selling. The same as Horace did with the Ovid--alas, going into many printings!!" and paperback." She goes on to hope Horace can come home for over Christmas, and goes on to a book which I should read "if you want to know the horror and narrowness of the present literary scene--this will tell you why it is like that--if you haven't read the book. It made me blue for days." I haven't got time to read even the thinks to make me bright. "Then the proof sheets of the new Lytoon Strachey biography which Horace refused to read after a quick glance,

what the discovery was about). I asked about Mary, and he said she was much better than for many years. That seemed to be the limit of the conversation, so I went on. I didn't try to send a Christmas card this year; we have for the past two, but he stopped after making his speak.

Good lord! This may be your last Christmas. I can't guarantee a happy one for you, love, Norman.

19 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

Rather a hodgepodge of goodies to divert you are enclosed. But I somehow feel that diversion can be useful.

I spoke to you, as I remember, about my plan of making a little gift to the Irish Georgian Society in the name of Robin and Petrie. I really could not pay them for their kindness to us, but I could do this. I sent £100/-/- so that it have a little more impact. Petrie's letter which I enclose could not have been nicer. And I liked the idea of Guinness using green ink for his signature. Castletown, as you may know, was last owned by first cousins (I think 'first') of Robin's, and when we went through it with Petrie she knew where every stick of furniture had stood. The present curator, too, is a young woman who had been a schoolgirl friend of Oona.

Destroy the clipping about plane fare, but both Susan and I thought it amusing. Claiborne is, I think, one of John's clients.

The Philby clipping you might yellowback sometime, unless you have a special use for it. I send it because the European papers and Times are not so likely to include the whole of the interview with Philby. You will see that my prediction that he would build himself up into a hero is now true. He is using all the cliches ( i.e., he gives the idea that he was really loyal by working for the truest interests of England). He gives the dashing James Bond image of sex, drink, and derring-do. He has also become the master politician --using that eloquent word about himself -- the "politician comes first", not the spy --- who advises on Russian policy towards Africa and arranges by blackmail ("whitemail" I suppose since it is washed by the higher loyalty) for the exchanges of spies. Here I think it is all beginning to go to his head. I was much interested in his open references to Graham Greene. Greene, I suspect, will not like this. Though it gives him dash too. But really, I ought to ask myself, do I say these men need dash. They had it, and Philby will be remembered.

Your letter of the 15th was in the morning mail. Letters are taking a little longer because of the Christmas mail. I am so relieved that you called Sarasin. I am glad he confirmed what I feel about the impossibility of your taking complete command. After all, one is no longer so young as before; after all again, you have responsibilities as a writer and towards others. And Elsie is altogether likely to be impossibly difficult even if one were to devote one's entire life to her. This would not be a rational act on her part, not a thing really to blame her for but just what happens. A doctor or someone will have to talk to Hans. I only do hope they can take her for Christmas. If not, you must simply shut your eyes and ears and mind and float off to Hobbitland for your gifts. This is maddening about the diaries. Here one can inscribe any book and include it, even a note, saying Get Well, with love from Nellie, and no change in the rate is made. This is after all only logical. Why not bundle up all the diaries in one box marked books (which they are), and send air parcel post to me, and I can readdress and stamp as from here. I get a number of Christmas cards sent out in that way from Europeans who have friends in Oskosh mail them.

I forgot to tell you I saw Leslie two days ago at the xerox counter. He did not see me and I was tempted to go by, but did speak. he seemed well though preoccupied with a discovery he made in an old French encyclopedia (I don't know

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

A quick second letter of the day, to answer yours of the
16th which was in the noon's mail. It would be splendid if Elsie
could be enveigled into a Kurhaus for over the holidays. It would do
her good and might even reconcile her for a longer stay. One is
tempted to think that if she could be persuaded to remain for the
winter, for example, everything would be much clearer by summer.
And she would have been able to be purely and uninterruptedly Swiss.
I can sympathize with what a grim picture it is to think of having
to sit by grim people.

Glad you like the Ballinamona pictures. These are prints
rather than original negatives and so cannot be projected. You'll
have to take them as they are, and wait until you are in the States
to see them thrown on the screen from the negatives that I have kept
here.

I was confused about pencils and diaries, thinking you
meant you had written a little gift-note in pencil in each. But
the truth is even more absurd than my error.

We shall miss going to Spinks. Judging from what we saw
in the inner office I am sure that only the huge deals will be worth
HQ handling. My own man in New York for example must laugh at my
occasional hundred dollar purchase of eskimo carvings when he shows
me checks for $14,000 from the Cleveland Museum. The difficulty is
the younger Phippen will not be offered things. I gather he didn't
altogether have his father's flair, and this may have had something
to do with the sack. Otherwise he could have been advanced to the
bigger deals.

I see there are still rumbles about the Arts Council move.
It may well be that relatively small sums are "still spent on the arts",
but I thought the point was that the sums, being relatively small, ought
not to be diverted to posh rents.

A letter from Maitre Coigny enclosed a check from you for
$1,000 for the new car. I am really grateful. It will be an immense
help, but you ought not to have done it when there is such need for
dames-dough. I will put it carefully in the savings account against
the spring.

I have not by the way, since the devaluation, written New
Jersey about the new car, thinking that perhaps you might prefer to
put it off until next spring when things had settled down a little.
If you should decide to put it off until then it would not be an
inappropriate decision for a winter takes much out of a car, and the
salt on the road hurts the finish. Indeed you may feel it better to

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I myself got much less done today than I thought I should. But others got things accomplished for me, especially the two doors in my HGS office that had to be trimmed for the rugs. The men were there at 8 a.m., and I had to be there too to sit guard while the entrance to the hall was a gap in a hole. Actually the metal door which had to be taken to the workshop was back by 10:30, but thinking I might be tied down until noon I had asked the visiting New Zealander to come to pick up some books at ten. He is an ex-Irishman and extremely talkative and lonely, despite his wife and five children. This was his chance and he took the most of it for an hour and a half. So there was little time before the visiting Frenchman came for lunch. The New Zealander is a poet, so is the Frenchman (and a novelist too), and neither seems as interested in footnotes as in their own verse. They were done and I can now go on to the others in a similar category. My successors in administration simply do nothing, which is a pity since the visitors get almost no American experience.

Nothing in the mail from you today.

I forgot to say that Adam's Dorothy Richardson number arrived. I thought yours was much the best, although I found Wadsworth's somewhat interesting. Wasn't he the one who really did awfully little for D.R. at the end. But on the whole I was disappointed in the number and thought it did very little for D.R.'s reputation. Not that it hurt it any.

I had an attractive card from Eric this morning, with a note enclosed. The contents were almost identical with the one he wrote you.

I enclose, almost in lieu of things to say, the excerpt from a letter by the Hon. Caroline Norton about flogging. NOT to buy, just for your interest. Curiously I thought what she had to say made a certain sense. For there is so much injustice in adult life that one might as well get used to it. We train youth now for featherbeds.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

21 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 17th was in the morning mail. None yesterday. By now you will have been back from Zurich and one wonders what you will have found out. In one sense it is encouraging that Elsie is seeing a psychiatrist at the main hospital; in another I am still uneasy unless she has a complete physical checkup. I can't help but feel that something physical underlies the rest, but paa. is so understandably used to psychosomatic situations that I think they tend to overlook the other. Still, one bows to the will of the gods. If it were just Elsie I should be sorry of course but willing to let her steer her own course; the difficulty is that everything involves you, and that is a much different matter.

Glad the Tolkien record sustains. I only realized this morning that the music for the songs was written by the At the Drop of a Hat man. He writes very mild pleasant tunes. As to the Elvish folk talking in a French pronunciation I suppose that is proper enough. Does DeGaulle sound Elvish?

You are not the only one to become confused. I dressed solemnly in black today to go to the funeral of a friend, and older professor now long since retired. I checked carefully in the paper before I left and found the service to be a 3 rather than 2:30, bringing the paper along so I would know where to send money instead of flowers (customary now). I forgot whether it was 3, checked here, found it was 3 but on the 28th not today.

I need not undress tonight, for tomorrow at 11 we go to the funeral of Susan's aunt, her mother's sister, aetat 84 and little more than a vegetable for the last several years. Her husband has been tied down since she was unvegetable enough not to want a nurse. Fortunately they have plenty of money, and there are two daughters who will manage.

Elsie's really beautiful calendar arrived yesterday, though I am glad the local postmen are not like those in New York who send back if a digit is out of place. What did she mean by Grait. In German that is. I will thank her after Christmas when I know what the situation is.

Ines sent a very lovely card; please tell her how much we enjoyed it and wish her a happy New Year for us.

Last night we hung Christmas cards on the cloth that pendants on one wall. It looks very gay, though few are distinguished this year.

Thought you might be amused by the enclosed: Sir Thomas Browne, Elizabeth and Robert Browning, Sir Egerton Brydges, and YOU.

Will see you next week get a copy of the Waughs letter.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 18th was in the noon mail, and I write in reply in the hour I had expected to funeralize. Oddly I am somewhat relieved that the difficulty has been analyzed as arterio sclerosis. Now one knows! And that being so one can perhaps begin to plan. It is the blank of blackness that gets me down. I was very sure, from every symptom, that there was a physical basis for her trouble. And it is altogether likely that this has been developing for as long as the last couple of years. I feel sure it has. And now if only she will take to Dr Parin, he can give Elsie a new order for existence, starting inevitably with a longish period at a home or sanitarium. My feeling is that if she once gets in such a place, and all goes reasonably well, she will not want to risk Kenwin and the cold and the stairs until spring comes. By that time much will have been sorted out, I pray so.

Bless Sarasin for his help and intervention. He has the old virtues. I trust him completely.

A long letter from Marya today, saying that the Rusk Hospital "made a checkup very carefully & found that Gara is not a registered surgeon--probably a general practitioner. The poor devil is a refugee or of refugee origin, much younger than he looks I was told, probably Pat's age and got his education somewhere abroad???" And so on. I will send the letter eventually, when I have answered it. I don't know what they mean by "registered"--obviously he has passed his medical boards or no hospital would employ him. It is not that bad to be a refugee, or even younger than one looks. I could comment at great length but it all has to do with whether Horace is or is not to have the new operation. But in the end she says, "Horace is coming home on Christmas--they want to keep him on and on and perform a small operation, but they admit its risky. Anyway I'll keep in touch with the Rusk and Horace has had some improvements and wants to get back to work. He says he can't stand it anymore--neither can I. I need a doctor too but am afraid of the locals. I may be able to see Prutting once a month. I do so hope Elsie is better. Poor Bryher seems so worried. Do let me know what you hear, please." I will.

A yellowback came late yesterday, with two other letters from Marya in it. I don't know why Marya thought we didn't enjoy our Irish trip. Perhaps because I talked about the rain. I still wish life didn't seem quite such a battlefield to her. I didn't know that Dudley Fitts was going to be attacked. One reviewer did, but in a daily paper in Chicago. Horace's review was excellent, however and more than made up. The story of the Glikin seemed different from the way Rose described it. But well, if nothing really happens we can only get along by imagining it does. I am always interested in how very literary in manner Pat's letters are. He is by nature withdrawn but fortunately does not conjure up devils.

Does Marjorie's letter indicate that we should keep in mind a similar subsidy for her memoirs, to that for Petrie's and Hilda's? I should think this was much on her mind, and I might be able to manage it say as of next Fall. You must not try to do it yourself, of course, under the present circumstances. I am talking about my doing it.

Cards continue to pour in from firmer students and the like. I try to answer now in order to take the advantage of brevity. But I must write Horace a Christmas letter and enclose his first of the year allowance.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

22 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

It is with a kind of panic that I realize that the Library closes in 15 minutes and will not be open again until Tuesday. So much remains to be done, and there is simply not the time. A leave of absence is sheer fantasy at this time of year. Much of course has actually been gotten out of the way, but I shudder to pick up again next week.

Your note of the 19th came this noon. I shall be egger to know what sarasin's friend says. I am not altogether surprised that they cannot hope to get Elsie into a hospital without after the New Year. Everyone goes home from hospitals now, the staff is short-handed, perhaps if you can stick it it's better after all to have her at Kenwin and work on from there. Yes, close Kenwin in february and join me for a few days in Copenhagen. I will have brought my typewriter and I can lock you up in the room there. There will be snow, no doubt, but warmth.

I went to the funeral this morning dutifully, and then to the Grove Street Cemetery, across the street from Yale, for the internment. It poured hard and I stood bravely in the rain. But the men were told we could keep our hats on during the service, lifting them in respect at the end.

The various maids and janitors have been given their Christmas greenery. Mrs Gunn, in HGS, who by the way was most grateful for her card from you from Ireland, was so pleased with her greenback that she gave another rendition of her talk on the likes of me being so kind to the likes of her, and what a good man I was, and how I reminded her of Cardinal Spellman. But she forgot to add whether the resemblance came from the fact that the Cardinal is now dead.

Marya wrote a follow-up card about Dr Gara which explained things better. "No deception of course. This is just a little note which I owe you in justice to Gara. Patrick came home today and told me that both Gara & the hospital told him that Gara was not a surgeon but a general practitioner. It was an emergency & they had no one (this sounds bad enough) so they got him on I don't know what experience. Pat kept it from me and of course Horace was not fully conscious --it was a surprise to me and to him and to the Rusk. They say the little hospitals near NYC are dreadful. It's true few of our neighbors use them I know! I would have panicked if I had known so I suppose Pat was right in not telling me."

I forgot to tell you I splurged a few weeks ago, and for $10.00 bought from 'rimmell and original pen and ink illustration by S.L.Wood to Marryat's *Children of the Forest*, the 1905 edition. I am always one should have illustrative material to brighten up shows and exhibitions.

A letter from Pantheon today says their children's editor had come to a "negative decision on the book by H.D." I'm sorry. Maybe another opportunity will arise. he also writes, "Just a note to tell you that our production people have come back to us with costs for reprinting Beowulf and, alas, these are exorbitantly high. As you know, the costs of printing have gone up enormously in the last months, and we have to suffer from this constantly. Their suggestion is that the price on the book be increased to $4.50, and I wonder if this meets with your approval." Unless you howl to the contrary I shall say yes, raise the price. It's still cheap as books now go on this side.

Christmas will have been over when you read this. I hope you are still on your feet. You have my sympathy and

All love for the new year
NORMAN

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, but your Christmas cable more
than made up. I can't tell you how relieved I am to know that Elsie
has been able to go to a hospital and that you can spend the holiday
quietly at home. Things aren't ended, but all this is very much like
a reprieve. Inez will, I know, take good care of you. And you can
be blessedly quiet knowing that for a little while Elsie will be in
good care. One fights for time.

We woken this morning to find everything white with
snow. The weatherman had not warned us. Fortunately the man came
at breakfast time and cleared the driveways. He even stood in the
back of his truck, to gain height, and poked down the snow from the
roof. Unfortunately it came down on him and the trunk of the truck.
His assistants roared with laughter.

I spent the morning, first getting Christmas cookies from
the bakery, and then in a long string of delivering Christmas gifts,
wrapped by Susan, to the lonely Japanese. Fortunately I discovered
at the last moment that I had inscribed a book to the wrong man. A
trip to the Co-op and a copy of Cummings's poems rectified that. This
one the Co-op wrapped.

Then to the shore to give a Christmas check to the caretaker
and his assistant. I really feel I must do this in person. You would
have been excited by the black sea and dark clouds and white-blanketed
rocks, with a stream of sunlight to heighten the contrast.

After lunch we put the tree in its stand and into the corner
of the living room where the Ghandaran Bodisatva head usually reigns.
Susan is busy with greens over the mantelpieces and holly in appropriate
spots. She always revives a little when she is decorating.

I do thank you for letting me know about Elsie.

All love as always (Not as the Adam wishes love wish I to you)

NORMAN

24 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I am in luck. I came down to the office this Sunday
afternoon, briefly, to bring a hammer and picture hooks to put
up a last few on the walls and get them off my desk. But em route
here I realised I had no stamps, so that I might write you a last
before-Christmas note but would not be able to post it. Once here
however I discovered one of these aerogrammes.

Not that I have much to say. I worked last night cataloguing some books from the attic of Susan's Wright aunt (who died a year ago) which belonged to the Milliamns, Thumbulls, and Wrights. Finished it up this morning, so the sisters can now choose among them. Not really anything of any excitement, but pleasant for them to keep as souvenirs.

This morning too we decorated the Christmas tree. The
grandchildren are in New York with their father's family and will
take a late morning train here for a late lunch and then their tree
in the afternoon. I am giving Justus a tape-recorder which is what
he seems to want most. The little girl wants a toy stove that really
cooks. She is getting her wish too.

I really continue to be much relieved that you did manage
to get Elsie taken care of immediately. Actually she will be much
more comfortable, hence happier there than at Kenwin where she would
worry about the schloss. No matter what the eventual diagnosis is,
you will feel relieved to know that your intimations were not simply
a case of nerves on your own part. And altho this has been a hell of
a year for you, the future should be much simpler in at least a few
ways.

Two Swiss yellowbacks came yesterday. One with only letters
from me in it, the other one more general. I was particularly interested
in the Mrs Philby contribution-- sentimental, as you called it, it no
doubt is, but it does give me an angle or two I hadn't had before. On
of course the purely personal side. Your friend, and Hope Muntz's,
certainly is making every research record on their manuscript. I have
rather forgotten why the manuscript is worth the effort, but in one
sense everything is. ++ I hadn't realised that Islay had had a new
turn down of his manuscript. I wonder if anything really can be done.
++ Chester Page's letter seems to have a new confidence. he is right
of course -- the Negro today may deserve everything he gets but he
certainly has an advantage in getting it, at an administrative level.
There has to be a few black men at the front.

We drive at the end of the afternoon to Lizzie's house in
killingworth for supper, taking young Susan with us. A long drive
really, and I would prefer to stay home. But Lizzie wants to entertain,
her sister is naturally lonely, and this year the children are not here
to make too many. I am sure it will be pleasant, and Lizzie is an excell
cook. I believe some one has given her a pheasant he shot.

This won't much more than make you by the New Year, and I
salute you for it. Don't try to make visits to Zurich for Elsie as
frequently as for Hilda. You musn't set an impossible precedent.

MOISTEN FLAP WELL AND APPLY FREQUENTLY

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

26 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I made an mid-afternoon trip to HGS to see if there was anything in the last mail. But there was no mail for anyone. So I expect this is part of the holiday too. Actually the mail was light even this morning, when one considers how many days have passed without delivery. I suppose no one wrote from offices just before Christmas, and I doubt that postoffice clerks got to work early enough today to sort out what there was.

But I was most grateful for your letter of the 22nd which indeed was in the first delivery. I'm glad the postal-boys had time to sort this one out. No news in it of what went on in your conversation with the doctors at Zurich or in what sort of a place Elsie now is; but I can see that your return was to too much pre-holiday planning to allow for catching up. Do, however, fill me in if you get time. The good news was that you were at Kenwin again; the equally good news was that both boys had placed their books. May I congratulate them when I send Islay an offprint of a Ghaddaran article? Harvill was the firm that wanted to publish you, but you wouldn't allow to. I'm glad you don't feel he shouldn't.

Am not surprised at your report on the Browning volume. It was not as well received here, and I feel guilty about having sent it. However no doubt better than the absolute tripe about Kiki which was among your Christmas things. To you from me, I mean--not the opposite. The William Morris I was interested in, and will look at some time when on your side. You have spoken of Van Prinsep several times, and it was interesting he came in here. The name is unforgettable. But what happened to the boy. Did your father continue to look after him? I remember nothing about his being mentioned in the will.

Yes, draw away from present problems whenever you can. Although if meat at the butcher's is a problem don't draw away too much. As for the future don't think about it too much either, for the moment. A few weeks will clarify much.

I didn't get too much of the morning for work. Have paid a few bills, and among other letters written your friend Zandbergen to ask if he has suggestions of some single spot we could stay at for our fortnight in the Netherlands. So that Susan could see more than picture postcard views of the blossoms. My plan at the moment is to fly directly to the Netherlands on Monday April 29th (it must be a Monday because of the economy tickets) spend the next fortnight in Holland, when the bulbs should be at their best. It is always a gamble I am told. Then one sees. If you are still at Kenwin we could stop to see you there. Or perhaps fly to see the boys at the palazzo is they are back from the States. Or go to Venice where I never have been.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

27 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

I am in sheer agony. I sneezed when I got up this morning in an 18°F room, my nose began to run and has been at a gallop all day. I have taken pills and prayed. So far neither has been successful. Hold nothing against me if I sound grumpy.

Your letter of the 19th, from Zurich, was in the early mail. Otherwise nothing but I realise that because of Christmas I am not likely to hear from you until the end of the week, and then not again until the end of the following week. But I was glad to get some account of the visit with the doctor, which I had missed because of the shifted continuity of mail delivery. One is of course on the one hand sorry because of Elsie's illness; on the other hand I am relieved that things have come to a head. You really must not have her settle down again at Kenwin. She may be a little better for awhile but a disease of this sort never relaxes its grips. I think you ought to be firm about it, disagreeable as such firmness must necessarily be. After all one is allowed firmness on a certain number of occasions in one's life. This is such a moment for you. When Kenwin is sold Elsie can have her percentage share of it, plus whatever furnishings you think are actually hers (that is, will be used by her), and perhaps a trust fund arrangement. But remember that you will long outlive her, and daily expenses can be met otherwise than with a deed of gift. Take courage and be brave.

I thought you might be interested in Horace's reaction to the life of Carnevali. It arrived today though it was posted in New York on December 21st. Horace has lost none of his zip.

Last night I took Susan to see "The Playboy of the Western World." Inexplicably I had never seen it before. Well acted, more or less in 3½ round. Siobhan MacKenna directed it. I dutifully tried to get in touch with her, phoning, leaving notes etc in order to satisfy Pat's friend Richard Murphy -- well, our friend too. She finally called from New York on the afternoon she was leaving. I can't say I blame her for not wanting to see anyone; the life of a director is a tough one.

We were much excited to see in last night's local paper that the police had caught two juveniles who admitted among other robberies to one next door to us and to ours. Susan went to New York for her hair today, so I phoned the Hamden police to find if they had recovered anything for us. Susan so much wanted her father's shotgun back. Alas, they said the notice had been a mistake. The lads admitted the robbery next door but denied ours, even though it was the same evening. The police believe them, and I guess I must, for their pattern of robbery was always coins and small things they could carry in their hands. Never a t.v. as with us, which had been put in a car parked behind the neighbor's house.

Ypur last Co-op statement shows you have a credit of 99.71. So order like mad as you see fit.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

A true bonanza from you this morning--three letters, the 21st, and two of the 23rd. Odd that the one of the 22nd should have come almost a week earlier. I am sorry to have alarmed you by my anxiety to know what had happened before the 22nd. Now I do know. I am glad to know that Elsie is in German-speaking territory. This means much to her equanimity. The equanimity will not be complete, however, as you know. You must be careful not to let her develop a guilt complex in you: she would be no happier elsewhere, certainly not at Kenwin. Are you bad for her at this time? Yes, in an odd way. Being bad for her is simply being you in neighborhood. I am much struck by her statement that you write letters instead of novels which could bring in money. This only emphasizes what I have often said: you are the man of the family to her, the supporter, and she refers to you as perhaps every middle-class Swiss Frau refers to her man -- "not up to it, here I have to slave and sweat, and himself without a thought except his beer and the chance to come home and put up his feet while I work at the stove." Obviously the sexual elements enter into most corners of life, but with her it is more emotional and sexual. Having a man gives her a sense of belonging. But now the physical degeneration of older age has entered in, and the emotional aspect is no longer the dominant one--it only reinforces the physical. This is why, although it is true that a Prutting recognizes the psychiatric role in a patient, my complaint was that psychiatrists (although M.D.'s themselves) have mostly forgotten the physical elements.

Hans must cope as for her family. You must pretend that you take it for granted. This is strict Swiss protocol, and although he may wish it were otherwise he too will take it for granted. Indeed, who knows but that he may enjoy having the roles reversed, and take satisfaction in having a more dominant position vis-a-vis his traditional bully-sister?

Ines? Perhaps there is an industrial training school where she could be enrolled while you are away in February. Or she might study cooking if that was a way to fill her time. You will want to return to Kenwin until summer at least, and you ought not to try to be there alone. I am interested that she does not want to be alone in a kitchen--her true milieu is, as I once said, in the Italian village where she goes to the fountain for water and talk, and to the river for wash and talk and to the grocer for food and talk. You can't really give her this sort of talk, for you can't rattle on an on about babids and confession and my god what do you think the daughter of the baker did yesterday.

I suppose the mails will sort themselves out eventually. Everyone appears to have gone in to some sort of holiday lethargy during this period between Christmas and New Year's. The Japanese I suspect are smarter; they simply shut the nation down for a week at New Year's.

To return to your letters: No, under the circumstances Prutting could do nothing helpful for Elsie; if Joan were to come over it might be worth having him look. But I daresay she will be all right again.

I didn't know about the Judith recording of Edith. I wonder if they used this as part of the t.v. show on her I wrote you about. Certainly you should

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

save it; eventually it can go in the collection.

Glad you are thinking of Copenhagen. Haven't actually settled on the hotel yet but imagine it will be either the Palace or the Angleterre. It is easier for me not to have to manage in Danish, and I depend a good bit on having a taxi when I need it. Naturally it would be much nicer to have you with me; we need lots of half hours rather than a six-hour marathon. So why not swallow your pride and sleep between sheets? I don't think we'll have much trouble with accommodations at this time of the year. I'm also going on to Olso for a day and two nights, so that I can go over the dissertation of a Norwegian student doing his dissertation at Yale under me but now home again and teaching. This would give you a chance to see the Viking boats if you wanted to come mit. I would then fly from Oslo back to U.S.A. presumably via Frankfurt. I will arrange details the first thing next week when people are back at their desks. Meanwhile I slog away at my letters. This to you however was the first for the day. It was snowing lightly when I came to work, but they promise another, sparate storm later in the morning which will go on until tomorrow, leaving from six inches up. I have the funeral this afternoon, which I mistook for taking place last week. I may then go home if the roads appear to be growing difficult. Fortunately we have no place to go tonight, although tomorrow is Susan's birthday and I am taking her and another couple out to dinner.

A letter from Brimmell quotes six Dusty Diamonds we don't have, and two we do. Best of all it has a new English Henty: The Sole Survivors (1901) which you didn't have, and which Indiana (the Martin Collection) doesn't include. Not cheap but worth it. A Mayne Reid Cliff Climbers; Whistler's "avelock the Dane" (he seems to have specialized on the Vikings); Stables' Fearful Odds and his In the Dashing Days of Old; Kingston's Sunshine Bill; and Whitechurch Sadler, The Adventurous Voyage of the Polly. So your tiara grows a little.

I was disappointed that the Bow Windows book shop had already sold A Peep at the Esquimaux, which I had ordered from a catalogue. The title rather charmed me, as I envisioned holes drilled through the igloo walls.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 December 1967

(2nd)

Dearest Fido,

Unbelieveable luck! Three more letters from you in the noon mail. At last I am up to your Christmas Day. I am so glad some of the books worked out. It is sheer folly to give them to you; you have a book already, as they say. But I keep thinking, make this would interest, and this also. So they flood down upon you. But can pour out. I have no pride in seeing whilom gifts still on a shelf. Pass them along as indicated. As for Henty, I did think you needed your pinup. Elizabeth has her Kirk Douglas to bump against; you have your bearded crocodile. I pat myself for having discovered it in a catalogue and sending for it for your Christmas. God was with me, and kept other would-be buyers off. *The Geats* should have been for last Christmas, or was it two birthdays ago? Anyhow it has only now been published. The Kiki was a disappointment, but you can be like Horace with the Carnevali. The place-name book is more or less unique, and has only just been reissued. To me it is highly original and great fun; I hope it will give you a little diversion at least.

The cable? I hoped it would please Ines, and left out the Tiger as less relevant. Could the Tiger stay with Elsie at the hospital as part of her therapy? It could scratch back.

I know you are serious about knowing "a way out." I will make discreet inquiries. I share your feelings on the matter. I had an uncle, my father's brother, who took rat poisoning as the only solution after he became hopelessly crippled. I remember telling his son, my cousin, years afterwards how much I admired his father for doing this. He was amazed. "You mean it? You mean it wasn't shameful?" I did mean it!

Perhaps you really are a good Catholic, just as I remind Mrs Gunn of the Cardinal Spellman. We have our devoirs and we practise the communion of saints.

On the other hand, in terms of typewriters you apparently prefer the Holy Rollers.

Robert Kelly is a very "in" poet, who belongs to the clan of Creely, Duncan, Olson and that group. Because one of their chief saints is Hilda, he like the others made a pilgrimage to read the holy books that can be seen only at Mecca. I left, was it for Switzerland, just after his arrival which was why I left him with Mrs Sherman to read. He tells of the little toy seal on my bookcase, of the Gothic windows, of the closeness of HGS heating. So his mind turned, turned towards meditation upon her, conversation with her poems, analogies of copulation as closer contact. He apparently wrote the poem in my old 231 HGS office.

You should be grateful to Lady de Beer for bringing you a "little painting." You can accomodate that. What I shudder at is the gift of a canvass better suited for the walls of the Louvre. Interesting that her father was a painter. He must have worked with the fear of the Lord in him, if he shifted cloths. I am glad they came for tea, glad too that Marie Anne will have come for dinner.

Elsie's case with the gardener you will find paralled I am sure by the clerks in the market and butcher's shop. This will not basically change. I can only repeat: you must be firm. There really is no alternative. And you need not close Kenwin immediately just because of it. Stall for as long as you can, for each week will make the future clearer as to her condition.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

What a very nice picture it was of Chris's child. We shall want to
see them in Copenhagen. I will almost certainly have to go to Aarhus for one
day to see the Hansens, because of Susan's namesake. I should think you might
like to come to, to see that part of the country as well. We could have the
chance for a good conversation on the train. Or you could see Chris and his
wife once again.

Perdita, as always, writes a nice letter. I think this will have
been a particularly nice Christmas with the new house. They sent a greeting
card with a picture of the house on it. I meant to ask you, because of a
chance remark of Perdita's in a letter, whether or not she resented Susan's
calling her "Pup"? She had said she did not mind being that within the
family. To us she always says "You're family, of course," but she may not
mean it in that way. Most adults hate diminutives. I may sometimes say
Pup but mostly am careful to give the full name. Since neither of us wants
to hurt her feelings, do clarify for me. You may remember the occasion for
her comment.

I was much interested in the clipping about the Arts Council and
the repertory theatres. Alas, this is the inevitable difficulty when any
group controls so large an amount of donatable money. Even when no words
are spoken the prospective donees heel and tremble to do right. Otherwise
who gets the dog busquets?

from the Schaffners. Susan's was a cookbook on what to do with the other half of an egg. She read it through last night. Mine was a Diana Anthill. I did not, but will.

29 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

The afternoon draws towards an end and so do I. These pills I am taking for my cold really knock one out. I am doped in body and spirit. But it being Susan's birthday I mustn't of course throw in the sponge. I am taking her and the John Boppes (he is Mr Beowulf) to a Syrian restaurant where I have ordered a special dinner of native goodies, even getting a bottle of Turkish raki to with it. The wife of the restauranteur will have been preparing for it all day. Susan had her birthday letter yesterday, so your greetings were in good time.

I went home early, in the snow. And so did almost everyone so there was less than the usual confusion. Actually I got in with no difficulty, although early after dinner so much snow had smashed down from the roofs into a pile before the corner of the garage door that I should have had to stay outside. Before we had finished breakfast this morning our snow removal man was there with his helpers, and I had no excuse not to get to work promptly. About four inches came, with much more rain. Enough so that had it all been snow we would have had a foot. Today the sun has slushed everything up, but it has stayed cold enough so that most of the snow will stay.

Your letter of the 27th came this noon. How awful that mine of the 18th and 19th took over a week to be delivered to you. And it will happen all over again this coming weekend. We have no mail Sunday or Monday but otherwise are not delayed. Alas, the Library is not open tomorrow but I shall contrive things to do in HGS. Finally it was decided that the typewriter well of the desk is supplied could not be repaired (as promised) so now I have had them take the desk out and will have to buy one myself. However I think a smaller desk and a separate typing stand will take far less room. As it was, one could barely move.

I am sorry that Elsie seems so sluggish mentally, but continue to breathe with a sense of relief that at least she is not completely on your shoulders. The stories that come out are frightening. But good for you to hear and know. I should think the thing eventually to do would be to sell Kenwin for what one could get, and give Elsie her percentage according to your present ratio. Then arrange for her care at the hospital but not typing up a trust fund since it is so hard to pre-determine what her expenses will be. If anything should happen to you suddenly, I could take over. Better not to trouble Kenneth with all this in his state of health. The truth is, however, every indication now is that you will long outlast Elsie. Indeed for her sake I rather hope so.

I will not try to write the Jordan this afternoon but will make that a first duty on the 2nd. I go that morning for the checkup on breathing tests, but the rest of the day is free.

Am amused as always by the Christmas wishes in the Times. It is still hard for me to understand why the Earl and Countess of Lindsay would use this means. I should say send them, or don't bother. Obviously I have been spending and spending. A nice bundle with a Christmas book for Susan and one for me came yesterday

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, but this is as usual for
Saturday. I work at HGS, rather cosily. It is pleasant to have
a comfortable chair to plomp down into when my back gets tired at
the desk. Or I divert myself by trying to put a little more order
into some of the bookshelves. My letters are pretty pedestrian,
and are still in the fashion of end-of-the-year notes. But they
must be done. One was to Frankfurt about my trip. I shall go to
the travel agency on Tuesday and give in my orders. When confirmed
I shall write you to see if they fit in at any point. When you
know when the boys are coming to the States let me know about re-
serving a room for you at the Stanhope. I imagine you will prefer
to be there rather than at their hotel.

I think I told you that the Graduate School finally
realised that they couldn't fix the secretary's desk and so I had it
removed. The Dean, with whom I lunched this noon, insists they try
to find another. But it will be so big that I think I will work out
an arrangement of a table and a moveable typewriter stand if possible.
You remember how crowded the room was, with the bookcases in the middle.

Last night's birthday celebration turned out to be a great
success I am glad to say. The Syrian dame must have sweated for days
to prepare so much and so many different dishes. One could only
stagger afterwards. The raki went very well with it, and I turned the
half bottle left over to them since it is their national drink and they
marvelled that I could get it. The Popes were intrduced to Syrian
food for the first time and seemed delighted with it.

After a longish dinner we went back to Goodrich Street and
played bridge, Susan and I winning thirty cents as a kind of frosting
for the day.

Later this afternoon we have to drive to Hartford for a
party her sister and brother-in-law are giving for their only daughter's
engagement. A long drive but the clan of course must assemble. We shall
stop somewhere along the way for a bite afterwards. The rest of the
weekend is quiet, except that we will take the two grandchildren for
New Year's Eve so their mother can go to a party. Young Susan said no,
she wouldn't have an invitation; then she did and is delighted. Alas,
she gets the chance to go out only seldom. It is hard when young.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

31 December 1967

Dearest Fido,

My last letter of the year. I came down to HGS this morning to work again at letters; there will be a number not done, but not so many as I had once feared. To show how far back into the past months I have had to dip, one letter this morning was to Quayle to thank him for his hospitality and gifts when we visited him in Birmingham. But this is the one moment when a delayed letter still has some significance. And of course I want to use up the remaining Christmas cards, so they will not have to be stored for the coming year. You can see how thrift encourages one to higher virtues.

The drive to Hartford yesterday was uneventful, and the engagement party pleasant. I had somehow expected the fiance to be on the beatnik side. Instead he looks almost terrifyingly conventional, and will make a solid business man in Louisville, Kentucky, his home, I feel sure. Actually there is much to be said for the business man. A sixteen-year old son of old New Haveners, who live a couple of blocks from us off Prospect Street, was arrested yesterday in an apartment where he lived by himself, along with ten others who were arrested because they had come to him for heroin and marijuana. The police went because a 15-year old girl from Branford had been missing for a couple of days, and they had been tipped off to the address. All were high, and the boy had almost 500 dollars made from his business. It is all terrifying to me.

Similarly six men--five Negros and a white man have been arrested locally for a conspiracy to blow up the police headquarters and two banks. Two of the Negros were prominent (in a minor way) with the chief militant Negro group and held jobs until recently with federal and state money. Mrs Pope was full of stories at Susan's birthday of rumors that next summer a token house (by that I mean any one) was to be burned on her fashionable street. Young Susan asked Christmas Eve as we drove to Lizzie's if we had thought of moving out of town to be safer. Now the banks probably wouldn't have been blown up (it was to be in the next blizzard), and no house will be burned. Yet a kind of tension mounts that can hardly welcome in the New Year.

Still, the world is large and round, and who knows what will turn up.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 January 1967

Dearest Fido,

These long holiday weekends seem like drugged inter-
vals. I haven't really learned to relax, I fear, and think of the
wasted hours when I might be busy accomplishing nothing. New Year's
Eve was quiet. I spent the afternoon and watched a football game
on t.v., which was won by a touchdown in the last thirteen seconds.
The temperature was -13°F which must have been intolerable for the
players, whose exhalation on the camera's picture was like that of
steam boilers.

Young Susan and the two children and the dog came for
a roast chicken dinner last night, as did Susan's newly divorced and
previously long-widowed sister Jane. Susan went off later to a party
(young Susan, that is) and the children and dog spent the night with
us. Jane watched in the New Year, marked only by watching the throngs
in Times Square who gathere to cheer as the ball went down at the
changing of the months. Since it was bitter cold and snowing I much
prefered being inside. It had stopped snowing this morning, and the
children and the dog went sledding, or at least the dog chased beside
them as they went down the hill behind the house. They came back
finally, rose-cheeked and shivering. But by that time their mother
had come to fetch them.

Susan meanwhile was picking up and arranging flowers
for an afternoon party for the Japanese visiting scholars who are
attached to American Studies. We have not entertained most of them,
and since I was chairman when arrangements for their coming were
made, this is a good chance to get them taken care of socially. New
Year's as day and season is the height of their year, so this is a
particularly good time to do it. Various clubs in New Haven have
open house today, with drinks and refreshments. We used to like to
go, but have gotten rather wearied of it in recent years. Still,
a "do" like today's is tiring for Susan and she will be exhausted at
the end of the day.

Tomorrow morning I go for my quarterly checkup on
oxygln capacity, and wonder what sort of a result I shall have.

Not much to report, as you can see. "evertheless all
love as always,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 January 1967

Dearest Fido,

A New Year's sower -- five letters have come in during the course of the day. I am excitingly overwhelmed by my riches. Of the 27th, 28th, two for the 29th, and the 30th. (Halfway between those sentences I was interrupted by a half hour while I went over the draft of a letter to Mrs Pound's lawyer about the purchase of the Pound papers. Mary on one side, and Mrs P and Omar on the other are going to court to decide the proper division of receipts from the sale. It is a great pity to rake over in public the various relationships.)

I have just phoned Barbara Jordan about the car. She cracked her rib at the end of November but said she was feeling much better. I explained but said she should look around, talk with her brother, and decide whether she wanted a small car for city travel or a somewhat larger one, and whether a good secondhand one could be found which would answer her needs. She was excited and grateful to you as a schoolgirl. I like her voice, cultivated and gentle and capable of warmth and enthusiasm. She thinks she might prefer to wait until the snow is gone before she gets it, but I said if she found a good second hand one she had better grab it now. I think she will be restrained in her wants; I joked, and she laughed, when I said I reserved the right to say no to a Lincoln Continental. The tone of our talk seemed right in every way. I suspect she will write to you tonight.

Sorry you had to carry the suitcase for Elsie to the post. You must not train Ines to take Elsie's place as finger-wagger at extravagances. Elsie's letter was, as you say both a good one and touching. I think she knows that a new period of her life has come to the fore; and I think she realises too how glibly she has been scolding and complaining. Actually I suspect that the Turkish trip upset her by the realisation that all was not as it should have been with her; and to throw a veil over a reality she could not face she made her travel companions into antagonists. There was just a bit of this in her description of the other patients, but a little fear too that others might think the same of her. I think she fears the future and would prefer to walk out the door and escape tomorrows.

I still think you will want to be careful with funds for the moment until a few months have gone by and you know the crystal ball a little better. Sorry if you thought I meant to encourage you to dash into books and manuscripts. I am thinking of the importance of dames-dough. The only possible exception might be a subsidy for Margery Hicks's memoirs. I did read them and liked them, especially the beginning. They ought to be preserved, but even I am not sure if as a commercial main publisher I would think the market was sufficient to make an edition pay off. She has reworked it so much after my reading that I'm not sure what could be or ought to be cut for a local printing house. I remember thinking it didn't round off very well.

As for the German trip in early February, alas I counted on your coming to Denmark (that doesn't bind you in the slightest) (simply that you had said you would if there wasn't too much snow--but of course this was pre-Elsie) that I made my plans on that basis, and the travel people are now making arrangements. I will be flying to Frankfurt on January 29th (it must be a Monday for economy ticket), and from there to Copenhagen on February 5th. Will spend the week there, and fly to Oslo on the 12th, returning on the 14th or 15th directly to New York. Coigny I fear is impossible this trip, and in any event there are likely to be so many changes

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

by spring when things sort out a little that there wouldn't be much that could
be talked about on a business level. I still hope you will want to come to
Copenhagen for the week or most of it, so that you can see Chris before he goes
back to Greenland, and also the Vebak's. I must go one day to Aarhus, and it
would be fun to have you see that part and join me in coffee with the Danes.
The advantage if you stayed at the same hotel, or at a nearby Danish one which
the Chris parents might find for you, would be the chance for lunch and dinner
and coffee and talks at leisure. Oslo, if you wanted to, would give you a chance
to see the Viking ships. Susan will not be coming this time, since it is chiefly
business on my part; she has her orchids and we are planning the Netherlands when
the tulips are out. To repeat: I hope you will feel you can get away, even if
Ines spends the week with the sisters. You will want rather different things for
New York than Scandinavia and could repack with a bit of a rest after the North.
If you can't, I can count of seeing you sometime, I hope, when you are in New
York. Maybe you could plan for a few days in New Haven if the boys haven't too
much lined up for you to do. We will work it out one way or the other, but I
don't think its practical to try to see Coigny this time. Actually don't you
think Ines could manage the house alone for a week?

Sachie's letter is sad. I think he doesn't quite know how to set
his sail. He still feels the younger brother without a captain or first mate.
No news from New York yet about his manuscript.

So glad you have found such a good book on Hastings. I often think
that brief accounts have sharper and stronger skeletons. There can be too much
flesh.

The Hope-Martin manuscript sounds most exciting. This is both flesh
and skeleton.

Yes, Harvill was the Press that wanted to publish *January*, but you
refused. You had had a quarrel with her about something she had done to someone.
But I don't think this will affect 'slay's book for him anymore than Kenneth will
be affected with Collins for his.

Will save my tidbit to eat until I am quite sure whether the rules
came out of the Press or from some "usually reliable" informer. I suspect the
Philby affair is presently no more devastating than it once was, but more damaging
now that the dirt is out from under the rug. His recent attempts at coercion, or
blackmail, really threaten any Government in power, and Wilson and the others know
it. British self-confidence has never been lower, and their will be continued efforts
at harassment both from the Communist powers and from France. de Gaulle would like
nothing better than to see one government after another fall. Including C anada.
he is mad, but so is the world.

I was much struck by the photo of Elizabeth. I want Susan to see it
tonight and then will post it back to you for your files. It does have Hilda's
way, and even her smile. I am aghast to see how much older she is. She will be
tall like her mother and grandmother.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

3 January 1967

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, and indeed there is not likely to be
any now until next week, because of your long holiday. It began to snow
again last night, and although not too much fell the day has been lowering
and dispiriting. I sat in my comfortable chair in HGS after I got to the
office and, alas, fell asleep for an hour or so. Then a phone call came
from the Princeton University Press plaintive for a report on the manuscript
of a book on Pound's Chinese translations, written by a man named YIP. It
had been due on the 15th of December. I said, hopefully, next Monday?--for
I had begin it three times only to be interrupted. The Press said they were
having an editorial board meeting this afternoon. So I put down all else,
wiped the drowsiness from my eyes, and read like mad until noon when I phoned
the Press back and delivered an opinion to be taken down by a secretary on
my conclusions after 2/3 of the manuscript. Fortunately the book is a good
one and I could report favorably.

Poor Susan was much upset last night when, having to put on boots
to get to the deep freeze in the garage, and then to remove the boots, her
desert pancakes burned. This was enough to spoil the rest of the day for her,
especially since the water has been there for almost three weeks while we waited
for it to dry enough to have a drain filled with concrete. At any rate I
phoned the contractor last night, and he was kind enough to put in an appearance
at 9 this morning and agree to put down temporary boarding so at least Susan
can reach the freezer dryshod. But come spring we will have to do the cement
work, and I think raise the level of that floor. If our little house on Goodrich
Street requires so many repairs, I shudder to think of what Kenwin entails.

This afternoon I was set for more work at my HGS desk, only to be
called by an undergraduate son of the Dean of an Episcopal divinity school (local)
who wanted help on Eliot's "Burnt Norton." Had he been just a student I should
have pled leave of absence, but as the son of an acquaintance I could hardly do
that. At least the boy was intelligent, which made the expense of an hour and a
half a little less annoying.

Tonight we have to go to the Lawn Club with the widow of the ex-President
of Yale, I gather to discuss psychiatric institutes where she can send her younger
daughter. I hate this sort of thing, for one never knows enough to advise properly.
But, again, one can't refuse--remembering how lost one feels under the same circum-
stances. I wonder if everyone gets called on so often for help as I do? I hope
not, for that would mean that multitudes were always in trouble.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

4 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Was most grateful this afternoon on my return from New York to
find your letter of the 31st. Having had none yesterday I was prepared for
silence until next week, because of New Year's.

No hurry I am sure about questions I may have asked. I must have
wanted to get them off my chest. Sorry but not surprised at Elsie's unhappiness.
Under any circumstances, and especially if sclerosis is at the bottom this will
more or less regularly happen. You will simply have to harden yourself to the
situation, and like a doctor or annurse not permit yourself to become too in-
volved. And you are right in saying that a visit would only intensify the
unhappiness. Especially one must not hurry for a call. I sympathize about the
chattering blind woman, and it is wise to put in for a better room when one is
available. I remember we had to wait some time for one for my mother.

Ines must have had a lark on her meal out. It was nice of you to
take her. I remember your saying that the food at the Zurcher, except perhaps
for sandwiches was not good. But the cakes of course were splendid. My mouth
still waters. Barbara Jordan apparently had not actually gotten your letter
about the car. But all is in order and she is much excited about the chance to
shop about and weigh pros and cons. There promises to be a long series of
conferences with her brother. It may be however they will actually wait until
spring, unless an irresistible second-hand one turns up. I left this entirely
to them. I have plenty of money to cover whatever the cost turns out to be.
So don't worry about it.

I stopped at the travel office on my way back from the station this
afternoon, but of course will have to wait for actual confirmations before I
send you a firm outline. However I do fly from Frankfurt to Copenhagen on the
afternoon of the 5th February, a short flight, and will be in Copenhagen from
then until Sunday afternoon of the 11th. At your service so-to-speak. Fortunately
for you there is NO Danish lecture. In Frankfurt I give an old lecture on the
previous Thursday afternoon, go to the mountains to some place the university
has and give a seminar on Friday and another on Saturday. These are my only
obligations. In Denmark I am free, wanting only to go over what has been done
in Brattahlid, see tupilaks at the National Museum, see Christand the Vebaks,
and the Hansens because of the little girl named for Susan. I go to Oslo on
the Sunday and fly back to New York on the afternoon of the 14th. I will spend
a few hours going over Overlund's dissertation and want to see the Viking boats.
Why not come there too. When I have final word about the hotels in Copenhagen
and Oslo I will let you know. In Copenhagen I have asked for the Angleterre as
likely to be warm. And they speak English. It would be nice for you to be there
mit, but if you can't stand the idea then I am sure Chris's parents would find
you a nice Danish-speaking place like the one you preferred before.

Last night's conversation with Mrs Griswold was rather exhausting,
for so much of it echoed our experiences with Lizzie, in each case the basic
trouble being insecurity over-compensated for. But perhaps for that very reason
we could listen understandingly and sympathetically, and I guess it did Mrs
Griswold good to be able to talk freely. We picked her up at 6-30p dined at the
Lawn Club, came back to our house afterwards, and I took her home at 10.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

We were threatened with heavy snows today and I wondered about going to New York. Indeed it was snowing at breakfast time, but in the end not much actually fell either here or in the city. Perhaps so many others had feared the storm so much it was actually easier than usual to get taxis. I had a day, or rather morning, of errands. Going first to Abercrombie's to buy a pair of gloves-- I had none without holes at the finger-ends--and ended up by buying two pairs. Then I went up Madison Avenue to a place recommended for lighting fixtures and found what I think is precisely what I wanted for my own HGS room. It will allow light to be flashed in a number of directions, which should solve the problem of the books in the cul de sac. Once that was done I went even further uptown on Madison, walking the eight blocks in the light snow, to Klejman's to see the collection of tuparlaks he had gotten in Denmark, as a consequence of my having asked him long ago to keep his eyes open. There were 25 examples, mostly I should think from around the beginning of the century, perhaps earlier. I found them fascinating individually and especially impressive as a group. So in the end I bought them all as a group, since one could hardly assemble a rival collection today. At least so I say. I have never had one offered before; tomorrow they may pour in. In any event they give a firmness to my eskimaux collection which it never had to the same degree before.

By good luck I was able to catch the one o'clock train back, ate on the train beside a man from Guilford who said he had twice heard me talk on the Arctic, and being here with the car out from the carpark visited the travel agency and then the office supply shop and bought a few more things--Scotch tape, scissors, ink for my office.

And now I write you.

5 January 1967

Dearest Fido,

I waited until the midday post before trying to write, and was rewarded by your over-New-Year's journal. I am most grateful and of course interested. They were the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I was sorry about Balylis's death. You had led me to expect it, however, vis-a-vis Robert. I think I met him once at Kusnacht when he was passing through with his wife. Don't you imagine the sons will cope with the mother's situation? And pensions usually keep on for widows also. At least in substantial part. He was only on your list for me to keep an eye out for.

It was nice of your hairdresser to bring the plant; I should have thought a clipping more appropriate. But seriously nice, joking aside, when people care enough for you to do a thing of this sort.

Ines obviously enjoys the chance to talk. I only hope you get a little time to yourself.

The travel restrictions are a proposal that annoys almost everyone, but no one is sure whether they will actually be voted in. It is just possible that Johnson is going through the motions. The U.S. has been under great pressure from Europe and England to do something to protect the dollar, and these proposals (a) travel, and (b) restriction of investment of American dollars abroad obviously say, "see, we are doing what you ask. In travel we propose what you yourselves do with travel outside your own country. Oh, you mean your economy would be hurt if we follow your advice???? As to restriction of dollar investments, isn't this just what you've been complaining about--that the inflow of American money has robbed you of complete control even though it has allowed increased production which your own capital couldn't stimulate?" I don't know, of course. Anyhow I suspect that most of the Americans who want to travel will simply pay more and still go. One may of course be allowed to take little less out, but Americans resent being frisked at their own borders. In my case I can simply ask Maitre C to advance me enough. So no need to compromise your own funds, especially at this time.

The Klki book was of course a real fraud, though I think the general picture of her may well be correct up to a point, and I daresay the author did know her (as the old-fashioned saying goes. But he also writes naughty little novels like Gigi, and this was one of them. It went simply as a joke. Odd that Lady Cunard should have gotten into the rays of the sun also rising. Sorry that I should be writing this at the library; my notes on the novel are in HGS. But--now it comes to me--she was Lady Duff Wisden, a real soke if ever there was one. There is much about her in Loeb's book. "emingway was entranced by what seemed to be her nobility. The only thing "high" about her was alcohol and how she kicked up.

Hilda's Hedgehog was returned to me with a note from their children's editor. She said, "In my opinion, this would not be right as a children's book today, which seems to me particularly a shame since it is the book's very beauties that make this the case. The author's lyricism, her subtle sense of the moods and feelings of a child, give the book more of an adult viepoint, I feel, than a child's. Given the quality of the writing, I wish this were not so, and you can see that I have enjoyed it."

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 Danuay 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you in the morning's mail, but this being Saturday
I was of course not surprised. In any event yesterday's bounty was more than
enough.

I began the day at 4 a.m. when I woke to find I had a nose bleed. Such a nuisance, for I could not get it to stop until 5, and the house was cold even when I went into another, closed room. Obviously I shall have to have the nostril cauterized, as every five years or so. Alas, the doctor can give me no appointment until a week from today, though his nurse says in an emergency I can always be an emergency.

The post-breakfast day began with the removal of the Christmas tree
from the living room. Out through the front door and around the driveway to the
rear, where it will wait for the refuse man. The thermometer still read 14°F,
but fortunately there is no wind.

We were out last night, at bridge, so tonight (I hope) I can unpack
the tupilaks. I wonder if you will like them.

I rush at my bills and all possible notes, since today is the last
which holds for the old five-cent rate. A great incentive for me, and I have been
using up old envelopes as well as old stamps. My desk should be somewhat neater.

No word yet from the travel agency, though I should hear early in the
week about hotels. The dates remain as I gave them to you. I asked for the Angleterre
in Copenhagen as warm and not too noisy.

I am increasingly pleased that you will be in the States at the end
of February or early March, not only for the obvious reason of your being here, but
also because you will then know a little more about Elsie's condition and diagnosis
and will have the chance to talk over the prognosis with Prutting. He can tell you
what to expect in general. I suspect that the suspicions, the forgetfulness, and
general instability will only increase. And you cannot afford to become too deeply
involved either now or later. This seems hard-hearted as a precept but is really
a matter of self-preservation on the one hand and of little real help to the patient
on the other.

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

7 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

A very quiet evening last night. After dinner we unpacked the
tupilaks, for which I had cleared a drawer in the cases in the cellar. Three
or four of the 25 I should simply call carvings, but most of the others are
extremely interesting and several are superb. One need only look at the four
I bought from the folk art shop in Copenhagen when we were first there, to see
the difference. I added the tupilak the schoolmaster in Julianahaab gave me,
and another (slightly broken) which I had forgotten but which I think Melgaard
may once have presented to me.

Did I tell you that yesterday's mail brought a new paperback book
on Greenland and the Vikings (popular but very sound) written by Knud Krogh who
has been doing the Brattahlid excavations. Fortunately it is in English. I will
buy you a copy when I am in Copenhagen and present it to you there. Or if for
some reason you can't come then I ship it more easily and quickly too I think
from there than from here.

This morning we took down the last of the Christmas cards from the
hangings we put up for them on the walls, and then saw to it that the furniture
got back to its customary spots. So except for the poinsettia plant by the living
room fireplace there is little of Christmas left. Except for the books I am still
reading and the memory of your kindnesses at Christmas and always.

I came down to the office at the end of the morning partly to write
you and partly to tidy up a few more things in the HGS office--an endless task.
But I put the pencil sharpener on to the end of a bookcase, so that at last it can
be used. This is a great blessing. My father with a penknife could whittle a
lead so sharp one couldn't really write with it; it cut through the paper. But
as whittler's art it was superb, and I was always ashamed that my efforts made a
pencil look only nubbly.

I am anxious now for the new upright lamp to come from New York. Then
really my part of the office is about finished except for putting the books in
order. I suppose that never will be done.

It snowed a bit last night, and the men were here early to plow us out.
This afternoon we are said to be in for zero weather again, so I will keep my car
in the garage instead of coming back here. I have plenty of reading to do at home.
Hope you are keeping warm at Kenwin.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

8 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

The temperature was plus 2°F when we got up this morning, and cannot have risen much above that point all day. The wind makes it much colder, and cars and people have been shivering. After lunch I went for my common cold prick, and because of the snow the autos were piled caty-cornered and one had to sit in the car to wait for an opening when a patient left. One only hopes the battery has not been exhausted by the end of the afternoon. I had dressed in my sincerest tie to go to the memorial services at 2 for an ex dean of the Graduate School whom I knew in that capacity and as a deacon of the Center Church. But I was not out of the doctor's before the opening prayers would have begun, so I came back to the office instead.

You speak of books still coming in. Rota wrote me today offering Vernon Watkins' edition of letters to him from Dylan Thomas as well as his own book of poems *Cypress and Acacia* (1959). I have asked him to send them along. He will continue to search for the others. I had also, not having forgotten the Beaumonts and Fletchers, asked Seven Gables if they thought an offering from Dawson's of the 1650 edition of *The Maid's Tragedy* was rightly priced. If so, to order it for me. They thought it a little high but since we did not have this edition I had better grab it. So this will be coming along. Don't worry about money; let me do that for a change.

This is also true for expenses while I am in Europe. This next time anyhow. The fact is that the President has only suggested these restrictions, and they are mild indeed compared with most European similar measures. Suggestion is a long way from the passing of such restrictions by Congress, and only Congrees can do this. So again no need to worry about me, and at worst travel in the end would only be somewhat more expensive and one need only travel less de luxe. I refuse to worry until the Headmaster confines me to my quarters.

Your letters of the 3rd and 4th were in the morning's mail. What fun it would have been to have met your Mother. Though I dare say I should have been scared out of my wits, being no Novello. It does seem unfair to have had six letters from me fall simultaneously into your lap. Anyone but a puritan like yourself would immediately have tossed them unread out of the window. As for Elsie I hope you will have had more of a diagnosis by the time you come to Copenhagen. I am sure Hans would like nothing better than for you to take over Elsie's care completely, but that is the family's reposibility, especially since they would certainly not refuse to accept anything from her were she to give it to them or bequeath it. And why not, either way? They will be consoled by the fact that responsibility will not entail financial liability; nor, since Hans is retired, will it affect his working hours. # As to Ines I should certainly hang on to her into or through the summer. # I am delighted you will stay at the same hotel with me in Copenhagen. I shall have brought a typewriter along with me, but will use it only seldom. So you can pound away. We can see about details of our visits to

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

individuals, but Chris and the 'ebaks we will certainly want to do together. I have all reservations confirmed now, but will get the precise hotel addresses at home tonight and send you in tomorrow's letter. Oslo we can perhaps leave to see how you feel once in Copenhagen. I will fly up on the last Sunday but not move from the airport in Copenhagen on my way back to the States on the 14th. # How nice that you like the Wipf, and I now know to pronounce it Weepff. But what is its derivation; is it elvlish? # Glad to know about the Pup. She is always nice and says "but you _are_ family." Only diminutives are usually closely guarded. # On the night of Susan's birthday I discovered that the restaurant was not politically Syrian but Lebanese. The proprietors belong to the same Center Church that we are affiliated with. So the Christian-Jewish tension is much different from the Israeli-Arab.

All in all I think it makes much more sense to flip over to New York towards the end of the boys' visit, and certainly not until Pup and John are back from the South _and_ he has had a week or so in which to clear his desk from all that accumulated during his absence.

I had thought, still vaguely, that on the Holland trip we might spend two or three days of the third week at Kenwin, to see Maitre C. (or stay in Montreux actually if that is easier for you-- we are good for car riders) and then go on to Cetona for two nights and home as from Rome. You could come mit, and stay longer if you want. Indeed as an American I might even drive down I suppose. I could arrange for the car as from here so that Swiss drivers would not locally be involved. But this is a long way off. In any event I shall have to skip Kenwin this imediatel up-coming trip. But I don't mind since I shall be seeing you under ideal conditions for going over matters, and it is too soon for meaningful discussions with Coigny.

It's not really surprising that you didn't meet Carnevali for he had already broken down and was hospitalized in Italy by the time you were with Robert. Robert I think had met him in Chiacgo, but that was a considerable hiatus.

I really am sorry about the deBeers. If only one could try out a thing before one plunges.

A very nice letter indeed from Perdita. You will whimper at my suggestion, but if her birthday ever comes along and you want something in addition to whatever else you may give her why not duplicate her new typewriter so that one can always be in the country. They will be there so much that both will be used. And increasingly she may do more of her own writing away from New York. Not a suggestion for the moment certainly, but one to tuck away against the distant future when evryone's mind and health and currency are sound again.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

The thermometer read -4°F this morning at a quarter to seven, and as I was going upstairs at 11. Poor Susan, the pipe in her handbasin was frozen this morning. The warm and cold water would pour in but nothing could escape down the drain. This was against the wall of the house; all the others were all right. I went to the Historical Society first of all this morning, to go over ideas for programs with the retiring director (a woman who had been my nomination), and when I finished I drove home by arrangement and Susan took me to the office. It is too brutal on a car's battery to expose it all day. And in the winter one drives too little really to re-charge a battery. The edges of the roads were lined with frozen cars, left out overnight. Our garage fortunately is heated. Spaa the house, I am glad to say, but even so we have been lighting fires in the fireplaces at night.

I can't say I have accomplished much today, although the talk at the Society was accomplishment of a sort. And getting my haircut was another. But at least at last I have gone through the 1934 correspondences with or from Hilda and can find no references to anything remotely resembling Cuffing In the Thunder. What I think may have happened is this. In July of that year you suggested as a July 16 present the publication of a book by Hilda. On October 1st Plank wrote you to say it had arrived. On the 2nd he wrote Hilda to praise it and ask if he could lend it to Piersall Smith. On the 4th she wrote him to say she had sent two to Plank to give Logan. I don't quite see how this could account for a package mailed at her request from Petersfield, Mass, but perhaps it was. At any rate it is most curious that no other books than hers are mentioned, but hers frequently are. I read thru all the correspondences for 1934 including yours to Hilda from Boston. "Main topic of conversation," you woote, "is Pup. It is felt that she is an American strayed from her fold."

Vinland Voyage came today. My thanks. Also your letter of the 5th. I hadn't realised Joan was going to England. I gather the storms are very bad there now, with much snow. I hope Petrie and Robin can keep warm. A letter from Oslo says that a little of the city sticks out above the snow. One envies Wendy in the Tessin, but am glad you did not try to go to her or the other way around by letting her come to you. As to Ines social insurance, you are in the good position of adopting the "low posture" and going to them to ask for help. Or Maitre C will do it for you. (that is, have a clerk find out). But any irregularities are now easily explainable with no one to blame. D DON'T wait too long. # Many thanks for the Philby clipping. He postures too much now, and everything repeats itself.

Am hardly surprised that Ines needed to let out one of your nightgowns in order to let herself in. I should think one would have been rather snug in covering only a single thigh.

I enclose on a separate sheet the general itinerary and hotels where my reservations are made. I have to go to pick up my tickets before I know the actual flight numbers and hour of arrival and departure. But would you like me to reserve a room for you in Copenhagen, or will you write? I shall be happy to if you will give me the dates.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Monday, January 29

Leave 10-ish p.m. Kennedy for Frankfurt, arriving 11-ish

Tuesday, January 30

Frankfurter Hof
Bethmannstr. 33
Frankfurt, West Germany

Leave Frankfurt early afternoon on Feb 5, arriving Copenhagen an hour later.

Hotel d'Angleterre
Kongens Nytorv 34
Copenhagen

Sunday afternoon 11th to Oslo

Grand Hotel
Karl Johansgate 31
Oslo.

Leave Oslo, early afternoon Feb 14th directly to New York.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

10 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

It was plus 40F when we got up this morning, and Susan's
handbasin is still frozen in her bathroom. The house keeps warms
but one can feel the stone walls of the house grow colder and colder.
Still, the promised snow last night did not materialize and one hopes
the chances are not good tonight; at least until I get back from my
lecture at Southern Connecticut State College where I give the one on
Hawthorne's letters. (I have certainly made mileage out of that one,
but it is popular enough with an average audience and helps to pay for
orange juice at home.)

Your letter of the 6th was in the early mail. You speak of
dope, and I shall cut out an extremely interesting series on the growth
of dope reliance in this country. He involves drinking, smoking and
other forms of narcotics in terms of the spread in all generations. You
have once or twice said you'd like to see what marijuana or L.S.D. was
like, and the reporter is very good on why people want to experiment.

Sorry at the impasse with Elsie over the forms. Probably it's
wisest not to ask her questions in the future. Not just because she is
likely not to remember, but because the very asking of them will increase
her sense of guilt at burdening you (this is why she says she has never
seen such a people; she must reduce her burden of guilt) as well as the
reminder that she has slipped so much that it is hard for her to remember.
I find one simply can't treat irrational beings as though they were rational.
In the case of Ines all you have to do is appear before the bureau in low
posture, say what happened that makes you do this now for the first time,
that since Elsie took care of average food costs you will for the time being
carry on similarly, correcting later since Ines will be more expensive at
one-half than at one-third. So will you be, by proportion. My own hunch
is that Elsie will so deteriorate by Spring that the problem will settle
itself insofar as her return to Kenwin is concerned.

Nicholas is more disturbing, but one out for you could be that
since Elsie will not be doing errands and you will need a car very much more,
perhaps (almost certainly) even a combined driver and gardener for through
the summer, you'll have to use him only very occasionally when guests come
from Connecticut and want to milk mountain goats in order to make cheese.
It might well be drink, or simply that as one grows older the same amount of
alcohol operates more potently.

A letter from Heydt enclosing a copy of a translation from
Enzensberger by him which he wants me to criticise. It is restless in
Washington, I think, and really ought to find himself a nice boy friend.
'Instead he is recommiting himself to the image of Hilda and poetry. He
is creative, but with personalities.

A letter in from Oslo. They insist I give a lecture to a class,
of 200, on the Monday night from 6-8. I immediately reacted no. Then
thought, well my ex-student wants to introduce me (the class is his); the
Professor doesn't want it thought I was there and refused to. So I guess

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

I must, and there is one night ruined. Especially in addition to the time
I must spend with the ex-student going over his dissertation-in-progress,
which is one, no the reason I am going. As with Hansen he has been putting
it off; this will stir him, I hope. Still, if it's waist high in snow I
may prefer to stay in the hotel.

A good yellowback yesterday. I was fascinated by Miss Dudley's
photo of the stone, having seen nothing like it. (I had a nice card from
her by the way. Should I send over a few pounds to help her?) And delighted
that Lettice Cooper is getting an Arts Council Bursary. Did you see this
in the Times? How much was it, £1500 as my Irish acquaintances got? Ethel
and the Brigadier seem well. I am about to full the hold of a freighter with
old Christmas cards for him. (Did I tell you that I actually and finally
used up every single left-over Christmas card for the past three years. To
Japan for New Year's, which is a little like foreign missions in my youthful
church-going days. Now I walk head-up towards another Noel.) Melitta also
seemed cheerful. Alas, I still owe her a report on her protege's poetry. #
For some stupid reason I don't place Sam. # The various clippings were
excellent, and I liked the cricketer who turned parson and found Last Exit
to Brooklyn a rather sticky wicket. I myself, though no enthusiast for
Brooklyn, didn't quite get the message as "the thing to do was to try to
see if a homosexual would suit him, he added." But then I neither played
cricket nor turned my collar. # Am always amused at how Mary Hotson out-
does my thrift, in her case by bits and scraps as stationery. My mother
used carefully to save such pieces of unused paper, but only for notes and
memos. I think p.a. might say that Mary did it to show to herself how
thrifty she is; as she is; just as Leslie likes being a tortoise, as he
puts it. My own reaction was to follow my mother's suit to a degree, but
to release my Puritan-corseted lust by a feeling almost of orgasm as at
last I tear a totally used piece of paper into small bits. Tearing used
paper match boxes used to give a minor eroticism but of course I am denied
that now that I no longer smoke. To return to Brooklyn, I was comforted to
know that Sir Basil was "nauseated." One must take one's stand in these
troubled times, though not necessarily one's "exit." # Herring's letter was
remarkably poised. He may perhaps actually have passed a stage; at any
rate your hunch to see him must have been an enormous bolster to his confi-
ence, especially to have invited Petrie also, as though you were not ashamed.
Yesterday when I read over the 1934 letters, I did those from him to Hilda,
thinking there might be a Cheyne Place echo to explain the address of the
publisher. What tangled emotionally immature letters he wrote--endless ones,
like an Ines chatting on and on about him -- how things were between him and
Paul Robeson, between then and the earlier days when he and Kenneth had been
so emotionally involved. Yet at the same time his reviewing was good, and his
work on L & L a little later excellent. It was the letters that let him down.
# I was glad of the chance to read the Jordan's letters about her mother, the
car, and the quarrel with the sister. I have a great deal of respect for her.
#Gretchen's letter was rather fun; I can see that we were treated like local
royalty in being taken to the Quick 'n Tasty, as the 29 year old step granddaughter
was for her 29th birthday. Unsocial though I am by nature, the social opportu-
nities of Nova Scotia seem confined.

I feel a bit as though I too like Herring chatted on and on. For-
give me.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Oh my, was my ego put in its true place last night. I went to Southern Connecticut State College on the west side of the town to give my talk, not being quite sure where the location of the lecture was. I found a parking spot with some difficulty because of the snow, and walked in the direction that seemed right. I met two women students, and politely asked them if they knew where lectures were given. "Probably," one said, "in the Student Center. I'm going to a lecture there myself. I'll show you." We walked along. "Who is the lecturer?" "I don't know," she said sweetly. "What is the subject?" She shook her head, "I don't know that either. "I'm in speak and I'm supposed to go so I can write a criticism of it." We parted at the door when a young man greeted me and took me under his wing. But we rejoined. There she was in the front row.

It was only plus 4°F this morning, and not much more than that all day. I just spoke with my brother on the telephone, since he leaves for Florida tomorrow, to get some sun before my sister and her husband leave for Africa at the end of the month. They go to see a cousin of ours who is the just-widowed relic of a game hunter and safari man. It should be interesting. The cousin I believe is to return to the States when things are cleared up, so Eleanor and David take the chance while they can.

No letter from you today, but two did come in the late afternoon mail yesterday. The second one of the 6th and yours of the 8th. Oddly enough yours of the 7th for which you made the trudge through the snow to the Montreux post has not yet arrived at all. So I should spare myself the wet feet in the future; all that resulted was a delay. I can hear you curse. I should!

It was most interesting that the BBC should do a program on Hilda. I hope it's well done. I wonder who's behind it all. The Third might well be willing to send you a script, as of your letter to them. It was a good idea to write I should think. I daresay Author's will take of permissions for me, as before. I keep membership up religiously, and the bank pays each year automatically for me.

I was glad you approved of the pupils. While in Copenhagen I shall try to learn more about them. I don't think they go back awfully far, but what a difference in quality there is.

Glad too that you suggested to Margery about Barton's of Truro. Publication would give her both pleasure and status, especially because Hilda now qualifies as a writer, and Marjorie immensely admires both Hilda and yourself. And of course Wendy qualifies too, though the admiration may not be so great as the envy in this case.

When you spoke of Petrie's review in the TLS I thought I must carelessly have missed it. Then my newest copy came this noon and I read it after lunch. It was most favorable. I was delighted.

One of the Japanese asked Susan what it was that kept me in my office so long every day and weekends. Her answer: "Writing letters." Alas, there are still more to do.

all love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Plus 3°F this morning, but later the sun has shone so that it seems warmer than itis. I was told yesterday that the Long Island Sound was frozen, at least off the shore. This only rarely happens. We light a fire in the fireplace each night and enjoy that. Luckily the water has not frozen again.

Good luck for me today. Your Sunday letter of the 7th finally arrived in the noon mail. I wonder if it was just by chance or was characteristic that your special posting of it at Montreux actually held it up. If you want to try it once or twice more we can tell, but I should doubt that it was worth your trudge in the snow and cold. *Yours of the 6th and 8th arrived at least two days before.*

What rotten luck about your heating, but am glad you managed to save things. We are so frightened of electricity being shut off, and Susan's orchids suffering that we have our own emergency generator. But of course this was not your problem.

Glad you had the young Beneys over. I think really it is best for the son to move. Even in Zurich the past would have haunted him, and I remember how strongly you felt that the boy did not have his father's flair. Part of the flair one could do without; some flair however is needed.

I am assuming that you have written for your room at the Angleterre. I should have put you in the Queen's suite, so it is just as well. As for Kenwin I do think that Ines could actually cope. There is little or no chance that Elsie will bolt, but perhaps it is just as well to give her the impression that you have not gone away.

The end of February would be anexcellent time for the States, and it will be simple for you to be here as long as you want. I warn you, you will be put to work on books and on papers. I shall do nothing until you appear. Now I have my double desks you can work in either place, or move back and forth in the wind. You will not want too long in New York, but long enough to see Annie Reich and a few others. And no harm to have a checkup since you will be here. We will not be over at Eastertime, as usual, but early in May. After Holland I thought we might stop in Kenwin or nearby for a couple of days and then go on to Rome and spend a night with the Boys. You could come mit. Then directly back to New York from the Holy City.

Yours of the 9th came in the mid-afternoon mail. But first, as to the 14th in London. Much will depend on what you hear from the Third Program. Although you can't get 3rd, watch for earlier installments on the same series and you can tell how long each is. The Times will have the schedules. It might be rather fun to pop over incog for a couple of days as from Copenhagen, and by doing a few visits then you could free yourself for a few days in Cornwall in Spring, perhaps on your way back from the States. I expect it is about time for you to inspect your Cornish troops.

Back to the 9th. I hope you will urge Sir Gavin not to try to shovel. It is the chief thing he must not do. But how lonely for them; in London they had people they could gossip with, and I daresay he had his club. They probably get terribly on each other's nerves.

The correspondence about Brett--wasn't it in the London Times? But Lady D-T (a splendid abbreviation) was assigned by Bob McA, by Cowley, and by Loeb. And Loeb should know.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Most of the morning went to the cauterization of my left nostril. I had a nine o'clock appointment and waited and waited. But I am too old a dog to be caught without my bone, and had brought a book on Franz Kline sent me by Pantheon. Kline is an artist and this is an exstatic but informative impression of him by a much younger boy friend. One who has had analysis but for whom the dew is not yet off the roses. Actually this is a time in which I am clearing up books. I read a paperback play-for-one-actor "John Aubrey Brief Lives" sent me by Christmas by Pat, Horace et al. An adaptation of the *Lives* into a monologue. It was more interesting to read, I should think, than to listen to. And I have finished going through *Moravians in Two Worlds*. The approach is sociological with a study of the effects of differing environments on the developments. It would have interested Hilda, which was one reason I boggited it. But she was more concerned with the mystique than the pratique of the Brethren. Your copy of the paperback *I, Claud* came today and I shall look forward to reading it. To return to my medical appointment, once I got inside the doctor obligingly cauterized it for me -- sometimes they object -- and has given me an ointment to use until I see him next week.

I had a New Year's greeting and note from Sarasin, really in response to our greetings to him in which I had thanked him for being such help chez Elsie. Sarasin was sad that you had had to be alone over the holidays. If asked under oath by a judge I should have to swear you had reveled in aloneness.

(Interrupted at that point by a phone call from a local who wanted to know how to spell geezer, and its derivation. I could tell him the spelling offhand, and by reaching for a dictionary give the derivation, from the word for mummer.)

Our dinner party went off well last night: Charles Doyle and wife (He is a New Zealand poet), Sister Bernetta Quinn (a visiting nun who writes on Yeats, Pound, Stevens, Crane etc.) And Holly Stevens, daughter of the poet. I remembered to ask Sister Bernetta to say grace but forgot to pass the wine twice (perhaps thinking we were at communion).

No letter from you today but that is standard for Saturday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

14 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

It is 20º out this morning and by comparison feels like spring. The weatherman threatens us with sleet by early afternoon but so far it has not come.

We went out to supper last night (chez le man who was tossed
out of his job after fifteen years with a two-weeks notice—he now has another,
but I thought he seemed a little nervous perhaps because of having to learn
a new set of familiarities) and then played cards.

This morning I have kept on with cards at the office. I looked
at the great marketing bag full of this year's cards, and went solemnly through
it taking out a few with notes that still had to be answered, poems sent by
the poets who wrote them, a few things of their own by artists. Then I remembered
another box that had been transferred here from my old offices, and now sat in
the closet. So I went through that, and was astonished at the span it covered.
There were cards from Hilda, Christmas telegrams from Hilda and yourself (the
Swiss girls), and from Plankino. Plus more poems, and portraits. I saved what
seemed worthwhile saving, and added the others (the rest) to this year's main
discard. Now I have still another box in the cellar at Goodrich Street. This
afternoon I must sort that. And THEN I shall box up the majority and send them
to the Brigadier either for himself to refashion or send along to the children
he aids. How my sense of doing good will be expanded!

I hope that cleaning up will be a credit mark on my score card.
But I feel that I can only be freer when I am unencumbered. One never will be,
but why carry a fifty pound burden when it can be reduced to twenty?

I wrote yesterday to Brother Volant, who often asks to be remembered
to you. I tell him you pray for him and the success of his museum and mission.
The latest issue of *Eskimo* (which I shall put in the little pile to accumulate
against your arrival here) says that many feel "that the good brother is part
of the museum." The eskimos gave him the name "Piku" (the round-shouldered man).

I have even been reading book catalogues and throwing them away.
An item that intrigued me most was a series of autograph letters (13) from
Edith to her stationer, a Mr Fuller, ordering supplies and commenting a bit
on her writing and life and mentioning a lecture by her brother. The price,
225 dollars. Tell Nicholas and Ines to guard your notes carefully.

In a catalogue of remainders I was much intrigued by the newest
form of mediaevally locked books. A guide to a happier sex-love life, lucidly
entitled SEXUAL LOVEMAKING "details the specifics of physical lovemaking. 307
clearly detailed, professionally supervised illustrations. Care has been taken
to avoid offensive human identification while not sacrificing physiological
accuracy." All this is pedestrian enough, but for 10.95 ("only 10.95"), one
can purchase a "Special Slip Cased Edition with Youngster-Proof Brass plate
Lock, Key and Special Binding."

Yesterday's New York Times announced that Philby's memoirs had been
or were being offered to seven New York publishers. He wants a 200,000 advance.
No English publisher, the report stated, would touch it. I'll read it of course,
but I must say I think the English are right: why pay a man for his treason?

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Europe seems much closer, and indeed a fortnight from
tonight I shall be in the air to Frankfurt. I shudder when I think
of how much remains to be done, but am solaced by the expectation
of seeing you in Copenhagen. Today I had a letter from Maitre Coigny
with the necessary money for the land at the shore, plus one from
M. Ruegg asking about Copenhagen. I shall be glad to see him of course,
and am only sorry to put him to so much trouble. On the other hand
he may be glad to slip the leash for a night. I shall write to say
fine for the 7th, whenever he wants. I also had a letter from Melgaard
to say that Vebaek and the others would be glad to see me, and of
course Vebaek and his wife will be particularly glad you are to be
there. I'm not sure I know Chris's address nor that of his parents
but you will be the one to notify them. You might want to send a
brief note to Chris in advance.

I forgot to say that along with the regular W installment
came a cheque for 1000 dollars which I take to be for Barbara Jordan's
car. Or towards it. As I told you, there is enough by much in your
royalty account to cover any emergency for her car and we can adjust
later and to the penny.

Yesterday afternoon I watched the football championship
on the t.v., though for some reason we could only get black and white,
no color. After supper I brought up the box of Christmas greetings
from last year (1966) and went through them. A most exhausting task,
but I suppose if I were to consult a doctor he would only tell me I
was suffering from a card-iac condition.

Two yellowbacks and two letters came in the noon mail. I
will save the former for reading at home tonight. I occasionally pass on
one that might interest Susan. Your letters were (1) undated but I suppose
the 10th, and (2) that of the 11th. What a storm you must have had, like
those in England pretty much like our own here. Indeed yesterday we were
promised a January thaw. Instead, just after I had written you Susan phoned
to say the roads were glare ice. They weren't quite, but I was content to
stay home. Alas, there was just enough melting to flood the garage. I can
see that when dry weather comes I shall have to figure out some way to lick
this. One might as well get things in shape before the inflation and then
the depression.

I can well believe the difficulty with heating Kenwin, having
been there occasionally in mid-winter. Given an ideal situation you would
close up as of the first of the year and come back in April. You may still
come to that. Come of course whenever you can to the States, but I should
think mid-March- early March would be fine. I confess I am a little sorry
that the Boys are not going to Prutting. But I think K rather likes London
again, and of course this gives Islay the chance to see Mummy.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

The deBeers I am afraid are in for it. I suppose there's not
enough for them to go to Marakesh for February March and then back to
Bex before mosquito time?

As to Elsie this is all pretty much as we both predicted. I am
reasonably sure not only that she shouldn't ever come back to Kenwin
but that she couldn't. She must have a home to be in, and although she
will never be happy there you will have to put up with it. She will
perhaps accuse you but you have been around invalids too much not to
translate this into practicality. I am glad you plan a few days in
Zurich to see Hans as well as Joan and perhaps Frau Schnack. I had a
nice card from Fra S. It would relieve your mind if you could see
Elsie, but I do very strongly urge you to see her doctor or doctors
as many as you can. It is very important for you (and hence directly
for all of us) for you to have the information directly, not even through
ans. You really MUST, and arrange for the interview in advance. Or
have Hans do this for you. I mean the doctors at the home where Elsie
is.

I managed to get one Hawthorne article, sent to me to judge, read
and off in the mail. At noon a meeting of the Connecticut Academy council.
Ingholt was there and sends you his greetings.

So do I, with all love. I enclose some uncancelled stamps if
the Brigadier or Marjorie or Hilda are not too proud to unstick them
and glue them on again. It seems a pity that they should go to waste.

16 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 12th was in the morning mail. I rather thought I sensed your suggestion behind Ruegg's visit, but if he has things he wants to discuss by all means let him come. Even if he doesn't, let him come -- though I want promise to ski down any slopes with him at night. Seriously, I shall be glad to see him. He is an intelligent young man.

Strangely I have never mentioned Day Lewis (now Day-Lewis) 's appointment as Poet Laureate. I really thought the office would be dropped. I have never really thought of him as a considerable poet, and the one he has just done about Be British and Be Brave, or words to that effect, will not restore the post to its Druidic importance.

Are you sure it wouldn't be useful to tuck a couple of type-
writer ribbons into my satchel and bring mit? Nothing could be simpler, and
I wouldn't scold you for not keeping one in supply.

Certainly I shall not pass P etrie's letters around. Nor hint that they are coming. But they should be saved; they are all so much a part of the picture. I am amazed at the speed by which she is writing the memoirs. I hope once they have been roughed out that she will want to work over them with a bit of spit and polish. Yet she does write well.

Having scolded Sir Gavin for shoveling walks, I must mildly at least scold you for sweeping roofs. But I know the problem. I should think that Ines could do that and you tuck and tidy inside. Ines is a big girl.

I read the two yellowbacks last night. They were as from you on the
10th December. Helen Wolff's letter with Christian's London address was one of
the enclosed. He is 14 Landsdowne Road, Lonon W 11, telephone: Bayswater 1770.
Landlady is an economic historian names Carus-Wilson. I do imagine Helen would be
most grateful if you called sometime when in London, or had them out for tea. #
Wendy seems to settle in; I should think she might just possibly like a longer
time in Turkey with perhaps a book to hatch. But she may feel this is lodging in
Mary Gough's nest. # Margery Lewis seems increasingly in better spirits, as she
her shock was in retreat. # As always, Osbert's letters are pathetic. # And
Angnes Latham is obviously in as vigorous spirits as ever. # Even without Elsie
you simply must pay a quick visit to Philip's chateau before he moves on to
a other and grander one.

Now I must rush downtown and pick up my tickets. Which means paying
for them too.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 January 1968

Dearst Fido,

I have spent most of yesterday and today in my HGS office. Very cozy in cold weather as you will find if it is still chill in March. Yesterday I finished reading two chapters on a book by Sister Bernetta Quinn, about which I talked to her for two hours this afternoon. But that is done, and a corner of my conscience is satisfied. Otherwise I have been reading what altogether will be 100 pages of a dissertation on Charles Eliot Norton, Lowell, and Godkin. I still feel guilty about this, having had it since last November. Only two more large manuscripts to go when this is done. But is this a leave of absence?

Four letters from you today, so you are doing better by me in terms of speed than I seem to be, en route to you. Your second of the 12th, the 13th (2) and 15th, I may be missing one on Monday the 14th but am not sure. Naturally I am delighted that all is in ordnung for Copenhagen. I will have my schedule xeroed tomorrow and post you, but do insist that you meet me only in the Angleterre rather than at the airport. In this weather planes can be off schedule so easily. Ruegg I shall be pleased to see also, and curious as to what he wants to discuss. Perhaps the heavy investment in A T & T which turned out badly. / Noss bleeds? God endowned me with capillaries a little too close to the surface in one nostril. So that every few years the nostril must be cauterized; finally the scar wears off. Stress might raise the pressure; so will colds and bitter cold weather. I am naturally much relieved that you will in consultation with Elsie's doctor. My own suspicion is that it will be better for her to settle in at one place rather than suffle to and from Mammern. AND I doubt that Mammern will take her in her present state. The deterioration is likely to increase its rate. It is all very sad. Certainly there is nothing Prutting could do for her, and as you say she should be with her own language and customs group. // The cold! It is still cold here but at least 14 or 15 which is better than below zero. And our house is of course warm. A fireplace does help at least psychologically. // The poor DeBeers. // Like Ines I sometimes worry that you may be forever lost. But I shall try to save you. Perhaps in Copenhagen I can take you to mass. // I shall certainly understand if no Norway, and I rather doubt it would be worth it. We can save that for another time. // I was sure Margery Hicks would be pleased that you would back the memoirs. The main thing is for her to be able to refer to "my book." // I will check to be sure, with Susan, about Edith's stones. I think I know but want to be sure. // Can't remember whether the selected poems of Watkins was one I ordered from Rota when he sent list of what he had. But think not. Many thanks for sending it across. // I may risk one letter as from this side or to report safe arrival in Frankfurt but will not try to write in detail. // It would be wonderful, and helpfull too, if you could go to Cetona with us. I am leaving that part of the spring trip open-ended until I have talked to you.

Enough for the moment. I must go out into the cold.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Although I have far too many manuscripts by others that I
ought to and must read before I go, I've taken the day off to work at
my Library desk. Two days away and it is piled to the ceiling. So altho
there was no letter from you in the first mail, I'll _begin_ a letter so
that the relevants can be put away.

A paperback came yesterday (yellowback I mean), interesting as
always and especially the letters from Georgia and Sachie. I only wish I
had news from Random House to send him, although I'm doubtful they'll be
able to take him. At best they seem to do two a year, and already they've
chosen Patrick's friend Richard Murphy. I'll try somewhere else.

I've also meant to tell you that your monthly account at the
Co-op reads a credit of $90.79, so I think you have plenty there for the
moment.

The royalty statements for the six months ending Sept 30, 1967
are in from Random House.

229 copies of the paperback Roman Wall were sold, for a total royalty of 33.49.
This always fascinates me, for during the same half year 461 copies of the
harbound edition were sold, nring in (at 55 1/2 %) 582.42. For some reason
neither Random House's paperback edition nor Harcourt's have caught on. People
prefer the hardbound editions of both.

But to summarize

| | |
|:---|---:|
| Beowulf | 451 copies |
| October | 228 |
| Ghandaran | 26 |
| Players Boy | 126 |
| Roman Wall | 461 |
| Gate to the Sea | 199 |
| Ruan | 550 |

A very respectable total, I feel. So, I hope to do. The total
for the royalties was $ 2,116.93. Do you prefer a Rolls when you move this side?

In the noon mail there was your letter of the 16th, through in very
good time considering the weather. It must have slid across the Atlantic on the
ice. Here, today however, at noon the thermometer stood at 450; it felt like
spring, but it will take a long time for any ice on the roads to melt. I quite
sympathize with you, although Goodrich Street is so much traveled that the
authorities are quite good about getting sand on the pavement.

Delighted too that all your reservations are confirmed. I enclose
a xerox of what the travel agency gave me, so that you can know flight numbers
in case of disaster. The address is Frankfurt is Frankfurter Hof, Bethmannstr. 33.
As to BBC again I suggest you look at the Times for a corresponding day of the week
and see how long the program writes. I'd say write Eric White to ask, but that
puts you in his hands if you do go.

Your remarks on Petrie's memoirs sounds sensible. One's social
decorum and one's posture as a writer can't really be the same; but few of us

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

of us really let ourselves go in discussing, or remembering, ourselves or
others. This is the disadvantage of a good bringing up. But as you say,
careful and dispassionate discussion of ourselves may help to solve problems
but won't write books.

I did know that Hilda was a professional writer. What I meant was
that Margery will think herself one too when her own book comes out. "My
book" is a golden bough. All the more reason she should have it. If Margery
can have hers, and Petrie's hers, then the only two memoirs started by you
but not yet published will be Neill's and Rose Odle's. A very good record
indeed, and good for the record also.

I lunched with Prouty this noon, the first time in over a year. He
seemed well and to be coping with his wife. He asked particularly to be
remembered to you.

A copy of Hilda's book about *Borderline* came today from Ifan Fletcher
in London. I ordered it, thinking an extra copy would be good to have tucked away.
Pup, for example, may not have one--and should.

Also a letter from Horace, a xerox of which I enclose, which I much
appreciated. Because it spoke out what he thought, and that is a rare privilege
for anyone to receive the benefits of. At least I'm glad he found the surface
of my review fresh and gay; if I'm lucky that is the benefit of the Oxford
weekly report manner drilled into me by C.S.Lewis. The sloppiness beneath is
presumably the consequence of so many years of devoting myself to administra-
tion rather than to writing, to the necessities of diplomacy rather than
intellectual warfare. Perhaps in this case a little to feeling that the fairest
thing I could do was to give Carnevali himself a chance. The worst, most
damning to me, is that I don't suppose I realised that the underneath was
really sloppy. I thought the surface gave the way he must have appeared to
others, to Bob and Boyle at any rate, and that a line of inferences gave the
other side of the picture in a non slam-bang way. Actually I wasn't writing
the review about Kay Boyle's introduction but about Carnevali's own book. In
a scholarly journal I might have attacked Kay for giving the impression that
she had done much more than she did in fact, since so very much of the new
book was contained in the old book.

Actually Horace is right however; I'm not really a critic any more.
I've had to spend too much time helping people, and wanting to help them. Maybe
I can begin to use the knife more.

But I'm serious in having gratitude for letters of this kind. One
can become too glib on the surface, and motives admirable enough in themselves
ought to become confused with the act of criticism.

Now back to my pile of letters still unanswered.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

A day of minimal accomplishment, though I suppose anything done at all must be on the credit side. No letter from you today, but perhaps that will mean one (unusually) tomorrow, which is a Saturday.

We went last night to the Shubert Theatre to see a pre-New York play, Plaza Suite -- very skillfully written, acted and directed. Yet it is curious how people are: the audience howled with laughter at every moment as they were supposed to. At what? The first play about a couple at the Plaza for a 23rd-or 24th-wedding anniversary (they quarreled over which), the husband admitted he was bored and having an affair with his secretary, left and she was alone to drink the champagne she had ordered sent to the room. Second one-actor--about a Hollywood director, thrice married, and now in New York who sent to Tenafly, New Jersey for a highschool girl friend now married who read always about him in the paper, got drunk and he took to bed. Play three -- about a wedding about to take place at the Plaza, the bride of which locked herself in the bathroom and would not open to go downstairs to the wedding with her parents; the parents quarreled as to whose fault it was, seemed mostly to quarrel, and it turned out the bride was frightened she would turn out to be like them; then, suddenly, opened the door and went down on her father's arm, the mother holding the train. These are not what I would call naturally comic situations, but the play is obviously going to be a comic hit.

Lunch this noon with the Japanese whose play Zeami I helped put on a couple of years ago. He presented me with his newest book, entirely in Japanese. Not even one picture except of him on the jacket. I solemnly accepted, and indeed was honored. Jerome Robbins the ballet man wants to see his play and possibly choreograph it. It would be rather fun. I dug out my old copy of the script and let him borrow it (the local Japanese, I mean, who is here again as a visiting in-structor).

Otherwise endless letters as I try to straighten out before going. A nice card from Marie Anne today, tell her how pleased I was. Wrote John Schaffner about Creekmore. Letters to and from Frankfurt. I am to go to the birthday party on the 31st of a dichterin Marie Luise Kaschnitz, who is referred to as "the poet" so she must be well known. I shall have to get briefed. # Then fortunately having been able to arrange for a lady professor on this side to visit Japan as visiting professor in 1969-70 there were letters to make that more final. # And luckily having been able to suggest the name of one of our junior teachers for a senior position at the University of Tennessee, I had to say I was pleased about all that-- as indeed I was. # And a letter to Horace thanking for the honesty of his, so he wouldn't think silence meant anger. I won't be able to see him I guess until you come over.

And so the day has gone. At least it has been more springlike and some snow has melted.

20 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Alas, no letter from you today either. So my day was not re-
deemed. I only fear that you may have slid downhill on the ice. Or be
incredibly snowed in. Or frozen and not to be unthawed until spring.
Here it almost seems like spring, by comparison at least. For three days
now the temp has reached into the low forties.

Last night we simply stayed home. I had feared that Susan
might want to go to a dance for which we had tickets. I snoozed a little
too in my chair, for I have been going at letters at rather a high clip
as I try to clear my desk. Some of my letters are final ones about the
trip. Frankfurt has apparently lined up a constant stream of dinners
and receptions for me. And I am to go to the birthday party of the poetess
Marie Luise Kaschnitz, who is I gather well known. At least this noon when
I asked Pound's grandson who "the poetess" would be, he gave two names, of
which hers was one.

I took Walter to lunch this noon, and was much taken with him. He is obviously bright but not assertive. Tells me he wishes to lead a life apart from the embroilments of Brunnenburg. On the other hand looks forward to inheriting it, and because there will be debts and obligations also inheritable insists on getting his doctorate and then teaching. Rather than, as friends of his here have done, quitting college, going to a hut in Colorado, and writing poetry and prose. He knows and likes, and is apparently liked, by the three best faculty men at Rutgers where he is now a junior. Wants to come to the Yale Graduate School but puts no pressure. He is Mary's son all right, but without her tight nervous intensity.

I began the morning by a visit to the nose doctor for his inspection. He pronounced benediction but suggested I take the sacred ointment every other day for this second week. Then to the office supply store, which suggested that one reason my Library stapler didn't work properly was because I didn't know how to. The lesson was quickly given and I was off again, this time to the Co-op where I bought a few rolls of film with which to take candid shots of you drinking coffee, eating open sandwiches, and tumbling into snowbanks. Then to the filling station where I found I had a completely empty tank of gasoline. My only disaster came after this when I began to search for some papers with questions from Harvard about a few of the Elizabethan books. Papantonio was to come up from Yonkers this afternoon to answer them. In the moving they have been displaced. Luckily I could phone him before he left and cancel the visit. I wasted hours searching, and will again no Still, I should have had to be at home instead of here, writing you.

Query? Should I write to thank Elsie for the calendar, or is it better
not to? I leave to you. You could tell me at the Frankfurter Hof if you write
there. But perhaps you should work instead at your other, accumulated letters.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

21 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

I have let the early afternoon creep up on my and now
must hurry to get even a note to you before the only mail pickup of
the day outside the Graduate School which now comes at 3 p.m.

Still, there is little to report. I am not snowbound
but manuscriptbound, though I hope to have finished one more by the
end of the afternoon. This is a curious document I am reading as a
member of the board of the Yale Historical Series. The ms is a
collection of the editor's comments in each issue of the Alumni Magazine
over a couple of decades, It is--they are--of course a kind of period
piece and reflect a hugely different attitude toward Yale than one has
today. The writing was lighthearted, quasi-New Yorker talk of the town,
full of martinis and the Oldest Drinking Graduate, and football, and
clothes, and general whimsy. Now everything is protest and students
rights and why should one wear a necktie to class or dining hall. And
also, today, I am gladder to say, about intellectual matters. I shall
probably say yes to the ms as a historical document and no doubt as a
pleasure to some graduates who will be reminded of the Yale College they
loved rather than the Yale University they don't know. But as it stands
the ms is over 300 pages; 200 are surely enough.

So you by any chance remember the Connecticut River, our
autumn foliage trip down it by steamer, and then the next year when Susan
was recovering from her broken hip and just able to go for drives in the
car, the three of us drove to Essex on the river, and you and I got out
by the Essex boatyards and wandered out along the piers. Last night the
boatyards burned, and 96 large boats were consumed with it, some of them
70 feet long. Nearly 3 millions in fire loss. But there were tears on
the part of owners who came to the yards afterwards, for they moaned that
they could never afford to replace the boats now, and anyhow, "We loved
her!" It is sad, and I doubt that many can.

The temperature is still in the 40's and the days seem tropi-
cal. Naturally the garage flooded again, but in anticipation I reminded
the carpeneter earlier in the week of his unkept promise for a floorboard
so Susan could get to her deepfreeze. There is penty of water now, but
enough floorboard too. Come summer I shall have to restudy the whole
situation.

One wonders. Our trust drugstore at the foot of the hill has
just sold out. To Negro owners. I think Mr Benzel is frightened of next
summer's riots and broken glass and looting. He had only one pane broken
last summer but he is now in the midst of a Negro district. And he is
Jewish. Relevant? Yes. The Negro actionists and black powers are strongly
and openly anti-semitic. It has been explained that most whites they meet
in business are Jewish-- in the liquor shops, drug stores, small merchants
in their own districts, and especially as landlords of run-down apartments.
Benzel must be frightened of that too. But how sad it is, for he can
hardly be fifty and has worked like a dog and built up an excellent business.
He has another drug store in a white neighborhood (this was Italian before)
and perhaps will concentrate there.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Nothing ever changes. Here I am on leave, and yet I am as
crowded as I ever was at the point of going away. I still have to arrange
what I am going to say at least for my seminars. And more manuscripts yet
to be read and reported on. However I did finish the one I mentioned
yesterday. And this morning read the 108 pages of the dissertation I am
directing locally. The girls comes down from Hartford tomorrow morning
for me to go over this part of it with her. I wish I were surer of my
judgment; she has written gracefully but superficially for a dissertation.
Yet I think it will get through and I doubt that she could rewrite it much
differently.

Yours of the 17th and 18th came in mid-morning, and of the 19th
at noon. For which my bows and thanks after my parched period. # My mention
of the second typewriter for Pub was only for a remote future. I think she
counts very much on her solo flight from home, and your being together in
London these past two years has worked out very successfully. # I dutifully
wrapped the two packages of Christmas cards and will post to the Brigadier
tomorrow or the next morning. They are bulky and a little too large for
easing carrying. Cards still dribble in, and one gets far too confused as
to whom to send to and whom not to send to. I get from Miss Scarlet and
Miss Dudley to whom I didn't send; then from Rosemary, Hilda Quick and
Margery Lewis and Marie Anne because we did. The one from Margery arrived
this morning. Also a letter from Sachie thanking for the book on Tcheliechev
(I never can spell it). He seemed very pleased to have it because of so much
on Edith. Alas, he is down again with a new attack of jaundice. I understand
it is a disease frightfully hard to shake off. # I adore the picture of you
lifting Ines up the stairwell at Kenwin. But what fun it would be to take your
trip in the flight deck. I have only done this once, in a bomber going over
Hamburg shortly after the end of the war. It was an experience I can never
forget. I was flat on my belly in the nose lokking down on the bombed out
ruins, like a dry honey comb through which giant feet had scuffed. # I have
written the Angleterre, and they agree that you can come to my room and take
your bath. They will provide a guardian dragoness if required but feel I am
too old to be dangerous. A letter from Krogh at the Danish National Museum
wants me to take a three day trip with his wife and himself to visit the artist
who is planning the relief and lives remotely. But this would be for the 5th
through the 7th and is of course impossible because of Ruegg and the lateness
of my arrival on the 5th, and untempting because of the weather and the long
mileage. I shall suggest being willing to pay for the artist's visit to Copenhagen if he wants to. Sorry, however, for I should like to see the man's sketches.
Because of the ice no one could go to Brattahlid last summer anyway, not even
Krogh. So none of us missed anything. I will get you there yet. # Elsie's
ups-and-downs you will have to get used to and take in stride. This is precisely
how Susan's uncle behaved, and although it was sad for him to be watched over in
his better moments, any other arrangement was impossible. Horace's example from
his hospital is of a quite different type of arterio sclerosis, one where the
premature senility does not figure in. I thought his letter very good spirited.
I was amused that he seemed to have enjoyed the Lytton Strachey volume, whereas

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN.

I had gathered from Marya's letter to you that he had expressed the horror
appropriate to a vicar on being faced with such repulsive pictures of British
life. I suspect that vicar's wives may whisper in private but never speak
out of pew in public. # Yes, indeed, why not do general memoirs by the calendar,
always stopping when you wish to so that you can do an extended portrait or
glimpse backwards. You were so rush and harrassed when you did the final
sections of *Artemis* that I always thought you might fill in for that period
as you wanted to, somewhat on the order of, "And there I was, a Bryher in
wartime, rocking in my chair and knitting wristlets for Norman, and it came
to me how different it had been that time when I was in Greece with H.D.,
in India with Clive, etc." At least this would get it down. # What a pity to
put you to all the trouble about the Vernon Watkins book. I will wait however
until you get here before sending on to Joan. # Poor Wipf and Sir Gavin! #
Poor Fido having to give a book report on Galbraith's *New Industrial State*.
It is however a not unimportant expression of a contemporary point of view,
and you will not altogether have wasted your time. #I had forgotten about
*January*. Have you asked your bookdealer to send me a copy? If not I can
always order as usual from Blackwell. # Poor everybody! This time John. I
hadn't realised he was to go through all this with what seems to have been
a local anaesthetic. And I am always told by those why have them that a
bad knee is the most agnoizing and incinvenient to get over. I have been
much luckier with a hip so that one couldn't move at all. Nurses will feed
one white-meat chicken sandwiches by hand when the patient is in a cast;
with one's knee bunged I am sure they simply say sit up in bed and feed
yourself. # To return to Horace's letter for a moment, actually 2,000 copies
of his book on D.R. is an astonishingly good sale; it will keep on selling and
no doubt get into paperback for academic distribution. He is absolutely correct,
no university press would have done haff so well with it. I had not read the
review in the Nation, but knew he felt the Nation didn't like him. Alas, I
never could persuade them to send xerox copies of the reviews to Rose. She saw
only what I sent her. I wonder if an English publisher won't some day do the
book on that side. # I forgot to comment to you on the review in the TLS for Jan
11th of Fawn Brodie's biography of Burton. What a snobish tone to adopt towards
a writer whom I thought did exceptionally well in her research, and wrote perhaps
even best because she was a mater familias.

Now I must retire and get home in time to get back down town in time for
a dinner at the Graduates Club and then a meeting of the New Haven Colony Histori-
cal Society where I have to introduce the evening speaker. On "Time-Keeping
Through the Ages." The speaker collects and builds clocks and has made a hobby
of horology. Says he has collected them since the age of five. he is the
suggestion of Susan's only living uncle (by marriage). I am chairman of the
Program Committee, the only thing Susan has ever felt I "ought" to do. Having
halfway through this letter confirmed the speaker for the March meeting (there is
none in February) I am at least taken care of for the moment.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Very good luck indeed for me. No letters from you in the first three of the day's deliveries, and of late there seems to have been no mid-afternoon fourth. But I took a magazine to Holly Stevens en route to the library, and glory-be-to-God, as George would have said, there were two from you. As of the 20th and the 21st.

It is exciting that Leslie has struck ore again. He is so ex-
haustive a researcher than one is never surprised. But grateful. It is only
when he feels impelled to turn fool's gold into bullion, for the sake of
discovery, that one becomes restless.

Exciting too that Philip has managed it again. He too has a
knack and can turn fool's gold into ore and bullion. I only hope that once
this immediately tight squeeze is over you will not feel too strapped in
England. We will have many details to go over chez l'Angleterre apropos
d'Angleterre.

Exciting for Ines that she begins to pick up a few words of
English. You will feel like Robinson Crusoe with Friday, though the
footprints of Ines on the floor may not be so exciting for you as Friday's
imprint on the sands.

Also exciting about the Burton History of the Sword, which we
do not have. Though if you think the extra poundage might be useful for
dames-dough, I can inquire at Rota's what they think the copy might sell
for.

Ruegg I am sure doesn't find my account interesting, but I sus-
pect they are anxious to do well with it for your sake. He was so proud,
when I was last there, of his purchase of a thousand shares of A T & T,
which promptly dropped six or seven points within a fortnight, that he may
want to urge a reversal of policy. One has to expect the bad with the good,
and I'm sure on the whole and in the long pull that they'll do as well as the
next man. As for the age, what fools they are to think of me as younger. It
is arranged that you sing a solo hymn at my memorial services. Everyone feels
it would be memorable.

The best one can say for Day-Lewis is that he's pleasant and
harmless.

My thanks for not trying to come to the airport. It will be far
easier to bus into the hotel, call you so that you can take a bath in my room,
and then we can go down for a hot-rum-toddy by the fire. Seriously, in this
sort of weather and at an airport neither of us know very well, nothing would
be gained. As for Chris why not wait to phone him until I see what notes await
me at the hotel. Or see him but not make later plans. I imagine it would be
nice for him and his wife if we had them to the hotel for a supper some time.
A night out of the sort they could not afford, or would not.

The Elsie situation is, so very alas, not unexpected. And I am
sure that she must have a guardian, or as we would call it "conservator." I
can only urge, and I suspect Coigny would agree, that you must not be the one

serve in this capacity. I think we should. I am not thinking simply of your not
having the responsibility, though I do think of it -- but that within the
family would be much easier in every way with the authorities, your travel
and the like. Equally importantly since you are both owners of Kenwin, this
makes for awkwardnesses on the agreements for disposal, purchase of her
share, and so forth. For others could so easily accuse you --even though
that the easiest thing would be for you to buy back the share you have given
her, putting the cash into a fund for her benefit out of the interest from
which at least part of her medical expenses could be met. This would eliminate
the matter of her share of taxes, agreement as to the final disposition in
case anything happened to you, usw. But Maitre Coigny will be the one to
know.

You wonder about Sachie and cancer or jaundice. He may well have
the former still, and certainly has the latter. We can be sure that he is not
at all a well man, not just in his spirit but his body. I had such a sad note
from him. I do hope that I will get word from Knopf before too long. So that
if negative, as I fear and Pat feared, I can go on to another.

Last night's meeting of the Historical Society went off well. The
man went on and on, like me with slides of icebergs. Altogether he talked for
an hour and a half. But he had so much enthusiasm about clocks, and obviously
owns hundreds of them, that the audience was delighted. I don't think they
learned much but didn't want to learn. I asked him what watch he himself wore,
and he said Patek Philippe which he still thinks is the best. But I like my
Accutron even with its Mickey Mouse face. I only wish it had the dignified dial
of a Patek.

Susan's share of the exhibition of Valentines was most handsome.
She gave the individual pieces space in which to breathe, I am glad to say,
though of course it meant she could show only a very few in the three cases
allotted to her.

The morning went to an hour and a half's discussion of her disserta-
tion with the young woman whose draft I have been reading. I had no slides
and perhaps not as much enthusiasm as the man for his clocks, so she may well
have been bored.

I think I gave you the address of the Frankfurter Hof--Bethmannstr. 33--
in case you wish to risk a note there. Keep track of your comings-and-goings at
any rate.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

A day of not very much accomplishment of any kind, save for nibbles. I began the day by posting two immense boxes of old Christmas cards to the Brigadier, so they are at least out of my HGS office. I only hope he doesn't have to pay duty on them. Many of them are really beautiful Japanese cards "suitable for framing" save that I have run out of frames. Afterwards I went solemnly to work on my checkbook, balancing to see all was in order before I went downtown after lunch to transfer from my savings account across the street to my checking account. And took your account book along to deposit the latest royalties, and get the last of last year's interest dividends in order. Also for Hilda's account. I will reckon all out, at least roughly, and bring with me so you can see both how well you are doing and how much must now be paid out in taxes.

And of course I keep on answering the letters that come in.
They are endless.

Last night did not bring the promised snow, for which we
proffer our thanks. It has turned cold however, from springlike degrees
plop down into the teens. But it made the walk to the bank all the
brisker, and one was glad for dry feet.

Susan and I went to the Lawn Club for dinner, and then by the
chartered club bus to Woolsey Hall for the New Haven Symphony. I dosed off
and on during the early part of the program but was much impressed by David
Oistrakh's violating playing of a Shostakovich concerto.

Tonight we have Lizzie and her older friend for supper and
then to show the photographs of Ireland. Fortunately they always go home
early since they have a distance to drive. And I shall hope to get some
more reading of manuscripts accomplished.

Do, if you should write me to Frankfurt, give me the precise
mailing address of the Glockenhof. I might be able to get a letter ot two
to you there.

All love,

No letter from you today in any of the mails.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

I am at the hair-tearing stage. Did not write you at all yesterday, even though your letter of the 22nd was in the first mail. But so were a number of business letters that had to be answered before I leave. And at half past ten a man came down from vermont (by appointment it is true) to discuss the sending of American professors to India. I thought he would go at the latest to his luncheon appointment by noon, but from ten-thirty until one he kept talking. Then I had to read the rest of the manuscript by the man in the Publicity Bureau of his collection of Northern voyages and see him at five to go over it. Alas, I had had it since mid-November! Last night I crept back into the kitchen and read the two chapters by the Norwegian which I am to go over with him in Oslo. I had to see if they raised any questions which could only be answered here. I finished that, and so could come more or less immediately this morning to the Library and my typewriter for more of the letters of recommendation, telephone calls. But lawdy, no lecture typed out yet for Frankfurt or notes made for the seminars in the mountains or the talk in Oslo. So geht es. After lunch Sister Bernetta Quinn came because she wanted to thank me. She is charming but her thanks took an hour. Then a Japanese who simply had to see me before he left, and a New Zealander wanted to but I said no just say goodbye to me over the phone. And then a playwright came to give me his new play and he stayed too. So my hands are flying in order to get me to my appointment at the gymnasium in time. You lose and I lose. Tonight we are having the other French visiting fellow and a couple from the English Department for dinner -- my devoirs in that direction which we are trying to pay off.

Oh yes I read one of the short stories by the son of the masseur at the gym, so I could have been polite before departure. Sample:

"Is this place full of rats and lice and stuff?" asked Elliot.
"Of course not," said Shyller. "You read too many naturalistic novels."

Your second of the 22nd and that of the 23rd were in the noon's mail. I quite understand about wanting to clear away the books you already have before ordering more. The accumulation is what fills my nerves with tension. I am of course delighted that *January* is being reviewed and when I get back must order a copy sent to me. # The review Horace spoke of you did see and commented on in general terms. It was the one by me in the New York Times on the Carnevali memoirs which Kay Boyle more or less edited, although just what she did is not altogether clear. I sent it to you in early December when it came out. Horace does not read the daily or Sunday Times, nor even the Book Review Section, as I would have imagined he might. # I suggested to Ruegg that he might want to stay at the Angleterre. Since he'll be on an expense account he might as well live it up. I imagine we'll have to take him to dinner and then discreetly let him prowl. # This is very bad luck indeed for John. A fall is what everyone fears under such conditions. # Yes, do bring the clippings of the reviews so I can absorb their beauty. # As to Hans's report on Elsie, don't

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

27 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

Since this is certain to be a hell of a day I had better begin it
with your letter. Otherwise for a second time this week none may be written.
Yesterday's interruptions I described to you. Last night when I returned home
Susan said a young Hawthorne collector was coming from Detroit today--he had
said he himself would come; I explained how busy I was; now he says his wife
will come too. All very well to say brush him off, but he is the leading Haw-
thorne collector now and always hands copies of his letters by H over to me.
His letter spoke of two more, one the best letter known. So much of today
will be shot, and not even a copy of my public lecture in Frankfurt made--let
alone studying for the other less formal ones. The one for Oslo I can do in
the blizzards while we are in Copenhagen.

And so many letters remaining that must be written before I go.
I too mislay things, but the Frankfurt Hotel is Frankfurter Hof, Bethmannstr. 33.
In Copenhagen I stay at the Angleterre, but probably you don't need a note for
that. Frankfurt to Copenhagen is Lufthansa flight number 212, arriving 2:20 p.m.
I will see you at the Angleterre.

Your letter of the 24th was in the morning's post, for which Saturday
blessing please my thanks. Sorry the Times review dissatisfied. But so long as
it is read it is sold, and of course you really do have a style which is something
not given to every writer. # Imagine you may want to take along a pile of letters
to be answered from Copenhagen. I will have brought along my typewriter but will
not be using it while there. So it is yours.

Last night's dinner party went well, so well that the two couples did
not leave until midnite. One a new professor of English at Yale--once a kind of
protege of mine (Hartmann). No, that's too much, but he used to cling as an instructor.
A German refugee as is his wife. The other a visiting teacher from the University at
Montpelier, Joubert--a poet also, and novelist he says. His wife was pleasant. I
had not realised he knew Aldington and also sees Watha occasionally. I shall have
to get the dirt from him after my return.

Disappointment, and fears confirmed. Yesterday came a letter from
Pokross--a Norman and David one again, pleasantly. "I have reached Dr. Wilbur and
learned that he has not retained any of the papers which were turned over to him by
Max Barsis following the death of Dr. Sachs. He has destroyed all the papers--too
bad." And so it is!

Also a long letter from the Hodgson nephew, for whom paradoxically, as
he says, bad times have been helpful. "For some inexplicable reason, the demand
for my work grew as economic conditions worsened. The tight er the squeeze, the
frostier the freeze, the more Fleet Street beamed on me--nay positively grinned like
a Cheshire Cat." So, freed for the moment anyhow from financial problems he is at
work again filling out corners in Hodgson's life.

I thought you might be amused at the note left us by the postman, in
response to his Christmas gift.

All love, Norman

which arrived without being seen

and without being seen

HOTEL FRANKFURTER HOF

FRANKFURT AM MAIN

TELEFON:
(0611) 202 51

TELEX:
411806

TELEGRAMM:
FRANKHOF

A. STEIGENBERGER HOTELGESELLSCHAFT K.G.a.A.

FRANKFURT AM MAIN: Hotel Frankfurter Hof, Hotel Monopol-Metropole, Flughafen-Restaurants, Henninger Turm Restaurants, Frankhof Kellerei

DÜSSELDORF: Park Hotel

DUISBURG: Hotel Duisburger Hof

MANNHEIM: Palasthotel Mannheimer Hof

STUTTGART: Hotel Graf Zeppelin

KONSTANZ: Insel-Hotel

BADEN-BADEN: Hotel Europäischer Hof, Badhotel Badischer Hof

BAD HOMBURG V.D.H.: Ritters Park Hotel

BAD KISSINGEN: Kurhaus-Hotel

BAD NEUENAHR: Kurhotel, Kursanatorium

BAD REICHENHALL: Grandhotel Axelmannstein, Kurhausbetriebe

ROM: Hotel Quirinale, Birreria „Bavaria“

31 January 1968

Dearest Fido,

What a delight to have your letters waiting for me, even yours of the 30th was here by early afternoon. I should of course have written you yesterday to announce my safe arrival but I was in a mid-kingdom of exhaustion both from the trip and getting ready for it. I have nothing to complain of the ride across. The flight originated in Lima, and a number of Peruvians were aboard, but they were all quiet Peruvians and once the late supper had been served at 10:30 everyone settled down. The plnae only had some fifty passengers, so I luckily had three seats to myself, could put the arms up and sprawl out more or less, being careful not to stick my feet out in the üsle. Lufthansa. The usual Boeing plane. No problem with customs at all. One simply walks by with the bags which they do not even bother to put chalk marks on. Alas, a former student of mine, now teaching here, was at the airport to meet me but we somehow failed to make contact until he called me at the hotel and came to have lunch with me. The afternoon I slept away, going out only for a walk on which I stopped in at the Goe the House. It was interesting, had nice furniture and very much the air. But I gather today that air is what it chiefly is having been reconstructed after the bombings nearly everything was destroyed. But I still wonder if they didn't evacuate the furniture. I slept late again this morning and then drove with the young German to Offenbach to see the Klingspar Museum, of 20th century graphic arts, especially of the book. This to please a friend of ours in New Haven. The Director was most kind and I found it interesting. Then to an antiquariat and bought two mid-19th-century congratulation cards, since the Germans never celebrated Valentines Day. Valentine's Day was an English invention, it seemed. I wonder why the English in a small restaurant near the bookstore, and then back to the hotel for a long nap this afternoon. Tonight I go out to dinner at the home in the country of a German banker.

I am much amused, although annoyed for your sake, that Ines now starts to nag. It is symbol of dignity I imagine, as she has learned from Elsie. And of course she perhaps dreams of being the new Elsie. One really can't be friends with the help, but it is too lonely to live in aloof dignity. Your trouble and mine is that we have quivering consciences We should worry less about hurting people's feelings.

The weather today was almost springlike. People are walking about without coats. I wonder if it is the same for you in Zurich, and if we may not be in for crocuses in Denmark. I rather hope so. Then you will not be sorry for having spupplied Marie Anee your coat. + Yes, probably it is long surface journey that has kept January from arriving in New Haven. Thank you for ordering it. It doesn't matter when, just that there be a copy in the archives. I'll try to dig up The Observer review if you don't get a copy. What fools, on the Sunday Times, to make fun of it. + Will comment on the letters you enclose in my next. Now I think I should go down and have a cup of coffee, since dinner isn't until 7:30. + Good luck on your visit to Elsie. I am glad Hans can go mit. Greet her if indicated, for me; also Joan.

SPIELBANK WIESBADEN · Täglich ab 15 Uhr · ROULETTE · BACCARA

Spielbankbus ab Frankfurt/M. Hbf., Baseler Platz und Park-Hotel: 1400, 1600, 1800, 2200 Uhr und zurück

Absender ist Gust des Hotels

TELEGR.ADR.: „GRAND"
TELEFON 415820

TELEX: 1683 GRAND O
BANKGIRO: KK-6250/86

13 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

The day was forlorn when I said goodbye at the D'Angleterre, and indeed remained so in every sense. The morning I spent quietly at the hotel, packing and writing a very few of the very many letters I had thought to do during all the leisure of my three weeks abroad. How little leisure there was in Copenhagen you well know. It has not been much different here. I ate my breakfast in the dining room, being already down, and thought it very good. I stuck my head out of the window into the morning drizzle, from my room, to watch a military band march towards Ny Havn along The Street. Then they marched down again. I never knew why.

The plane to Oslo was packed. We immediately went above the clouds and stayed there. But for five minutes, above Norway, the skies cleared and I could look down at huge wastes of snow, and little red houses, and green fir trees. Then the clouds shut in again before we landed, and stayed thusly until today. There are high drifts in the center of town, and as one goes towards the suburbs the drifts are six feet high and over. Everyone goes around Oslo carrying skis and the effect must be rather like a more urban St Moritz. Actually yesterday it snowed lightly for most of the day. I am not quite sure that all this is quite your cup of tea. Or chip of ice.

Sunday night I went to my student Overlund's house at the edge of the country, and you would have liked trying the reindeer meat they served me. (This noon for lunch I had ptarmigan I become arctic.)

Actually most of yesterday's possible hours went into preparing my two-hour lecture, from six-fifteen to eight-fifteen last night (a ghastly time). But my morning schedule was interrupted by a call of state from Col. Roscher Lund who was in charge of the Norwegian service during the war. It was pleasant of course to see him, but rather hard to hear him since he had recently lost his vocal chords by cancer. He did talk remarkably well however. His daughter, who studied architecture at Yale, while he was at the U.N., has now become a very popular Norwegian historical novelist-- Vera Henriksen. She has been translated into several languages but not, I gather into English.

Thus I had actually gotten little more than started before it was time to go to the university for lunch with the two professors of English (both of whom I knew) and the two young bright ones, both of whom had studied under me. Indeed the present Fulbright professor at Oslo, a man named Singleton, tells me that his first course in American literature was in one of my classes at Yale. The mid-day meal was a good one, I was toured a bit about the campus and the journey back by car begun, only to have a flat tire just outside the city line. Just outside fortunately because I could walk to the end of the tram line and tram my way in to the very door of the hotel. With that luck behind me I used the two hours to prepare myself to serve mass. There was an audience of about 200, which the professors thought good, and I think the talk went off well enough. At least they paid attention. A ten minute intermission broke up the two hours, and I was surprised to have an unknown lady come up and offer me flowers. She turned out to be the mother-in-law of the New Zealand-Irish poet who is a visiting fellow under me at Yale. I was pleased also that a Sigrid Anderssen, one of the leading poets of Norway who also had studied under me had come with her husband Snorre who is an artist and had been in New Haven with her.

TELEGR.ADR.: ,,GRAND'

TELEFON 415820

TELEX: 1683 GRAND O

BANKGIRO: KK-6250/86

After the lecture Prof. Kristen Smidt had a little
supper party for me at his home, where the Anderssens
and a few others went. Fortunately the Anderssens
had read about the lecture in the local papers, and so
could be invited as from the evening itself.

Today the sun did shine at last I am glad to
say, although the day began at nine when Dietriccsen
(who is doing his dissertation at Oslo but received
the idea of it from me) brought me the 600-page finished
product for me to take back to the States to read.
The extra air freight as well as the wear and tear of
reading it will be costly. But it means much to him
I gather. Then I went shopping for the last things,
and managed even to find the earrings and a make-it-your
self model of the Kon-Tiki raft for Justus, exactly the
thing he is likely to enjoy. I even bought a knitted
cap apiece for the two girls and the two grandchildren,
so all is in order that way.

Then off we went to see the Viking ships, and
what a thrill they do give. And what extraordinary
things were found on them. I caught a hurried glimpse
of the boats just after the war, but they are better
shown now and the objects were not then on display.
Since I had bought the model for Justus we then went
(Overlund taking me in his car) to the original Kon-
Tiki which was interesting although I somehow could
never throw myself into that adventure as I can with
the Vikings. I was however rather interested that they
had the raft displayed so that one could descend stairs
and look up at the raft as it floated among the strange
fish.

After that we went to the Norwegian Folksmuseum
which is one, perhaps the, first of the outdoor museums.
We had thought it would be closed, but several buildings
were open and especially lovely in the heavy snow. The
farmhouses date from the 10th century on, and the stave
church is particularly beautiful. Meanwhile, as we

were making the rounds, a nice museum curator was
trying to identify the carved horn cup I had brought
along with me from the States under the assumption,
from Ingholt, that it was Norwegian. She couldn't
get very far with it but is keeping it to show to
the Director. If he doesn't know I'll have Overlund
ship it to Denmark for them to work on. This is
something I bought for five dollars in Charleston, S.C.
but never knew what it was, only that it was curious
and interesting. It has remained a teazer. Perhaps
it still will.

So the day has gone, but there is a part of it
left. The lady poet is to come for a drink in a quatter
of an hour, and a half hour after I have to leave by
Taxi for a half hour's drive into the country for an
8 o'clock dinner with Professor Skard who is the
granddaddy professor of them all. Tomorrow I pack
and go back to New Haven, but what with gifts given me
here it is a little difficult to know how everything
can be squeezed in.

I may be able to get in a note tomorrow. Otherwise it will be several days before a letter from the States actually reaches you.

Meanwhile remember me. It really was wonderful
of you to come to Copenhagen. I was grateful.

All love,
Norrman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 13th was in the first morning post, and it
is good to feel that we are at our posts again. Good, that is, except for
the fun of having the one post we maintained in Copenhagen. I was delighted
of course that Joan was pleased with her utensils (Susan certainly was with
her replacements). When I demurred slightly at first it was because I thought
you meant taking only one. This will give her great swank. I wonder somehow
if perhaps Australia might not be the eventual answer for Joan after Ethel's
death. She could certainly never live with papa, even if or especially if he
became an invalid. His insistence on precision would inevitably tense her.
Certainly now she would go out with invaluable skills, and could get almost
any kind of a job. I had gotten the idea she returned only because she could
not find her husband.

Still sad at each fresh word of Elsie. I am really afraid she
will go on sinking; it is a little like my father's case, until she is mostly
veg. One can only pray that it doesn't go on too long, yet be thankful if
and as she herself knows nothing. I am glad you didn't try to pay her a visit.
No good would have been done, and a trip will be more meaningful if you want
to go en route to England or on your way back. Yet you don't really need to
go at all if it upsets you. I fear it can't help but do just that; it would
me.

I am glad you had the letter from Petrie's former chief maid. I
remember her well. She is what we on this side would cally "family." She sat
down beside me at the buffet supper and told me all. I believe one son is a
judge in Washington, D.C. I count on her taking care of Robin from now on in.
I hope he will be willing to have her.

If the Philby book is the one done by the Times staff, just send
it by surface. I will already have had the materials in the clippings--but do
want the bound version. I have not ordered it; I probably told you I would.
John le Carre was to have had an article on a visit with Philby in last Sunday's
Observer. In the Mrs Kim's book, Philby was a little harsh on The Spy that Came
in From the Cold, but preferred it to the James Bond things. I finished the book
on the plane, and did find it rather interesting in the account of how they lived
in Russia. Here it is a real document of dolor, but one sensed the difficulties
for anyone in their position. She is unattractive to say the least, and so were
the MacLeans. It was interesting for a moment too as she related her departure
from London for Moscow--the Russians arranged for her to avoid immigration and all
other British officials. Why do they wonder that prisoners can escape the country
after escaping jail?

Before getting this far it has become the end of the day, what with
luncheon and a visit to the doctors for my common cold shots and a smallpox
vacination so I can be clear if every a sudden emergency calls me out of the country.
Mine was good through this last trip but will have expired before time for the
Netherlands.

Yours of the 14th was in the noon's mail. I am really aghast that

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Elsie's root of trouble actually was a tumor
though I doubt she could have survived surgery again. I simply put aside your
diagnosis as unconfirmed by the surgeons and psychiatrists. The whole situation
is both shocking and alarming, and I shall be much happier when you are out of
Switzerland. Joan's case was so nearly similar--a refusal to bother to make
tests. But of course it was somewhat the same for Marya here, and it took a
big stick and Gaylord to work the trick. Yet in slight defense of the profession
I imagine that Elsie like most patients rather underplayed the symptoms. I do
hope this doesn't go on too long for her. She must be frightened beyond belief.

All will be well with the security of Petrie's letters, and they should
indeed be saved. I doubt that either Robin or Oonagh would bother. If they offer
you your letters back, accept them.

I sympathize with you in terms of the filing cabinets you are going thru.
But the gesture is a sensible one.

Sachie's letter was sad in the extreme, although gall bladders do come
out easily, they say, and he might well be better in consequence. I am a little
surprised, and perhaps a bit apprhensive, about his trip -- but he will certainly
have pleasanter post-operative weather in England if he postpones until spring.

I spoke at great length last night with both Pup and John who rang full
of anxiety to find out about you. John has a dreadful cold and sounded it. They
quite understand about your not coming over at this time but look forward to seeing
you in the summer or late spring. I will write more about the talk later.

Must fly now. You are the only one I have written a letter or even a note
to. My heart sinks when I look at my desk.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you this morning, but this is a normal Saturday non-happening. Indeed there was scarcely a morning, for this is Alumni Day and I was drawn into the affair insofar as the Graduate School Alumni are concerned. At least for the morning meeting of this particular group. But I bowed out from the immense luncheon with its speaches and medals, as well as from the forum or two on high-minded topics this afternoon. Instead I spent the period after lunch with my nose close to the pen as I paid bills and wrote the most urgent notes which must go off before the weekend. This will have been my 31st today, so that the pile is somewhat lower. Yet frightening all the same, for what are left demand real letters.

An old friend from Graduate School days has just been elected to the governing board of their alumni, and is staying with his wife with other friends of ours. We used to go off on trips with them and so we had a dinner for eight in their honor last night, all elegantly prepared by Susan and served by the hired-in maid. Tonight we go to another dinner for them given by their hosts.

To report otherwise, I must announce the arrival of seven yellowbacks, which will keep me occupied. A copy of Vernon Watkins' *Selected Poems* and his *Affinities*, for which my thanks. A copy of the 4th printing of *Beowulf*, and one of the English edition of *January*.

You asked me to report on which book of Creekmore's it was that I lacked for the collection I was giving Yale. It is his novel, *The Welcome* published in 1948. I rather imagine this is before your acquaintance with him, or the time he worked for John.

The book on Hilda's poetry is out, and a note from the author (as of the 2nd) asked me where to send my copy. I rather imagine you would like to see a copy of this, but I will not send until instructed. I have not forgotten the new volume of American history.

Now for a few moments on Grindea, though I shall not try to give the story in sequence. Apparently the University of Rochester (at the urging of Schilling, the friend who is here for the Alumni weekend) is putting up ten thousand a year for three years on the basis that Grindea's *Adam* will be published as sponsored by Rochester, perhaps giving it a bit more of an American slant than it has had. (All this from Schilling, and told slightly differently by Grindea). For the first year he will remain in London and edit from there, but come over for one term and give a course or two in comparative literature. His title to be, Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Editor-in-Residence. His wife who teaches music at the Lycee Francaise, in London, will move over with him the second year and stay--though if it doesn't work out all will be cancelled after the third. Grindea describes *Adam* repeatedly to me as an avant guarde magazine, but fine as it is I can't say that I think it's avant guarde. To the contrary, rather nostalgic. Whether the particular tone he's given the magazine can be continued as from this side I really can't know; personally I should doubt it, for half of his life is devoted to seeing friends, acting as courier for inside news, and being peoples' guest; and the other half in half-cadging contributions from the friends he keeps in contact with. He also has a highly independent air which may be cramped in a subsidized situation. For example when I asked why he

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wouldn't send his budget for the Ramux number to Simonds, he simply shrugged
his shoulder.--Why should I? I didn't ask them for any money. If they want to
buy some copies to distribute, let them. That Simonds is a no-one! But
he does have a great belief in Adam and its powers to make, or re-make,
reputations. --- You have done more for me than anyone or anything, even the
Amazons, said Natalie Barney modestly.--- You will see, an H.D. number will
make every publisher come begging for her manuscripts; you will see; I assure
you.--- It is all rather appealing, and he does perform a service, and it is
hard to know whether one is being conned or not. What he wanted was the H.D.
number, and I suppose there is no harm in his trying, so long as he himself
does the exploration. He wants to come here to stay for a week next fall--you
will find me a room, yes?-- and work over her papers and letters--we will
print many of her letters (my, inwardly--no.) And yes you must give me a
copy of Romaine Brooks's memoirs so that Natalie and Mrs Bryher and all of us
can surprise her. Mrs Bryher wishes it very much. But I could only say that
if Natalie Barney would write me a note saying to turn the manuscript over to
him I would gladly do so. But that I didn't feel I could do this without some
authority, even if he promised that it would never go to a museum. He made me
a gift of a copy of the *Natalie Barney* issue of Adam, saying first how he had
bought it from an old subscriber; then later, when he had forgotten that he had
paid six dollars for it at the Gotham. So I said, but of course you must let
me pay you the six dollars. That would be very nice. He also made me a gift
of a drawing by a French artist he was helping--I have sold one to Harvard,
one to ???, another to ???, he is so starving and I so wished to sell all of them,
but there are these three left and I would have sold them for 150 dollars instead
of the 300 dollars I wished to take back to him because he is starving, but I
want you to have it, you will enjoy it so much. And so of course what was there
to do but write him a check for 150 dollars. And how much it was planned to be
this way I really don't know. But he is an operator all the same, in the best
middle-European fashion. He is Adam, and I think he has already eaten the apple.

All love, as always,

N o r m a n

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

I waited until the noon mail to see if there would something
from you. There was, and I am delighted to be brought a little closer to
today by yours of the 16th. I do not quite dare risk this to Kenwin --
I could not write yesterday--and am only sorry there will have been several
days of silence from me before you read it.

Your program for England sounds sensible, and I gather you are
not going to try to arrive in time for Hilda's program. As I recalled it
was to be on the 24th while you are still in Zurich. In any event it makes
very good sense indeed to go to Cornwall more or less at the beginning.
Ethel will be eager to see you. So should we all.

Poor Elsie! First it was thought to be arterio sclerosis,
then as I gathered it was thought to have been a tumor, now you say they
say it was a stroke. It would look as though the first and last were the
more closely linked. Yet it is a pity, as Prutting would know, that they
can't have an autopsy eventually to find out what really happened. I sup-
pose no one cares professionally, and so no one would benefit in any event
it is certainly too late for any benefit from an operation.

I am not altogether surprised, or will not be, if Brother Hans
is not a little sticky. He will revenge himself for her bullying by be-
coming the master of her estate. Oh, if only we could not have arranged to
repurchase the shares of Kenwin. You must leave all discussion of this to
Coigny. He will handle it like a banker-lawyer, in precisely the way a Swiss
can understand.

One gathers that your conversation with the Maitre went well,
and I am delighted to know that he agrees to putting the place more or less
immediately on the market--no matter what the reason. As to a recession, one
feels that coming everywhere. In the States we have a splendidly optimistic
term for it; every time the market goes down they call it the result of profit
taking. What glory our language has.

The poor deBeers must indeed be suffering, but you cannot take
them under your wing. There is only so much room in any nest.

Most of the morning was spent in our cause. I finished reading
the six yellowbacks, but will report on them later.

Pokross had written as of February 1st: "I have been holding up
the first distribution to the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute from
the Hanns Sachs Trust pending clarification of the position of Anna Freud.
Am I right in so doing or shall I go ahead and make a first distribution of
about 20% of the Trust." I instructed him to go ahead and make this first
distribution. I shall try to see Anna Freud after I have gotten my desk clear
again, but even one trustee is legally free to distribute the whole even without
consultation.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Then I had had a letter from Ernst,ane, Berner & Gitlin -- in
New York, whom I had consulted about copyright for Palimpsest, which as
you know is being reissued by Southern Illinois. I assumed that Houghton
Mifflin had copyrighted originally and then renewed, but they did not even
at the beginning. I suppose this was because actually they distributed
the French sheets with a new title page, so that it was already in the
public domain.

My final bit of Bryher Ltd. business was to reply to barbara
Jordan, from whom a letter was waiting. I have had a xerox made of her
letter and will send it along in the next letter or so, but will have
to take that to the postoffice to weigh it. Also have a copy of the
comparativist history book, and will post that to England for possible
reading during Cornish nights or while in London again. Apparently she
spent long hours going over brochures her brother brought back and finally
settled on a Falcon Futura station-wagon, although I am not sure I know
exactly what it is. ".... and this is the first NEW car I have ever hoped
to have." I noticed that in her letter to you, the magic of newness had
already settled in. So I felt one should not take the glow from the exper-
ience. The net price comes to $2,800 or so the dealer's estimate states.
I suspect however he has tactfully omitted all sales taxes so the final
amount may come to more. She must wait six weeks after ordering, so I
sent her along a check to cover the $2,800 to enable her to make whatever
deposit is necessary, saying if taxes were extra I would meet that also.
You had already given me $1,000 towards the cost so the additional amount
could easily be managed by me. Don't bother about sending the difference
until I know about the taxes, and at least until you get back to Kenwin.
I only hope I have done as you would wish in this matter.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

I was delighted this morning to have your letters of the
15th and 17th. That of the 16th arrived yesterday. Alas, I am not
surprised about the block with Kenwin--you will remember that I said
that just such an impasse might be reached. This was why, especially
when I thought Elsie's illness might be prolonged, I hoped that ancon-
servator could be appointed for her by the courts and was disappointed
when you said they thought it was better to wait. But I am sure Hans
will be reasonable, especially if a firm offer can be got for Kenwin.
I rather suspect at court Hans's fifth (as he will consider it) can
be outvoted by your fifth. I was much amused at your picture of the
Ruegg with his sincere tie on. I think he liked his little fling. At
any rate I am glad you could get your quick codicil in shape. Basically
there needn't be much re-arranging, simply pruning.

I am glad that at least the Oslo letter reached you. I
can't be quite sure how many I managed to get in for Kenwin after my
return. I wrote none on Sunday and yesterday's I dared risk only at the
Sesame. So will I this one, and perhaps tempt the fates with one in
care of Ethel.

To repeat: I didn't order the Philby, indeed am not quite
sure whether this is the Times one or the second of the scheduled three.
Mrs Kim's was the third. When you have finished with it, send it along,
or have one from London come. Philby's own book is to be published in
late spring here by Grove. I will send to you, as I gather it will not
appear in London. Surface is good enough for the Philby book to travel
to me. Incidentally, Philby got only fifty thousand for the American
rights as against the 200 thousand he wanted.

A very nice letter indeed from Sylva to you about Petrie.
You may want to see her this time when you are in London. She was obviously
moved, and especially for your sake.

Life becomes suddenly very complicated. I was dozing post-
prandially last night over the TLS when the phone rang with young Susan's
voice at the other hand. Her cousin Ann, the daughter of Susan's sister
Jane Lovejoy (who was remarried and divorced so shortly afterwards) had
just phoned her that she had just tried, or intended to shoot her two
little sons and herself, but (I gather) had fired into the floor instead
and then called her psychiatrist too. What should Susan's Susan do. I
said I would go out with her, then remembered that Ann always had a great
affection for Susan, and said the two Susans might be better. Middle Susan
called Ann, the suggestion was enthusiastically received, and so the two
grandchildren were brought to the house a little after nine p.m., and the
two Susans set off. The house was dark when they arrived, they were scared,
but the door was opened and Ann dissolved in Susan's arms. The doctor and
the police arrived almost immediately, and eventually Ann was taken by the
doctor to the emergency room (Susan going with her) and young Susan took the
two little Burke's in the car back to Goodrich Street where she picked up the
two grandchildren. I gathered later that as the two little boys (seven and
four) left their home, the older boy said to his mother: "You wanted to shoot

NORMAN
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PEARSON

all three of us--then we would have been out of this miserable world." I shouldn't say "gather", for my Susan was present. Justus of course had been eager to know what was up, and I would say only that Ann had had a breakdown like Lizzie's. But once in the car with the older Burke he asked again, and I heard him cock his fingers like a gun and say "Bang, bang, just like that?" Davie agreed and said, "Then she called the doctor." And when Justus asked how long they were to be with Susan, Davie shrugged. God knows!" he said. One learns a lot by seven. It is frightening.

I went down to the emergency room to bring Susan back eventually after the doctors told her she could go. I had a few words with the psychiatrist but am waiting in mid-afternoon for his promised phone call. What is to be done with the two children. When can we tell Ann's mother. And so forth and so on. Susan, both Susans, were marvelous but both are truly tense. Understandably. Ann is separated, or divorced from her husband; young Susan looks in a mirror, and besides which has an overloaded schedule of study. Everyone knows there will be hell to pay with the mother, with whom a long feud and misunderstanding. I hope I can help, but indeed even I would prefer lying in the shade of an arbor and catching ripe grapes, as they fell, in my navel.

I wonder what the doctor will say. That is, if he calls. But of course he has other patients all day.

Hope all goes well in London and in Cornwall. Distribute my greetings, especially to Ethel and the Brigadier. Affectionate ones to them, and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

21 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

I live dangerously and risk still this letter % Sesame.
Your letter of the 18th came in the noon's mail. I feel nicely up-to-
date. The Viking ships were exciting and we must see them together
one day. I had not before seen the treasures that were with them.
I suspect that these must have been hidden away during the war and not
brought out by the time I got there.

Glad you are beginning to go through things. You are like
me in not wanting things to go to waste. Susan sometimes, sensibly,
tosses something out; I always ask if so-and-so mightn not use it.
Often they do. The Boxer sounds like great sport, but why did you ever
think I was not keen on dogs. They were a passion with me, and my
Saint Bernard was my delight and companion as a small boy. He had a
house large enough for me to play in too, and he would draw me in a
cart as tho a pony. When he died, however, my mother wanted a small
one for the house and bought a pomeranian. I liked him too, though
the breed wouldn't have been my choice. When I married Susan the
springer became my dog--they usually like males best-- and Mark and I
were devoted for the ten years or so until he died aetat 18. I wept,
and great plans were made to give me another. But I said no, for
Goodrich Street was no longer a place where a dog could go free,
and a dog on a leash lives in hell. Nor could he be left alone for
a day or days, and alas we no longer had servants to keep an eye and
be a companion. A month in a kennel would break the spirit of a dog
of mine, and so wistfully I said no. It would be fun, but for me alas
impossible. Still, a Boxer might be great fun for you to have, and I
should relish it because I'd know it would keep you in New Haven without
traveling always to New York or for trips elsewhere. Anyhow, don't say
I haven't your feelings for dogs--they sniff me too!

The affair of the niece begins to sort itself out. Susan
gave up her exercise classes today and had an appointment with a case
work at the Conn. Mental Health Center where Ann is being kept. They
think she can be released on Friday and ought to go back to her own home
with the two boys. But is to see a psychiatrist or analyst in the Center
three times a week for a while. The mother too they wish to speak to,
but since Jane is going to Florida for a month on Sunday (they will tell
her what has happened; fortunately Susan won't have to) this may be put off
until her return. It may be better; they will know more. Susan felt the
girl much relieved. Young Susan who cannot be with her own two tomorrow
brings them and the two Burkes to Goodrich Street tomorrow morning. In the
afternoon, the two Addisses go to their father in Providence; the two Burkes
will stay on with us until Friday. One picks up a bit more background to
the seven-year old's parting remark to the mother. It seems that, earlier
in the evening, when the mother took the gun into the bedroom to shoot them
and herself, young Davie (according to Ann) discussed the matter with his
mother for a half hour, not begging for pity but arguing out the ill-logic
of her intentions, as an old man would. The "miserable world" must have been
her original argument for an exit. I shudder to think of the psychic scar

NORMAN
HOLMES
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all this is likely to leave on the boy, for he can hardly forget it even
though he and his brother were sound asleep when the two Susans arrived
and could not have been more poised at our house. I think one will have
to watch him, however, knowing his secret, and keep an analyst at hand.

To yellowback for a minute. How nice it was of Jean Starr's friend
to put the two big ads for her book into the paper. I noticed the one in
the Times, tho I don't take the N.Y.Review of Books. But I cannot really
blame her publisher for not going to such lengths on their own. # I looked
again at Barbara Jordan's letter after she had heard of your gift of the
car. She really is most grateful, could not be more so, and even though
one's purse strings may be a little tight just now this is the moment for
her car if there is ever to be one. # Chris's October letter gave a nice
background to the luncheon I had with them. I thought the little wife
charming, really petit bourgeois rather than sauvage, and will always be
most loyal and keep a tidy igloo. # I had not seen Michael Gough's early
December letter about Princeton and the possibility of Toronto, when I
asked about them. No wonder you were shocked to think I thought they
would remain at Amkara. I suppose *The Dorak Affair* was rather in the manner
of the newspaper articles you sent me. I still have them, I think. #
Marya's letter about the local surgeon put more clearly in writing what
I had been hysterically told by her over the phone. I wonder how much
different it would otherwise have been, and I can't help remembering that
if Horace had carried out both my warnings and the actual appointments
I made for him with Prutting the affair would never have happened at all.
# We really didn't discuss Rosemary S. except for gifts, though I had meant
to ask you about her Greek house. Now with that still a loss, the Caravan
to be paid for, and a move nearer London to be contemplated, she must be
in a tight financial situation. I imagine Daddy rather took care of such
matters for her, and I suspect an elderly solicitor might be in order to
advise and consent. But one sympathizes with her restlessness. # A nice
letter from your Scilly potter friends. One's mouth waters at the thought
of their new boat, waters enough to float the boat in the fancy. # One looks
forward to Miss Dudley's report on Nor Nour, but these are always years in
eventualizing. # Valentine writes a very nice if somewhat formal level. I
doubt that he relaxes very much at this stage of his life. Last night we
saw him at the New Haven Symphony concert. A new, very wild but exciting
composition was given its first performance anywhere-- orchestra plus
computor music, caterwaul. He had come down for it and sought us out. He
is so tall now and speaks so softly than I can hardly hear him, and his
head is so high above me that my dim eyes can scarcely do lip-reading.
I told him about Elsie and Petrie but he knew all that and brushed it aside.
"How is Bryher?" is what he wanted to know. I introduced him to Ralph
Kirkpatrick, the famous harpsichordist, and Herda Graz who used to sing
with the Metropolitan and is now married to Fritz Redlich (the first of the
Hanns Sachs Fund beneficiaries in Vienna). Whether this gave us sufficient
dignity I don't know. # Lethbridge's letters were so abstruse as to leave
me miles behind them. But they always fascinate. # I can see that Islay
is really keen to see Mummy, understandably. I daresay he wishes you would
run down too, but I don't think you can manage it. I wondered however if
you might not ask in Christian Wolfe and his mate. # A wonderful picture
of I.A. R and his wife at the celebration of the centenary of the ascent of

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Dent Blanche. They both obviously have good digestions, to judge from
the way they pile into the stew. # What an extraordinary letter from
your fan, and the Jordans' friend Frank Huffman, the cartoonist.
can't imagine what help you could give him with children's books
of the sort he intends. he had better go to one of the summer courses
in the States where they lay down the absolute rules: an angel may or
may not have a crown; violence is not permitted; child rape must not
be encouraged, nor incest nor the dream of empires. If Mr Huffman
waited from 1965 until December 1967 to get in touch with you, I fear
he is not engagé enough. # I was fascinated by the idea of the Baltimore
Oriole at St. Agnes. # Interesting that the Rösslers given the chance to
pay a visit back to Europe prefer the idea of the Canadian Rockies. They
really are engaged; one can't help liking them. I must take them to you
some time. # It was rather nice to think of the Hotsons going for their
Christmas service to a little Negro church, or at least for Christmas
Eve to the Negro sunday school, and that she will have them into their
home afterwards. I could give them red apples and they would sneer; when
Mary does it they'll sing with joy. # I was amused, nicely, at Robin's
note yo you about the gift to the Irish georgian Society for the restoration
of Castletown. "It is indeed a lovely building but too large for any
ordinary family nowadays." "Too large for any ordinary family" nowadays.
An ordinary family yesterday? It is like Louis XVIth referring to Versailles.
# How sweet it is of Osbert to keep writing you, and always carefully to sign
his name himself.

I spent the morning going over short stories and poems written by
the son of my masseur at the gymn. An omnivorous reader and he uses big
words with abandon. Age 15. He writes with a certain power and precociousness,
with a strong emphasis on loneliness and solitary sex, with both of which he
seems hugely familiar. In my day a boy would not have written on both subjects,
and probably shown neither. I felt like a psychiatrist which was perhaps what
he wanted.

Do scatter my greetings to the barmaid and doorman at the Club, and
to the Brig and Ethel.

All love,

identify a pair of snow goggles in their collection, which had been a mystery. He is most faithful, Brother Volant, and says he remembers me in his prayers. I hope he does.

Our love to Ethel and the Brigadier.

Obviously and deeply to you, Brother

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

Washington's birthday and hence no delivery of mails at home. I had expected none at the office, but they did make one as within the university--Yale wishing to keep on going as usual. We observe no holidays of this sort. Nor do the merchants, for this is a shopping day par excellence.

Yesterday being our wedding anniversary, I invited three couples to join us at Chinese restaurant where I had arranged last week to have them serve us Pekin duck. A real rarity as a dish and eaten by the others for the first time. With Chinese food one ought as this time to order several days in advance. Many of the things were sent up from New York. Restaurant cooks like preparing special meals ordered in this way; it changes the monotony of their lives.

We were to have gone to a cocktail party this afternoon, but will not because of the two grand-nephews. I wonder if Susan will survive the day?

Your letter of the 19th was a Washington cherry for me. I thank you. Yes, they eulogized in the sagas. It is ultra Scandinavian. I did sit while listening, as well as when responding. I did by the way query Pope last night--he was a guest-- on the pronunciation of Geats. If, he said, the word had persisted it would probably today be equally pronounced Weets or Yates. But since the word had dropped out, he and others said Yats. Or close to it in the ca sound. What a sensation you will cause when with Agnes Latham if you say it so.

Yes, Grindea was I am sure being most respectful in calling you Winifred. Somehow he made it seem like the cry of a governess. In any case there was no Winnie, for which you may be thankful. As I wrote you, Adam may well be subsidized by the University of Rochester as a cosmopolitan venture. But transported to upper New York State I wonder if Adam will not become impotent. Tell Simond that Grindea is now back in London. # I like Den Prominente as against Permanente. It is somehow much more appropriate for the Wipf's blue scarf. Permanente goes better with cutlery. # Ah, for Mr Parker. I had forgotten.

Another small batch of dusty diamonds was waiting my return, to indicate to you that I am still faithful to my trust. Two by Stables: IN THE DASHING DAYS OF OLD and FACING FEARFUL ODDS. One by a S. Whitchurch Sadler: THE ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE OF THE "POLLY". One (1900) by HAVELOCK THE DANE by a Charles Whistler because the subject was yours and the book a presentation from the author and the price only a pound. Then a Kingston, SUNSHINE BILL. And best of all a new Henty first, THE SOLE SURVIVORS (1901). Not even Indiana had it, though it is listed in the B.M.

A nice letter in today from Brother Volant. I had sent him a copy of Gidding's Men of the Arctic, which he had not seen. He was able from it to

I wonder if you will see a daffodil in bloom in Cornwall. It is still bitterly cold here, close to zero. Each morning, but it has been dry, I am glad to say, and when the wind drops our spirits lift. Our love to the Brigadier and his lady, and obviously to you (how can a Fido say I am cold to dogs?)

23 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is so definitely one of those days which never existed so far as accomplishment is concerned. I began it by having to prepare for an early afternoon's visit from a man from Providence, R.I., who claimed that *The House of the Seven Gables* owed everything to E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Das Majorat." My feeling is that if academicians always say no to requests for discussion they fail to perform their role. So bone up on it, I did; and when he appeared after lunch he was, after all, a student at Brown who had just gotten his M.A. from there. But in mid-morning also came the Professor of American History from the University of Cologne, who plans to stay four weeks. It took him an hour to pay his respects on arrival. Once the Providence man had left, I was phoned by the New Zealand poet and professor here on a research fellowship, saying he must see me. It all had to do with his not really going back to New Zealand as the grant intended, but going to British Columbia instead. This will not please the Foundation, of whose committee I am a member, since the intention was to train people for New Zealand. But it's his own life of course.

At best I managed to get in only a few notes. One to Heydt who has sent on the revisions of his revisions of the translation. I feel as though I were conducting an out clinic. No good having a secretary at this point however, for it would take longer to dictate than to punch out.

We had a quieter evening than I had thought. The little boys' father came and took them to his mother's home for over night, with the permission of his ex-wife, who agreed so that her mother could not take them from Susan. They are to be returned this mid-afternoon and Susan will take them to the hospital to pick up Ann and take them all, with the dog and canary, back to their own home. It was thought better that the mother should not. Susan's sister is naturally hurt by all this--she really doesn't understand and disapproves of psychiatry--and one fears a rupture between her and Susan. However Jane goes to Florida for a month on Sunday and perhaps her vacation will prove a cooling off period.

Two letters from you in today's mail. I feel wealthy. That of the 20th and the 21st. Alas the clippings about Valentines and on Ena and Rita were left out. Grindea is all right so far as this particular trip was concerned. All expenses were paid for by the University of Rochester.

You talk about the difficulties of diagnosis for Elsie. I think it quite possible, and perhaps even likely, that she minimized her symptoms when she described them to him. One is apt to, if only to prove one's self not absolutely a neurotic. What folly we follow in order to appear brave. To be truthful is to be bravest of all. In other words Elsie went to the surgeon but her symptoms didn't.

I am amazed that Oonagh wants to put a hand to Petrie's book. I suspect she may want to discharge a debt or reverse a role. I hope you can see her while in London. It would be important for her. The majority of the book doesn't require much editing and I daresay Oonagh could handle it with a peek over the shoulder by Sylva. I enjoyed the latter's letter, though her description of the t.v. surgery sounded gristly. My hunch is that most American doctors would say let well enough alone, and at Sylva's age not to risk the bone not healing.
I remember that was the opinion about Hilda.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON
231 HGS

21 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

As I was going home last night I took one last peep in the mailbox, and found yours of the 21st. With the clippings in it. They are a triumph, and Susan rightly insists that they be added to her Valentine collection. She will paste each on a card and preserve as a "type."

I wonder if you will manage to get all your chores done in London. Certainly not on your preliminary visit but hopefully afterwards. As for staying over a day or two in Zurich on your way back, this seems to me to make sense in any event. For you will want to confer, possibly even visit Elsie -- why not blow and take a car?-- and your visits mean a lot to Joan. Too, there is Frau Schnack.

I do this rather briefly in the morning so as to be sure to get it into the box for the noon mail. The Saturday pickups come so early for the last that I occasionally miss it altogether.

The morning has been chiefly interrupted by a funeral. But since this was in the Yale Chapel I did not have far to go. The wife of a former college Master, whom Susan knew well years ago when Susan managed the Junior Leagure gift shop and Mary Merriman worked there. She was pregnant then, lost the child and found alcohol. One fears her liver was ultimately eroded; at any rate she has been rather out of circulation for many years. I never found I had anything to say to her, but we were never on parties when she drank enough to relax. So she may been very mellow and very jolly. To me she was very sad.

Otherwise I have been writing letters of recommendation. I get no time for anything of my own.

Nor have I been able to go to Washington to see the lawyers. But my suggestion is to put yourself down for the quota at the London Embassy, for this doesn't obligate you in any way, and even coming in under the quota equally doesn't obligate you except in terms of possible residence. But by the time you actually did or did not come by quota I shall have had the answers I need. This is for your return to London after Cornwall.

Love to the B rigadier and Ethel. To yourself, selbsverständig

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

25 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

Having just finished reading the manuscript of an article on Hawthorne submitted to the Essex Institute Quarterly (on whose editorial board I am) I can celebrate by a Sunday morning note to you. No letter, as usual from you yesterday, and of course none today. But from now on they may be as scattered in delivery as mine must be to you.

We went late yesterday afternoon to Holly Stevens' (she has moved to New Haven) for cocktails--pleasant but crowded and noisy. Gorham Munson appeared but somehow we never managed to do more than express regrets not to have been able to talk. We have corresponded off and on over many years--originally I think about Hart Crane. Then Susan and I went home for supper, and at night we watched Yale be beaten by Columbia in basketball on t.v. Yale played a good game and almost won, lost really only at the end. But it seems to have been that way more or less all year. This was the last game here, and I felt I should see one at least.

I phoned Marya yesterday and Horace this morning at the hospital. He has had the first of the two operations, to take a little more off the colon, must be recovering well (his voice sometimes sounded a little weak, but when I phoned he was being wheeled in the corridor in his chair), for they hope to have the second operation perhaps next week. This will be to close the colostomy. Life will certainly be pleasanter for him once that has been done. Then when able he will be taken back to the Rusk for more therapy. During his period at home he had made headway with the memoirs, has now written 160 pages or so, and reached his friendship with the political family of LaFollettes when he was at the University of Wisconsin. He talked mostly about his reading: he did not like the Lytton Strachey biography because of the iterated homosexual affairs which presumably do get monotonous, as monotonous as heterosexual affairs would. The difference does not compensate. He is now reading the proof sheets of Cynthia Asquith's memoirs which he likes very much. And is also reading *The Third Man*, about Philby, which he finds fascinating. All this let me slip in a query as to whether or not he had read Sachie's manuscript. He said no, he didn't know about it and was somehow so evasive--since as I recall but am not sure, the typescript was left with him -- that I can't believe it has much chance of success at Knopf's. If this is true I do hope they won't wait forever before returning it to me, so that I can try elsewhere. But etiquette demands that I give them three months, especially because this is not Pat's department. Pat, according to Marya, has had three nibbles from elsewhere--one from Boston--and is tempted to leave Knopf now that the Simon & Schuster trio have moved over and in. They tell him not to worry, he is their elite man. But, he says, so Marya says, he doesn't want to be elite, he wants to be popular. I think they are nearer right. One possibility, the best, comes from Boston. He is tempted, tempted too perhaps by the chance to move away. But one is not to breathe any of this, and Horace gave a different story of Pat's weathering it all successfully.

I forgot to tell you that on Friday I had a telephone call from the New York Office of the BBD Third Program to tell me about Fletcher's H.D. broadcast and that they would get in touch with me afterwards about the fees for what he finally used. Would I give my permission. Someone obviously had goofed as of the other side in letting this slide. I said yes, and that

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

could all be handled through Authors, if they preferred. The British girl
in New York couldn't contain her curiosity. "Who is this H.D. anyhow?"

A telephone call from my friend Paul Blum who worked with me in
Lisbon and Switzerland and now lives in Tokyo. He is about seventy, and
his older sister and her husband had been visiting him in Japan. The husband
had a heart attack three weeks after arriving in September, had five weeks
in the hospital, got out, then had another and was hospitalized since. At
first the doctors wouldn't let him fly--but how else? So they had to pay
for a doctor to fly with them, and he came also to help. He goes back next
weekend, but I have to go to Philadelphia on Thursday and will stop in New
York for dinner with him that night.

The niece and her children appear to be doing well, and we had a
grateful note from her with a few flowers. Susan's sister, her mother, is
not so happy and was so abusive at Susan over the phone, saying she should
have been told by Susan despite Susan's promise (and the orders of the hospital
to keep to her promise), and should turn the grandchildren over to her (again
the hospital had said no), and if the girl was so stupid as to have psychiatry
she would cut her out of her will, that Susan hung up. Jane is off for a
month in Jamaica, and one hopes will have cooled down by her return. She of
course desperately needs help herself, but no good comes of it if the patient
doesn't wish it. I only hope there won't be a continued feud over the summer.
This would be unhappy for everyone.

Coming back from the Library Thursday night I saw a past middle-age
secretary outside the Graduate School looking peculiarly in every direction to
see where the sound of a dog whistle came from. She explained it was her
husband's way of telling her where he was with the car. He was five or six
parking spaces further down the street. Off she trotted. I saw her again the
next day, and she explained yes she had found him. "I don't mind it so much
when he does it from the car," she said, "but really when he blows it in a
supermarket, it's going a little far."

I would never do that to my Fido,

All love, as always, a whistler,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

A desultory letter, for I did nothing after I wrote you yesterday save reading at the book of plot summaries of Hawthorne's novels and tales, for which I have been supposed to do a foreword ever since November, and go home to spend the evening checking over the dusty diamonds.

The latter was against an article, for which I had the page proofs, on novels about Aztecs and Incas written in English. Since he included Henty and Kingston in his list of 24 done either in this country or the U.K. I found at least five and perhaps seven that he lacked, as well of course as the two by Henty and the one by Kingston. So I don't think that does badly at all. I know the author, a man named Dahl, and have written him but I doubt that he bothers to make changes. This is for a Norwegian festschrift, and I was given the proofs there. But going thru the index cards I made a count which may interest you, as showing that I have been faithful to your first love. Including duplicates we have 187 in the Henty collection, and a total of 1,270 volumes (counting three deckers as one volume) in all. You see the sort of flood you are responsible for. I daresay im ganzen there is nothing to equal it, although there are better collections of each of the individual authors. But in the end we will do better there too.

My usual round of letter-answering. I shall be glad when the
typewriter table and chair come for HGS so that I begin to look for a secretary. Now she would have to sit on the floor. The Southern Illinois University
Press came through with a satisfactory copyright page (considering there is no
copyright) for Palimpsest, which I OK'd, and a query as to whether they should
put H.D. or Hilda Doolittle on the title page. I said H.D.; I hope you agree.
We can change if you don't. But that was her way. A letter came from someone
in Ann Arbor asking for the history of composition of Bid Me to Live and her
earliest poems, before going to London. I answered it all as best I could. #
Then acknowledged the return of a photograph used in the book on Hilda's poetry
which has just been published. You did not say whether you wanted me to send
you a copy, or if you preferred to wait. Then a letter from the librarian at
Buffalo asking if I had any letters from Joyce to Sylvia Beach. It seems they
have about 200 and are planning to publish them. # There is to be a summer school
course in the writing of science fiction, where I thought to enroll you but didn't.
#A catalogue came from the Kraus reprint house, and I see they are reprinting both
Close Up and Life and Letters. I don't remember just what Herring's and Kenneth's
and your replies were when they wrote for permission. I rather remember everyone
playing coy about it. But since there was no international copyright and you may
not have replied I guess there is nothing to stop them. The only thing would have
been for you to get such money as could be gotten and tuck it away against a rainy
day.

No letter from you today, an unusual Monday, but naturally you are,
were, in the midst of exit. However a fat envelope of letters to you came from
Zurich so I know you were at least there, had gotten that far. It was not marked
airmail but they may have sent it that way notwithstanding. An amusing letter as

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

always from Silvia Dobson. She manages to have a good life and I admire her. And a good one as always, too, from the Brigadier. I am sorry Ethel didn't feel up to Scilly. I shall be interested in your report on her health. I imagine Petrie's death may well have frightened her. Quietly. #A good letter from Philip, and I see your appointment has been arranged. Be truthful with him and point out how Elsie's death and earlier illness had made it necessary to have a lawyer who was immediately at hand. If you let him handle the trust that is OK. Could he manage Herring too? # I hand't realized that Nicholas was keen on paper money as a hobby. (I deposit mine whenever I can lay hands on examples.) I shall have to look and see if I have any oddments lying around. # And a nice note from Mary Hotson who lets no holiday escape her children. She is lonely, a teacher without a school.

Tonight we take Prof. Angermann, of Köln home for supper and then to the theater. He is here for a month for research, and was my aide de camp on that Yale week in Munich. Next Sunday the Professor from Australia (who has asked me out there for the meeting) comes, for three days, and we will have to do something for him. It is like the White House without the dignity of rank.

Will you get to see Lady V? If so, greet her for us.

All the way as always.

Norman

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

28 February 1968

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday--indeed I am not quite sure there really was a yesterday. At least I had little of it for my desk or typewriter. But your letters of the 22nd (two) and the 23rd came, and today were the ones on the 24th and 25th. Had I been able to write yesterday I should have risked it in care of Ethel. But as of today it seems safer to have it arrive at the Sesame a little ahead of your own. At least I trust it will. No letter tomorrow from me either, since I must go to Philadelphia to meet with the executive secretary of the national American Studies Association. My first meeting there since I became President at the beginning of the year. I take an 8:45 a.m. plane from New Haven but return by train so that I may dine with Paul Blum in New York.

Began the day with a session with my podiatrist and then went on to see the travel agent about my final plans for the spring trip, to Holland, to you, and to Rome. I will sketch this all out in a later letter. I have taken a hotel room in Rome for all nights, will drive out to see the boys if they are to be at Cetona -- we stay overnight or not as indicated, but leave most clothes snugly in Rome. But of all this more later. Then on to see about the purchase of a pencil sharpener for my room in the Library, plus a few more supplies, but especially to check up on the non-delivery of the typing table and desk chair for HGS. Over a month. As of yesterday morning's long session the warehouse said they had shipped the things. I said no, feeling myself a reasonable authority. Further checking revealed this morning that the wareness had not known what their own man's HGS meant on the order ticket and so had done nothing, not even asked. But it took the rest of the morning. Then at 2:00 p.m. I had an appointment at the hospital with Dr Southwich, my orthopodics surgeon, for a chekup, it now being about a year since he had seen me. He is notoriously slow so I thought if I went at 1:30 I might get ahead of others. Probably the gesture was wortwhile, for I did get in to him at 4:00. He seemed pleased in every way, but thought I might consult about exercises. So I waited until ten minutes past 5, when he thought he couldn't get the others and so told me to go. Thus was the afternoon, except for another futile telephone conversation with a local hotel at which Sister Bernetta Quinn had stayed with a typewriter borrowed from me which she left on departure for me to pick up. They insist nothing is known of it; Sister Bernetta told Gallup by phone the two who did know at the hotel, but they do not know. It looks like bye-by @yivetti. But at least I have the blue one, and the hotel has insurance.

There was a night-before the non-yesterday. We took Professor Angermann to the theatre and saw a wild tale of a fighting Irish family, which was noisy rather than meaningful. But well acted and a good example for him of a local high grade stock company resident in New Haven. We were home a little earlier than usual just in time to have a phone call from young Susan who had been phoned again by her cousin Anne to say that this time she had slit her wrist and how long did it take to die from bleeding. Young Susan sensibly said she couldn't go through all this again, and had been spending two hours each night on the phone with her cousin. So she called Anne's brother to go out and take over with the children and inform the ex husband. Meanwhile Susan (Mrs P.) phoned the hospital and had an ambulance sent out. Anne was sitting in the kitchen with a pool of blood around her and told

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

her brother she had lost courage when it came time to slit the second wrist. The ambulance arrived soon after he did and he went with her to the hospital and signed her in to the psychiatric section so she cannot leave with the family's permission. She protested of course, but really she is not safe in freedom and cannot be permitted to absorb everyone's emotional energy. The ex-husband hired a car and came up yesterday to take the two little boys to his parents. (We understand now why he phoned us at a quarter to midnite on Tuesday night worried and wondering how Ahne was.) Whether or not Jane the mother, just left for Jamaica, knows or not is now up to the son-brother. So is the question of payment, the mother having unbelievably told Anne that she actually already had cut her out of the will because her psychiatric bills were so high. But thank God both Susans are now out of it in terms of any direct responsibility. Still, we have not been leading idle lives as you can see.

Now as to your letters, Macbeth is intriguing. I hope the program was up to the witches' dance. Hubble bubble, rhyme in trouble. If you did ask the porter at the Sesame I'm sure he thought you were really Lady Macbeth.

You mustn't scold about Grindea. Here I have been for many months being lukewarm about him, while you have wanted to put him on the list, buy a complete set of Adam, and were (in his words) so happy in his apartment and with his family that you could barely pull yourself away. So when Winifred's friend comes to me how can I be otherwise than I was, especially when I have been given a gift and afterwards found that it would be nice if a return gift for the poor artist were made. Fear gallantry I always say.

I will order the H.D. book, but sent to Kenwin. I was delighted that Robin agreed to the ms going to Sylva. Will he send the revised portion also? If no London publisher is interested then I think the Dublin one is indicated. #Most sorry to hear about poor Helen's accident. I am glad she too is eager for you to come. I extravagantly think of of flat say in New Haven and a one-roomer-with-bath for you in New York, at least while Annie Reich, Marianne, Helen and a few of your intimates are still around. # Much interested that a biography of Sir Luke Fildes (it sounds like a name from henry James) has been written. You must get a copy and let me look at it when in Kenwin. # It was a very good letter indeed from the Kirkham.

What a strain your visit to Elsie must have been. But I am strangely glad that she is, so to speak, already out of it. In that sense you did, have already, gone to the funeral. I felt as you did when I found my mother had been buried without my being able to go to the funeral. I too had said I would not return. It will be difficult straightening things out with Bans later on, and it might not be imprudent to have some one from Fides there with you at the openings and divisions of goods. Thus there could be a judicial voice from the beginning, and since no arguments could start there could be no hard feelings to resolve from them. Do get Maitre coigny's opinion on this, and see if he wouldn't send out some younger member of their legal staff. I am quite serious about this, unnecessary though it might at first seem.

Your day with Joan sounded rather nice for her, and a day of good food for you. Interesting that she talks so of Australia. If you were to leave Switzerland and Ethel left otherwise I doubt there would be much to hold her on this side. Australia is, I am told, rather stuffy but I don't think this would bother her particularly.

Enough for today. I shall have exhausted you. Give my love to the boys,

Dufour love is, you,
man

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

25 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 22nd arrived, the only break in an other-
wise day of pure oddments. I began by an early visit to the jewelers, en
route to the podiatrist, to have the hour hand adjusted on my desk clock,
and to have him register the serial number etc of the gold Beney you so
generously gave me. This for insurance purposes in case of loss or theft.
The other had already been registered. I picked both up on my way back
into town. Stopped at the house to leave off some things, and then to the
office to pick up my safe deposit box key before going to the bank. Got
some stock certificates out to take across the street to the broker, part
to sell in exchange for other stock (at the order of our finance man in
New York, part to be given to Yale for the establishment of the American
Literature Research Fund, a cover for paying Mrs Hamerman thru Yale thus
giving her Yale privileges and benefits. I give stock, take advantage of
no capital gains tax (in this case stock had gone up 80%) because of gift
to a tax-exempt institution, give the five thousand in cash to the broker
who can reinvest in a way that begins again. In fact could buy the same
stock back at the advantage of the higher price. But this meant also going
to the savings account to withdraw the covering amount, but doing so found
if I waited until tomorrow I wouldn't have to borrow (the borrowing being
done only to avoid losing the interest for the present quarter-year). Then
matters of my will, some savings bonds, and the sale of some Gardner Massa-
chusetts stock I need no longer hold on to. From this point back to my
office just in time to meet my cousin Nathan's wife and sixteen year old
son out on an inspection tour of colleges. I took them to lunch in a college,
and left just in time to go to the doctor for a typhoid booster shot, and
since I go into winter again, for another common cold shot. Back to the
office to meet a next year's graduate student wanting advice, and then a
visiting French scholar here to see me. By now I begin to feel the typhoid
shot, and the weather being muggy I don't feel great pep to accomplish more.
But meanwhile Mrs H has been typing away from my dictation tapes, and I
revel in the luxury of feeling that things get done despite myself.

The election in France was a surprise and due mostly to the imme-
diate coalition of De G with the army and extreme right. But how long these
can continue with the Algerians in the same party one wonders, and my French-
men here think this is not the end of the trouble. From letters they receive
France has known nothing like this for several generations.

A very nice letter indeed from Joan today. What a pity I shall not
be here when she is in the States.

All love,
Norman

Norman

vol. II of *Austriac Arctic Voyage* arrived today from you, for which
thanks, plus the Brightств & Canard (mâle et fille) which
I had ordered from Blackwell

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

Back in the office and alone! Mrs H very kindly stayed until five each night during this week, and in consequence we made a reasonably successful clearance of backlog of letters. But since the portable was having some keys changed, and she used the old IBM typewriter I could only scribble by hand to you. What made the difference, I can now see, is the dictating machine. I am buying a set of second-hand but re-conditioned IBM machines, indeed part are already here. Obviously they will be of no use to me during July while she is on holiday, but it does mean that we can start straight off in the Fall.

Yesterday in New York was successful I guess. The man I had expected to meet had left a note at the Yale Club saying he had had to go to Philadelphia. I'm afraid I scared him off the night before when he called. "You don't want to talk to me, do you?" he asked. "My reply: "That's not the point." But I was angry and am angry. He puts Lizzie into a tailspin whenever he comes around, but has some hold or fascination which makes her give him expensive clothes (he is a Yale graduate and broker and in his mid-thirties The psychiatrist at least knows about him, certainly more than I do. I just don't like him and have asked him to stay away.

However waiting a bit before I thought to ask if there was a note cost me the chance of going to the Australian consulate, but I did manage a spurt into Abercrombie & Fitch to buy a raincoat, with two weights of insertable lining, for the trip. Then we went to the (I went to the) home on upper Park Avenue of Mrs Garvan who with her husband gave Yale its great collection of Colonial furniture, silver, paintings etc. Its curator is to become curator of the new Mellon Gallery and Research Center here, she is worried, might hold back on a promised 750 thousand for remodelling the old gallery for American Art, etc etc. She is in her mid-80's and wanted me to come to the meeting, tho as no longer Vchairman of Am. St I was no longer on the committee. I doubt that I helped, but I did mention a point or two and was thanked. But, oh, getting back to the New Haven Station at 11 is too late, and then of course to the shore afterwards.

To everyone's joy the sun is shining today, the first time even a patch of blue has appeared for a week, and the first day without steady rain or drizzle. It is as cold as early October but at least we know that a sun exists.

Over the weekend I must gird my loins and go to the agency for my ticket. But there are still things to be cleared away on my desk, and several manuscript articles and books to be read before going. Also one article and several lectures to write.

Being Saturday no letters from you of course.

All love,
Zion

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

29 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

I write again at the end of the afternoon, a little at least,
so that I can put things away the more tidily. I will pick this up later.
In part have been working at a revision of my address book. Mrs H had begun
it but I gave her too many letters to do, and all was naturally strange. A
quiet lunch by myself as I tried to make notes for DeNagy on what he must as
minimum add to Ludecke's history of American literature. I'm not quite sure
why DeNagy can't reckon it out for himself. He comes to Yale at the end of
this month to settle in until October. Luckily I shall be away or would
have to give him tutorials on the modern writers. But as I finished John
Pope came in with a former New Zealander, now head of the Early English Text
Society and editing the most recent two-volume supplement to the NED. We
had rather a gay talk about what is happening to words, and I think you would
have enjoyed it. He has just finished an Anzac dictionary. Apparently thanks
to Eisenhower and what the British and American public hears as word rather
than sees, nuclear is becoming nuclear and so spelled. I wonder what I say.

I forgot to say that the Werner Bischof <u>Japan</u> arrived on Thurs-
day or Friday, for which my thanks. Also a yellowback which I have just read.
Mostly nice letters from your Cornwall group. The Hickses had an obviously
nice fling. Sachie's letter seemed a little better, Herring's somewhat more
subdued and confined, and so they went. Mostly there were from me, alas for
you. I was interested that Enid Starkie in her review of Painter's book on
Gide, in the <u>NYTimes</u>, for 23 June particularly mentioned the much fuller
treatment of Marc Allégret's affair with Gide. I know you knew Allegret very
well indeed; he must have been a most engaging person. I wonder if he himself
will ever write about Gide?

Tonight we have for dinner Dean Miller, of the Graduate School,
and his wife. Friends whom we both like.

30 June

At that pointlast night for some reason the typewriter stuck.
Which made a good moment for me to go home. The dinner was pleasant, although too windy
and cold for us to sit out of doors, which was a pity. Today the temperature is 80, but
a bit of a squall all the same. I spent the morning cleaning the two bird baths and
reading some of the ms articles I am supposed to comment on. Susan slogged in the garden
as she conquers weeds.

I forgot to say to you that I heard my friend at the University of
Rochester that all things considered (I referred to my commitments) I thought it better
not to be on the <u>Advisory board of Adam</u>. He replies:"I have just written to that baroque
character Mr Grindea. Among other things I informed him of your wish to be relieved of
serving on his advisory board. I hope he will go along with my recommendation that the
Board should include Louis and Cecil. Even though you will not be named among the editors
I am afraid you have not heard the last of Mr Grindea, who sees in you great possibilities
for future consultation." I may not have heard the last of him, but I doubt the future
consultations.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Last night after our guests left I finished reading Brigit Patmore's memoirs. As a book they are much better than when in the magazine, and you really ought to read it. I think poor Derek tripped over his own feet in the paragraph you mentioned and really didn't need to bring the matter in for discussion at all. If Brigit had a special vice it was an unnatural bond with her sons, especially Derek. The brother I didn't know, but it was his wife wasn't it whom Aldington eventually married. Derek's tastes went in other directions. There is an interesting almost nude swimming photograph of R.A. in which one can see why Hilda and other women so often thought of him as a Greek god. He looks rather like the statues of gods.

I confess to being rather startled by the enclosed ad from this Sunday's N.Y.Times book review section. I wonder if parents really should be frightened in this way, so that children at play in this fashion seem suspect? I find it unwholesome and gruesome and wonder if the Times really ought not to refuse such ads, as a social responsibility.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

13 June 1968

Dearest Fido,

What I do not do for thee, my Shulamite! I mean by that,
yesterday's trip to Washington to see Arnold & Porter. I was scheduled to
take a flight out of New Haven at 7:05 a.m., returning from Washington at
the same hour p.m. At a quarter to six the phone rang to say the fog was
too thick for any planes to leave New Haven. So I hied me to the 7 o'clock
limousine to LaGuardia and presumably the 9 o'clock shuttle flight to
Washington, so that I could make a 10:30 appointment at the State Depart-
ment (killing another bird with your stone). No flights out of La Guardia,
at least until 11, so that I lined up for that one with the long line
that had been waiting for the 7 a.m. flight, the 8, the 9, the 10, as well
as the 11. I was at the State Department just in time to join the officials
for lunch. Well, the appointment with the lawyers at 4 was easy enough to
keep, and I had been promised an early supper by an OSS friend and former
boss. He met me at the lawyers, but took me to his house so that I had had
nothing to eat by the time I reach the airport for the plane. It wasn't
going; neither was the shuttle as it turned out after waiting another two
hours (supperless) (except for a hot dog), but I eventually managed to get
on to a plane for Kennedy where the fog was a little lighter. This left at
a quarter to ten, and I was safely back at Goodrich Street at 2:30 a.m. the
next morning. Susan had to rise at 6:30 this morning to be ready to go
to New York, so up I was also, with four hours of sleep. Except that I have
been only half awake all day, but must be bright for dinner guests tonight.

However I was glad I went. The lawyers were excellent, just the
sort I have been looking for to use on tough cases although they themselves
are gentle and most considerate. They are writing me their opinion after
studying it a little more. But in brief they say they do not think that
visas either for citizenship or residence will really be difficult after
July 1st for British citizens, but that it may be for some others now
freely under quota. You qualify both by Pup and as an artist whose presence
dignifies the States. However they seemed to feel that for the moment at
least, especially because July 1st doesn't matter so much as we feared, you
would be ill-advised to apply for a residence visa. (a) one can stay as long
as one wants on your present visa, and (b) the very application for a residence
visa subjects any Swiss property you may have to American inheritance taxes,
in your case about 75%. Now you may very well decide to do this, but they
say better to wait until Kenwin is disposed of and you have a flat. At least
this was my interpretation, and I was consoled at their confidence that July
1st was not a deadline to the degree we feared. I had Hilda's lawyer plus
a tax man specially brought in. I will send the letter immediately on its arrival,
but unless you feel differently I shouldn't rush to London and the residence
or citizenship visa, since it does commit you financially.

How pleased Ines must be, or should be with the t.v. My only fear is
that it must disturb you when she watches. It will be a form of visual education
for her. * What an extraordinary review of the book on the Sitwells. It confirms
all of Sachie's fears. And with what arrogance it is written! * So sorry you
had trouble getting the driver; I ought to have taken one of the several new
business cards he had near the steering wheel. * Only Fides could make the bank

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

Today the thermometer reads 95°, and I know it! I only wish the warmth could have been divided a little more evenly over last month. Began the day by my appointment at the hospital, but one girl had forgotten the book she said was so important to me (from which to learn breathing), and the chief girl had unaccountably scheduled two of us for the same time. So I left a little early in order that at least one of us could have her undivided attention. Then to the garage to check on what seemed a loose object in the front driver's window. Something is loose, and I take it back tomorrow to be fixed, the first day of the week always being crowded garagewise. But it is a little too warm really to be efficient, alas for my progress.

A nice note today from Helen Wolff. I found I was out of Visa and wanted one for RPGers in Washington and (as you suggested) for Ruegg in Lausanne.

A first of the week cornucopia as usual. Four letters from you: the 26th, two of the 27th, and 28th. I'm glad you went to Zurich, for Ethel's sake and Joan's. Joan needed someone beside her mother to talk to about Wyoming. No reason why she shouldn't come up to New Haven for overnight with Susan at the shore, which would count. Also, why not stop overnight at Chicago (the plane will land there anyhow). And she could fake a visit to the Jordans in New Jersey, or better take a morning airshuttle to Washington and back the same night or next morning, while in New York. This latter would be most fun--the shuttle one hour each way--and a bus trip of the city and visit to National Gallery would be superb. Or to Philadelphia, two hours by train each way, visiting sites and art gallery there. I wouldn't take the three cities too seriously. Airlines want the money. Miss Woolsey will know best about boots, but I should think it would be fun for Joan to get western pants and boots here, rather than pay for their weight. A good pair of blue dungarees is a la mode, and cheap.

Sorry I must have erred in dating my boat-shopping letters. This morning over the radio the annpuncer spoke of someone as having "erred." Wish I had known for Mr Bachelord, the OED editor.

If you do decide to come over in the summer (it would please Pup and the children, I know), I hope you will at least overnite with Susan at the shore. She will be lonely for the two months or so I am away. Or this may be male pride, only. I wonder if the Boys will actually come in late October. They might. You must make one Fall trip anyhow. I should be back on the 18th or 20th of September.

Things look up for Kenwin, I should judge from what you say. Some Frenchman might even want it for his Chateau. I weep that Australia and New Zealand seem out, but take it that you might still be willing in 1970, anyhow a better time of year then, since this is their winter.

You are kind about the funds. Because I make the two visits to New Zealand it may cost a little more. I am not sure yet. But the chief cost will be for the plane ticket which must be bought this side, and paid for here. Only New Zealand expenses will be for the short internal plane fare, perhaps also bought here or anyhow charged on my credit card there. So it would only be (a) inconvenient to prove my identity and convert into New

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Zealand currency, and then reconvert in a few days; (b) awkward as to why I wanted that much for so little, and also possible currency restrictions. I don't know that I can't swing this on my savings account, but if you want to then it is much easier to send as before to me in New Haven. There are no tax limitations this side on funds that come as a gift from outside the country. When the limitation held was in the old days when you paid an American tax on your account here, and so the checks came from funds in and as of New York.

Sorry that Hans is making a fuss, and gather (you left out an
explanatory para) that he doesn't want to pay the francs for medical
insurance. Cheaper for Ruegg to pay them as for you (on the basis of
medical) so that you are saved the difference. Hans has simply visions
of sugar plums not paid for by him or her(which will be his). It isn't
idiocy any longer, just greed.

Poor Sachie. His writing is so hard to decipher and his spirits
are so bedraggled. Growing old is no fun for him. I haven't read Lehman's
book but gather it is regarded poorly on its own terms, not simply on
anti-Sitwell terms.

I have been much amused by Emerald & Nancy, the biography of the
Cunards, by Daphne Fielding. It is filled with smart-set anecdotes and
can be described only as a bitchy book. Hilda would have loved every
minute of it, and for a rainy day I recommend it for you. All about the
people you knew or knew of, and the account of Nancy Cunard's girlhood
fits into your collection, she had so rough a time of it. Yes, I think
you should get it, and if you don't like it pass it on to the boys, there
is so much about Uncle Norman and Florence in it. Eyre and Spottiswood.

Tomorrow I hope to get to the travel agency. And some day I must
go again to New York.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 July 1968

dearest Fido,

Only a note tonight I fear, and nothing tomorrow when I go
to New York and nothing on Thursday which is the Fourth of July. But
the day draws to a hot close and I must go to the house to pick up things
for Susan and then to Heidy to fetch my shirts and then late home to the
shore. No letter from you yesterday and none today either so I shall have
to wait until Friday before I hear.

The temp has been frightful. Yesterday at the foot of the
Green it was 107°F; this afternoon when I went by the public thermometer
it registered 97°. But at least it even stirred the air conditioning men
to at least come a second time and settle where things were to go. Lucky,
because my suggestion and hope wasn't possible. The two were one which
accounts for the singular verb.

I began my day by taking the car to the garage, packed as people
wanted to be ship-shaped before the holiday weekend. But they did fix whatever
was loose in the door and put graphite in one of the locks. I picked it up
a half hour ago when I had finished my preliminary talks with the travel
agent. It would appear now, if all goes as scheduled, that I leave on
July 22nd, have a day layover in Hawaii to rest, and then three days in
the Fijis, before going to Auckland for four days. During which I go to
Whangaroa by one means or another. I think a full day plus a nearby
overnight will probably do it, and as for sightseeing Auckland I can do
that in September when I go back. The first ten days are in Melbourne
at the Australians' request, and the last few days in Sydney for the meeting.
Then I fly to Australia New Zealand for a fortnight and then home by way
of Tahiti for three or four days, plus an overnight in Los Angeles so that
I can arrive in New Haven in late afternoon rather than a more unseemly hour.

Tomorrow I go to New York to see the lawyer about the reprints of the
magazines, the two or three items for Hilda etc. Then get my visas, I hope,
for New Zealand and Australia (the others require none), and gallantly stay
over until six when I can visit Horace before I go. Oh yes, I have to wind up
the Horace insurance matter with the lawyer. I'll give him his one thousand midday
check when the Winson check comes. This should be in a day or two. I hate staying
over the night before a holiday, for it means I won't be back at the shore until
eleven p.m. But one can't see him until after supper.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

It will take a couple of days at least, I think, to catch
up after my two days of silence. And since I didn't arrive at the office
until almost noon today, there wasn't enough of Friday left to go far
enough. I began the day with a 9 o'clock dentist appointment, to have
a cleaning (and must go at least once more for last-minute fillings be-
fore I leave for Australia), then went to the vets where young Susan
had left the springer to be clipped and have his shots, wanting to take
the dog back to the shore for the day where he could play with the
grandchildren. And that was that. This afternoon I have had a Negro couple
from Washington come for a call, unannounced, and then a forlorn graduate
students who will obviously need psychological help if he is to get thru.
So now I write you.

Your two letters of the 29th and one of the 1st July came
today. Whether there is a missing one from the 30th I don't know. What
a pity about the tasteless cherries. I sometimes think this happens
from too much rain and too little sun. But raspberries can be hurt similarly
and yours were not. * I'm glad you saw the note about Oonagh's daughter.
I wonder if Robin was perhaps not disappointed the child was not male.
If only Oonagh will name the girl for Retrie, Robin will be soothed. *
I am surprised that the Diners Club card is so popular, in Switzerland.
It is chiefly valuable for business men who have large expense accounts,
and by charging have so to speak a certified accounting. I had one but
found it a nuisance. One more thing to carry around, and rather dangerous
to lose or have pilfered since the finder can for a long time charge to
the original account. Too many cards to send out and check up on numbers.
Also it takes some little time to settle the account when using such a
credit card; headwaiters are always summonsed, elaborate new bills made out,
etc. If you arrive at Zurich on a weekend, few stores would be open anyhow
even if these you patronize use credit cards. And one can't get cash with
them. Cash you could get from the Glock anyhow. I turned mine in, and use
a credit card only for petrol. But do get one if it pleases you and Egli.
I suspect it was chiefly an offer to show he is thinking of you. * A most
interesting note by Philip on France; one wonders if DeGaulle actually will
step down in October. * I enclose the letter from the Washington lawyer
in reply to my request for a bill. They did not charge for Hilda as you
may remember, having as they say a respect for artists like yourself. Don't
worry, if you do spend considerable time this side they will be invaluable
and will charge you through the ears. I spoke about Rogers with a Yale
Law School professor, and he says Bill is hugely regarded, quit the govern-
ment after Kennedy's death (J.F.) and a fight about policy with Johnson,
but was slated for a significant post if ever he wants it again. I think
it advisable, as your ambassador and chevalier, to keep on good terms with
both Rogers and Arnold. * By the way they mentioned that you ought by all
means for the moment at least keep up with any Swiss organizations to which
you belong to enforce a Swiss residence address even if seldom visited by
you. * The second volume of the Arctic voyages was waiting for me this
noon. My thanks now that the set is completed. * The boiler is now in and
boils satisfactorily. I had quite forgotten that the kitchen stove at the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

shore had broken down and I had authorized Susan to get a new one. No
choice really. It is now installed and I await the bill. And for the
new shelves in the HGS office. And eventually for the floor of the Goodrich
Street garage, to avoid floods; and for the renovations at the shore where
there terrace (now fallen in) must be replaced. I do what I can for the
national economy. The salutation ao envoi to your letter of the 29th
was originally typed "all banks and love"; I feel rather that way myself.

* You ask about how long you must keep American checks. One judges only by convenience. I keep mine three years for the sake of income taxes, but yours are not affected this way. Stubs are records if one needs. I would keep for the past year only, and then toss anything in which a personal proof by endorsement is absolutely needed. I shouldn't think you'd have anything like this need anyhow. * Do let me know when to expect ines at dawn for her bath; in orange she will look like a rising sun.

My trip to New York on Wednesday was successful but exhausting.
Especially the 6 o'clock train back on the eve of the Fourth. Such a
crowd of standees you never saw. I found a seat near the bar and drakk
two drinks leisure enough to last out the trip to New Haven. I saw
Wennick, the literary lawyer, in the morning. He now feels that the
two magazines were allowed to get into public domain so nothing can be
done either to stop xeroxing republication, or now claim the royalties
offered in letters that weren't answered by Kenneth or uourself. It
doesn't amount to much anyhow, and if it was worthwhile publishing them
for people once, at a loss, the same will still be true. I showed him
Horace's letter in which the final thousand of insurance money during the
period when I paid bills had been given to the Rusk Hospital, and we agreed
this was now water over the dam. Other times the checks had been sent to
me and I forwarded to him to sign over. On the other occasions either he
or Marya deposited to their own account without, naturally, understanding
what they were rebates on. So I can hardly blame Horace this time either.
I have asked Winnick to draw up a final accounting of the amounts spent by
me and received in return, really only for the sake of my records. The
rest of the time with him was spent on matters concerning Hilda's copyrights
and permissions to do the opera etc.

This done I went to the Australian consulate and by the display
of invitations to me as a "Distinguished Visitor" (my category) persuaded
them to grant me a multiple visa immediately rather than as normally leave
my passport and come back in a day or two to fetch it. Then did the same
with the New Zealand government, so that instead of four visits, (three,
rather) to New York, one sufficed.

Once that or these were out of the way I took the head of the
Am. St. Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies to lunch,
and went over the forthcoming visit with him. So all in all I accomplished
a good deal, and managed to pay a visit to Horace as well. But of that in
my next letter.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

As you can see, the key stuck as I began, and one wonders if the letter will be finished. Nothing in from you this morning, but naturally it is Saturday. I began the day with a trip to the repair-tailor to have sleeves lengthened on a raincoat for the trip. This one can go without any lining or one of two weights. It will be all I take. Then I brought a book as birthday present for a young Japanese scholar, and took my car to be washed. But once in the office I am glad to say I read the chapter of a dissertation-in-progress and made an appointment to see the girl on Monday afternoon.

A few oddments included. I thought you might be interested that Yale felt compelled to rebuy the Brasher Doubloon, though I have a hunch they might have preferred the 100,000 dollars. The raison d'etre for the Clarke clipping is the interview on the back of the review. I thought what he had to say about the genre of science fiction interesting.

A note came from Mrs Pratt, saying I would be welcome. "My only excuse for letting you come so far out of your way is that I am the only person left who can give you any information about Hilda's early life." I think she may be pleased that I come.

Many thanks for sending along these new notes to Walter, to go with the others I already have. They help in dating etc., and have their special personal tone. I am most grateful. * You had a nice note from Oonagh; I suspect she may be waiting to write you a long letter about the child. I daresay the next time it will be a boy. * A pity that you won't be able to see Annie Reich when you come in August, if you do. But she will be back later. * Urzidel is, I think, really having his great day now, as a representative of the past. I wonder if he would actually be happier to resettle in Europe again, perhaps in Vienna. It is hard to know. * I have been much intrigued by the letters to you about the hauls by the Scilly divers. Rather a pity, it seems to me, that a nice group of morceaux choisi cannot be shown in the St. Mary's Museum. * Won't you want to see Consie again when you are next in England. It is obvious that she grows older and that it would mean much to her.

As to the visit to Horace: I arrived a little after 4 but he was at the telephone for the next fifteen minutes with Marya, telling her not to worry about this or about that, and looking very old from behind as I watched him from a distance in his wheelchair. I must say I was a little distrubed too to see with what difficulty, despite a leather wristband, he managed to turn the wheelchair around. It seemed as though he had little if any strength in his hand. When he saw me, I offered to wheel the chair and he eagerly accepted. He was downhearted because on Wednesday, for some reason, he had not been able to use the walker as strongly as he hoped, nor make his muscles work. I suspect, or at least told him, this was expectedly customary. He seemed not have very much life and was soft toned about the present and future. He has his bowel movements, which is a blessing of course, but the incisions have not yet healed. This too takes time, after so long a forced opening, but it discourages him. He was, or seemed to be, melancholy about the renovation of Palisades so that the toilet could be on the same wheelchair level as the bedroom and livings rooms, saying that Pat was coming down in a fortnight to discuss costs. I quess it was chiefly my sense of quilt that

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

that made this an uneasy topic of conversation. It came up several times
at the hospital as it had over the phone, and I felt or felt I felt a kind
of pleading to me to assume the cost. Maybe he didn't--he certainly didn't
say this directly. And I wish I could. But with the renovations at Goodrich
Street and the shore, the extra debts of Lizzie and larger expenses of young
Susan, and outfitting my office and paying for the secretary I just can't
at this moment. Later I will send him his thousand dollar check (later this
afternoon I mean) and will try to explain. Yet his ability to live at
Palisades is more important than water on the garage floor, I know.

Rather surprisingly he talked at some length about how Marya
had "developed." That she had become a very fine companion and an interesting
conversationalist. Did this imply he hadn't thought so before? I asked him
to what he laid the development, and his answer was "experience", more "experience."
I think she was always dependent. Marya, he said, was always frightened of
money; as for himself he never bothered about it. I defended Marya a little
on the basis that she had known real poverty, while he as a boy had been
comfortably off and so could take money for granted.

he works a little at his memoirs, and his happy because Patrick
has sent him two books about Georgian Dublin which are just what he needs for
his own beginning of the memoirs. They are to end in 1934 and his visit to
Yeats. A circle from his aristocratic and intellectual grandfather's emigration
from Ireland to his own return as a poet to another Irish poet. I gather he
is not telling so much about people he knew as giving an intellectual analysis
of the periods through which he himself lived. But the from Dublin to Dublin
circle enchants him. I hope he doesn't altogether omit those experiences
which lay behind *Chelsea Rooming House* and some of his best and certainly his
most influential poetry. It is interesting what an overwhelming portion of
the Irish belonged to gentry. Eugene O'Neill, Jr., could talk of nothing but
the Irish O'Neill kings; Horace dreams of the days he dwelt in Georgian halls.
But of course there was so little for the intellectuals and gentry to do that
they had no alternative but migration.

I really was glad to see him, though we did not really have
much to talk about. He lives in a world of exercises and literary Edwardianism.
My world is one of lungs and breathing and correspondence, for I read nothing,
least of all Blount.

All love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

At least you get a letter, even if hardly an inspired one. Or a long one. I came in in late morning carrying a peanut-butter sandwich for my luncheon, and settled down to read a 200 page these in French, the manuscript needed for the visiting research fellow to qualify for an appointment as a French professor. It is rather like the German habilitationsschrift with which you perhaps are more familiar. This is the second French ms in the past few weeks, the other man now having left to return to France. Today's was on the individual vs society in recent American literature, hardly an original topic but the French go in more for length than individuality. This is one reason for the revolts against traditionalism in the institutions. It really is rather boring to be here reading French, and I break it off occasionally for a letter like this to you, or some sort sorting of papers as against my going.

Perhaps I should do as I did last Sunday, decide that once at least (before they put storage shelves in my showerbath I ought to try the bath. I did; the water went in every which way and was almost dangerous. But today is sunny but Septemberlike with crisp cold air, and a shower is a luxury of time.

I forgot to say that in going over the various pamphlets given me by the New Zealanders, as for tourists, I read that only $10.00 in New Zealand currency can be taken out without a permit. So if I were to cash the draft in New Zealand, as the bank suggested to you, I would be mixed up in all sorts of renegotiations, a nuisance when my time especially on the Pratt visit is so limited.

We had the Clarks, our former next door neighbors on Goodrich St down for supper last night, shpherds' pie, and the pictures of our last trip. Some of Susan's of the Kenwin gardens are splendid. I think you will like them.

Back to my French.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

Another day of oddments, beginning with my appointment at the hospital. I finally said this would be my last appearance until October. Days are becoming too crowded; I think they understood. They have been most helpful and will be. Then to the architect's office to go over the plans for the changes at the shore with the assistant in charge, Charles Moore himself now being on the West Coast for the summer. I had one or two further suggestions to make, and now hope the builder can start in a week or so. Poor Susan will have to suffer with no living room for awhile and a mess for the remainder of the summer. But she is sensibly anxious to get going on it, and it will be useful to have her there as supervisor. Justus can be foreman. I imagine he will spend much time hanging over edges and collecting scraps of unused timber. Then to the Co-op, for Saturday night a vital part of my slide projector went on the fritz. I must order a replacement, but borrowed one for tonight when we are to go to Lizzie's for supper and show the Dutch slides. Back at the office I spent hour arranging by phone a visit on national American Studies Association matter to the HQ in Philadelphia, which will eat up Wednesday afternoon and Thursday of this week. Hotels were full and I had trouble finding a room. Then calls to the lawyer about getting on with the land sale at the shore before I left, and thus went the morning. After lunch I hustled to the Library, then to the postoffice where I picked up these stamps for you, and returned for an hour with the girl whose dissertation chapter I read on Friday or Saturday, then a Japanese who had to translate something for me so I could thank for it, and then another Japanese, and oh the heat all the while. Now after this note to you I will try to get a few more pages in French read.

Four letters in from you today--they come in bunches. One undated one which I judge to be July 1st, another on the 2nd, 3rd and 5th. I notice that you sometimes bother to charge the number of my HGS room. It doesn't help in the slightest. The HGS mailroom sorts by name not number. Even the zip doesn't seem to get them here any quicker. I don't know what to say about letters to Australia--certainly no point to send more than once a week if that. And so far I have been given no itinerary. Why not write me daily and send as indicated. I like to think of you talking to me with your fingers once or twice a day. I leave, as I said, or expect to leave, on the 22nd in the afternoon. Was delighted, really delighted, that Alan did so well. You must be pleased too, he being your godson; and of course it is all owed to you for pulling him through in his tutoring. As for Bryan this is a disappointment, and I wonder if subconsciously he might not have been backing away from research and the civil service. A pity if he doesn't because I gather they put much more on grades in the U.K. than here where one realises that a man with a generally good record can have an off day. When I was a pup in England it was the bad day that went into your obituary. Joan's plans sound excellent, as though well guided by some travel agent. She will be interested in Denver, I think, and if she does need some ranch geer: sneakers and levis, can get them on that stopover. Send yellowbacks as usual during my absence. As of August 1st Mrs Hamerman will be in daily to open first-class mail and answer as indicated, but these she can simply put away. Glad you have the gardener in better training. Alas, they will take advantage almost without thinking. Wish you could get up the courage to have Hans over and go through all of Elsie's things with him, open the last filing

NORMAN
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PEARSON

231 HGS

cabinet and at least have all papers in order. I am sure Maitre Coigny would agree little is to be gained by waiting. I suspect C would already begin to have the fun of her furniture by acting at custodian until her death. There is no point in your having to worry about each point of missing goods as they come up. Unless of course you subconsciously like to.
* A pony for Elizabeth sounds fun; Lizzie always wanted one, but we could not afford stabling it or the time for exercising it winters when she herself would not regularly be riding it. But for them I should think it might be possible.
* Italian peasants actually get very little chance to eat meat in Italy, but they go for it every chance they can in the States once they emigrate. Why not feed Ines large portions of macaroni and spaghetti? That would fill her.
* Sir Gavin's discovery was a real coup, about your father! And it is nice to have the thing actually down in black and white. You must make a note of it in case you revise the early memoirs. Am not surprised that Wipf prefers January to Avalon; she is after all English.
* The boy who didn't show up in New York phoned me late last week, and I agreed to call off Lizzie's demands for money for the clothes (she shouldn't have expected it any more than he should have accepted them) on condition that he promise to be in no contact with her. The lawyer (Lizzie's) is writing his lawyer to this effect.
* Ah, I see, the undated letter was as of the 4th. Internal evidence. How very clever of me. You announce Marie Anne would not be meeting you on the 3rd, the undated says she did not meet you yesterday. Hotson has nothing on me.
* Much interested in what you heard about the Patmore affair, but tomorrow I have a carbon and the letter. Sorry it drags on.
* Was not sure what dragged on as referred to by Kenneth's letter, which did not enclose the clipping on which the cross-dressing of Mrs Kennedy depended. And the guns. I wonder if he actually will get across. I doubt you would like the daily gourmand-izing au quatre.
* Heydt seems lonely, which is I think the reason he goes out to pull in the Negroes off the streets and out of the tents. I am sure he does good sometimes, but at other occasions I wonder if Negros find him odd?

Now I really must run to get this in the post.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

9 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

I trust you are leading a wonderfully sane life; I must say I'm not. The day has gone and I haven't even been able to read 25 more pages of the French these, and until this moment at 5:30 had only read your two letters in today's mail. I went first to the tailor's for my altered mac, but his arthristis he said had kept him from doing as promised. Then to pick up an additional pair of reading glasses and have them fitted (I had lost the second pair, ordered new ones, then found the missing; so now I have three pairs). Then to the dentist to wait for fifteen minutes and have him not finish in the promised hour, so that I had to go back again this mid-afternoon. Then to the savings bank to deposit a permissions fee check for Hilda so it would get interest as from the beginning of the month. (One does if in before the 10th). Then to the station to pick up tickets for Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon; I come back Thursday night; this is for a meeting of the executive committee of the national American Studies Association. And then it was noon. I hurriedly parked my car by the graduate school to be in time for my appointment. My car overstayed its nickels before I got out and I was given a police tag. Then to the dentist again, and afterwards a Japanese (no two) came. And this was my day!

Many thanks for your 2nd letter of the 5th, and then that of the 7th. Your luncheon with Marie Anne turned into quite a saga. I am so sorry about the matter of the funds to New Zealand; the bank apparently did not check on the currency restrictions, and the first time I am to be there only four days, two of which go to Mrs Pratt's visit. *Voices from the Love Generation*, alas, means nothing to me. What is it for a book? * I am very sorry indeed about Ines. I gather this is the time for her usual visit home, and this may have much to do with her rhythm. * What a pity Barbara Jordan could not take her trip. But I suppose she wonders where she could go, for by now she knows almost no one. * You are a brave one to explain tennis to Ines. Myself I used to like the play the game, but it certainly is not for everyone. I sometimes wonder if you don't get Ines confused with a proper English Queenwood girl in your expectations. * Perfectly awful for Sylva Norman. One could weep. * And very very hard for Robin and Oonagh and the father, that the child should be so small and still a caesarian baby. Still, today they have a number of caesarians as if by zipper.

Will try to drop a note in the morning before taking off.

Note that Today's stamps (which complete the set) are different
from yesterday's.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

A very low-keyed day, gray and the temperature scacely above
the low 500's. Last night we went to the Henri Peyre's for dinner-- a
farewell for a young Hungarian widow who used to be our next-door neighbor,
now returning briefly to Budapest and then to London, the peyres of cousseny
and another young Hungarian wife just finishing her dissertation in French
who was accompanied by her Polish architect husband.

The day? One of a farewell luncheon to an older German research
fellow who is returning after two years of pleasant rather than effective study.
An hour with a Japanese professor on his English rhetoric in two papers he
had done in history this year. But I did manage an interview with the nice
carpenter who did so much renovation for our Goodrich Street cellar. Now I
am having him put storage shelves in my HGS shower bath stall, and a line of
shelves in the only closet (how dearly one needs space to put things). But
best was the chance to talk to him about what must be done at the shore in
the renovation there. Until the living room is completed I don't see where
we can live. And we are more or less obligated to give up Goodrich Street
to a newly married couple in a fortnight. I dare not leave the house empty
this summer as in the past. One fears violence from the Negro section nearby,
though last year they confined it only to the Negro section. * Otherwise only
more plugging away at letters, and getting ready to leave by a seven a.m. plane
from the New Haven airport. I shall have to rise before dawn to catch it. No
letter to you tomorrow I fear.

The mail had a nice letter from kenneth thanking for my letter of
thanks. And a letter from the ranch owner saying she had written to Joan. I
do hope this works out. It would be an ideal introduction to the States and
ranch life, especially with this connection. But so little I try works out,
that I fear.

I must say your account of Derek Patnore's statements are appalling.
I am surprised the publishers' lawyers let him get away with it. Your instinct
to write to Philip was completely right. I must order a copy of the book, altho
I rather think I did on its announcements * I will get the Brancusi for you
and keep on this side on your private shelf. * Alas I am not surprised about t.v.
and you certainly don't want to go to the expense of a huge aerial except for a
permanent settlement. Ines will be disappointed but certainly she will under-
stand. Get a workman who speaks Italian to explain everything to her. * And
how sad all this is about Elsie--not that she may die but that she keeps on
living. I hope she will be released soon, and all of you too.

I hope for some clarification for you tomorrow. Be of good cheer.

All love as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

Back last night from Philadelphia--an exhausting trip but unquestionably useful except for the fact that obviously far more work will be required by me than I had thought. The changing of the Executive Secretary means a restudy of the location of the HQ, certainly the finances (which are now happily and canally managed), the use of the enlarged Council, etc. But someone has to do it I suppose. I stopped by the office and picked up the mail in the evening so I could at least read it at the shore. It was just as well, the mail being large. And among all else two letters from you (of the 8th and 9th, and a letter from the Second National Bank telling me to appear there for an unknown reason.

I went this morning, after picking up a raincoat whose sleeves had been lengthened for me, and having an hour in which to make phone calls before going to the lawyer to sign my remade will. No changes as they affect you. All literary rights re Hilda or yourself go to you, and if you predecease me and I have not remade my will then to Pup. And, secondly, "I give and bequath my collection of books, manuscripts and letters by such British historical novelists as Henty, allantyne, Fenn, and Stables to Yale University for the University Library to be designated and known as 'The Bryher Collection.'" I also walked downtown to the foot of the Green for the bank and finally collected, with many thanks, the check for two thousand. It was sent by draft and to this bank, although to my own bank The Union & New Haven Trust Co. is a little simpler. But I have written them this several times, so they presumably have special reasons for using this other bank. It's particularly helpful to have the money when I get my bill from the travel agency because the bank for some reason hasn't as yet sent my July Winson check. This is usually here on a couple of days after the beginning of the quarter (this time July 1st.) If it isn't here by next Monday I'll write Ruegg to look into the matter. I'll need it in the bank before my return, and I suppose my secretary can deposit it for me. Up to now I've kept such matters in my own hands but I am sure she's trustworthy. It really is puzzling and I only hope the check hasn't gone astray.

Sorry about Ines and her mother. Italians hold these bonds very close. I went to have my moustache trimmed after lunch only to find my own Italian barber had suddenly gone to Sicily because his father was sick.

Yes one hears of alarm watches. I can believe they would be handy on a ranch. One is working in the corral or out riding and needs to be reminded that it is time to start home. I am glad there is something she can take out. Wyoming must be isolated so far as shopping is concerned. I have a hunch the two women will get on smashingly. Both, as you know, are single.

What a bore to be having all this evangelism from Conrad Jordan. He should play more tennis and save the balls. No wonder Barbara is agnostic. I think one replies pollitically that religion is so personal a matter that no nice British girl like yourself could discuss it without blushing. So you could no more read a religious tract than you could read an obscene book.

I think I shall write Ruegg and ask him to establish means for you to pay Swiss bills by check. I refuse to believe that grand dames go to the postoffice to pay their coiffeur. Make him explain to me that they do, or I

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

shall have the strong suspicion that you secretly like all this bother.
And why not, if you do.

I don't know Vexed and Troubled Englishmen as a book; nor have I
heard of the Love Generation. Do tune me in to the latter at any rate.

Tonight I must go home early since we have invited the six Japanese
now under my wing to the shore for supper. We cook steak out of doors, as
easier to manage than a sit-down supper. I trust it will not be too cold for
them. This is a sort of a farewell. Etiquette demands that I ask them to
the shore once. But oh dear it does take time.

I phoned Marya this morning, since she had called Susan on getting
the telegram about Fitts. Susan had called Mrs Fitts yesterday morning so
that I could explain how the moving had exhausted him and the dust clogged
his lungs. (He had had a long attack of flu during the winter and of course
got little exercise). He had been lying on the bed all day trying to rest,
rose to his feet to go to the bathroom, only to fall down unconscious. The
firemen arrived with respirators within five minutes but he was dead before
he could be taken to the hospital. Better this, certainly, than a dying
prolonged while one lay abed. I believe I am to be literary executor, or
so Mrs Fitts told Susan at the same time saying she didn't know what it
meant. Nor will I until I have known what the will says. The funeral is
to be private since their son is with the Peace Corps in Africa and the
daughter (not Jewish) in a kibbutz in Israel.

The Frenchman came and I gave him his critique of the these, this
afternoon; after which an Australian-English poet came to bid his farewells.
And now I am writing you, and after this line will be setting out for the
shore. No wonder when I look at the unanswered mail and the unread Norwegian
dissettation and the unwritten article and the few days ahead, I reach for a
tranquilizer.

In my last letter from here I said the two stamps finished the series.
There are the two additional ones on this letter which should go with it. My
sense of thrift couldn't make me waste 12 cents more on the other. But I now
wonder whether I wrote airmail on the first letter of the series. If I didn't
it will go surface no matter the amount stuck on. I hope I did.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13#July 1968

Dearest Fido,

Last evening's Japan-conference went off pleasantly; the weather was good and so was the steak, and they all seemed happy to be by the shore. This does my task and now except for a few goodbyes they will have been taken care of. Now tonight, as compensation, I have to take Susan out to dinner, at the Country Squire I think. Her two sisters and their husbands go also.

Being Saturday there was nothing from you, and of course nothing on Friday either. So I should have a little packet on Monday morning. Well, I am a little wrong. There was a yellowback yesterday and another today. What hard luck for the O.B.'s in the world, if authors are only printed if a paperback contract has been signed for the first book. This is more coercively commercial than anything I have heard of. And O.B. is correct, of course, he's not intended for an American market. Why should he be? * Hilda Quick's letter was charming. I like to think of her looking at the white Arctic owl through hide windows. Some day I should love to see the Shetlands and Orkneys, but suppose I never shall. * I was a bit taken aback by Mary Hotson's use of Marianne Moore as a cardiac test for America's soundness; I too think the heart of America is sound, but not precisely for that reason. What a public character M.M. has become! It is a kind of style she has developed in the best manner. * I thought it rather cheeky of Pat to pop in on Agnes as she did, but am delighted that Agnes seems to have chucked Pat out of her libido. It was an impossible situation. * A very nice letter, I thought, from Richard Winston. And a good one from Horace in the hospital. Poor Marya, I forgot to say that when they phoned the message pf Fitts' death, the operator announced it as a sad/death message and asked if she had anyone with her to sustain her. Horace, of course, she thought, and almost went histerical. Where is it from she was wise enough to ask, New York? No, Massachusetts. My God, Patrick! she again naturally thought. No wonder she was almost hysterical when she phoned Susan. It seems to me the operator was stupidly solicitous. Susan got no such approach, so this was not institutional.

I did not thank you either, for the Lady Burton note which arrived while I was in Philadelphia. It is most attractive and I bow low in thanks. That is, I bow low what is not already dissolved into sweat. The day is a humid scorcher.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

I celebrate the 14th by hard work. I wonder if there will
have been any uprisings or disturbances in France. The change in the
premiership makes one wonder if P didn't object to some of the bargains
with the army. Or at least one presumes there were.

It really has been a long day here, very hot and sultry, and
one simply sweats. They promised to have airconditioning in weeks ago,
but of course nothing has been done. Only inspections and agreements. Still
it has not been that hot a summer. Accomplishments of the day? I>rivial.
But a good many letters done, money put into such order as one can by
paying bills. Now if only the W cheque will appear all will be well. I
even finished retyping and bringing up to date my address book. I had
hoped Mrs H could get it done. She started, but I noticed preferred to
do other things. But I must have it in shape for my trip. I might
forget that you live at Villa Kenwin. Also thanked for a few more books
that had been sent me. Things like that.

I wish I could give you a schedule, but no one has even
suggested a forwarding addrees for letters in Australia. At any rate it
now seems more or less certain that I arrive in Melbourne on the 2nd of
August and will be staying at the Southern Cross Hotel for the next ten
days if you want to take a chance there. I'll let you know later. Or
you could send a letter care of Mrs Pratt for New Zealand, I suppose. That
might be rather fun.

I phoned Horace this early afternoon before Patrick and Marya
arrived. To tell him I had read his article in this morning's *NYTimes* Book
Section on Wilfred Owen. Watch for it. He said he thought his writing was
improving. I said yes, he was wagging his finger less at his audience, as
though he had been a schoolma'm. He laughed and seemed altogether in good
spirits. Was back writing his memoirs. I had apologized for sending nothing
towards the renovation to the bath room, and now it appears to the bedroom
also. I had thought he had to go up to that. The contractors think that
both can be lowered to the level of the living room (back one) for two
thousand dollars. Which is certainly cheap, or at least reasonable. He
said he would take the one thousand I sent him as of July 1st and pay half,
the other half Marya had been saving for and could manage. I feel much
relieved. In my letter I had brought the subject out, thinking it only
fair to them to actually say I couldn't, rather than act pretty-please for
begs.

How I wish there were a few more hours in each day.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

16 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

Life is absolute hell, and just as hot and humid as hell
itself must be. I did not write yesterday, rather giving the day up
in favor of necessary errands. Viz: to pick up two antique chairs
which had been for two years at the repairers and I had vowed must
be returned before I left. Item: to repair what turned out to be
only a blown fuse in my car, but which meant windows could not be
opened. Item: to drive to Old Saybrook again when I discovered the
boatyard had no phone, wisely enough to prod them about delivering
Justus's birthday boat sometime this week. And so it has gone, trying
to get one thing or another lined up. As with the dictating machines
which are still to be delivered, the airconditioning which was promised
for June, the plans for the shore which have still not been finished,
the final transation for the purchase of the shore land. Some people
make rather a point of honor of not doing what they promised (and not
agonizing about it either).

One thing I did however accomplish today was to finish
reading the draft of the Norwegian dissertation, which I wrapped and
mailed along with the ms of the novel by the blind lawyer in California.
Except for the letter about the dissertation, and one book of bad
poetry which I shall try to read tonight these almost clean the plate for
the moment. Almost, but not really.

I was grateful for your letters of the 10th, 11th and 12th which
came yesterday. Many thanks for clarifying your generation of lovers. I
do remember the holy barbarians, about whom Hilda was much intrigued. At
moments I think she fancied going to the Coast and being the target for
blossoms. * Poor Bryan I hope he doesn't let a setback get him down, unless
you think for some reason his poor showing was a secret way of asking out.
* I was just passing on about keeping up with Swiss societies, not for the
sake of the Swiss but the Americans. I know you're watched closely by them.
* Illustrious Immigrants is an early unwrapped birthday present. Earlier
this week I posted you two wrapped books again as a gesture. Books are the
last thing you want just now, but so is a lawnmower. * For the first time
I heard recently the story of the Brasher doubloon, how it was not part of
the Garvan collection of gold, but the gift of a man in his 80's who when he
heard one was available sighed to have it at Yale, spoke to his lawyers who
told him you have no heirs why not spend your capital and give it to Yale. So
he bought it for $7,500.00 and presented it. Not a bad capital gains from that
to $100,000 within I gathered fifteen or twenty years. Yale was given the
insurance money but always has to be given the chance to return the insurance
money and take the object. I suspect the fame of the piece, and its history,
made them feel it should return to New Haven. Not even in England would the
police be given a stolen Goya or a gold stole. * I applaud the gift of francs
to bring Ines' mother to Florence and the doctors. Much the most sensible.
Would it help Ines to go down to Florence by train for a weekend, or simply
complicate her visa for Switzerland. * A nice letter from Islay. He will miss
his cardinal and, I fear also his bishop before too long. Mons. H has, I
gather, somewhat of a rococco reputation and is said to be excellent with
choir boys. But this is Downes.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Your letter of the 13th came this morning, for which my thanks.
Marie Anne's friend sounded like fun, and I am glad you could have your
northern Hudson Bay experience plus Greenland to exchange with her. Some
day I hope you will add Brattahlid. * Alas, the trouble with Joan for
the country (and a pity it should be scheduled for an otherwise weekend
in New York, which is Pup's worst part of the week to be away), it would
use up almost all of her two days coming and going to their shore place.
I really wonder if under the circumstances it wouldn't be better for her
to Stanhope, take a bus tour of the city and perhaps (most people like it)
the boat trip around Manhattan. Plus the Metropolitan and a peek at the
Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art. She can see Pup in Zurich on the next
visit. I think too bad for Joan to spend all the time on the train, and
too bad too for one of them to give up the weekend for the four trips
necessary to come in to fetch her and then back, and then in to take her and
then back.

Must rush this out to catch the last post of the afternoon.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is still another day of intolerably hot and humid weather. When last read the thermometer was at 96°F and is probably higher by now. The change to Australian winter should be marked. Alas, the airconditioners are not installed. They say tomorrow, which would give me two days benefit, but hardly worth the inconvenience of sitting around while they install them. Similarly the carpenter intimated that he might come tomorrow or Friday to install the shelves. I need all the quiet I can get. The world crowds in.

Now for the schedule so far as I can know it, still not having the tickets from BOAC. (They said they would mail last week; oh well, we will special delivery, then, they said today. Lucky I'm not paying for them. Actually it's Qantas, but BOAC handles for them. I arrive in Auckland on the 29th and leave on August 2nd, staying at the South Pacific Hotel. I'll get up to Mrs Pratt from Auckland but keep my rooms in the city. Then from the 2nd to the 10th, at least I'll be at the Southern Cross, in Melbourne. In case of panic you could write care Prof. Norman Harper, Dept of History, University of Melbourne.

To the bank today to transfer funds for traveller's checks and the Johnson's Point land purchase, which I hope to sign for tomorrow morning. The W check hasn't come even now, and I write later today to Ruegg to check on why. I had the bank put in your interest for the last quarter--$207.64, making the total for the moment, $17,755.26.

I mailed to you separately, thinking it would be cheaper--it wasn't so they went first class anyhow, some clippings and etceteras. The facsimile folio is by the group that so bitterly attacked Prouty and Kokeritz for the Yale one; they felt Prouty had sneaked in ahead. I was furious at their bad manners and viciousness. The Hesse article I simply thought might interest you, and the two Gregory items were for your information only. Simply so that you would know what the final score had been. I think it might be interesting for me sometime to reckon up what was paid for the Gaylord hospitalization. I don't think Horace realises just how much, and don't think he should.

I enclose your Co-op stub. The 1.00 purchase was your membership for next year, leaving you a balance of 89.79 in case you wish to order during my absence.

Your letter of the 15th came this morning. U.S. papers have pretty much forgotten Pound; he is no longer "news." So thank you for the clipping. * I only wish I were more nearly ready for my departure. I haven't even begun the article on Sophia Hawthorne which ought to be finished before I leave. Too many interruptions. * A, rather the letter from Sir Gavin came, but I wrote I could do nothing until my return. * I imagine Mrs Fermi's book was best on the sciences. Trudi was science but more in the quieter public health area, which isn't publicized.

Your letter of the 14th came also. What an interesting series of reactions on the part of Ines. I fear she is becoming an even greater burden than Elsie to you. I suspect one must watch out, for her sake, not to lift her to too high a station, one for which she is not really suited and cannot maintain after you move to the States. Still, perhaps one can make My air Lady out of her. * Yes, I think a weekly report to Australia or saved up if all you should try, with the mails what they are, and you so busy with so much and so many visitors scheduled.

to copy. This is another day in the mid 90's. Everyone's temper is short. How one longs for the air conditioner.

Was much interested in Quik's new chair. Yale, as you know, tried to get him. But he enjoys England too much. Stupidly young man is be annuwd by the encircled clyffing round the corner. All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, but a yellowback did come so all
was not silence. I rather thought the yesterday's might be my last and
was not surprised. Yesterday afternoon, perhaps after I wrote, a note
came from the Second National Bank asking me to come for a matter of
interest, so I walked down this morning and found they had what must
obviously be W, for $6.200.00. So that after all I have been able to
deposit this in my checking account where it may not be needed but will
be there for an emergency. If you prodded them, I thank you. And of
course basically my thanks are always to you. When I think of how much
you do, and how you have made it possible for me to help Horace, and
just now to buy the land at the shore and to do the remodeling!

Even more, thanks be to God, B.O.A.C. finally got my
ticket to the local agency. The agency was foaming, and said that BOAC
was always the worst by far. So silly when you think they would want to
drum up trade. They have this ready to mail for a fortnight and get it
to me on the Friday before I leave on early Monday, with no chance for
Saturday arrivals because offices are closed. I enclose a schedule
such as I could be given, this for your amusement mostly. I will let you
know from Melbourne what shapes up for there and for later New Zealand.
I have only the departure from New Zealand listed, leaving arrival about
September 1st and subsequently to them. I should think one letter a week
would be all you could manage. If you don't trust the Melbourne Hotel to
forward, send the dubious letter to me c/o Prof. Norman Harper, Dept of
History, University of Melbourne, Parkville N.2, Victoria, Australia. He
will know where I am. I have been typing letters like mad to Australia
and N.Z. now that I can give my arrivals.

Did you by any chance give me a subscription to Punch? I
received two copies a fortnight ago (wrapped together) and thought they
might be sent for some contribution (tho I couldn't see anything by a friend.)
Then today I got two more together-wrapped. Obviously I ought to thank
someone but whom?

Lizzie came last night for dinner and seemed in good spirits.
Actually mentioned her latest running up of bills with what seemed like
gratitude for settling the matter via her lawyer (a cousin-in-law). I only
of course pray for no blow-ups during my absence. I have found a good girl
swimmer (supposedly the best in the state) to watch after young Susan's two
while the mother works in August. Justus's boat was delivered yesterday, so
that at least has been accomplished. My air conditioning has not been
installed as promised, nor my permanent dictating equipment brought, nor the
closets installed, nor the doorknocker put on. And so it goes or hasn't gone.

I am weary, and nothing yet done on Sophia. But these letters
must go out. I have written Ruegg to say the funds came.

I was interrupted at that point by a young Frenchman, Michel
Terrier who is doing his second professorial qualification by these on Hilda's
prose. I loaned him copies of the Kora trilogy to have xeroxed. And I forgot
that yesterday came a man from Spoken Arts who is doing seven minutes of her
Helen in a series on modern American poets reading their poetry. The financial
arrangements were done through Grove and my lawyer. He came to collect the record

20 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

With a little luck I shall have finished the necessary out-
going business correspondence by noon, and will have half of today and
tomorrow to do the research on Sophia Hawthorne. I had told Susan and
Liz that I would take them to Susan's uncle for a cookout, tomorrow. They
will have to go by themselves, alas. But how glad I shall be when I get
off. ever have I been on a trip where the tickets and schedule came only
on the Friday before one left the next Monday. Stacks of mail went out
yesterday.

Last night we had the Louis Martzes for dinner. Pleasant
talk and we showed the weeded-out slides of Holland. La Vagnola needs
to be slightly rearranged, but is as good as we can make it. Kenwin
needs combinations with photographs from other years. Susan's snapshots
of your garden are very good indeed. Not slay-quality of course, but
still good. We yearn to show you in the Fall.

Yesterday was almost the worst from weather, or perhaps simply
we were increasingly worn down. Thunder showers last night, even tho brief,
brought dry air with them. Today must be in the low 80's or perhaps even
in the 70's. A blessed relief. My working day ended in chaos. At a quarter
to five I had a phone from New Rochelle, from the Mr Klein of Spoken Voice.
Mystified. "The recording you gave me of H.D. had someone speaking in German,
then nothing but music." I had given him Heydt's recording of the funeral
services. I tore furiously and came up with an unmarked tape, 3 rolls. I
went to the Co-op to hear which it was; they had nothing that would play at
fifteen feet per minute. Nor a second shop, nor a third, nor the Yale audio
laboratory. Finally almost in tears I called the local t.v. station. Yes
they would play a bit for me if I came at once. Saturday would be too late.
They did. Hilda's voice came out. I raised my hand to stop the rest and sank
to my knees in prayers of thanksgiving. The Klein drives up again this
afternoon to claim the right things. But oh, all this when even minutes
(without fifteen feet) are precious.

Your letter to Susan, of the 16th, came to the shore yesterday. I
do thank you for speaking to Ruegg, although as you will have known from my
letter of yesterday (if I really put enough stamps on it) that the funds arrived
and are banked. I walked down yesterday to claim them from the bank to which they
were sent. * I was sorry to read of Dorothy Richards' brother's death/ * And
delighted at the sensible doggedness of your British Columbia friend in wanting
*Artemis*. * Do give Helen my love when you see her. * And greetings in general.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is no more than a farewell salute after a long hot day

spent in the office. The double spacing comes from the fact that having
begun the article on Sophia Hawthorne this morning at ten-thirty I have
written and revised the nearly 2,000 words and left them for Mrs Hamerman
to retype when she comes on August first and send on to Cambridge for the
encyclopedia of American women. This seems to me something of a miracle,
and one for which I am glad. I had envisioned myself taking my notes to
the Fijis, and typing the sketch of a Puritan dame while I looked at
grass skirts and leis.

But I must say I am tired, and I have my packing still to
do after dinner. Susan went today to her uncle's for a cookout, with
Lizzie. I was to have gone but simply couldn't, not having even finished
my research. I'm not sure I ever did. But after an hour this morning
I said to hell with it, why not write it now.

So I leave at least a little freer than I might have. And
maybe I can get a tan instead of a headache at Fiji.

All love. I wish you were going mit.

TELEPHONE 870-661

REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.

Holiday Inn® OF HONOLULU

3401 NIMITZ HIGHWAY
HONOLULU, HAWAII 96819

23 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

I was too exhausted last night to try to write anyone. Up a little after 6 to get the 9 o'clock limousine to Kennedy, and then in the plane from noon until after 5:30 p.m. Pacific time, to which one adds six hours altogether. It was comfortable in first class, and since the plane was completely filled all the way through I was glad enough of the luxury. But it is just a long period of eating constantly except when (thanks to being tired from all the getting away) I could doze or half sleep. I read, too, in a book about Australia but didn't manage to finish it enough to post back as I had hoped from here. I was in bed well before ten and slept the night through until I could awaken at their seven this morning. It was raining, what the Hawaiians call liquid sunshine, when I arrived, with an immensely vivid double-ended rainbow to welcome me as I got out of the plane. And it rained again this morning, but cleared before the day really got going. A former student greeted me in the lobby this morning, on his way back to the States; another student, a Korean, who was the poet Wallace Stevens sent to me years ago, came in his car to act as my chauffeur during the day. I spent the morning with the American Studies group at the University of Honolulu, and they took me out to lunch at a place called The Willows which was mostly shaded by palm trees. Then I bought a dress for the smallest Susan who had wanted a mau-mau and went to the Bishop Museum of anthropology of which I had heard much. The bright capes made from bird feathers (80,000 birds made up one of them) and a few carved wood figures from the islands here were interesting but I was a little disappointed in the whole, about which I had often heard because of its connection with the Peabody museum at Yale. Yale, as I have hinted, lurks everywhere in the corner, even in the barroom where the piano player rendered The Whiffenpoof Song about Mory's shortly after I sat down for nightcap of whiskey. But once I had shopped and museumed I had Peter Lee drive me back for a nap. I have napped, and then showered from the humidity, and now am writing you. But Lee is back with his Korean wife, the phone just announced. I will take them out for dinner, since he never takes her out himself. And then the plane leaves at 11 tonight for Fiji. Letters, alas, will take still longer from there. But I send love in a constant flow even though the delivery becomes more spasmodic.

"Your Host...
from Coast to Coast®

All love, as always
Nouman

HOLIDAY PRESS

REG. U. S. PAT. OFF

GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL, SUVA

VICTORIA PARADE P.O. BOX 157, TELEPHONE 23011

CABLES: "GRANPACIF", SUVA, FIJI ISLANDS

Sunday 28 July 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is the last of my few days in Fiji. It is briefly shining between the clouds and is the first sun I have seen since I arrived. Indeed it has rained almost steadily and drizzled when not raining. Had this been the objective of my trip I should have been sadly disappointed, but even in the heavy rain yesterday the jungle we passed through was handsomely wet as befits a rain forest. The tree ferns and banyans and palms and tulip trees towered and pushed against each other. An Australian couple in the late 60's accompanied me in the car and gave me lectures about their homeland. The man was a compulsive talker (I dined with them perforce last night; it was his 65th birthday) and went on and on like Musak in all of the hotels including this old timer which caters more to the empire businessmen. It was startling last night to see a dinner party of 18 or so, the men in white dinner jackets and the women in long gowns, being served by the frowsy headed Fijians in their male sarongs and bare feet.

The rain was almost torrential all the way up from Yanuca. We stopped for lunch at an earlier and less attractive version of The Fijian-- I at least stopped at the right place. This too was an Australian enclave but more heavily and less socially populated. We had tea at another spot, looking out at the rain and sodden hibiscus, and otherwise drove along dirt roads past villages with only a few natives peering out from the very wet thatched bures in which they live.

Suva is an odd mixture of older Asian wooden constructions, with roofed-over sidewalks, and modern concrete and glass constructions which bring the city up to date but out of tune. It being Sunday everything is closed. A museum village" Open daily" tempted me five miles out of the city this morning, between showers; but daily did not mean Sunday so all I got was a handsome view of a handsome harbor. How welcome it must have been to Tasman, Cook and Bligh. But of course they didn't land on a Sunday.

Last night I stood in the rain for a while and watched the Fijians play rugger in the mud and pools of water across the street from the hotel where they have their national playing field. Hurah, hurrah they all shouted at the end of what appeared to be a scoreless game. Then like a grand right and left march they all shook hands with each other and went off blacker than ever to the showers. They smile always, and I shall remember that. Also the young man I met along the road, carrying a three pronged fish spear. I thought of Chesterfield Inlet and our trip there together.

I fly back to Nadi this evening, and at 3 in the morning to Auckland.

All love always,

KEY STOPOVERS IN FIJI: GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL, SUVA; CATHAY HOTEL, LAUTOKA; TUBAKULA BEACH MOTEL.

SOUTHERN CROSS HOTEL

131 Exhibition Street, Telephone 63 0221

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

5 August 1968

Dearest Fido,

I don't think I ever quite believed that I would be reduced to little more than occasional letters to you, but so it has proved to be. So I imagine it will continue to be if the present pace keeps up.

But to return to New Zealand and my visit to Mrs Pratt. I had carried my typewriter along with me but the bedroom was so small at the inn, that there was no place to sit with it on my knee even if I had your Sesame mill. I began New Zealand with a flurry of chores in the morning: my green canvass bag had burst a handle, my camera case had torn. So I found a shop that would repair them. Then checked my ticket to Australia and found the bus for Whangaroa left the next morning at 9:20. In the afternoon I took a bus tour of the outskirts of Auckland which chiefly reminded me of the bus tour you and I once took of Toronto. Then north by bus until Kaoa, 270 miles, with occasional stops at rr. restaurants for refreshments (cost for the trip $4.50) where I was met by Mrs Pratt and an English schoolteacher in the latter's car. Whangaroa was about ten miles further and I was left at The Marlin, a friendly unheated little hotel where I had a Sesame room a good deal of rain and cold but extreme cordiality. The cost of two nights plus two days' meals was $10.00. Actually I learned an immense amount about New Zealand and New Zealanders by both the bus trip and the chance to stay in an inn of this sort and talk to travelling salesmen and other off-season guests in the bar and the little upstairs lounge. I spent the evening, after dinner, with Mrs Pratt; the next morning persuaded a local character and game-fish guide to take me on an hour and a half tour of one of the most beautiful small harbors I have seen, and then spent the rest of the day again with Mrs Pratt. I liked her immensely and only hope I can be as completely alive at 82 as she is. Our talks about Hilda were invaluable. I hadn't realised how close she and Hilda and Mathilda Wells were from say 10-18. It was always, she said, "Hilda, Mathilda and me." I fired my questions at her and usually she could answer them, so that for the first time I got this period of Hilda's life a little straightened out. I could never have done this without actually seeing her, although she agreed to write and answer still other questions. I went back to the hotel each night and wrote down notes strenuously in longhand. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for making it possible for me to see her. She lives, as you know, in the ground floor of her son's-in-law house, dotes on television while they are away, and I have said I would give her one of her own from Hilda's royalties as a present from Hilda. She knows everyone and everyone likes her, but the winter nights must be lonely and all New Zealanders now live on and talk about nothing but the one nationally available t.v. broadcast. I trust you approve.

Other nice friends of hers drove me the next late morning some 40 miles north to an airport from which I flew back to Auckland arriving in late afternoon. From then on I proved myself the professor: the absent-minded one, that is. For Friday morning I rose early, breakfasted at leisure, clipped an item or two out of the paper, dated them in a scholarly fashion, noted the date and realised that I was supposed to be in the air

INTER-CONTINENTAL
HOTELS

SOUTHERN CROSS HOTEL

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

on my way to Melbourne. Had I missed the Mayflower I obviously could not have taken a later afternoon boat to Plymouth Plantation. But I did manage to get a new passage on a four o'clock plane to Melbourne via Sydney, rushed and managed to collect at noon the two leather objects to be repaired, posted a couple of books back to my office at Yale, and munched a tranquilizer after sending a cable to my hosts at Melbourne. Still I was met a little after 7 in Melbourne by a former student and taken to his house for a dinner party. Alas I had eaten twice on the plane (even though lightly) so I could only join them for wine as they ate. But it was after midnite when I got to the hotel and I was still tired at 8 the next morning when I was called to begin my day. It was mostly laying plans and having lunch and a brief tour of the city until later in the afternoon when I went to a cocktail party given by the American consul-general for the President of Yale and his wife. Both we and the other guests were amused at our meeting so far from New Haven, but my particular hosts and I left early to go to a concert of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. An Indian politician came also and we sat in the seats of the Governor General of Australia, being rated for the evening as V.I.P.

Then Sunday on a gorgeously bright late winter's day (more like our early spring), the Harpers drove me to the mountains, some forty miles off, the roadsides lined with the early wattle, gold in the sunlight. But how I wished you had been with me at the wildlife sanctuary. A koala bear snoozed in the tree, an emu stalked up and down, kangaroos lickety-splitted back and forth, and one had a joey (the australian name for a baby kangaroo) peering out of the pouch. There was a lyre bird dancing, wallabies, a wombat, a platypus, lots of kookaburras, everything but a dinkum dingo.

But today, ah today, I began to earn my keep. I was scheduled to lunch today at Monash University and to give a lecture afterwards. But until they phoned last night I didn't know what the lecture was to be on, since the choice was theirs. They seemed to flurry between two topics, and so I spent the latter part of last night and the early morning combining the two into one. By great good luck the combinations worked and people seemed happy. Then tonight there was a dinner party given for me, chiefly men, at the university club. Fortunately I did not have to speak formally, although being a guest of honor, the guest of honor, hardly relaxes one. Tomorrow I do the same sort of appearance at La Trobe University, but again am not quite sure what it is they want me to talk about in the morning. The schedule called for a talk on "Tendencies in Recent American Literature," but tonight I was told the school wanted only to talk to me about how to introduce American literature into their curriculum. I find the confusion confusing.

My schedule is still not firmed for the rest of the month, except that from 26-30 August I will be at the conference in Sydney. If you feel it worth risking a letter at all between this one as it reached you and yours as it might reach me, I should send it care of Prof. Neville Meaney, Dept of History, The University of Sydney, Sydney, N.S.W. He will keep it for me until the meeting, of which he is chairman. New Zealand is simply to be a series of one-night stands. It is futile to try me there, though I will send my last stop in care you dare risk a farewell to down under.

SOUTHERN CROSS HOTEL

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

But of course there are your letters that have greeted me in
Auckland and via Mrs Pratt and then here in care of Norman Harper. For which
I need not say how warmly they revived me. Of the 21st, 23rd, 27th, and 30th.
I am glad Philip gets the letter of apology from Heineman for the sake of the
record, but wonder if many friends of Hilda would actually have read the review
or the book. I doubt it, and suspect the copy of the letter would only unduly
disturb them. Better to hold to send if they mention it. + I had two good
letters from Ruegg, explaining what had happened. One was an unexplained
check from the bank which I thought came from you and thanked you for. Which
explained why even the delayed check was smaller than I had thought. Then the
stupid Co-op mixed orders and sent him a senseless copy of a book of poems
desired by a German in Germany (Kenneth Burke's--I don't cotton to myself). *
Yes esse has become a younger reader's vogue. Though good of course under
any scale. + Secretary writes from New Haven that air conditioning is not yet
in. How dilatory can one be. But Susan says walls have already been knocked
out for new windows at the shore and she seems to like the results. + Despite
the brief upset with electric machines, Sir Gavin is no judge of modern
efficiency and I take an electric typewriter every time. I warn you that one
comes with your New Haven apartment. Sir Gavin can stick to elephants. +
Punch I now suspect must come from Susan's British sister for whom I did a
favor. I simply cannot read, alas. + To return to Heineman, I agree that I
could not find the actual passage to which the reviewer seemed to refer. The
book made no such statement. Perhaps you should read the book itself as well
as the review, some day. I have it in case you wish to glance at. + Most
odd, and surprisingly rude of Catha not to report in. I wonder why? I suspect
a good, p.a. season. + As I think I told you, I return to New Haven the night of
20th September, a little late for classes, and oh how I dread the two months
accumulation of mail. I shall be sorry but you may wish to come over in
early September to be with Perdita while she prepares the boys for school.
Or alternatively come back with her, though her Monday visit (sensibly planned
after all the chaos of beginning of schools) may come at the very time the boys
plan to be in New York. Needless to say we want you whenever you can come,
and I will give all economic reports on Australia and New Zealand which I
don't seem able to write now.

It is past midnight. I must be up to tour the community arts center
at 9, and then go to LaTrobe for my day there, I think of you always, despite
all this tourism.

The
South Australian Hotel
Adelaide
Australia

PHONE — 51 1221
BOX 1416 H, G.P.O.
TELEX — AA 82151

TELEGRAPHIC &
CABLE ADDRESS
"SOUTHOTEL"

12 August 1968

Dearest Fido,

How the days speed by. By now I suppose Joan is at least on
her way back from the ranch. I do hope she has had a good time. Certainly
she deserved to, after last summer's disaster. At last, only this morning,
I have had the schedule for the rest of the month in Australia. Not much
good to you, I fear, but I send along in case of an emergency. 13th to 15th
at Menzies Hotel, Sydney; then I go to Townesville, with no stated accomodation,
and something was said about a weekend cruise to the Great Barrier Reef. 19th
to 21st at Lennons Hotel, Brisbane; 21st to 25th at University House, National
University, Canberra; 25th to 31st, Menzies Hotel, Sydney again. At least all
these seem to be well-rated hotels, and I am delighted not to have be with the
other delegates in the women's dormitories at the final convention in Sydney.
Students' beds were not made for old men.

The sun is shining, for the first time in many days. In fact I
have really seen only occasional sun since I arrived. I have taken the last of
my four-day treatment of anti-biotics, and although I still cough a little and
feel under par I hope I am over the worst of the flu. I was met by a local
teacher at the airport, Saturday, brought to this wonderfully colonaded relic
of the empire, and then to his home in the hills for lunch with his wife and
three children and their friends with four small children. It was all pleasant
but a little crowded, and since all youthful hearts had been set on going to the
local wildlife sanctuary off we went with the skies clouded over. And out we got
almost reaching the first kangaroo when the skies opened. I did have my raincoat
but none of the others did, yet after a few moments I began to cough so violently
that we gave up and went to the coffee shop before returning to the car. That
night I was met after dinner and taken to a little theatre where the audience of
60 sat at tables while watching the play, "A Refined Look at Existence" by a
new Australian playwrite named Rodney Milgate. Had good moments, was a satire of
Australia, was over ambitious and in the end not very comprehensible. But fun
to be at. I thought this would end the evening but instead I was taken on to a
farewell party for a girl who had won her D. Phil, at Oxford and become engaged to
an Englishman in the process and so was returning to the U.K. One of the guests
had been a final student of C.S.Lewis at Magdallen and it was interesting to hear
talk of him. Finally I was driven back by a couple who headed off in the wrong
direction so that we drove for almost a half hour before turning around to correct.
But I ought to have added that the stars were out and I finally saw the Southern
Cross. Sunday I was met at the hotel about noontime by another academic couple
and taken to a vernissage of a show of contemporary Australian art, one of those
occasions with dress and bubbly and an opening speech by the head of the World
Congress of Soil Conservation who is meeting here. Then to their home for lunch
after which we were to have hiked to a waterfall save that it looked as though it
would rain and then it did rain and kept on raining until ten. But there were

150 NORTH TERRACE, ADELAIDE

The
South Australian Hotel

Adelaide
Australia

PHONE - 51 1221
BOX 1416 H, G.P.O.
TELEX - AA 82151

intervals, and outside the windows were almond trees in blossom (temp. c 45 F) and beyond huge gaunt trees on which the parrots hung. The almonds were filled with little parakeets and monarch butterflies. A young teacher wanting a fellowship to the States came for lunch, and I expected to leave when she did but found they had asked another teaching couple for dinner. It was a long day, but at 10 I said I must come back to my room. But you will understand why I was too tired to write you last night.

The Australian hospitality is extraordinary, but I guess I need a weekend in the office to straighten things out and rest up. This definitely would not have been your trip, or Susan's. Bit by bit I pick up a sense of the Australian university and its way of getting at things. It is quiet and relaxed and confident without being smug. A great sense of ambivalence exists in reference to Australia's intellectual relationship to England as well as its political ties. "God Save the Queen" has almost been dropped from theatres, and at the comedian Humphrey's show, as well as at the one here, the song was broken off sharply (the music I mean) as tho, oh we didn't mean to play that, at which everyone breaks off into guffaws of laughter. The Italians and Poles and Turks don't want to pledge allegiance to the Queen when they immigrate and the Australians aren't sure whether they want to either. Still, they dedicated another fountain in Adelaide to H.M. when Philip was last here on his rounds as a travelling salesman.

Must take this to the postoffice before I am picked up this morning to be taken to Flinders University for luncheon and the afternoon.

Hope I can be better on letters, but if I am better with the flu I can be.

150 NORTH TERRACE, ADELAIDE

MENZIES

SYDNEY

14 August 1968

Dearest Fido,

It rains. It has rained for most of the day every day since I arrived. You might like it as being nostalgically English but I am getting to wish I had nothing but sun. At any rate I discovered in mid-morning that nothing was scheduled for today before lunch, and since it was late to plan an alternative, and would be wet to carry the alternative out, I am simply staying in my room to write letters and perhaps even to read a little. I haven't had much time to myself so far. Saturday in Adelaide I was chaperoned from noon until 1 a.m.; Sunday from no noon until 10:30 at night; Monday from 10 in the morning on (tea, then conferences, then lunch, then a ride in the country in rain, then to my host's brother's, then to his home for an hour before dinner, to which the Chief Justice of South Australia (a poet who apparently writes classical verse) came, then to another party for me, and home only at midnight. Yesterday morning met at 10, to the University of Adelaide Library to meet the librarian, then to an English department morning tea, to which the Vice Chancellor came, and at which was a former (still unrecognized student of mine at Yale in the early 1950's --he taught English here now-- was present, as well as a former student of C.S.Lewis whom I had met late Saturday. Then Flinders University again for lunch with the Professor of English who had just returned that morning from Brisbane, and the head of what they consider their American Studies Program-to-be. Actually the younger people rather like American writers (at least

MENZIES (SYDNEY) IS A UNIT OF WYNYARD HOLDINGS LIMITED

MENZIES

SYDNEY

James and the contemporaries, but in their first three years their elders hardly permit anything but the strict British syllabus on which they themselves were trained. Australian writers get a little lip service, but the professors don't like to think of studying literature written in English. One needs the fundamental drill, they feel. But they do allow one seminar in American writers as an alternative in the 4th year which people take for an Honors degree, and with a new generation this will alter. I hope.

It is dark here before six, so the 5:20 flight to Sydney didn't give much chance for me to see any of the bush from the air. I'm sorry for that. But I talked with a business man in the seat beside me, about American investments in Australia (which they all seek and some explore—"let's face it," thisman said; "we haven't got the money and we don't want to wait until we do"). Also about the new mineral and oil discoveries which are featured in the papers even more than football (Footy). It's almost like goldrush days, and the market goes up and down with a generally upward movement. BHP seems to have the strongest potential. I wonder what someone like Ruegg thinks about it. Politically there is very little interest in British politics, and not much is said about it in the papers. The American elections however are followed with surprising closeness. One is more and more impressed by how willingly the States are being allowed to take over. The academics will be the last to give in, but the young ones are all Australian born and trained.

They don't stand to themselves. All code, Norman

Townsville

Reef

THE STRAND
TOWNSVILLE, QLD.
TELEPHONE: 6801

Saturday 17 August 1968

Dearest Fido,

I shall not post this until Monday in Brisbane, there being no Sunday collections in Australia. But I have learned I had better take advantage of such snatches of time as are afforded me, and tonight has been one. It is actually the first free evening since the day I came down with the flu in Melbourne's epidemic. And it has been a good day all the way through. The University of Townsville generously chartered a small 5-seater and flew me 110 miles north over the Great Barrier Reef to Dunk 1 island (named by Capt Cook for the Earl of Sandwich) where I spent the day lolling in the first sun I have seen since I arrived in Australia. Well, not quite, for yesterday was sunny also. The Island is a small tropical island with superb beaches, coconut palm and all the accoutrements of an island paradies. Its earlier inhabitant, the writer of several books about it, was a Banfield, and I sent a card of his tomb to Ethel wondering if there was any distant connection. This was a Robert Louis Stevenson cum Thoreau who went there for his t.b. and lived on for 25 years. I found the Reef interesting and not at all what I had thought. It is like pack-ice coral, either barely above or just below the surface, and from a low-flying plane one could see it splendidly--how it guards the coast and ruins the mariner.

Yesterday I was taken by boat to Magnetic Island (so called by Cook because he incorrectly thought it contained ores that jumbled his compass) where I wallowed in tanks filled with colored coral, sea anemones, butterfly cod, sea turtles and the like, all of an intensity of hue hardly to be conceived of. Our taxi driver turned out to have as a hobby the rescuing of koalas, and he took us to his house to see one full grown one injured in a fire, and a 14-week old baby whose mother had been killed and who now lived in a man's sock as a substitute for the pouch.

In the afternoon I was given my usual tour of the university plus consultations, save that the Vice Chancellor was fortunately out of town at a conference of vice chancellors in Sydney. Last night a party was given for me, at 8, which I had thought meant dinner. Fortunately 1 think no one guessed my mistake, and the hostess was no doubt complimented by my attention to her tidbits.

So really every day has gone. One of my two days in Sydney went entirely to the chief university where I was delighted to be given your letter of the 9th, my first mail of any kind for over a week, and the second day to Macquarie University to which I was taken early after breakfast, and from whence after a luncheon by the Vice Chancellor I was taken directly to the airplane for Townsville via a change at Brisbane. I don't think either you or Susan would have enjoyed the weather being what it is, and my schedule being so completely taken up. I have really seen nothing of the towns I have been in with the exception of here.

Still, your own schedule seems equally full. It is wonderful to think you will be in New York when I arrive home for I shall be bubbling with news. I doubt that I can hope to catch up with my desk and so shall not

the minister to
a man from
Canberra

TRAVELODGE CARAVILLA AND REEF MOTELS

Townsville

Reef

try. Be sure that we know where you are that weekend so that I can phone
you at Pup's or in New York. Had I known when you wanted to be there I
could easily have arranged the Stanhope for you. You will have no trouble
I feel sure. Being as it were so much out of touch with things I had not
realised that the boys were coming up to take plants and shrubs from Kenwin
to Italy. What a good idea that the best should not be wasted. I hope their
good eye tells them to take the superb red cutleaf maple. How lucky they are
that the Italian government lets them take plant material into the country.
We are sticky about this in the States. But it will be all the nicer for you,
post-Kenwin, to find souvenirs at Cetagnola.

I am sad about Catha's letter, but of course know too little about the
total circumstances to say what she should do. The marriage was an incredible
mistake, and she should have it annulled. That would at least be a beginning.
But I suspect she is not for the States on any permanent basis.

Yes, do see Robin if you can. You would bring a little sun into
Ballinamona.

How I miss our regular letters, and I should judge you would not be
in a position to resume until after Christmas with the boys in Italy. Yet I
will be seeing you, I hope, before then, which is a great consolation. I do
thank you for yours of the 9th. It was blissfully love,

LENNONS

BRISBANE

Tuesday

20 August 1968

Dearest Fido,

Prof. Harper had forwarded your letter of the 7th to me here where it was waiting when I arrived yesterday morning. Naturally I was delighted, although I had seen a later one sent in care of Meaney at Sydney. Who knows, there may be another letter from you when I return to Sydney next Sunday. In this one you explained about the boys coming for the garden. A good idea and pleasant for you to think of their continuing to enjoy it. And of course the Rover really was in on the garden at its beginning, so there is a true appropriateness. I repeat, I think they should take the red maple but not so much as to make the place less attractive to prospective buyers. You may want to buy and fill in a few holes they make.

Your list of expected guests is awesome. Better certainly for the boys to stay at a hotel, but most I imagine will be with you. I shall hope to get a glimpse of you in late September, and I understand why you want to come earlier. It will be a busy time for Pup getting the various children off to their individual schools, but it is your one chance to see them. Hope however that you decide to come back over again in November when the boys are there, and Pup is back from her trip.

Exciting that the Alpine Journal has the account of your father's climb; certainly you ought to have a xerox copy made for your files. Perhaps there is a set of the journal in the States.

MEMBERS OF THE FEDERAL GROUP

IN MELBOURNE: Savoy Plaza Hotel; Menzies Hotel; Hotel Federal; The Cockpit, Melbourne Airport. IN SYDNEY: Hampton Court Hotel; Menzies Hotel. IN QUEENSLAND: Lennons Brisbane; Lennons Toowoomba. IN HOBART: West Point Riviera Hotel.

## LENNONS
BRISBANE

and I can have done if not convenient for you
yourself to do.

I can't blame Syracuse for asking you for
your papers. They probably found how interesting
they would be from reading the letters to him from
you which Horace sold them. I feel a little odd
about having mine there , but since it helped
Horace I suppose I don't mind. In any event no
one would read mine to him.

Sunday in Townsville was fun. My host fetched
me at 10 and we went up a series of hills in the
town for the view, and then went to the common
land at the outskirts where we watched several
hundred brolgas-- a storklike bird, more than
waist high in height, and rare I am told even here.
They do a funny little dance of straight-up hops,
and kindly obliged. Then we went along the shore
for a picnic lunch, and Brian boiled the billy
for me, and in the end the tea having been put in
he seized the billy and swung it round and round
to settle the grounds. One began to feel like an
old chum. I had the Dalton family in to the motel
for dinner, and took an 8 o'clock plane to Brisbane

Here I was met by a university chauffeur, and
after leaving my bags and registering he whisked
me off to the university before I could read your
letter. The morning went to the Professor of
Political Science who had a small lunch for me;
the afternoon to the Professor of English, and I
was returned to the hotel a little after 4. But
not for any wild life; all shops close at 4:30, so
I walked about and looked in the windows and saw
nothing I wanted to buy. I was half tempted to
go across the street to see Arthur Clarke's film

MEMBERS OF THE FEDERAL GROUP

3.

LENNONS

BRISBANE

2001, which everyone says is a classic, but decided instead to read a little more in preparation for the talk I must prepare for the convention at the end of the month. Actually I am typing now before dinner, and will spend the later night at work again. My plane leaves shortly after 7 tomorrow morning, and I shall have to be out of the hotel before 6:30.

This morning I was taken out to be with the Professor of History, then a so-called official lunch with various minor dignitaries; and the afternoon with the head of their university press and then with the librarian.

On the whole this has not been a particularly exciting stop-over, and as usual I have seen nothing except the university and the road to it. The answers people give me begin to fall into patterns, naturally enough, and despite the spawning of new universities and buildings the basic conservative patterns in education are being held to. Most of the brass continue their Scottish and English patterns and I doubt are very responsive to the needs and desires of the young. All this will change as the universities are staffed with younger Australian-trained personnel, for they don't feel the pull of tradition. This pull is cultural of course in the formal sense. Informally they have long since surrendered to cornflakes.

Tomorrow I go on to Canberra, and will try to write from there. Tho I expect most evenings are to be taken up.

Be sure to leave days free at the end for your visit to New Haven. My greetings to Ines and to Marie Anne.

MEMBERS OF THE FEDERAL GROUP

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Friday 23 August 1968

Dearest Fido,

I am well settled in here for a few days, in a pleasant
suite of living room, bedroom and bath, but pleasantest because they
have both a radiator and a heated floor. Last night when I came back
about 11, my hosts assured me the temperature was in the 30's, and in
the distance the rimming hills have snow on their peaks. At its highest
the temperature reached the top of the 40's but the constant wind makes
it seem colder. I solved the problem at dinner last night by putting on
my cashmere slipover in such a way (beneath my shirt) that it became a
pullunder without destroying the formality of my shirtfront. Except that
I looked a little more like a pouter pigeon than usual, I don't think
anyone guessed.

I took the taxi from the hotel in Brisbane at 6:30 a.m. and
was safely at the airport for the 7:10 plane which took me to Sydney where
I changed from the jet into the smaller planes that are all that can so
far land at the national capital. Here I was met by someone from the
Royal Military Academy, taken to University House (a hostel for visiting
dignitaries and some graduate students--one eats in hall, and that sort
of thing) and then to the Academy (actually R.M.College--their Sandhurst)
for lunch at a professorial home and then to a two-hour class on American
poetry, the first session of a new term. The professor, also making his
first appearance, gave a rather conventional outline of what he proposed
doing from Anne Bradstreet to Edwin Arlington Robinson. Then I was sup-
posed to take over. I was a little foxed but spoke for a half hour on
why I read poetry and why they might. They are given ten minutes inter-
mission, and the prof. suggested I take a couple of poems and show how
I read them. I looked at their anthology, and fortunately it included
some Cummings. So I did "Poem, or Beauty Hurts Mr Vinal" first, and
then "My Father Moved through Dooms of Love" showing what happened to
words and syntax, and the liveliness of the poems waked the students up
and the class too. I was lucky. I only hope I am half so lucky tonight
when I have to address the entire student corps, worse luck for me. How-
ever they thought they might like to hear my Nazi-Soviet Pact talk, and
Czechoslovakia has certainly given this an advantitious pertinence. What
an awful affair that is! I worry because it will play such a role in the
U.S. elections, and because, alas, it is so little surprising when one
thinks of the past.
given

Otherwise I am being a good deal of freedom here, and when I
finish this note to you I shall settle down to work on my talk for next
Monday. I said no, I didn't want to do anything today except stay in my
room. Already I have tidied my papers and gotten some sort of order back
into them. Next week in Sydney will be too busy with the conference,
and New Zealand will be a madhouse.

Yesterday morning I was taken to the new National Library, opened
last Thursday with great international fanfare. Actually the building

inside is both spacious and functional (it will eventually hold
12 million books), and is furnished functionally but with an elegance
that no American library could dream of. Some of the delicacies
seem less than inevitable--as example the Librarian's boast that he
had made a special trip to Athens to get marble staircases from the
quarries that supplied the Parthenon. But the furniture is specially
designed by Australians, and there are a superb set of stained glass
windows by my friend Leonard French. And the filing cabinets work,
and there is such space for storage of maps and prints as one could
only otherwise dream of. As you can see I was taken from basement
to roof, presented with a souvenir booklet which I shall hope to
show you on one of your trips to the States but may not be able to
this time because I must ship much back by surface.

In the afternoon I was taken to the usual local mount for a
few of Canberra which is very new in every way, like a garden city
at the moment without blossoms because of the cold. Last night there
was another dinner for faculty and students and myself at the home
of the professor of English, and I found the students intelligent
and relaxed.

And so now to my talk, but not before sending you my love
even from so far.

Norman

MENZIES

SYDNEY

Sunday 1 September 1968

Wellington, New Zealand

Dearest Fido,

I am in absolute heaven, having been given a day. One has to relinquish a room here by 10 a.m., and I was to have been fetched for the day by the local professor of English, before taking a plane out tonight at six for Palmerston North. So I divided my things and took the smaller bags for the trip leaving the others in storage at the Grand Hotel (well, pretty grand anyhow), sent your birthday cable (but the dateline confuses me and it may reach you a day or two ahead of time, or a day or two behind), and a card to Susan, since I have not written either of you for over a week, and was waiting with luggage when a phone call told me that I would have to be on my own for the day, the professor's wife having fainted and dقطed required. What was I to do, since one can't wait from 10 until 5 p.m. in an unheated lounge, with the thermometer in the 40s, and a cold drizzle outside. So taking the plunge I rehired another room for daytime use, had my typewriter and bags taken to it and am now nicely settled in by a small electric heater. This shift from 70 in Sydney is rather upsetting, and a group of the British Commonwealth vice-chancellors who are also here, along with the noisy Auckland football team, are half of them down with the flu. Even a North Irishman said to me today, from the group, that the New Zealanders simply didn't think any heat was necessary. I am in the cold now for the next fortnight and hope I survive.

Your letter of the 18th was waiting for me at the Menzies when I arrived there last Sunday, and I gathered from your reference to letters about Elsie that death must have arrived at last. The group of letters the next day, given to me at the conference, confirmed this, and there were others up to that of the 22nd which came to the hotel. I felt in touch again at last, though the tempo of the conference was such that I simply couldn't write. You warned me that I might not be able to; how wise you were.

Poor Elsie! It was sad that life wasn't so sad for her in the last few years, and then to have been wiped out by pain even beyond the point of her recognition of pain. She was loyal to you even if possessive finally, and the possessiveness was a kind of blanket to comfort her own fear. She had intelligence, she had kindness, and warmth. I have gotten used to her absence in the past months, it is as though she really died when she went to the sanitarium, and we gave her obsequies then. But I am glad she died before you went to the States, and so could go to the services if only for Bruno's sake. How the chapters close for you, but how new ones will open too. I long to see you and to talk. And if you want to, address me as "Elsie", the "Elsie of the old days" recast for the new.

Actually almost too much has happened chez toi, for me to comment in detail. You will have had your many visitors, and especially Helen to talk to. Bryan's shift to the life of an air pilot is a little like Clara's son's shift to music from philosophy. I only wish the British educational system wasn't so constructed that one had only one subject, and thus in giving that up is left with little at all except a few more�gy hairs acquired in growing older. * Petrie's

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MENZIES

SYDNEY

manuscript in the end I feel sure will be better off in the hands of the
publisher of her Queenswood book. Then Robin and OOnagh will not think of
it as a book that was often turned down. It is a fine book but not a commercial
one. * How fine that Pup can take you straight to their country place from
Idlewild. It will make a perfect beginning of your American frolic. Rossler
might be fun, though I suspect you will sit tight, and see Marianne, Horace, and
Jean Starr.

Your letter of the 10th was the one which spoke of Elsie's death. I only
hope that the affairs of her estate went more smoothly than you feared. I should
quietly put as much as possible in Ruegg's hands. Then you need not fear any
gap in your relationship with her family in later years. One won't see them often
but doesn't want ruptures. And the will? Did you find that? By now of course
you will have opened those other cabinets you were correctly reluctant to force.
* Glad that Chris is at last safely back. I will write him this Fall but simply
haven't been able to so far. Has his address changed? I know he spoke of having
to get new lodgings. * I really was pleased that Elsie's service was meaningful
and that there were ample flowers. Be sure to let me know how much the ones
from Susan and myself cost. I will pay you when in the States, unless you prefer
to have this transferred to your bank in Switzerland.

Czechoslovakia does indeed mark a new period in European relationships, and casts a special pall on the Vietnam negotiations. Especially after the deliberate deceptions of the border conferences between the Russians and the Czechs. The up-and-down of events since then has made the Russian actions even more sinister because the deceptions have continued. There are enough Czechs in Australia for the tone to be bitter here. But of course they are already basically anti-Russian and anti-Mao. I fear for the worst, partly too because one of the worst is East Germany. They fear what happened next door happening to themselves.

Combine all this with the unbelievable things happening in Chicago, and one
is in torment about the world at home and abroad. Maybe Whangaroa is the right
answer for everyone. Only Ines would be content to stay at home.

I am naturally excited by your new manuscript and wonder what Helen will think of it. I shouldn't worry too much about length. Perhaps your mode of experimentation is to think less and less in terms of the traditional novel and its span and more in the way of a fictional sketch or mood caught as in a poem, or caught anyhow with a minimum of words.

The Tiger? I think really that unless Bruno wants her, it would be kinder
now the summer is almost over to have her done away with when you set out for
the States. It is a little like the pyring of an Indian widow but she was so
much Elsie's that later events could only disturb her.

And now for a few notes on the much less interesting events of my life here.
On my last Friday at Canberra I lectured at night to the cadet corps of the
Royal Military Academy, the first time anyone but a military person had ever done
so. The corps were in full dress, I should have had a dinner jacket. Once the
talk was over there was polite silence. Then the commandant got to his feet
and introduced the head of the student corps. This one came forward and made a

The South Pacific Hotel

3

little address of appreciation and then directed the audience to applaud. The applause was loud enough as I walked out with the commandant, but somehow the effect was less than spontaneous. There was a masculine party afterwards in the officers mess, with the Czech affair the chief topic of discussion. They took a dim view of it, but did not seem to think war imminent.

I was driven into that country Saturday morning, fine grazing land for cattle and sheep, and some interesting almost outback houses from the earlier period I prefer to their present architecture. Saturday night I had dinner with A.D.Hope and his wife whom we had entertained in New Haven many years ago. Horace is his great admirer, and Hope made a special trip to Paliades to see him just before he went into the hospital two years ago. Otherwise I spent the time in preparing my opening address to the meeting which began on Monday in Sydney. Sunday I was driven by a former student and his wife, from Canberra to Sydney, about 250 miles through the gum trees, brush, by a huge waterfall and then through Kangaroo Valley with its really splendid prospects. Finally 45 miles along the coastline, with impressive headlands and long stretches of sandy beach.

My talk seemed to go well enough; at least the two vice-chancellors were polite about it, as was the American ambassador who declared the conference open. There were even clippings in the newspapers and I will send you one when I unpack the bag in which they are now stored. I lived at the Menzies, the meetings were five miles or more away with the passage between them impenetrable because of traffic. So from before nine each morning until usually after dinner I went from one session to another, leading one and being on the panels of two others. I managed a harbor voyage by ferry, so as to see the harbor and be able to praise it, Friday afternoon; I was taken for another trip to small county seats one afternoon but otherwise never saw anything but the highways between the University of Sydney and Menzies Hotel. Two nights I went to dinner with a Rudy Komon who is the art dealer for my friend Leonard French, and each time he had a group of Australian artists to meet me. Since he is a good judge of wines and a good cook and the artists were attractive I enjoyed such gatherings amongst the best I had had. But perhaps this was because, as at home, I like to get away from academics.

United Service Hotel

CATHEDRAL SQUARE, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND
TELEPHONE 64-659

Saturday 7 Sept 1968

Dearest Fido,

I have owed you a letter for far too long, since Australia in fact. You will have an inclusive one later today or tomorrow. For all stores close on Saturday here. Luckily I discovered this when I was brought back from a drive in the country late yesterday afternoon (the stores stay open Friday nights until 1:30), so I dashed madly to buy myself a bottle of whiskey, get books wrapped and posted home to reduce my weight, buy shaving cream--all the things I had intended to do this morning. One of them was to begin a letter to you, but I had to confer at nine with one of the teachers, and since I understand the postoffice closes about 10:30 I cannot do much more than send my love. Since I want to be sure that the enclosed clipping, which I thought might amuse you, would not make the letter too heavy,

This being entertained at right and left through the clock leaves little time for one's self, indeed little time to see New Zealand--only the roads to and from the university. Still, it is pleasant to think that the days close in and it will not be long before I actually see you.

I am risking this letter and one or two more to the address my poor memory supplies. If the New York post office is fussy perhaps they will return it to New Haven, where there are instructions to use the phone book at forward it on.

United Service Hotel

Sunday, 8 September 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is another of the Sundays whene
my chief duty is to sit and wait until late after-
noon when I take the plane to Dunedin, a little
farther South. One is supposed to give up a hotel
room at 10 a.m., but today also I have hired it
for a little longer. No one is on the street,
even for early services at the Cathedral across
the square from my window, but perhaps I shall
go to the later service, having been urged to hear
the boys' choir said by locals to be superior.

I apologize, as I keep doing, for not
maintaining any regularity of letters, but a good
deal of the time I am left without any free time
and for much of the rest I am left without much
energy. Actually two months out of a suitcase is
almost too long, and although I have enjoyed the
trip immensely I will not be sorry to be back.
Especially for at least the' glimpse it will give
me of you.

Christchurch actually hasn't provided
as crowded a schedule as most, and I have the
advantage of knowing the Prof of American history
and the Prof. of English, from the meeting at
Sydney. And the Vice Chancellor's first remark
when I went to have tea with him and the Provost
was to thank me for having entertained him in
Bew Haven. Similarly a younger member of the
English Department thanked me for having sent him,
at his request years ago, a copy of the Pound
checklist which I once had printed. He had learned
Pound (on whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation)
from an Englishman at Manchester who had first
known of Pound through me). Actually the Prof.
of English had been entertained by me at Yale,
though I tend to forget these things and must
begin to keep better records. Perhaps fewer will

2

The South Pacific Hotel

come to see me now I am no longer Chairman. On the other hand, each trip I make creates new trickles of guests.

I arrived in the early afternoon on Thursday, had tea with the Vice Chancellor, and at night the Prof of English had a party for me, chiefly for older members of his department. And I must not forget, I gave an interview to the local newspaper at the end of the afternoon. So far it hasn't been published, but after all the reporter was the one (going from Yale's publicity release) who wanted to talk about eskimos! I had expected it would be the American elections again. Why old loco care about greenland?

*******

A brief interlude while I did go to the Cathedral. The boys choir was good, what there was of it. The Dean's sermon on the Beatitudes failed to have a very strong story line. (Or at least I became confused when he spoke of the formation of Christian character being like making an omelet, the first egg to be broken being the heart.)

Friday morning I was met by the University of Canterbury's public relations man and taken on a tour of their new campus outside the city; then had tea with members of the English department. Then gave a lecture on "American Writers and World War Two", ending with reading two of Hilda's war poems. In the afternoon, Prof. Conway, of History, took me for a hundred mile drive up from the Canterbury plains and over the mountains to Akaroa the site of the first French settlement in 1840, before the British came and took over. This was more like the New Zealand one sees in picture books. Christchurch itself is exactly what it was intended to be, a transplanted Church of England, more English than anything I have seen elsewhere. Dunedin, they say, is transplanted Scotland. But the heights of the mountain sides are steep and the views spectacular. In the distance are their Alps, covered with snow and looking like remote Dents du Midi. The evening being free I went to the Light Brigade whose battle scenes are worth your seeing. Saturday morning was free, and no shops being open, nor I wanting to buy anything if I had -- everything closes for the weekend on Friday-- I went to the local museum where I had myself a whirl with things that would not otherwise have interested me. But there were the Australian and New Zealand animals and birds, there also was a room full of Maori objects (I am preparing to read some of the Dusty Diamonds about the Maori Wars), and a series of rooms about old Canterbury, and all of things which helped to explain what I had been seeing. In the afternoon I was taken

3

for another drive to the old port of Christchurch, and then at five
to a really mammoth cocktail party given by a senior member of the
history department, and including those in literature as well as his
own with myself as guest of honor. Afterwards a few stayed for dinner,
but I excused myself at 10:30, especially since my host was just
recovering from a stroke (indeed his wife arranged the party partly to
bring him back into circulation).

Oh yes, there was one item at the natural history section of
the museum that particularly caught my attention. The Himalayan Thar
(mountain goat), I discovered was now well established in N.Z.'s
South Alps, having been introduced in 1904 and 1909 from a herd estab-
lished at Woburn Abbey by the eleventh Duke of Bedford. I find some-
thing fascinating about the triangle of the Himalayas, Woburn Abbey
and the mountains of New Zealand.

In a sense this is all rather stupid to relate, but it does
give one a sense of how my visits go. They are all a little the same.
I went to Palmerston North, to Massie University, after I wrote you on
last Sunday at Wellington (at least I think I did), where there was a
party for me the night of my arrival (I had one hour between times in
which to eat), an afternoon at the university, with a tour of the pigs
sheep and cattle (it is primarily agricultural), then tea with the Vice
Chancellor, then I gave two radio interviews for the New Zealand Broad-
casting Company, and in the evening gave a public address followed by
a reception. And up and off the next morning early for Wellington again.
But the morning in Palmerston North was rather fun, since I was driven
40 miles to a new small but good museum of Maori things, and also managed
in the morning to get my camera taken apart and repaired so that at least
it is is working again. I was lucky to find a first class workman who
could understand a Leica of that vintage. I think you gave it to me in
the late 1940's; yes, it was on my first visit to Hilda at Kusnacht. The
shutters simply and suddenly stuck and refused to work, rather a blow to
me since the weeks of rain in Australia meant I hadn't used anything,
really, of the film I brought with me. But actually this isn't a photo-
graphing trip. Now all is well again.

Wellington was pleasant and interesting in its way. I was taken
for a tour of Katherine Mansfield's homes (some five in all, or at least
there were; cellar holes in some instances are all that remains). I
was driven to the usual last Rock of any city and shown the view. These
harbors in old craters are often superb. The Deputy Chief of Mission
of the Embassy took me to lunch on the first day of my return. I went
to the Embassy for tea with the Ambassador afterwards. There was a
cocktail party for me to meet the Americanists and some others. I went
to the opening of a new play about the Maorism by one Bruce Mason,
called Awatea, for which the leading Maori singer and actor (now living
in London) was flown back, Inia Te Wiata for whom Britten apparently
wrote 'role in Billy Budd'. I was given V.I.P. seats directly behind
the Governor general and his entourage, and behind and around me were
the various ambassadors. But they were all black-tied, and I came

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naked, so although I was one of 400 invited to the official reception after the performance, the group seemed too intimate for me to attend en negligé, I begged out, was fried back to the Grand and had a solitary libation. I felt snugger there, for my room was the only one I have ever had anywhere in which I entered and then walked up a slope to get to the level. And the only one which had no window of any sort. Still, again they had booked me out in the mid afternoon so I hired the room on extension. But I have forgotten, I gave a public lecture at the Victoria University in Wellington, and afterwards gave another radio interview with the NZ Broadcasting Company, this time on American culture, especially (Presumably because it interested the dame who interviewed) my views on American architecture. This is at any rate safer to express than my views on Ezechoslovakia or the American conventions and riots. Neither Australia nor New Zealand tempt me as places of refuge, interesting though they are, and kind as the people have been. But maybe I need a farmhouse in New Hampshire or Vermont, or best of all in Maine to which I can withdraw when the rioters approach. Perhaps near the water, so that I could share it with you.

Perdita may be amused to know that Joe Roland is now American Consul at Auckland (he was with us during the late war). Roland heard that I was coming to Auckland and so phoned the embassy in Wellington to make arrangements to see me.

It is difficult for me to realise that a week from tonight I will be flying out of Auckland on my way home. It has been a curious trip. Not one of exhilaration certainly, but one of great interest. The flu I picked up in Melbourne was hard to shake and kept me under the weather up almost until the meeting itself. I liked the Australians; they have great confidence in their own future, and shuck the British and take on the Americans without feeling that it makes much difference to themselves. They think chiefly of nickel and aluminium and offshore oil, have money and spend it, referring to themselves as a wealthy people. New Zealanders think of themselves as a poor people, and I guess there are. Good minds and ambitious business men simply quit New Zealand, and they take it for granted that this will continue. They are over-produced in sheep, and can't eat it up or sell it. Their hearts are still tied to England and they would like to be in the European common market alongside the motherland. New Zealanders feel themselves to be New Zealanders but not in any intensive (Australian) way. Their lament is that they are far from home. It seems to be a middle class culture and economy without any top class in either. Things are com-

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SYDNEY

fortable; the houses are small but not crowded, and here especially
there are flowers and parks and intensely cold winters or summers
that get above 70. The conversation is intelligent, but like the
Thars come by way of Woburn Abbey. I don't think New Zealand is a
place for either you nor me to settle down in in our old age.
Margaret Pratt loves it because she is a keen person without the
slightest sophistication or intellectual interests. She wants a
cozy life and this is far better than the isolated farm (without
water or light) where her English husband took her to farm. But
the Stanhope is better for you, plus a flat in New Haven.

Now I must pack.

CHERRY COURT LODGE

678 GEORGE STREET, DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND

TELEPHONE 77-237

Tuesday September 12, 1968

Dearest Fido,

I think you would have revelled in
my walk yesterday around Otago University, es-
corted by a nice female professor. Two of the
main buildings under construction have been
hauled by dwellers who chose not to move out of
their houses--one an old man who kept a store
and lived above it on a corner; the other an old
dame who saw no reason why she should move. The
socialist government here will only very reluctant-
ly displace anyone, least of all the old. Only,
the vice-chancellor told me, when some one started
negotiations and then backed out for more money
would they step in. Everyone seemed to take the
live-in protest good humoredly.

I managed to get in a half hour at the
local museum where they had an excellent Polynesian
and Maori collection (I have seen enough of the
latter now to have an idea of its range), and in
the morning was lucky enough to have the sun
shining when a young American instructor in English
drove me to the Peninsula for more of the spectacu-
lar headlands and surf breaking on the beach. There
are flowering shrubs just beginning here, but the
weather has been cold, -3° two nights ago, and there
was heavy frost on the hillsides and snow on the
slopes of the mountains. The Southern sheepfarmers
are battling from before daybreak to save the lives
of the storm-weakened lambs. Lambing is late this
year but not late enough for this cold spell, bleak
wet weather and unseasonable temperatures. It is
cold, especially at this moment when the rain pours
down as it did Sunday night when I arrived. I
wait now to catch a plane north later in the morn-
ing, but of course had to change my plans to visit
the local settlers museum and walk out again.

CHERRY COURT LODGE

TELEPHONE 77-237

Yesterday was much as always. Tea at eleven with the English department staff. Then an hour's tour of the university, followed by luncheon with the vice-chancellor and the Dean and the head of English. After which an appointment with the head of political science (an American who exiled himself during the McCarthy period of loyalty oaths--I have met another exiled a Quaker objector to Vietnam who carries out his campaign here at Christchurch); and then a meeting with the Librarian and two of his assistants --one who served in the antarctic, married at Dunedin girl who couldn't be happy until she brought him back to her home to stay. Women seem to transplant only with difficulty; at least in several cases it has been the females who have led their males back down under.

Last night I gave my lecture, to a smallish audience of 40-50, but good to get anyone out I should think. And afterwards a party for me by the Dean, also a professor of German, monocled and very Cambridge. The Professor of German from Cambridge was also there. Both of them had known Susan's brother-in-law Humphrey; the Dean had studied under him, and the Professor of Classics (also at the party) had with his wife occupied Molly & Humphrey's house in Cambridge when they were at Johnson's Point in 1948.

Hamilton and Auckland and then it will be over next Sunday!

Now it is sleetling outside, and the room maid says it snowed three inches up the hill where she came from this morning.

Monday 16 September 1968

Dearest Fido,

It is quite hopeless now to try to catch up on the last of
New Zealand, and even this will not reach you until after we have at
least talked together on the phone. Hamilton was a jumbled when I arrived
at six and was informed I was to give a public lecture at 8, having earlier
been told I was to do nothing when the original schedule was sent me. But
speak I did, of course. There was something a little like this in Auckland
when I thought I was to speak on one subject and then had to give another;
or on Friday at lunch when I was told the plans for a trip that after-
noon had been changed and I was to meet a political science seminar instead.
Once inside with the class about to begin I saw on the blackboard a notice
that I was to talk for an hour on "The Negro and the City." After an addit-
ional half hour of questions I was then told that the national t.v. system
had brought their moveable equipment to the offices upstairs and would I
do an interview for televising. It was this sort of strain that kept one
in line and exhausted. Still I did see a bit more of New Zealand in the
last few days. At Hamilton I was driven to the limestone caves at Waitomo,
especially the Glow worm Cave where thousands of glow worms illuminated an
inner dome to which one proceeded by boat in the dark. I must say, to enter
the cavern after utter blackness was like entering death and resurrection.
Then on the Saturday, having by New Zealand miscalculation an entire day free,
and being Saturday all shops were closed so I could not even be tempted by
last minute shopping, I flew to Rotorua and saw their thermal wonders and
bursting geysers. This is so well known to tourists that at least I can now
say I've seen it. Sunday I went to the museum, Maori and Polynesian art in
the late morning, and then was taken for a drive and to his father's and then
to his home for dinner with other guests until I went to the bus terminal at
10:15 for a midnight flight here. I was the only first class passenger, so
was hardly crowded, and the hostess made up a nice bed for me. Thanks to the
Australian government which paid my round trip fare, I have done nicely in
my air travel.

I arrived here on a second Sunday in succession (thanks to crossing
the dateline) at 7 a.m., and after unpacking, wandering out along the dock
to watch the bright-colored fish among the coral, I lay down and had a proper
nap until 11 when I went in the hotel bus to another hotel they own which has
a white-sand beach (here there is only a seawall) where I lay in the sun until
mid-afternoon and so sunburned my knees that I can hardly bend them. In the
late afternoon I satisfied my curiosity by going to a cockfight, and when I
could finally work my way in among the Tahitians who surrounded the cockpit
I watched the end of one fight and the whole of another, these lasting an
hour-and-a-half of blood and pecked-out eyes. I will take you or Susan to
satisfy your curiosities but doubt that I will think it necessary to go again
unless as a cultural comparativist. As a sport it is unsporting.

Today I went by small boat to Moorea, an island off the coast, considerably less urbanized than Papeete, and very handsome indeed in its palms, volcanic cone harbors, and jagged crests. Flowers everywhere in-blossom, nuts on the palms and at their feet, breadfruit, mangoes, bananas, and everywhere also flowers to be woven into garlands or work, behind the ears. No

swung

by the air of
Political
Science

HOTEL H TAHITI

wonder most Tahitians simply sit in the sun.

However there is much activity of other sorts. In the harbor is the
boat containing two A bombs which the French are to fire on Friday, the H
bombs being finished with. Huge warships surround it with equipment for
checking, and there are 6,000 French soldiers and sailors stationed here in
one of France's last colonies. The French are indifferent socially, and all
Frenchmen have their Tahitian "wives" (unmarried) and children, but they allow
the Tahitians absolutely no sharing of the economy. During World War Two when
France could pay no attention to Tahiti, the natives regained almost complete
autonomy and slipped back into an economy of 1890. But they liked it that
way, and when the French retook power after the war they really had to do so
by force which has not been forgotten. Even the police force was rid of any
Tahitians showing sympathy for their fellowcountrymen, so the police are regarded
not simply as fuzz but as Quislings. The result is a strong anti-French feeling
of which I was not really aware, and there will come a time when Tahiti throws
the French over and gets into the sometimes pathetic nationalism that has rocked
the world of our time.

It will be marvelous to see you and again and catch up on all that has
happaned. I do hope that some of my letters have reached you, including this one
late tho it be. I think I haven't had a letter from you since early August so
there will be much for me to learn about. You must be patient and tell me in
detail.

With all love as always,

HOTEL H TAHITI

17 September 1968

Dearest Fido,

I suspect this is my last letter to you until I start to write
again from HGS. And indeed I wonder whether my faulty memory was correct enough
for my earlier letters of late ever to reach you at the Stanhope. How stupid it
was of me not to have offered that address into my carefully prepared book. I
did post a letter to you early this morning, and perhaps the chief objective of
this is to send you the stamp on the envelope for whatever true stamp-collector
you have. It is not simply that the stamp costs far more than the postage; it is
because it no longer is in active circulation. On my day has been spent in a
tour of the island, by myself with a driver, so that I could direct him where I
wished to be. I did see the things that are supposed to be seen: a blow-hole
less spectacular than the one I took you to at Bar Harbor, the tomb of King
Pomare V (to whom I never pledged allegiance), Bougainville's land place, and
especially Point Venus which was the public focus of Capt Cook's tour and where
he erected a monument to himself which is still standing. I am going to have to
read about Cook who had an intricate personality.

But my own personal choices were all tied into the threads of litera-
ture, which goes only to show how confined and virginal a life I lead. So we went
to the pool where Pierre Lott met his amour, and to the home where Robert Louis
Stevenson lived (still standing), and to the haunts of Paul Gaugin as well as
to his museum (incidentally a very good one).

And so all these echoes of Ezra's Moluccan Islands have been listened
to. (the reference is to "Hughes Melvyn Montberty" by Tolstoy)

I listened also to much more about the Tahitians versus the French,
and was quite wrong in saying there were 6,000; that is the number on one of
the aircraft carriers. The total figure is 20,000, and it is startling to see
the caps and insignia of the Foreign Legion most of whom were transferred to
the Pacific after Algiers. Where else was there to send them? I also saw the
home where De Gaulle slept two years ago. Naturally, the governor general.

You can see how my horizons have enlarged.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

It is sad to think that tomorrow will be the last time I will hear your voice for six months or more. That is, unless you relent and hop across in mid-winter for the prick of precaution and the fun of seeing all of us on this side. To chance a letter to Montreux is a little foolish I know, but Marie Anne (to whom my greetings) will certainly forward it to you in London at the Sesame.

I spent last night reading old issues of the Gardner News, without being sufficiently rewarded by gobbets of interest. But this is the only way I can keep in touch with what goes on around my brother and sister, even though they are not usually participants.

Today being Yom Kippur I am without Mrs Hamerman, but it has been pleasantly like a weekend as I paid bills, balanced my checkbook, talked over the phone with the man who is doing the repair work on the cottage. And then this afternoon went to a funeral of a friend of Susan's and mine. He did our framing and his son now does; dead at 69 which meant that enough were still alive to fill the church. So often now the deceased are so old that no one is left to mourn

Sachie's rose poems came back in the mail today with no comment. I shall get that later, and later I will try to jack up my courage enough to write him. It is sad because he is a fine poet and doesn't try to learn steps he can't really, and really ought not to, dance. I wish he could live long enough to see himself recognized as himself.

Susan and I go on Friday to Washington for the opening of the National Portrait Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian. I phoned the Director of the National Collection of Fine Arts this after-(his gallery opened while we were with you last May) -noon to make arrangements for him to show me around his own gallery Friday afternoon. He said that Adelaide Bruskin (an art historian and member of his staff) had been in Nice this summer and been to see Romaine several times. All this finishing about six weeks ago. Romaine was very bright, lively, and didn't seem to tire from the visits, although her eyesight continues to fail. The National Collection plans a show of her things in two years (I hope R will hang on for it) and at the same time publish her memoirs. So I think we can count this as accomplished without having to worry any more about it. Also this will effective keep Adam out of her orchard. Actually all this is far better than anything we might have been able to do. I only wish other difficulties would resolve themselves so well.

Don't forget that if it ever should seem to be helpful to you to have me dash over, don't hesitate to say so. I will say no if it is impossible.

My first little clearance for Dudley Fitts' estate came in the mail this morning. Did I tell you that although not an excecutor I am supposed to give ap- approval for all literary matters, royalties and the like. He had always wanted me to, and I could of course not refuse. But I am happier than ever that I have a secretary and so good a one.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

It was sad this morning to say goodbye over the phone and my
tail has dragged all day. Perhaps your departure is the reason the sun has
not shone; at this moment at the end of the day it looks as though we should
have our first rain. At least I am glad that the men have been at the house
to move the refrigerator and the electric generator back into their original
sites so that the cars can at last be inside the garage. This is particularly
fine since we will be in Washington Friday night and Saturday.

The day has not been particularly eventful. deNagy, who is pro-
fessor of English and American literature (whom Hilda knew) at Basle and Berne
came for a visit. I take him to lunch on Monday.

And having thought I was to lunch with that geo(something) dome man,
Buckminister Fuller and Roysce Smith, I found out from the paper this morning
that having arrived yesterday morning he departed unexpectedly yesterday evening
after dinner once he discovered his fee from Yale was not as large as he expected.
His secretary had accepted for him but not told him the sum. Indeed the sum wasn't
large--$300, plus a few hundred for five days--but it was all this particular
fund had. He said he had been paid $6,000 by Harvard for five days, but on each
of those days he gave a lecture and this was the payment for the book made from
them. All this simply shows that men should be able to communicate with their
secretaries, or vice-versa. In any event he had expected to spend half of each day
writing new books; and this seems to me to have been overoptimistic on his part.
Roysce and I lunched anyhow, which was pleasant enough--my first visit with him
since my return.

My schedule begins to be hectic again. This weekend in Washington,
next week at home but with many engagements surrounding it, including the next
Monday in Hartford. The following weekend, or Saturday anyhow at Amherst Mass.,
for a meeting of the New England American Studies Association, and the weekend
after that at the Californian equivalent in Davis, California. Pray for me.

All love, and my greetings to you.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2731 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN·CONN

7 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is hardly a satisfactory way to bridge the gap
between my last letter and this. But at the moment I can't get to
a machine until after Mrs H leaves, and this afternoon at that time
I had my interview with the Japanese visiting scholar who got into
trouble at the Co-op. The first stage of that, at least, is over,
but I must now check on what he says.

The visit to Washington was great fun, though certainly
browed. But the best of all highlights came at Saturday's luncheon
when we went to the very small official lunch given by the Ripleys.
was at Mrs R's left, another man at her right and by him was Susan.
kept calling me Norman and his face seemed familiar but unidentifi-
ble until I whispered an inquiry and was told it was Dick Helms,
junior man in OSS but now head of CIC. We joked about many things
including Greene's reference to me as a danger to the Empire, and
the horrow of Philby's memoirs. BUT, SUDDENLY, he interrupted. "I'm
wanted on the phone!" Much pleased with himself and with his new toy
he pulled out a thin two-by-four inch box from his trouser pocket,
which begins to oscillate and vibrate when signalled from a main
office. No one can hear it; he himself must put in the call, as he
did before returning and showing it all to us. I was green with envy
and almost wished I were back in the game again just to have one. It
seems they used to have similar toys which rang a little bell, but
this is og so much more secret. Helms was very nice, said they all
missed me and wished I would come back some day for lunch. With him.
I doubt I shall, but it is nice not altogether to have been forgotten.

Actually at the reception (some 3,000 attending) marking
the opening of the National Portrait Gallery there were several who
came up to me as of old days in London. Perdita will remember Jane
Winslow who introduced her husband (he writes Allen Dulles's books
about espionage), a Curtis Carroll Davis also appeared. And tell her
too how surprised I was in Auckland to find that the consul was Joe
Roland who was with us in London and then in Vienna.

Your letter from the Stanhope was at the office when I came
down on Sunday afternoon. So was a box filled with all the little boxes
of slides which had been developed. Alas, I have not been able to look
at them yet, and wonder when I shall be able to.

Your evening with Hannah Arandt sounded like great fun. I
wish I might have listened in. Friday night in Washington, after the
two talks on Americans as Americans we went to a hotel bedroom party
with Daniel Boortsin and wife (they were at Sidney also), Oscar Handlin
and wife, and Margaret Meade. Miss Meade is a quite a girl, like a
sharp grandmother in whom Mother Earth and Mother Wit are combined.

Now I must dash to the gymnasium. But at least you have had
a beginning of a letter!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

9 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

I didn't write yesterday and thought I wouldn't have a chance to even today. But fortunately my seminar let out early and so I have ten minutes before I have to go to a lecture given by Marcus Cunliffe, an English American Studies man who took his degree at Yale. This is at 4, then I hurry home after 5 to fetch Susan for a publisher's party for the wife of the head of the Yale Press, then to cocktails before dinner for the Cunliffes, and afterwards we take Mrs C home rather than hear him re-give the lecture we heard by him last Friday night in Washington. Alas, I discover that being an old-timer still carries its duties. Yesterday afternoon I had a seminar until four, and then exactly at 4 a meeting of the English Department which lasted until 6. (You will remember that I cannot get to my typewriter in HGS until after Mrs H leaves at 3.)

Your three letters from Switzerland came, for which my deepest
gratitude. I do miss your actual presence but am given the only rhythm
method I care for, by the flow of your letters. You must have been fright-
fully busy at Kenwin and with your walnuts and Marie Anne. I only hope the
villa was not too frightfully cold. I was a little worried about that, at
least until you rescued your woolies. I was delighted with your hotel
stationary--"Hôtel Helvétie et des Familles" has a compound effect which
seems more comforting than logical. But hotel stationary always fascinates
me and as you say I made great efforts to write you at least a sheet from
each one.

Interesting that you and Susan both liked the New Zealand river
book so much--the first I got for you. I shall have to take my river dip
in it sometime when I am at Kenwin. The other book was a mixed bag, but I
was interested in what I read from it on the plane.

I rejoice that you still think of a pied-a-terre in New Haven.
If you were to give a reason I should stick to that of the convenient library
from which you could withdraw books. I only ask that you plunge enough to
get a flat suitable for most of your books. Bringing over Lotte's painted
doors makes good sense. But on seeing the utterly charming watercolor studies
she made as guides it occurred to me that if the doors weren't practical,
one could get much the same effect (as by metamorphosis) if we framed the
watercolors for your walls. Or did both. I liked them immensely, so did
Susan.

I find it interesting too that you now feel this separation from
Kenwin, though I am not altogether surprised. A part of you has been itching
to get away from there, since some years--and not only because of Elsie's
temper. Now with her death your life at Kenwin has finished. Even a new
and much smaller villa in Switzerland would be indicated rather than as be-
fore, or an apartment. But the beruf to the States has been so strong I
hope you will continue to listen to it. For this would bring you closer to me.

all love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

10 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

At least today has been somewhat more tranquil, though I had
a stream of students for conferences this morning. Last night I made my
dizzy series of transits from the office to a distant lecture hall, then
home to fetch Susan for a publisher's party at the Co-op, on to cocktails
and dinner for the Marcus Cunliffes, after which we took Mrs C (a sculptor)
home rather than for her and us to listen again to her husband's lecture
(having two in succession gave him just that much more in fees). I took
her on to another party for them at 9:30 but did not go in, feeling that
my task as shepherd had been completed.

Your letter of the 7th came in jig time, as letters from Zurich
always do. I only wish I might have had more missives for you on your arri-
val at the Sesame, but hope I can write a little more regularly from now
on. Trust you had a good trout with Joan; I myself always feel like Vinodius
when I nibble at a trout cheek. What a life it would be to eat only them,
and then wash the food down with the tears of nightingales! ** Glad the
Gawain pleased, and I am grateful for the gay marine stamps, appealing
enough to make an anchorite out of everyone, if that is the right term--
as I expect it is not.

To return briefly to the Washington weekend, we went after unpacking to the National Collection of Fine Arts where David Scott, the Director, was waiting for us with his wife and gave us an intensive tour of the galleries. I had been with you in May when the formal opening took place. He has done an excellent job out of it, a sort of Luxembourg for American painters not quite up to the National Gallery. Romaine has four canvasses hanging and they stand up very well indeed. One of them I had advised them to get, having so much admired it when I was in her studio. She hangs in the long Lincoln room, where Lincoln's inaugural ball was held, and if she ever dreamed of dwelling in marble halls she has had her wish fulfilled. Dillon Ripley is said to want to reconvert the room into a permanent ballroom which would be a pity in every respect, quite in addition to displacing her.

The National Poetry Gallery opened a decade too soon, for they
had almost nothing of their own to show, and what they borrowed was seldom
first-class. They argue that they are a documentary not an art museum, but
painting is painting, and bad painting is still bad painting even when a
datum. The exhibition notwithstanding we had great fun socially, for almost
everyone was there from around the country. We had an interesting late Friday
night drink with Margaret Meade, Daniel Boor$\ddot{s}$in and his wife, and Oscar
Handlin and wife. You would have enjoyed the conversation. Saturday lunch
with the elegants was elegant, though I am sorry to have to report that my
secretary says her husband says that a docto r client of his also has a
vibrant phone signal device. Afternoon tea at the RPLEYS helped us catch
up with their trip to some distant kingdom bordering on India where they
went to catch mountain birds and from which they had returned only Thursday
night. Dinner too was fun, and by some quirk the talk turned to eskimo fo$
art, the director of the Abby Rockefeller Museum at Williamsburg said he
was trying to find enough for a show, and so mine may one day be shown there

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

for a brief period. If so this would make an excellent excuse to get you to Williamsburg, Sunday, as I think I wrote we came back on the eleven o'clock shuttle and I was able to get to the evening service where Bishop S Shannon, of Saint Louis, spoke. I was glad I had gone for when I asked the chaplain to give Shannon my greetings I was told that I had been expected. The service itself, though long, was interesting. Students served themselves communion, and the hymns were all hippy and accompanied by two guitars.

Now let me hop skip and jump from one quickie to another, if for no other reason than to catch up with the pile of notes of things to mention to you. First, be sure to notice in the Children's Books section of T.L.S. for 3 October the lead article on Henty. No very good I thought, but interesting that Henty was being written about. Then you must not chide me for having successfully bought more volumes of BOY'S OWN ANNUAL than I am likely to find space for. They were offered in a catalogue which came while I was away, and I thought for sure they would be already snatched up. I had, I think, six; now in addition the Bryher Collection will include #1,4,7,10,12,13,16,17,18,20,21,23m 23,35m36,38,45m48m49,53, and 54. You will have more than enough to keep you in reading when you settle in New Haven. *** Alas, Bertram Rota's son Tony (whom you met) has written offering me an attractive drawing by Charlotte Bronte but he wants $3000 for it which seems pretty high. At any rate I shall write to say no, but am interested to know that she did draw. *** The review of Philby's book in the TLS for September 26th was I thought perceptive as well as one of the first to take an ethical stance against him. Did you order the English edition with Greene's introduction? I think you said you did, but will send for it if I misunderstood.

I enclose a clipping about Wolfe as well as a boxer item for your delectation. No pint in saving either. A package came to you from the Co-op addressed in my care to 231 HGS. I opened in surprise to find the three Wolfe books, so I have repacked and am sending on to you. Something must have slipped.

Have begun reading the accumulated pile of yellowbacks. I shall not try to comment on much, since we did have a chance to catch up on many of the group. But like yourself I was much pleased with the remarks at Elsie's funeral. They had true warmth in them despite the fact that the lady preacher never knew her. *** Interesting that Robert Herring is writing poetry again. I wonder if you will see him this time. I rather suppose no unless Kenneth is willing to stand by. *** Chris's mother's letter and his own were most interesting to read. You are absolutely right, his heart will always be in Greenland. *** Silvia Dobson obviously had a cracking good time. We must see her some time in California. A good excuse to get you there too. ** I quite shed tears (I started to say crocodile's before realising this would not do at all) about Kenneth's rejection. But I must say he takes it beautifully though he must be bitterly disappointed. What a really large sum he did make out of the first, when one considers how much less yours earn at the beginning. *** The various missives to and from Heinemann were interesting. I suspect they did about all they could do.

Must close now and get off to the gymnasium. Mrs H ran out of letters today but I spent the earlier time after 3 in filling a couple of tapes for tomorrow morning.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

Your letters of the 8th (both) were in this afternoon's mail, for which my thanks. And congratulations on having uncovered the piece of true Grieder which I am glad you grabbed. Your clever dressmaker will, I think, manage nicely. You speak of funds available in Canada for escapees. Don't forget that I can always put my hands on one sort of funds or other to ship immediately to anyone in distress and could do so at your instruction. This might be legally simpler than providing the necessary legal permissions to draw directly on a fund by a person in peril. You and I could adjust later on, if indicated; indeed if necessary I could draw on your own savings account here. At least discuss with Ruegg whether or not my suggestion makes sense; he might approve it rather than tying up your unds in a Canadian cash account. If Ines is involved the only thing for her to do is to return to Italy.

I was glad you could see the Snack. Actually I had thought t
she was a bit older. I began the morning by going to the Co-op and
settling the matter of my slide projector, for indeed they supplied me
with a substitute manual which didn't fit my model, and restored the
one that went wrong with us simply by tightening it. Then talked about
the Japanese boy accused of stealing books from the Co-op. And the
matter of the Wolfes which came to me rather than directly to you. This
ate up a good gobbet of time and I could do nothing else but go to the
Memorial Services for James Babb the former Yale Librarian who died of a
heart attack the evening before I left for Australia. The service was
held off until now when his friends would be back home again. A good ser-
vice with a fine personal tribute by James Tanis who succeeded Babb for
a bit. Lunch with the Directo r and the President of the N.H.Colony
Historical Society while we tried to settle the evening lectures for the
year. (Alas, I am chairman for lectures.)

Susan will be down shortly at the office and we go on to a
sherry party for the graduate students and faculty in American Studies.
An absolute bore though I dare not stay away. Alas, tomorrow after the
football game the English Department has a similar party. These are
aspects of tribal ritual, but I suspect there are few orthodox believers.
I should much prefer to keep at my desk and see if by some chance I
couldn't manage to clean it up a little more by Monday morning. Next
week will be sheer hell. My difficulty is that I answered the easier
letters first. Now I face the tricky ones and the letters of reccomenda-
tion.

We football tomorrow afternoon against Brown. Yale won last
week 49-14, is ragged (as you saw) but apparently can score. But they
haven't as yet faced an experienced opponent so one can't guess what the
season's end will show. Brown incidentally would not generally be re-
garded as tough.

By now you will have been well settled into the Sesame. Give
Ethel and Perdita and the Boys and all others my appropriate love, but
smuggle the greater part for yourself.

12 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

Columbus Day, and so because of the holiday I was able to park, fee-less, close to the Graduate School floor and thus can carry home the airblower from Mrs H's office which is outmoded because of the air conditioning. Perhaps young Susan would like it for her new house. No word as to when I am to turn over my share of the cost, but I imagine this will be any day now.

We football this afternoon, but I came to the office early to meet a scholar working on Hawthorne's American journals who had sent me a stack of questions for me to answer. I did a pretty good job for him and lent him my recently acquired ms sheet from the notebooks to copy and include in his new edition. I had thought I had a 10 o'clock appointment with an instructor about his share of the American Studies program in Amherst next Saturday, but he did not show up. I delayed writing you so as not to interrupt but get at it now.

Your letter of the 9th, the first from the Sesame came this morning in good speed. How sad it must have been for the poor man going to fetch his daughter. So much is involved for both daughter and parents. And sorry to hear of Joan's distress; certainly if she has not been given hormones she should have them. Susan was not given them, but that was long ago and she suffered in consequence. One doesn't know what one can do about the Wipf; you must not let her lean on you too much.

My new English dealer who supplied so many boy's mags for the Bryher Dusty Diamonds, now sends longish lists of reprints and some firsts of your authors. I shall check tonight, and we might be able to make some additions.

Did little last night save read yellowbacks. Was much interested at the outcome of the contest over the will of Pup's former house (better not share this letter lest she learn that I read her letters). Elizabeth's thank-you letter for her birthday present was remarkably mature, no matter what kind of cholar she is she expresses herself well. (At that point the delayed instructor appeared and has consumed the rest of the morning.) Was sorry again about Bryan's bad luck. I knew he had been given a 2nd but thought it was a high 2nd rather than a low one. Obviously he is right in not going on with civil service agriculture in the U.K. and suspect if he were deeply committed to farming he would go out to Australia or Canada where they would welcome him. There actually isn't any reason why a low 2nd exam-taker might not well prove to be a high 1st as a moneymaking farmer. ** Was pleased to see Gretechen Baker's letter on moving back to the Grand Hotel. Obviously housekeeping never intrigued her. I must write Mildred Brown about see Margaret Pratt, to whom I wrote earlier this morning. * Do hope you persuade Wendy to do a book on Turkey. It should be very good indeed, to judge from the spirit of her letters. *** I found the tone of the letters from Syracuse officious, which is why I won't write begging letters for similar gifts even from friends. No doubt one loses much. Must close and go home for lunch.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday afternoon the football game with Brown University, and Yale won handily 35-14, Brown's two touchdowns coming only late in the game when Yale's second and third string teams were on the field. But except for a few outstanding players Yale is still very uneven and lacks substitutes of real quality. So the final season may be one way or another. So far at least the record is good. Back from the game, I cleaned the catch basins for the flowoff of rain, these being packed with early fallen leaves; and then dressed for the English Department cocktail party, dinner afterwards at the Lawn Club, and then bridge with the John Popes (he is the Beowulf man whose record you liked).

Today somewhat late to the office but I have managed to dictate four tapes of letters for Mrs W to work on tomorrow, and I expect to do a few more before going home and out to dinner again night. At noon I went to a sherry party for a professor Boxer, of England's Cambridge, an expert on the Chinese, who will probably shift to Yale. I am no Chinese expert but was asked because of his wife, an American, Emily Hahn, who has written about Chinese and etceteras, is now doing a biography of Mabel Dodge Luhan and who very much wants to settle here. She was rather gay and intelligent, and I gather they almost certainly will come. But hardly because of me, the decision having been made before I arrived. This afternoon more of the same work clearing the desk. I think this will never end.

For the sake of the record, Dillon Ripley and his wife went to Bhutan for birds. She also managed to bring back a number of heavy gold pieces of jewelry, her gift from the king.

To go back to your yellowbacks. Mabel Mackenzie has certainly fallen for you, hook, line and bosom. But it might really be fun sometime when you are settled here to visit her in the Northwest. *** What an extraordinary missionary letter from Conrad Jordan! Perhaps this is an unwitting cry of independence from mama, since only one of the children managed to escape her embrace.

I was much amused to see a letter advertised from Vachel Lindsay, with a note from him on the bottom of the page asking his opinion on the best reading "for young men aged 18 to 24." Lindsay's reply: "Boys of this age are old enough to read what they like, in my opinion."

Your Co-op account is in. Your credit is now for $83.58. So spend like mad.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5:30 p/m/ 14 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

Back from Hartford at the tail end of the afternoon, having drive up this morning for a lunch with the Mark Twain Memorial research committee (did I think, did I not think), and then an afternoon meeting with the library committee (should we, shouldn't we). I don't know why they think my presence is so necessary, but I have been advising them for so many years that I go back before time.

At any rate the Fall foliage was beautiful, all those reds on the maples, and the landscape like a paisley shawl. I wish you could have seen it with me. I began the morning by going to my doctor for my first cold prick; he would not flu me, saying that if the new vaccine were not ready by November he would give me the old anyhow and then re-do as the new became available.

Your letters of the 10th (2) and 11th were waiting for me, having come in the afternoon mail apparently. I am sorry about the shops in London. Somehow the starch has gone out and one has only the old shirt rumpled and the new synthetic unwearable. It is sad.

Sad too about Kenneth. I wonder if by chance his silent inwardness is not due to fear of the immediate future, the possibility of having to give up the palazzo, the literary career snapped off, perhaps even having to quit Italy altogether. For he was that way with you at the time of World War Two. And you may forget also how very much I slay carries the ball when one is with Kenneth. Kenneth sits at the side, listens, adds a laugh here and there or an exclamation, but does not so often carry on continued chatter of his own. It is as though a dialogue were carried on for him as audience. So to be alone with you, or with me does not happen very often. I sometimes think he is frightened of being alone with anyone, by which I mean anyone. I don't think he has ever wanted anyone to get very deep into him, or to open to anyone. I mean ever, even to I slay, to no man nor to any woman, perhaps least to any woman. It is not his way, not his protection.

Am particularly glad that Oonagh has persuaded you to get a car. If a Hertz and Ethel can drive you fine. But really it was not that expensive for Susan and me to have a car and driver, and infinitely more convenient. I don't think Robin will mind at all. Do please, I shall be so relieved. I wondered if you would see Oonagh and the child so as to report to Robin.

I thought you might be interested in my order of dusty diamonds from the new dealer. Not so many lists perhaps, but the Henties if genuine are a substantial addition. As with the other authors I am buying reprints also when I have no copy at all of the book. Reprints were 15 shillings, first were one pound ten. Very cheap. But where can I put all these?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

Last night I read for today's undergraduate seminar; this morning I had a series of graduate students who wanted consultation, chewed at a noontime sandwich and hurried back to read the rest of the assignment. I begin to think I shall look forward to the day when I no longer teach. But at least I had the strength of character to turn down a speaking engagement in New York at the meeting there of Phillips Academy alumni, 300 of them, each with wife. Fortunately I shall just be returning from a weekend in Texas so a talk with the crowd things too much.

Was delighted to have your letters of the 12th. How you manage to type with the machine on your knees I can't imagine. I had started to write "how you manage to type on your knees" but realize what an extraordinary picture this presents.

Am much relieved that Kenneth's mood was because of his illness rather than for the elaborate reasons I concocted. But he was truly frightened during W.W. Two and I thought this might be a recurrence. Am glad to know they will be at the Buckingham and hope they will let me know when they are ready to receive. They do have ample accommodations there, but I think the milieu is not quite yours.

Thank you for your effort to find the Philby. I had wanted the English edition because of the Greene introduction, although it will be interesting to see what particular passages are omitted in the revised edition. But I will order from Blackwell's, so don't bother. *** The American reviewers of *The Charge* were not very favorable either and took it all as one piece of debunking. I thought there was a difference in tone between action and cartoons; here they liked the cartoons better. I liked the charge itself most, rather like a colossal western.

How very too bad about Bryan and his chance to be a pilot. In New Zealand I know there were innumerable pilots without work, even at manuring the fields from the air. One of the ex-pilots was my taxi driver in Rotorua when I visited the thermal areas. He explained how difficult life was for a pilot that-- fine when you had a job, rotten when you didn't which was most of the time.

Susan was, perhaps a little to her surprised, delighted with your Rufus in the Bush. Could not put it down and asks to thank you very much indeed.

Tonight I have to take her to the symphony, tomorrow night one goes to the annual banquet of the Conn. Academy, Thursday to theatre, etc. What a life.

My love to Ethel Kenneth and Islay, and to Pup when she arrives, hoping that you will have hidden away the largest part under your Sesame pillow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

This is another of those weeks I shall be glad to have behind
me. I ventured the gymn late yesterday afternoon for a massage after my
undergraduate seminar and my letter to you, and went home to change for the
Lawn Club and the New Haven Symphony which consumed the evening. However
I did have one excitement in finding that at last they had finished install-
ing the signal responding door into our Goodrich Street garage. One comes
up to the door from the driveway, presses a button in a box resembling a
small flashlight, and the door opens by itself. Once inside one presses
again and the door goes down. The process is reversed for leaving. This
will be a sheer delight in pouring rains and snowstorms, since one does not
have to leave the car. I only hope I don't get in the car inside the garage,
forget to press the button and back through the closed wall. I did that
once (before the day of buttons) at our garage in Gardner. For $250.00
it seemed a bargain, we needing to pay only for the machinery. The door was
the right type already.

Today has chiefly been getting ready for my graduate seminar
on Hawthorne, and recovering from it. I still haven't quite caught up, nor
gotten back into the rhythm of teaching. I daresay eventually I will. To-
night we have to go to the dinner, annual meeting and archaeological lecture
of the Connecticut Academy, of which I am an officer. I can't quite get out
of it.

But how busy you have been. Yours of the 13th came this after-
noon. I had been eager to hear about Queenwood. As you know I feel almost
like an old girl myself. Couldn't you persuade Kenneth and me to cross-dress
sometime and go as your cousins? He and I could tell what we did at our
school, which was a very boardy one indeed. *

So sorry to hear that Martita is having such a long evening's
journey into night. Her sister Kitty sounds interesting and very much your
cup of Lapsang. I should think you might have a good deal in common, and
that she would be worth reaching out for.

Glad you could see Agnes, and double glad that her female dog
doesn't bark too much these days. By now I hope Agnes is firmly through with
her.

And what will you think of The Charge?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, for the first time in many days.
However I hope all is well; indeed I am sure it is.

Went dutifully home last night and picked up Susan to take her the annual meeting of the Connecticut Academy, or rather to the dinner preceding ig. Rather to my surprise some 80 or more went, far more than is customary at any meeting so the idea may have been a good one after all. Susan and I sat at the head table and felt suitably grand. The speaker was a friend of Ingholt, Pere Roland de Vaux (but he had a wife), who is Professor of Ancient History of Israel and Archaeology of Palestine at the Ecole Biblique et Archaeologique Francaise, in Jerusalem, who talked on "Yahweh, El and Baal," Suitably erudite, and since the lecture room was warm and the chairs uncomfortable I slept most of the way down the road to monism. At dinner I sat next to Mme de Vaux, and found they were this term in Princeton at the Institute for Advanced Studies. I asked about the Goughs, she wasn't sure, thought she had heard of them in Princeton, ("perhaps the Goughs had just arrived?") By which I gather the Institute isn't exactly clubby.

Yale has been thronged today with Garden Club women, visiting the various Masters' houses, and the library courtyard where they ate lunch and otherwise cavorting (anyone actually could go for $7.00) to make money for the Club. Money which they spend for planting crystallenchemums and the like on the Green and in parks in the Black sections. Susan did the flowers for the Calhoun Master's house, and helped sell plants. You may recall she had 15 small ones growing for the plant table.

Did I tell you that yesterday morning as I was dressing I looked out the window on to Goodrich Street and saw a phesant hen calmy walking across the street from our side garden, and then up and along the banking until she disappeared into the bushes. I felt positively rural.

The weather continues a little too warm but with a nice Fall scent to the air. I hope there will still be some foliage on Saturday when I drive to Amherst. Tomorrow I have a day filled with oral examinations for the doctorate. I am the one who really feels examined.

Oh yes, I forgot to thank you for the arctic book which arrived yesterday, one O.B. had given you. The illustrations are charming. You must have hated to part with it, but it will join friends in the collection here.

I had ~~ordered~~, and it came today, an~~enchaining~~ drawing in pencil of "Hagar and Ishmael in the desert," drawn and signed by Queen Victoria in 1833. I think you will approve. If she wasn't a writer of sonnets, she did write State Papers.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

I could not write yesterday; I cannot write more than a
paragraph today, being just about to drive in the rain to Amherst,
Massachusetts for the New England meeting of the American Studies
Association. In ten minutes I am scheduled to be with my car at the
front door of HGS to pick up two instructors and a nun who are to go
with me. Others will go in separate cars.

It rains after a long span of good weather, so that at
least I shall not feel cheated out of the football game today. Indeed
if I were here I should be spending the day reading a dissertation on
Hawthorne which must be finished by tomorrow night.

Yesterday, as summary: two oral examinations for the
doctorate in the morning, followed by a quick dash across the campus
to the Art School for speeches and ceremonies on the first day of the
Trumbull stamp. John Trumbull the painter being the son of the 1st
Governor of Conn (a Susan grandparent) and the brother of the 2nd
Governor, she and a sister sat in the front row. I use the stamps on
this envelope. Susan is sending a first-day cover to Ethel. After-
boon: two more oral examinations, followed by a tea we gave for the
uncle of one of the Japanese graduate students. Eminent Japanese
protocol demanded a recognition. But protocol is exhausting. I
was too tired last night to read the dissertation; instead I read and
meditated upon the career of Jackie Kennedy.

Your letter of the 14th arrived yesterday. How rotten for
Sylva to be as she is. I doubt that Prutting could actually do much at
her age and with her commitments for mama who is likely to live for
another decade (uncomfortable) because of the miracle of medicine. Glad
you liked Max's paintings. I suspect I should too. But I always think
that painters rather work against themselves when they paint only for
the Louvre in sizes that only a Louvre can accomodate. Obviously, I
mean this sincerely, they think of status in terms of the size of a
canvass. A smaller canvass you might buy now, you or others. But in
buying most paintings one sells one's self and one's room into bondage.

I'm not quite sure I see O.B. as a s.f. writer, unless maybe
he makes it camp.

It will be interesting to see what precisely was omitted from
the Philby memoir.

I enclose the Lindsay letter, which please don't return as I
have the original. I thought the Cetona Boys might be interested in
the Sunday School Boys, and wonder what five books they would recommend
for all Young Men to read to bring them out, as one says.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

My usual Sunday at the office, and I have busied myself reading at a 250 page dissertation on Hawthorne, the report on which must be in tomorrow. But I happily take a moment off for you, knowing you will forgive me for not making it an hour's pleasure. I left yesterday morning for Amherst before the mail was sorted, but in the end there was nothing from you anyhow, as I discovered this morning. I did forget to mention that I had a few days ago written to Margaret Pratt asking her the cost of the telly she wants.

And I had forgotten to tell you that on the back of Victoria's pencil drawing of Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert, she had written: "For the Fancy Fair, in aid of the funds for the Society of friends of Foreigners in distress." I think in an earlier incarnation you must have founded that Society!

All America has been buzzing of course at the marriage of Mrs Kennedy to Onassis, a little shocked I think to find that Jackie was less of an image, or a different sort of image, from that of the earlier definition. There are many bits I quizzically like. As for example the implication that alas the Kennedies were too impoverished to supply her needs. As Roswell Gilpatrick (a man I once slightly knew) put it as her spokesman, "One of the things she is looking for for herself and her children is a private life--not being in the public eye all the time--and be [Onassis] can afford to give her that privacy and protection." What a sacrificing woman she is to do all this for her children! And Mme Onassis's statement while she was still the simple Jackie is a wonderfully revealing glimpse into the psychiatry of her psyche: "Understand," she told the press and through them Her public, "that even though people may be well-known, they still hold in their hearts the emotion of a simple person for the moments that are the most important we know on earth-- both marriage and death." I liked the way the next paragraph went on, "Sleek in white slacks, a black turtleneck blouse and big sun glasses, Mrs Kennedy...." The white one presumes was for the emotions of a simple person towards marriage, and the black blouse her sentiment for death. The combined gall and banality of her statement makes a splendid self portrait.

I can hardly hope to catch up. Wednesday night's Academy dinner's speaker was incorrectly reported by me (I was in a daze); he was Henri Seyrig, former Director of the French Institute of Arcaheology of Beirut, and talked on the cults of Palmyra. Thursday night we went to the Drama School's production of a new play "God Bless" by Jules Feffer, much admired by a generation younger than mine, all about the confrontation of activists with compromisers, with a President of the U.S. as a leading character. Conversation mostly, (I believe a dialogue in every sense) which was a sort of modern-day Bernard Shaw script acted like a "happening." Friday's long series of events I reported to you. The ceremony with the Postmaster General was not memorable except for the occasion which prompted it, but I was glad to go and glad a seat had been saved in the front row for me. Yesterday's trip to Amherst was in pouring rain all day, which spoiled the sense of the autumn foliage and drenched one on passes between buildings at the meeting. The Yale men did well with their program, which was on courses given here in the area of Afro-American material. Harvard has a

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

program too, and were supposed to come. But theirs has gone so badly,
apparently, that they backed out at the last minute. I took the two
speakers and a nun up in my car so I had pleasant company. But was not
home again until 11:30 at night which ended a long day and a long week.

After lunch we went briefly to the shore so that I could check
on the painting or at least priming of the new addition at the shore.
I was relieved to find it had been done. Gradually things become
partly accomplished. We will have to wait for the stonemason until
spring. And at Goodrich Street the men are nearly finished with installing
the alarm system for all doors and windows which immediately informs the
police station if anyone enters. I'm not sure this guarantees the police
arrive before the thieves leave. But Susan feels better at the thought.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 October 1969

Dearest Fido,

I could not write you yesterday, and hardly can today.
Indeed it is now after six p.m. and I should already be on my way
home. Yesterday I had appointments, dictated letters into the
machine, did an endless amount of telephoning, and made an emergency
first-thing-in-the-morning trip to the bank for a Treasurer's check
to give as my share of young Susan's down payment on her house. I
intended to write between Mrs H's departure at 3 and leaving for
home to change for the Beinecke Library "do" but was called on by
the head of a New York State librarian, also here for the "do" who
wanted me to talk to his library associates in mid-November. I said
no, as I am doing to almost everyone these days. The do was for the
gift of manuscripts and early Americana to the rare book library by
the Vanderbilt family, a really impressive group (the books, I mean,
rather than the Vanderbilt's). That went on from five, with dinner
at seven. We were home by 9:30 but I was exhausted.

This morning came an early appointment with my foot
doctor and then a desperate effort to prepare this afternoon's seminar
for my undergraduates. Not a great success, but the fault was mine.
Once that was over I had a conference with Vann Woodward, the historian,
about a future oral examination in his department; followed by an
hour and a half meeting of the professors of English. All this indi-
cates the desperation of my days and hours.

Your letters from the motor expedition came yesterday, and
your summary arrived today. You obviously accomplished much, only
I mourn for your cold weathering (remembering how precisely I shared
this both in Australia and New Zealand. And for your no-noonday-meal-
days. Phyllis is a determined spartan. I remember how firmly she was
opposed to Susan stopping for a cup of tea after our day of being
cramped in the back seat. I like your and my arrangements of a mid-
morning, mid-afternoon cup of coffee, and at least a snack at noon.
But I realised what a sensual creature I am, and how the comforts of
the flesh appeal on a normal day. Phyllis on the other hand feels
more dignified when she works at a rush, as though something important
lay ahead which might otherwise be missed. Nevertheless she is good
company, enjoys being with you, and I know that the chance to see your
friends was a rare one. I'll comment more particularly tomorrow, if
only I can. That the visit to the Roman site was significant I take
from the fact that you aren't writing about it to me -- quite correctly,
this is for the next book after the memoirs.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

It is now the end of the afternoon, after my Hawthorne seminar, and I have an hour to pick things up before going home and on tomorrow morning, by the 9 o'clock bus, to the airport and then to San Francisco. Back of course on Sunday and I shall try to write while away but cannot promise anything. I do suspect however that I'd better send the ones after this to Kenwin because of the longer transit time from the West Coast, and because I do not yet know that you plan to spend longer in London with Perdita. I did not try to risk Ballinamona, at your suggestion, because of the post.

I was happy to have your letter of the 29th in today's mail, and the days until next Monday will be longer without word from you. What good news it is that Kenneth's reports are good. I look forward to seeing him when he comes but am not quite sure when that is to be. Early November as I remember, but I can check back on this. (If ever I have time). I've not read Eva Lord nor in fact even heard of her. Which means nothing at all, and the best introduction if your enthusiasm. Sybille Bedford's work of course I greatly admire. She writes with a sharp pen.

No you had not told me about the Longleat lions (how euphonius it sounds). The idea is natural enough in a land of lions and they can't hate the climate more than most British do.

I enclose for your info the correspondence about Sachie's poems, I having been finally asked if I would like to read the decisive report. Quite obviously I am out of touch with values, for although I hardly call Sachie's poems the Paradise Lost of our times, they an age of gardens recalled. And having their own nature have at the same time their own character. Don't return the xerox copies, I have the originals.

I had the enclosed card from Mary Hotson (which also toss), enclosing another card for my report. It is nice to have so friendly a note since as I told you I am usually brushed off as disloyal. But I sent her a long letter today, explaining about Elsie and Kenwin and the novel and the stream of summer guests. I did not mention your visit to this side, but see no reason why you shouldn't, saying you came for Prutting and the Puplets briefly and caught just a glimpse of me after my return from Australia.

I pack a briefcase with a typed draft of a complete dissertation to read, the ms of a long article on Hilda's *Tribute to Freud* for the Wisconsin issue, plus a series of other manuscripts and books which should fill up the long hours out and back on the plane. Naturally this time, paying my own way, I go third.

Hope Ireland was fun. Give my love to Ethel and Perdita and the Boys and the lady at the Sesame bar.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

And how shall I begin? ... Shall I tell about my trip to California and how on my return I was accused at the San Francisco air terminal of having a bomb in my bag and thereby involved with police, F.B.I., newspapers and the guardians of the peace in general? Or the student demonstration at Berkeley? Or the hippies? Or the wonderful batch of Letters from you on my return? Or the general confusion here in every direction? Better I think first to concentrate on Mrs Jackson, although all of this will have been settled one way or another long before you read this. I apologize for involving you, but the first cable coming on Friday and the particular information on Saturday when the banks would have been closed anyhow, I thought your proximity to her made your dealing quicker and more effective. I had not realized you would have to consult with Philip and had very much the feeling that some crisis had arisen for Mrs J, since one could hardly cable money on a weekend, especially I away from home in California. Indeed when I had not heard this morning by any answer to Susan's Saturday cable I cabled you again. It had gone only a quarter hour when Susan called with your reply, which had been delivered by hand to Goodrich Street because it was a death notice. Did she commit suicide? I can't get this out of my head, nor that if the whole affair had come a day before, my cabled money might have saved her life. Yet if one is so desperate, would money have helped for long. It is all a mystery.

As to the collection I should like to have added it to your collection, in your honor, and I am sorry that necessity made it necessary to make the appearance of my perhaps seeming to shunt the cost on to you, especially now when you have so many demands. Actually I would have had the pounds to you at Coutts today to replace any you might have had to take from your reserve. Well, perhaps her estate will want to sell or will consider that the option held until Monday after you had had your conference. What I feel sorry about is her, and whatever forced her into the sudden sale.

Your royalty statement from Harcourt is here for the six months ended June 30, 1968. The total check was for $432.65, which will be added to your account in the savings bank. The individual sales were:

The Coin of Carthage 175 copies
Heart to Artemis 30
January Tale 138
Visa for Avalon regular 179
  export 2
Coin of Carthage (paperback) 119
Heart to Artemis (English ed.) 21
January (English ed. advance on ---------- 280.70
  royalty

And now to your letters which were pleasanter than the prospect of a pile as high as though I had been overseas rather than simply across the continent.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Altogether, including the one which came today, there were yours from the 19th, 20th (2), 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th. My comments will be spasmodic--- What bad luck to have had all the mislaying of important documents at one time and another. This often happens to me when I feel particularly pressed. But you finally did get off, which is very much the main thing. * Hormones for Joan, yes--indeed I am now being given them for what the doctor thinks may be a hormone deficiency. But she should not prescribe the dosage for herself. * I take it that Sir Gavin has sold his Alpine library to a dealer in Geneva, or is it his Vaud collection as well. I suspect the Alpine, and if so this was a wise decision; it is rather special and limited in interest. One gathers from Wipf's comment that she at least has not given up the idea of going back to London. * It is truly a compliment to Bryan to be offered the post and must have been good for his morale. I shall be interested to know if he takes it. The trial might be worthwhile. -- The Dusty Diamonds do mount in number, and desk is piled high with the first sack of Boys' Own Chum. What I shall have to do, and can do, is eventually to borrow shelf room from the library for the serials, and perhaps duplicates. -- Glad Ethel liked the Leif Eriksen stamp; Susan will be sending her her first-day cover of the Trumbull but is now busy putting the tulips in before the freeze. -- Susan liked the ending of Rufus less well than the beginning. She used, by the way, your orchid money, for a group of miniatures, one already in blossom and most attractive. -- I felt pleased that you liked the "charge" itself, and agree with me that little Mrs Duberley might have slipped into a strange bed once or twice but never pranced to a couch. One fault with the picture was that it shifted tone so often, and not always intentionally. --- Your visit to Ballinomona must have been sadly clouded by memories. I am so sorry that Robin cannot shake his grief. Grief for his wife's death, grief too and now for the possible death of his home. How different I situated an American like myself is. His home is everything; I carry mine within me. I think your visit *must* have been a revival, and I am glad you could provide him with company. If anything should ever happen to Ethel, the Brigadier would at least have his Club and fellow officers. There are simply too few gentry in the Waterford area. Biddy does not quite count, though she is as nearly "family" as anyone not really in it could ever be. ** Susan was much intrigued by the account of Mrs Richardson. Too bad for Robin, since they were obviously good friends though equally obviously no more than that. *** I am astonished at the rates for Ballinomona; not even Americans will be able to afford going to Ireland. David may simply be afraid that Robin isn't up to keeping the stables going, as I suspect Petrie would. But isn't at least part of what he's after, a lineaged home, or don't the young care any more. ** I'm sorry that Ethel felt the trip by the time your itinerary took you to Dublin; I had hoped you might at least get another look at the Celtic material in the museum down the road from the hotel. ***I took the liberty, as sort of welcome-home buss, to ask Roysce Smith to send you the Bowen by air with my compliments. So don't howl at the cost. The time to read it is now while your curiosity is up. Call it too an advance Christmas present. The Ralegh book I shall charge to your account when you tell me the name of the author and its title. ** Disturbing to think your friend .emple Smith is leaving Seckers. ** I shall be eager to hear the account of the Sunday protest, and whether you, or anyone at the Club, actually got out.

Enough for now; it is the end of the afternoon and already pitch black, daylight saving time having ended last Sunday.

All love, & greetings to you,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

31 October 1968

Dearest Fido,

Alas I could not write yesterday. I had as usual on
Wednesday a seminar until 4, at which time I was joined by Paul Blum
who worked for me in Portugal and Switzerland and now lives in Japan.
And since the morning was hectic with an absurdly last-minute demand
for a letter of recommendation plus an equally absurd postponement of
my own preparation for the seminar, the day (and the chance for letter
writing) was gone. Today is somewhat like that, and in fifteen minutes
I must go to an executive committee meeting for American Studies.

Your cable of the 31st, or 30th, was delivered to Pierson
College instead of to me, and I received it only this afternoon. I
feel dreadfully embarrassed to have put you to such inconvenience when
you had so much to occupy your, and confine you to the Club; and I still
am not quite clear as to just how Mrs Jackson died or you knew it, or
how her *died* second cable could say you were interested in buying
the collection when Susan's two wires actually arrived together. No
matter. I was chiefly trying to help her in a crisis, remembering that
you had wanted to help her after our visit to her. And, somewhat, realising
that this was a last chance to put a little filip to the Henty Collection
amongst the Dusty Diamonds. It's a bit of a grab bag as far as the
books are concerned but the lot may add some we do not have. And I can
perhaps make up a collection of duplicates to sell in turn. That is
if the Philip can manage the filip. When he does let me know and I
will turn over the total to your account either here or in London or
Lausanne.

One rather cheerful bit of news for me. You will recall
my story of the Japanese boy accused of stealing books from the Co-op
and then turned over to the graduate school administration for justice.
The G.S. in turn passed him on to me along with the accusing police
reports. The boy had a different story so that finally I repeated his
request (about which nothing had been done) that the Co-op check the
computor records as to whether or not he had paid in the first place.
They made him pay again. No attention was paid to his request, but
mine of course was a different matter. And now after a couple of
months in which I have kept on prodding the search has been made, he
is innocent, and the Co-op has refunded his second payment. Yet
how awful it is to think, on Japanese terms, that he might not have
been able to prove his innocense without my help. And that I began
by accepting his guilt almost as a matter of course.

It is like the accusation in San Francisco that I was
carrying a bomb in my bag.

Tonight is Halloween. I hope there are no unpleasant-
nesses.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

2 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

The Henty-Jackson saga almost has its comic side when I think of my invented suicide for Mrs Jackson, and my invented self-guilt for perhaps otherwise being able to have avoided it. This all came from my forgetting when phoned in San Francisco that Mrs J was Phyllis and not H.S. Cabled statements like "Cable right away" and in the second "Bryher also interested Cable money price sterling 3000" made me think an absolute crisis must have occurred. Similarly your cable of deadline to Monday I had not interpreted as next Monday but as last Monday, and your statement that Mrs Jackson was dead seemed like a statement rather than a past event. I am indeed worried that the offer did not include the manuscript poems, letters, pennants etc, and have cable Philip that they should. The books, as I recall, were not necessarily first editions and I believe (or rather do not know) that few if any were presentations. I thought only in terms of this last chance to add panache thru the mss. The trophies mean nothing, I agree; and I do not know what other furniture was involved. Mrs Jackson had been so desperate about money when we saw her that having made my false conclusion, and being on the other side of the continent I could only toss the matter to you. In fact I don't believe you had spoken to him, or answered his letter to you at Kenwin when he cable that you were interested. Indeed I rather think Mr Jackson is capable of a rather fast deal of the cards in order to stampede. I can see why Mrs Jackson liked him so little, as indeed she told us. What a mess all this has turned into, and especially to have involved you at the end of what must have been both one of the fullest and one of the happiest periods you have had in London.

This is sad news indeed about Secker, but one has to leave all such matters in Helen's hands. I have every confidence in her in addition to belief in the rules of the game as publishers play it, so I suppose we ought not to try to open any possibilities on our own. Certainly I don't think I helped any in my interviews when I tried in London.

What a weekend you must have had. Your descriptions were excellent and I was deeply interested in the account in the Times. The latter took rather a lighthearted tone towards it all, and I am inclined to be more disturbed. But there is so much to disturb one in the world today, that a light heart may be necessary as well as convenient.

Football game, with Dartmouth, this afternoon. I will try to catch up tomorrow when I have the full day at the office.

All love, and thanks for your efforts in the Henty matter.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

Have spent most of the day at the office working at high fever on my desk, tidying, throwing away, making out routine end-of-the-month checks (for Susan and the two girls), ordering oranges from Florida etc. If only I had not agreed to take the girls and Susan to hear Heifeez this afternoon I could have gotten at the stack of letters of recommendation. These are harder to do when I cannot get to the electric typewriter to compose them.

We have wonderful weather for the football game yesterday, and the two grandchildren enjoyed it immensely, especially Justus. Yale won from Dartmouth 41-24 and remains unbeaten, but so does Harvard. The Dowling at quarterback, whom you saw, and his side-kick Calvin Hill (the huge Black) performed spectacularly. It is likely that you saw two of the finest of this year's football players anywhere in the States. Last night we went out to dinner and bridge, and Susan and I won handily although I should secretly have preferred to sit home and read. Still, it is not quite fair to Susan never to get out socially.

I have just gone back through the pile of letters I have been snatchingly answering during the past hectic week, and was impressed again by your account of the uprising and protest by your club. The people shout Ho Chi-minh without having the foggiest notion of what life in Red China is actually like; and follow a Tariq Ali as leader without much understanding of what he is saying, if anything.... Life becomes very troubled indeed and a source of worry. Perhaps one simply can't worry; I don't know. I just get ahead with it. The American elections hardly encourage me, although after looking at the candidates, and deciding that after all one has to make a decision, I told the Humphrey-Muskie group before I left for Australia that they could use my name. I have never liked Nixon, and nothing has changed my mind; his catastrophic choice of Agnew least of all.

Have not heard from the Boys, and perhaps will not. But I shall get in touch with them soon, once my calendar begins to settle down.

The German spy situation is hardly encouraging either, and one assumes that both the German and British systems are well riddled. How else, with all the history of sympathy and permeation. I suspect that the States are considerably less so, being suspicious of Russia and China from the beginning. Perhaps not for the best reasons, at first; but maybe more so now.

I am delighted that Douglas Matthews was able to find the books on the Peace of Amiens for you. I always trust your judgment as to when to enlarge or fill out. I must say that the passage of time does not alter my delight in the book. Don't worry about Secker, just write what you want to. I do somewhat think that the rest of the second volume of memoirs might go more easily, at least in first draft while you are still at Kenwin, but you can do it anywhere if necessary.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Where in fact did Elsie's will actually turn up? I gather that she,
quite understandably, followed Hilda's example in turning back what you had
given her. This was a sweet gesture to make, and characteristic of the old
Elsie before she fell sick. I understand Hans's disappointment but one does
get a glimpse of his inner character by the way he thinks only of himself.
This is quite different from a matter of her giving you their own family
funds. I hate to think of you troubled by decision-making of this sort, but
you will make the right one I am sure.

More and more I wonder if, despite the cold and snow, it might not be
a good idea for you to pop over for a fortnight this winter. And should I
begin to firm up a visit with you and Susan to Israel in our spring vacation?
We would be there about a fortnight, I presume, and surely nothing would
happen in that time that Ruegg could not handle or postpone until you return.

And do not forget that I can always flip over, meanwhile, if anything
distressing happens, or develops re Kenwin or Winson. I could always leave here
on a Wednesday night and return of the following Monday which would give us
three days together.

Must pick up and make my way home. I still have San Francisco to relate,
with the bomb charge and other minor events which enlivened my weekend.

All love as always

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

Outside my office window, in the distance of York Street,
cars with amplifiers and shouted political slogans go by in anticipation
of tomorrow's election. I am reminded of our last visit with you to
Italy, though in Italy (as you recall) no campaigning can be done on the
day before voting.

Inside the office I have been postponed in my post-3 p.m.
letter by a long telephone call from Horace, which I could hear only dimly
though it seems to have been fine for him. I was pleased; he was well
and is up to p. 180 of his memoirs, and really only wanted to do--just
what he did do--talk. Of books mostly, the Quinn biography and the new
first volume of one on O'Neill. I read nothing but indexes myself, as
this morning when a paperback life of Thomas Wolfe arrived and I found
a reference to how a friend or two, like myself, used to see him after-
noons when he done his day's chore.

Your two letters, of the 31st and 2nd came in the mid-
afternoon mail so I was lucky after all. I liked the clipping and wondered
as you must have done what was "suitably rewarding work" for a poet. No
not "work" but "outlet for work," which is an odder phrase. And does
"sutable" modify "rewarding" or "work"?

I see that in the end we think exactly alike on the Jackson
case, only my mis-fancy having seemed to put me in another direction. I
should not be surprised if Philip quite turned all this down. Have you
noticed that Jackson's price to me was £3,000 and to you £2,000. I can't
tell you how riled this makes me, and not only because I am bilkable American.
Mrs J was really quite harsh on him and his selfishness; I can see why.

Am glad you managed to get in your visit with Cousin Jack despite
the uprising. It is sad to think he grows less well, and one presumes unhappier.
I was sorry to have missed the account of Pup's house in the New York Times.
I think I saw one on bro wnstones and how it was the chich, in thing to do,
but did not actually read it as I should have done. The article spoke with
awe on the rise in value of such property---I did gather that much.

I was much pleased that Bryan took the research job. Perhaps
just the stretching of wings towards aviation will make him seem less cramped
on the farm, and this is actually what he knows....This morning I dictated a
letter to Sir Gavin saying you had written me (I was talking of before) and I
had gathered he had disposed of his collection. Was this true, etc., and if
not I should now try; but was sure he did the wise thing if he had sold to a
dealer. A letter from me was indicated, and so I shall let the question still
stand. This only so you will not understandably say, "BUT I TOLD him!", as
indeed you did.

The Dusty Diamonds, are left to Yale in my will as the Bryher
Collection of English 19th Century Historical Novels. And I just don't have
energy enough to change my will.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

I am back from the gymnasium, and so write you a second letter of the day, though it can be only a first part of the one I ought to have sent from here once I returned from San Francisco. Let me begin at the end-- the Sunday of my return.

Since daylight savings time was over on Sunday, I was given an extra hour and made the most of it by going to the bus terminal a little after 8 a.m., the airport being a good three-quarters of an hour out of town and even in another county, for I hoped to get a window seat in the economy class for my flight back. The seat is worth it when the sky is clear, for underneath the desert is stretched out, with an occasional town in an irrigated area, and finally one flies over the Rockies, cragged and even now dusted with snow. I checked in at the American Airlines counter but had to wait next in line to a couple loaded with golf clubs and the like on which they wanted but found it difficult to get, $2,000 more of insurance. But I had time enough, talked to the wife about their holiday-cum-convention, and finally checked my own two bags through to Kennedy, though the girl at the counter said it was, she feared, too late for me to get my seat at the bud terminal, and that I should report to the information desk at the airport. This I did, after the bus trip out ($1.00 as against an $8.00 taxi fare), was asked if I were Dr. Pearson, greeted by an airlines official and asked if I first would step aside and then were willing to go outside to identify my baggage. "Certainly," I said, "but I'm not sure my suitcase and briefcase are actually there, for as I left in the bus I saw at least one of them still inside the terminal." "Well," he said, "we can see." The bags were not there, and he said we could wait until the next bus. Then up stepped a policeman, followed by two others. "Is this the man?" he asked my escort. My escort nodded, and then turned to me. "I am sorry to say," he murmured, "that a charge has been placed against you, as from the bus terminal, of having a bomb in your bag. We have no details except for the charge."

My mind spun a little. "... a bomb in your bag." Then my mind cleared and I remembered what had seemed so absurd that I consciously dismissed it from my mind. When I went into the bus terminal I carried my own bags, They were light and I was thrifty, though perhaps more bent over than usual. As I entered I saw a hippy on the far side of the terminal, conspicuous because of his clothing but not unusually so for San Francisco. When I turned I saw that he had followed and again looked at me from a distance. Then when I stood waiting in line at the desk I heard shouting go up from various spots behind me and knew it was he who cried out and I who was cried out about. "STOP HIM. Don't let him on the plane. He's got a bomb in his back. A BOMB in his BACK. He's a Russian spy. He's carrying a gun. Inform the White House. Tell the FBI. I beg of you, don't let him destroy the plane." Naturally I felt conspicuous and would not turn to watch him, though had this been said quietly about me by a bystander I should have made him put up or shut up. Instead I turned to the wife of the vacationer, "He must be taking dope," said, "I'm

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

not sure," she answered, "last night he was thrown out of our hotel for
creating a disturbance; it was something about driving a car; I forget just
what." The hippy's cries stopped for awhile and then began again. "I've
informed the FBI; the White House is alerted. Stop him," he repeated, "I
beg of you don't let him destroy lives." At last the cries died out just
as I finished checking in my bags, and was told that I couldn't get a seating
at the bus terminal. I couldn't see the boy as I went out.

I explained to the airport manager and the first of the police. "I
heard it as a bomb in my back; she must have heard it as a bomb in my bag."
Describe him? I could, just a little, but I had heard him more than seen him.
Luckily I saw a few feet away a Marine captain who had been at the next
counter. Excusing myself but not out of eyeshot I asked the captain if he
had heard the cries. he had. Then, I asked him, please describe to the
police what you heard. This helped. But since more policemen came, but not
my bags, they decided we should retire to the manager's office. There were
by now more policemen than there was room for, and I was kept repeating
my story until I felt like a patient in a hospital giving his case history
over and over to each new set of internes. The phone kept ringing. I had
become a jurisdictional dispute, since the bus terminal and the airport were
in different counties. The FBI kept phoning. So did the newspaper reporters.
Secretaries peeked in for a look at the bomber. The departing plane kept
phoning, asking whether they would be able to leave on time. "I think so, I
think so," the answer was.

Somehow I kept my cool, as *three* says, I had no bomb, I had no gun,
I was not a spy (at least not a Russian one.) I must say *they* the police
and everyone were immaculately polite. "You see, once a charge of this sort
is made, we must go through with it," they explained over and over again.
Finally my bags arrived, and they searched them with a fine tooth comb. My
toilet case was opened; the shoe-shining kit; they left a box of chocolates
unopened and they did not *frisk* me as they might well have done. "There's
nothing," they admitted, "you can go, the plane can go, we can go." Then
the phone rang one last time. The top policeman picked it up, listened, and
put the phone down dispiritedly. "Come on," he almost moaned," we've got to
go to United; there's a bomb scare there!" He turned to me, "Maybe it's the
same guy!"

But they can do nothing against a hippy charge of this sort in the
States, for we do not have the British rules against false accusations. What
they could do for me, they did. The manager said he wanted to walk with me to
the plane, some three-quarters of an hour having been consumed with my grilling.
"We've given you a bad beginning for a Sunday morning," he said, "but we had to.
Now the least we can do is to invite you to fly back first class at our expense.
We apologize." "Don't," I said, "you've given me a good story." He smiled wryly.

"I think I must be accident prone," I told Mrs Hamerman the next morn-
ing. "No;" was her answer, "-- incident prone."

(6-8 all together)

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

When I left home this morning the election had still not been decided, but I gather now that the victory is Nixon's. So be it, and I hope we can live with it. My chief fear is, if the *NYTimes* was correct, that the Blacks voted against him from 4-1 to 50-1, and if this continues to represent their feeling, and Nixon continues what seems to have been his pledges to the South we are in for trouble. But Nixon has always been shifty and he just might shift onto a sense of the dignity of the office, just as Woodrow Wilson went back on his pledges to the New Jersey bosses once he sat in the White House.

Last night we watched for a bit on television but mostly I worked, and we went to bed at the regular time. I spoke on the phone with the Boys late this morning--Islay having written yesterday--but he was about to go out to Prutting with Kenneth and we could not make plans. He said Prutting had been giving endless tests and was much pleased with K in every way, and had dismissed Islay himself as hopelessly fit. It looks as though it would be impossible for the Boys to come here, as Susan had hoped for the blessing of orchids (K being our Monsignor), but I hope to see them somehow somewhere. They are of course cluttered with social engagements.

A cabled answer to my Friday cable to Philip came today: "Thanks for Cable and have written fully stop am not rushing this nor is there any need to." Which is comforting, but maddening that Jackson should have attempted such a snow job on me. Blessings on you and Philip for being buffets and bolsters.

I am delighted to feel you are nettled in again, even though the house was overwarm. Temperature changes so much with us it is almost impossible to predict from one day to the next. Do, I beg of you, be careful about the Italian invasion of flu. I wonder if Dr Prutting was able to give the Boys the new shots. My man has not rung me about them yet, as I think he would have done were they available.

My desk piles higher and higher, but this weekend I can perhaps make a bit of headway. The football game is away, and we have only a cocktail party on Sunday late afternoon.

The end of the day after my seminar for graduate students. It went, although a little flatly I fear. Perhaps post-election depression. I need electrical hormones. Or rather Humphrey did. Strange too, because I do not really admire him, only like him better than Nixon.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

7 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

Mrs Hamerman went off again today after lunch, her son still being

down with the flu. But I was not upset, for -- as the double space will have
indicated--I spent the afternoon making a beginning at the letters of recommenda-
tion which are sorely overdue. I cannot quite seem to dictate these with any
sharpness, and a good letter of recommendation must have just that rather than
fluent cliches. I don't think I managed more than four or five, but at least
they have been drafted and she can type them up beautifully tomorrow. Plus a
tape of letters to those who wanted the recommendations. Mrs H never quite got
through the group of tapes I gave her after the weekend. But elections take
minds in new directions.

A good deal of the morning went to a visit to the lawyer now hired
by the neighbors to try to keep the art school from turning Mrs Bennett's old
house beyond the fence into a woman's dormitory. I too am frightened that *Racine*
may have ideas of what to do with the double lot between our house and his on *the corner*
of Prospect Street. Tormitories next door, filled with art students, might make
*Life Hell*. Anyhow I managed also to slip across the street and deposit your
last royalty check from Helen, so your total now stands at $19,857.40, enough to
make a down payment on your love nest when you move to New Haven.

Two letters from you, of the 4th and 5th, one this morning, the other
this afternoon. I am delighted the Bowen reached you safely. You need a tranquil-
izer what with all that has been happening to you. I shall not be able to get to
it for some time. ** A great nuisance all this about Elsie's keys; she is her
own chatelaine even after death. I must remember to put all my keys in order
and on deposit. But I am glad that you get some of your Kenwin money back; it
will help to equalize all you put out for the hospital bills. ** Glad that
Jackson had actually been in contact with you, but then why try to rush me into
a bigger payment than he had asked you? Stupid, since he must have known or
ought to have known that we belonged together (as one says). I had not realized
the books were specially bound by the Man himself. They will be valuable then. One
trusts to Philip. *** Much hope that Elsie's things can begin to March. One
sees Hans now as having the big-house complex. I'm not sure why I don't have it;
perhaps because I was born in what as for Gardner was actually a good-sized one.
And you had South Audley.

A nice letter from Sylvia B aker today (Hodgson's friend) sending
photos of him in Japan signed and sent her, plus two pencil tiny portraits of
no one in particular also drawn by him. I think I shall have to send her some
little gift of money, since as you recall I suddenly had to pay for the letters
she had originally presented to me. But she is old and like so many in England
fears the future.

Pouring rain all day, and tonight we must go out to the symphony.
But fortunately we dine at the Lawn Club, take the bus to and from there and so
save wet feet.

Last night I began unpacking the Elizabethans. It is nice to see them

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

8 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

I have been waiting tens of minutes while Mrs H picks up and prepares to go for the weekend. Normally I should have been glad to get the extra time out of her, but today I have an oral examination for the docent to prepare and give at 4 p.m. and it is now nearly that. Yet if I do not write at least a salutation now there will be no time, for the examination carries on until after 6. I feel a little tired and hope I can be fair. This is the ex-nun, up for her examination at last. Yesterday I had a note from her asking for mercy; certainly I shall not excommunicate her.

The symphony last night was pleasant, but I am not keen on full-throated sopranos competing with full-instrumented orchestras. It was all very noisy and disturbed my sleep. The rain continued all night but had pretty well slacked off this morning, and although it remains cold and overcast perhaps the rain is finished.

Today I kept close to my desk, paying bills and writing notes too short to dictate to the machine. Besides, there is now three folders behind and it will not take me much time to finish all of the other unused ones. I pray that I can make a substantial dent on my desk. There ought to be an invasion, or threatened one; then I could burn all documents.

Your letter of the 6th came this noon. I pity you with your Juge de Paix, but am hopeful about your agents. Still, your business is not because we do not treat you as responsible workers but because of your many involvements. And without these involvements you too would be lost. ** Philip's letter has not yet come. I did think I should cable lest he think everything must be done blindly for my sake. He is quite right about the list of things. *** Think your bill for Pup's books was quite reasonable. If you want to turn over your Vaud books immediately on arrival to the Library then have them sent to

Yale University Library
Attention Prof. N.H.Pearson
New Haven, Conn.

This will eliminate any discussion with the customs, and I will be called in to explain before they are unpacked. Your Dyce editions had probably better come as usual to me to be put with the others and saved for you. I have a feeling that you will want all of the Dyce on hand in your love-nest. They make good nest-lining against the cold and wet. *** The Raleigh will be saved saved for you chez moi.

Now I must hie me to a nunnery.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

A day of sheer bliss, all to myself in the office both in the
morning and the afternoon. Have used up all but one last dictating tape, and
am saving that for tomorrow just to be sure no emergency has arrived. I can't
tell you how far back into devoirs I have dipped, including a letter to Ady
Gloss about Sam and a number of other notes I have done by hand. Poor Mrs H
drops behind a little and never did get through the batch of tapes I left for
her at the beginning of the week. But one of her boys was sick, there was the
election (she is active in The League of Women Voters) and I think she became
tired increasingly as the week went on. Now if I can get in another day
tomorrow, I can devote that to letters of recommendation and get most it no t
all of them done in corrected draft form for her to type from.

No letter from you today, as so often on Saturday. But we
were touching hands when I phoned Kenneth (or rather got him) at the Buckingham.
It looks as though they would not be able to come up, which will disappoint
Susan, but perhaps I can manage to get down for a handshake before they leave.
As they say, everyone seems to know they are in town and everyone wants to
entertain them. I can quite understand why they prefer town. Kenneth is having
extra shots of rejuvenators every other day, being short on magnesium or chemi-
cals of that order. The innumerable tests, he says, go splendidly and he is
not a likely case for an immediate post mortem. I wonder if all this won't
cheer him up!

Last night I spent putting the rest of the Elizabethans on the
shelves. Using the catalogue I put them in strict alphabetical order, which
will make locations much easier. The B & F's however I will have to alpha-
bettze by title on another occasion. The living room looks much neater for
having the card tables put away. Tonight perhaps I can get to the color
photographs I took this summer. They need another weeding before being put
into some sort of order. I have been so completely busy I haven't had time.

Among other things this morning I took to the postoffice a 4th-
class airmail letter to you enclosing an article from the Sunday NY Times maga-
zine on life for an author in England. Plus a xerox of a letter from the Co-
op about the 'Japanese boy which I thought might interest you. A nice letter,
but if I had not kept prodding nothing would have been done and he would still
be more or less convicted as guilty. I was lucky to be able to help him. In
the old days a Japanese would have committed hari-kari even at the accusation.

Another great bundle of the Boys' Own Annual has arrived, and I
shall unpack tomorrow. Also from Brimmell a package with another Breton,
IN THE KING'S SERVICE: a tale of Cromwell's invasion of Ireland; and one by
Grace Stebbing, EDWARD BERTRAM or the emigrant heir, a story about Australia
on the dusty diamond fringes. Did you ever read Stebbing? I do my best for
you as you see. I only worry as to where to put the books once I have them.

In a yellowback that has just arrived is a letter from Dorothy
Doolittle telling about Harold's death. You had forgotten to mention this in
all the whirl of your return. You did however warn me here that he was less
well. Should I write? I do not know to whom, name at least. I suppose Annette.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

11 November 1968

Ah, my deast Fido!

I am the shadow of myself. All of this rainy day (with

only a peanut butter sandwich to break it by)) I have sat in my office and written letters of recommendation. Written them and then revised them, which is why I began this with a double spacing as though to rephrase what I said to you. And I only finished nine of them, but over what a span: a fellowship to King's College Cambridge, for an Englishman; the chairman of a department of English in Montana; a promotion at the University of Manchester, in England again; a promotion to a professorship in Detroit; four applications commented on in respect to fellowships given by The American Council and by Johns Hopkins University. I wonder if people realize how long it takes to try to do these well. I suppose they do, but for each of them it is his life, and so I can-not take it lightly.

Before that however I did write Philip who sent me a copy of his letter to Jackson, and dictated the last of the tapes so that now I could dictate nothing more even if I tried. And I shall not try. I have one more letter about a possible chairman of English at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee but think I cannot quite face it. That, I think, is not the last letter to be done, but nearly so. Except notes to the hundreds in Australia and New Zealand who entertained me there. I must at least be gracious, and indeed I did appreciate all they did for me. It is just a question of all the other things that have to be done also.

Last night, or late afternoon rather, we went to a cocktail party at the Lwn Club given by Thornton and Isobel Wilder to introduce the newly-made wife of a nephew of theirs (Amos's boy). The wife seemed very nice indeed; the boy I have always found something of a bore--a moral hearty who does campus good while trying to become a novelist. But Thornton was in splendid form as a host and we had a long talk about the manuscript of the Waste Land (look in last Thursday's issue for Gallup's description) and some 18th century research of mine which I am sure was not by me but can't imagine whom he meant. He is much better after his operation and is about to set out next week again for Europe where he hides in hotels. Isobel usually joins him in Austria for Christmas.

T onight Susan has her weekly bridge when we go to Mrs Babbs', the widow of the late librarian who was a friend of mine. She has a divorced woman to make the fourth. I hope this isn't too regular an event, by which I mean bridge rather than divorce.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

It being Armistice Day and a holiday (for the banks anyhow, but history seems to define nothing to commemorate) I expected no mail from you. Indeed there was nothing until noon when, despite the fact that the postoffices are like the banks closed but not the stores, quite inexplicably your two of the 7th appeared to give me something properly to celebrate.

You ask about the election. What can I say; somewhat reluctantly I voted for Humphrey as being better than a Nixon whom I never had confidence and better than an Agnew who is either a villain or a fool. Yet Humphrey displayed no great character let alone charisma and I have no idea where we would have been under him. He lost I think because he failed to emerge as a figure, and because of the Chicago riots and a sense that the Democratic party had fallen apart, and because Johnson's bomb-stop seemed so patently a last-ditch political manoeuvre. And, too, because many in the country are genuinely worried about urban disturbances and unchecked race riots and a belief on the part of the administration that all we need is more money to hand out as a palliative to racial difficulties and poverty and world discord.

Despite my vote I am not altogether unhappy, for at least unchecked inflation has been questioned, and political squabbles banter party as well as intra-party, and taxes will not unquestioningly be hiked. If I have a worry in reference to social legislation it is not so much what reactionary measures will be passed as it is what sense civil rights legislation may not be.

And if you ask me what this all means for the American investment market I should think that if inflation is checked then the market may stabilize for a bit; but that if Fides wants to shift any investments it could well be towards those great combines like A.T. & T., I.B.M., Xerox and the like which have been under investigation and increasingly curbed. Oil too may be increasingly profitable as an investment. Big money has always been behind Nixon, and his instincts are in that direction as well as his obligations. Funds for government investigations of big business will be cut down and the pressure taken off, for a while at least.

Glad that the various agencies come to look at Kenwin. You may well want to close down eventually and simply move out, perhaps even in the late spring so long as you can go daily there to work. Perhaps my own instincts would be to keep on until October and your Fall visit to the States and then shut up and let Ines go. As to distresses you must recognize that these are what give her her dignity as a middle-aged suffering female. No self-respecting Italian peasant woman, especially, would ever dream of doing otherwise than going out to gather faggots and make them into a cross. As for her insurance, the easiest thing is to go to the medical insurance people themselves; they have the records and can give you duplicates. Pay them anyhow in these last months.

Eventually I shall have to get the Bowen for Susan. I am delighted it is so good, for her sake and your pleasure.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

You ask about the science fiction; certainly I should keep them all
if you yourself think you might need them. As a collection I should think it
not worthwhile in terms of others, there being so several of them already
available. But if there are books you know you will not read again, why then
I should pass them on to Joan or even to some hospital if one knew of one.

Sir Gavin did very well for himself with his collection I think,
although I am sure whoever took it over will also have done well. And surely
the market for a collection of this sort is better in Switzerland than out-
side, for even People who wish to fill out their own collections, or institu-
tional ones, will turn towards a Swiss bookdealer. But how sad that the equiva-
lent of $15,000 will keep them in Switzerland four years longer than they might
otherwise have stayed. Actually don't you think this chiefly an excuse on
Sir G's part to remain?

Your rain sounded familiar. Yesterday it rained an inch and a half
here, with occasional flurries of snow. One does not bask in these tempera-
tures.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 November 1968

My dearest Fido,

One awoke this morning to find the snow both here and
still coming. Indeed I had to shovel a bit in order to get my car out
of the garage, a pile of soggy white being in the way from the gift of
the roof. It was slippery on the highway, and I imagine there must
have been many accidents. It has kept on an alternation between snow
and rain all day, the window has blown at gale strength, now the skies
have opened up again.

I write this between my afternoon seminar and an English
department meeting of professors. There is little use of my going, ye
if I do not go I shall be thought of as disloyal or indifferent.

No letter from you today, but then I know how you hate
the snow.

When I was in San Francisco I dined with Kay Boyle and
a former instructor of English at Yale who is now head of their writing
program at San Francisco State. Not a word was mentioned about Geniuses,
I am glad to say. Kay has an old house near the hippie section of Haigh-
Asbury and I am only sorry I didn't get a glimpse of it. She and her
children did over the inside, and it has a pleasant look to it. She
herself lives in the third floor, which is less elegant but perhaps
quieter. She looked thin and I thought tired as a result of her opera-
tion for cancer, and says the doctors tell her she will have steady
pain for a year or two more. Vacations she spends in jail, I gather
this being the way she fills out her sentence on the installment plan.
She was pleased because she is to go to Hollins College two years from
now for a year at the salary of $20,000 to teach one class a week.
This is far better than I do, but at least my job goes on for longer
than one year.

Must now run for the meeting, but fear I wouldn't have
had time to write afterwards.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

I have ten minutes between my two-hour graduate seminar and a two-hour oral examination for the doctorate. I have been woe-fully ill-prepared for both, but since the first went well enough perhaps the second will also.

I was delighted to have your letters of the 9th and 10th, with its account of your visit from Ruegg, and hope my career as a suspect bomber amused them as well as yourself. ... No, bridge does not bore me although I do not always bid according to the latest scheme. But I began to play as a pup both as an amusement when I was not well, and to make up a table for my mother's friends. At least I am said to have card sense and to play hands well, though my bidding is sometimes deplored--especially by Susan...... Sir Gavin is, I think, being altogether too loyal to Oxford and Cambridge if he damns instruction elsewhere and praises it there. The rise of the red brick colleges and the new ones has come precisely because their men too, like Sir Gavin, speak without notes and are alert to new ideas. I'm not really sure that Sir Gavin is as alert to new ideas as he is to new facts. I am talking about history and literature of course; and cannot comment on the teaching of agriculture.

Yes by all means send your manuscript along here. What one does now is to have xerox copies made, and it is all frightfully cheap. Four cents for the first copy and two cents apiece for each copy in addition. Send it piecemeal or as you like.

Am really amazed that Elsie's death could have happened so long ago and yet her bank safe only just now opened. As to her wish to have Bruno inherit directly from her, I suspect that if she had really wanted to she would have made a will. One might have said this to you knowing how much you liked Bruno, but like a good Swiss she would have wanted to do only what was "Swissly" correct.

Will wait to hear from you about Israel. We might spend a fortnight or more together and then leave you in a kibitz with your friends or at Massada

Must rush, alas, my ten minutes being up.

14 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

A very pleasant day in which I had no appointments at all, and so worked quietly at my desk on letters and bills while Mrs H typed away at the tapes I had stored up for her. Actually she has now finished the backlog and can start off tomorrow morning with the one I dictated today.

A cold day as on the past several, with temperature in the low and mid thirties. But the stars were out last night, and today the sun is very definitely to be seen. I only hope the weather remains good for the Princeton football game on Saturday.

I go in a few minutes to a surgeon who will, I hope, be willing to remove a small growth that I should dislike to become or continue to be cancerous. Anyhow it is a nuisance and well gotten rid of, and I go only by my G.P.'s advice. But, oh Lord, I have had to make this appointment six weeks in advance.

Asa result I cannot go to the faculty meeting at which the President will, I am informed, announce that Yale will accept a token number of girls next Fall and become coeducational without waiting for the 55 millions he has reckoned to be necessary. By this immediate acceptance I assume that the administration feels they can stall off the full-fledged job until they actually have the 55 millions. Last week they sampled having girls either in separate entrances or different floors of the same entrance. I guess this will be continued, since one shouldn't have to walk too far for copulation. I accept all this as a fait accompli and not to be worried about. Though I cannot see that I ever studied any better, or would have, holding hands with a girl. I went to a male boarding school after high school, to a male college here and another at Oxford and never found myself either deprived or frustrated. And even now I find it pleasant at times to be just with men, precisely as I should think women would like being with women.

But sobeit.

Tonight if not too wrecked by the surgeon I intend going to a Fellows meeting at my college, having been to only one so far this year and none last year. All of which pretty much disproves any overwhelming passion to be alone with men.

15 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

I was delicately butchered by the surgeon yesterday afternoon. He removed two of the several, said they were benign but eventually might be otherwise, and then sewed me so extensively and thoroughly that I feel clad in patches. I go next Friday to have the stitches removed and presumably another set put in after the remaining surgery. I am being well dosed today with codein and anti-biotics, and so feel as gray and drizzly in spirit as the weather is outside.

The President's announcement to the faculty was as I surmised: 500 girls to be taken in as of next Fall, and one of the colleges (Trumbull, named after Susan's sufficiently-great-grandfathers) being turned over to the girls after the boys had been moved elsewhere. But last night the students of Trumbull and elsewhere objected to being moved, crying segregation of women. When they wanted them to be, was next entryway or the floor below. You must do these things, they seem to cry, but at no inconvenience to ourselves. Only to the administration, you.

I was able to get a quite good Henty ms letter about his work, but on general terms as for an autograph collector no doubt, out of a catalogue that came two days ago. I phoned and the item was mine; that is, ours (yours and mine). As for the Jackson case I think I had not remembered that the books had been bound for him by the publishers. If so they would be far more interesting and valuable than I thought. One hopes that Philip works out something to everyone's satisfaction. But the world will not come to an end if he doesn't.

Your letters of the 11th and 12th arrived in separate mails. You ask what I would have done as in charge of security at San Francisco. I think that in an airport-bus-terminal there ought always to be a member of the police force in terms of any sort of need--a drunk, clearing away people, pickpockets, robbers and the like. Then when anyone behaved as the hippie did, the policeman could have gone to him and asked him to make a formal charge. My bags could have been examined there in the city itself, and either I be jailed or the hippie ousted.

They say the first cases of the flu have been in, of all names, a city called Needles. I presume I shall have some sort of flu shot in a fortnight. Probably not the new one which seems still not to have been released.

Yes, chapter by chapter and I will have typed and then xeroed.

Elsie's will, or lack of it, still interests me. I think subconsciously she didn't want to offend Hans. A case of Swissteria. Had she cared sufficiently it would have impelled her to make a will and name Bruno for a legacy. You would have, she wouldn't.

Your Zurich weekend sound fun and I envy you and Joan the serious eating at Kronenhalle. What a pity you can't have a bit of break from there wrapped for the Tiger. Fortunately you had planned for Tiger to go to sleep after Christmas so you won't have the problem of finding another kennel to take her to.

Now I must be off to a meeting of the Graduate School faculty. And after that back to the ms of a dissertation I am directing.

All love, Nonnen

16 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

The end of Saturday morning nears its end, and alas it is drizzling heavily. I wonder if we will want to go to the Princeton football game despite the wet. I am not supposed to get my surgical dressings wet and Susan one presumes does not prefer to wet her hair. Besides it is cold. Yet it is the last home game of the season, and the final chance to see the fine Yale backfield in action. They will not be so fine, for the rain hampers forward passing and these have been their forte.

Gloomy in other ways too, for last night my desk lamp went out. I assumed a burned bulb and hurried to the Co-op before it closed to buy a replacement. It would not work either, so I carried lamp and bulb back to the Coop this morning to have the world suddenly lit by the same lamp. Back again and the world of my desk was still in darkness. So I knew it was the outlet and thought it was a fuse blown, but later the repairman came and it is a switch that cannot be replaced until Monday. So I shall have to move my dictating machine into another room, and this means my papers are not at hand.

I forgot to say yesterday when I went to the Co-op I chose a book to be sent as from you to Lady de Beer. Only it may not include your card so perhaps you should warn her it is a Christmas gift. I found only one that seemed unusual enough to excite her. This was a book of contrasts or parallels: an African mask with a Picasso, etc. But it was fifteen dollars, charged to your account, and so for the moment I sent only this one.

Your letter of the 13th was in the morning's mail. No reason certainly to hurry with the Swiss collection, and certainly not until Snowflake and Vine is actually in print. I applaud your diligence in searching out the source of a line; it is pleasant to have so consequentially influenced a great writer.

A letter from Philip also came in the same mail, perhaps the carbon of the one he sent you. It is strange that it has now gone back to £3,000 for both of us, or perhaps Jackson does not remember that he gave different figures. As to the price offered for what is to be sold, I presume Philip will consult Rota or someone as to what is or is not fair, this not being quite his line of expertise. I wonder what particular two books Jackson wants to retain? Probably Philip will eventually want to send someone down, though I agree he loves playing cat-and-mouse. So do I, and you and I too.

Kenneth's letter was I thought nice and shrewed himself to be having a intresting time. I wonder what sort of business he will set up for Jimmy Daniels to ensure a better living. Or perhaps he will simply settle an amount or provide for an allowance. I gather he has always been both loyal and deeply fond of J.D., really the one except for Islay. I wonder if we actually will be able to get to town, or even I. The few times I suggested to Islay over the phone, as at all possible were already engaged either socially or by Prutting. But the desire is genuine on both sides.

I was saddened yesterday afternoon to learn that the Dean of the Graduate School is resigning his deanship. We have been good friends and often lunch together on Saturday. It was he who gave me this unusually good suite. He was, I suspect, miffed when the president announced that he had consulted with the deans about a $38 million dollar fund drive, when he had not; and wearied by constantly having confrontations by graduate students who want to be consulted beforehand on every decision. Trying to explain even the vaguest of backgrounds for a decision to an always new group, is frustrating; and for their own senate they have spent three months unsuccessfully trying to organize themselves. Frisson without responsibility.

17 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

A really angry rainy day, cold too, and utterly miserable. But I spent last night and the early part of the morning after breakfast putting the summer slides in order, so I have the satisfaction and Susan has the convenience of having the pantry shelves clear. Some day I shall show them to you, although I take no pride in them. A few are good, when the weather was good; but as a whole this was not a picture-taking itinerary. Besides which there was too much rain and too many cities. Still, the job is done.

We were lucky yesterday afternoon. It was drizzling when we started out to the Bowl but did not rain after we got there. Yale won from Princeton, 42-14 and could have scored much more if the first team had been kept in and Dowling and Hill allowed to keep on scoring. Yet the game was only at times one-sided and we were glad to have gone. People call this the best Yale team in many decades, so at least you saw the best team.

I phoned Horace this morning and he went on a talking jag. But reports himself steadily improving in health, and he is now on manuscript page 200 of his memoirs, having reached Greenwich Village and Chelsea Square as of 1924. He is trying to give a sense of the times which should make for interesting reading. He was also writing a review of a biography of Pope, so he is much on the go.

Did I tell you that the University of Wisconsin magazine issue on Hilda is to include a bibliography of her things by, of all things, a professor named Bryer. This should fool people. Alas he wants me to check his listings; I know he is incomplete, but don't see how I can recheck the entire thing for him.

Yesterday my desk light suddenly went out, I thought the bulb had gone, a new bulb proved otherwise, then I thought the fuse must have been blown but the suddenly called electrician said --no, it was the circuit switch. So I have been working today with no desk light, and alas no dictating machine in my own office. Consequently I moved the dictating machine into Mrs H's office and filled up whatever tapes were empty. She will start the week with a good backlog. Which is just as well, since I have a busy schedule of classes and appointments. And must go to Wheaton College in Massachusetts on Thursday to give a lecture.

We were pleased with the efficacy of our burglar alarm system last week when the landscape gardener came to shut off the sprinkling system, knew where a key was hidden, let himself into the bouse and was soon met by three policemen and a detective. The alarm is silent so that Burglars will not be warned off.

Oh yes, I did (yesterday and today) read a 250 typed page dissertation being done under my direction on Lowell, Norton and Godkin. Not brilliant but literate and I think passable.

18 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

And still it rains. I phoned my sister in Gardner and she said they were having an ice storm. At least we are lucky so far, although it is said to be growing colder and that we will have snow flurries tonight. But it is always warmer along the coast than higher up and inland as Gardner is.

I spent the day at my desk and in beginning another dissertation which must be reported on informally at luncheon tomorrow. On the early history of Yale, the first forty years. Then the chief part of the afternoon went to a Professor Bailyn from Harvard who was interviewing me on foreign study grants, on behalf of the Ford Foundation. Tonight I go the annual meeting of the New Haven Colony Historical Society.

Your two letters of the 14th came this morning. I always like to think of you chez Escale with Marie Anne. And will want to hear what Phélip tells. He sent me today a copy of the list of what Jackson offered. The books are better than I had thought, if all are first editions; the trophies certainly overwhelm one. I had forgotten there were so many. Surely some of them must have been in storage. The manuscripts were somewhat fewer than I remembered, at least I thought there was the manuscript of a birthday poem he had written in response to greetings from two girls.

Do try your hand at a brief introduction for Margery Hicks' book. It would be much helped by anything you wrote, and you could make some generalizations about girlhood blossoming into womanhood or other bouquets of cliches. I really do think it would help her, and need not in any way be analytical.

Sorry about Israel. If we should go to Spain we would certainly join you in Kenwin, unless you preferred elsewhere. There are moments when I would fully as happy simply to stay put. And certainly much stabler financially. I suspect Spain is expensive.

Hope your Zurich trip was a good one.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

20 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

I have fine, (perhaps ten?) minutes between a meeting of
professors and the arrival of an Italian theatre director. Before the
meeting was my seminar; after this present meeting with Calasso comes
a dash home and then to the Lawn Club for dinner and then to the Boston
Symphony. I find life somewhat overcrowded, and my seminars very unpre-
pared. Tomorrow will not be much better, I fear.

But at least the weather cleared and we have not had the
threatened snow. I began the day by going to the framers for the draw-
ing by Victoria, only to have them break the glass as they put the screw-
yes in, so I had to wait while they replaced the glass. Over a half
hour wasted.

Your hand-written letter from Zürich came and I marveled at
how much you got in or planned to get in. You are far ahead of me in
your beginnings of Christmas shopping. I haven't even had ideas so far.

A letter came from Sir Gavin, full of fire and brimstones
against de Gaulle. A letter from Helen saying she wanted to come up on
a Sunday when Christian was playing his music at Yale. But, alas, it
is a Sunday when I shall be returning from Texas. This is rotten luck.
Philip sent yesterday the list of materials offered by the Jacksons, but
you will perhaps know the final outcome even before this letter from me
reaches you. It seems as though there must have been more, but I am too
tired to remember. Oh yes, I am pleased that the matter of Ines's
insurance is straightened out; it is hard for me to get things of this
sort straightened out, and so obviously must be worse for her.

I thought you might be interested in the clipping about
Elizabeth Bowen, and about Fort Churchill where we went for my first
rocket. I always remember that with great excitement, that and waiting
for the Dr's boat.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 November 1968

Dearest Fido,

I have entertained the Director of the Museum of Industry and Technology, of the Smithsonian for lunch (along with his wife) and discussed the reorganization of his staff along socio-cultural lines. And gone directly from that to my two hour seminar on Hawthorne, and then for a short meeting with the new chairman of American Studies (or rather my successor), and then had a girl in from Hartford who is finishing her dissertation at Yale under my direction, and now must rush home since we have Calasso the Italian theater director and his Japanese wife for dinner. I don't really see how I will have energy enough to set out tomorrow morning for Norton Mass., beyond Providence Rhode Island where I am to give a lecture tomorrow afternoon. Then a dinner and an evening party and back to New Haven on Friday. Fortunately Susan is going with me to share the driving so at least I ought not to fall asleep en route.

Your letter of the 17th from Zurich arrived, and again I envied your serious menu at Kronenhalle. I was much interested in your description of Romeo and Juliet. I agree that one needs the sense of youth to put the play across. The best, in this sense, I ever heard was in Munich years ago, in German, when I saw Sabokat aet 14 play Juliet. One did truly see her grow. But I doubt that Romeo's haunch would add much visually in confirmation. Now his drawn sword might well justify the metaphors of his poetry.

There is mixed worry and satisfaction on the part of Americans about the threat to the franc (French). Economically it is most harmful to all, yet we cannot help but think the General had it coming to him after all he did to try to wreck the British pound and the American gold dollar. I gather even the French are turning against him economically.

I may try to stop in tomorrow morning to look at the mail before we leave in mid-morning, but don't see how I can write you until late Friday afternoon at the earliest. I should have gone to New York tonight for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Poets, of which I am a chancellor. There was to be a special dinner afterwards. But I could not face it, even with a personal invitation from me President of the Academy.

Did I send you the account of Marianne's $5,000 award as the author of the year?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 March 1969

Dearest Fido,

You would not have had even a note from me had I
not slipped out from an English Department meeting before it
was anywhere near finished. But this was another of those
afternoons when I have a seminar until just before the
faculty meeting so that I am robbed of my moments with you.
The seminar today was on the Negro Renaissance in the 1920's,
which means Harlem. I was not very well prepared and had
to depend on memory; they were not very well prepared
and no memories to fall back on. Actually most of the time
went to the discussion of Jean Toomer's novel (?) *Cane*.
You may remember him as the Negro (by blood) who married
Marjorie Lattimer, who was Horace's first and great love
at the University of Wisconsin. Or so my romantic heart tells
me, his poem *acting* and affirmation.

No letter from you today, though yesterday's mail, as you know, brought me a week's worth.

I have kept on working at my poetry readings and come a little closer to my final selections. In a book by Trans Coombs (what a name) I found the enclosed poem to Hilda. What a pity she could not read it. The poet lives in the Caribbean. I rather like it and will include it in the anthology, for her sake as well as his.

I phoned the New York lawyer about the matter of his letter giving permission for the xerox edition of *Close Up*. You may recall that neither you nor Kenneth wanted it reprinted, and in addition the lawyer had no copyright protection anyhow. Your instructions were to forget it, but I have told him now to write them and give permission. Another company is also reprinting it (Kraus) because as you may recall neither you nor Kenneth answered their letter asking permission. I rather think you sent it on to Kenneth who kept silent. I suspect his interests now are centered almost exclusively on La Vagnola. Anyhow don't worry, the matter will be taken care of, and you can so inform Weintraum if you want to write him. I am sorry if there was a misunderstanding on my part.

It is hard to think we will be off again
13th, evening. I will send you addresses and dates again,
although I seem to think I have already done this.

We had gale winds two nights ago (one would
have thought the house or at least chimney would topple),
and yesterday we had light snow. But today we saw the sun
after what seemed an interval of weeks, the air was almost
mild, and one was reminded of the possibility of spring. I hope
it is likewise with you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

10 March 1969

Dearest Fido,

How many even fragments of letters I can manage
to write you before we leave Thursday night I can't guess.
Not many I should think, but the consolation at least is
that we will be together with full chances to catch up then.
I have been quite out of my mind about the anthology, and
must go shortly to pick up the last of the xeroxed pages.
I thought that would end it, but having gone thru and chosen
what I thought would make adequate representations of each
of the 40-odd poets I find I have selected over a hundred
more pages than allowed. Somehow I must cut down, but when
and how? For I still have my income tax information tp put
together, and a seminar tomorrow and another on Wednesday
both of which are as yet unprepared.

I enclose another copy of our itinerary. Actually
our arrival in Nice is somewhat different as we must change
in Barc elona alas, as for Sunday. But no changes into
Geneva. Incidentally, there, there is no reason why you
should have to come along in the car if you want to have the
last precious moments of freedom to yourself before our arrival
at Kenwin. As for food we like everything that Ines cooks
and you devise. So do not worry. Sausages are always good
because they are a different wurst from what we get zu hause.
Let Ines try her hand at what she thinks she does best; it will
be fine for us; and we do not eat heavily as you know.

There certainly won't be time just now to work thru
the many letters you have sent me. Two points however for the
moment. I wrote my doctor quoting your letter about Sylva
Norman so that he could study it in detail and thoughtfully,
asking him to phone me. He did, saying that her bone condition
is a matter of hormone and calcium balance, increasingly
acute with many women in the period after meopause and continuing
on into older age. Such a situation of general decalcification
is not an operable condition and he would be much surprised if
anything done in the way of a new hip joint would actually
solidify (because of the decalcification). He felt there would
be no reason for her to come to the States for treatment because
the British medical profession is as well up on the situation as
we are. The only possibility would to try certain hormones
and to test whether she had a parathyroid condition.

When your letters came today saying you had only
one page missing from the final chapter, I phoned Helen to
make the appropriate plans. She asks that I send on nothing to
her until I have had a chance to go through all of the manuscript
at one sitting, and that there will be time enough after my return
on the 1st. What she is planning is a January publication,
this post-Christmas season being an excellent time for reviews
and a fresh title. People are so tired of the same old thing
that has been on sale since September and October. She is
such a shrewd business woman that I always trust her judgment
in such matters as I know you do.

All love, Norma

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

11 March 1969

Dearest Fido,

Susan wanted to take the 8 o'clock train to New York, so I was early at the office with a few moments before Mrs H arrives to take over the machine. It will be as well that she does, for I must read the book _Jews Without Money_, by Mike Gold--a product of the 20's) my afternoon seminar is based on. And, alas, I must try to pare down the selections for the anthology. I believe I told you last night that I was over 150 pages too long, when all the adding of selections was mad e.

Susan much enjoyed her letter from you, and we both thought that Marianne's letter was a great improvement over recent ones, as though her health were much better. Perhaps the champagne helps. I had not realised she was doing her memoirs. They should be fun rather than revealing, jeux d'esprit like her poems.

The letters from you since I last cal culated? Feb 28th, March 2, 3 (two), 4,5,6,(two), and 7. I salute you in your successful Pickfording by self-hand of O.B.'s !aint ings. I shall be eager to see th em. A nd congratulations to, on beh alf of your nerves, in getting back to a workable type- writer. Nice, too, that you got a glimpse of th e zoo and hippos (much nicer than hippies.) Justus was much pleased with th e stamps, although his heart is now with his toy railroad, which he constructs and operates most successfully. He is really exceptionally clever with his hands and all things electrical or mechanical. Alas, I am so stupid I can't be properly grandparental. Your long day of returning to Kenwin and seeing that the Tiger was properly reinstalled must have been grueling but rewarding. Indeed I think you would have resented a too happy Tiger who would eat anything; she is obviously tres haute bourgeoisie. I wonder if you will have gone back to Zurich for the Tibetan show. It should be interesting, although their sacred paintings do not much interest me in themselves, since I am so little up on the symbolism. It is splendid however that Joan will be coming to K enwin while we are there. I am anxious to have Susan meet her, and of course to see her myself. A good excuse too to get her tp Kenwin; we will have to send her back loaded with stray paperbacks. I am so sorry about Cousin Consie. I keep my own fingers always crossed for my own luck. The damage to the telephones in Zurich is awesome; I was glad to have the clippings about the man. I wrote you yesterday about Snowflakes, and that Helen very firmly said nothing was to come until after my return, that there would be time then for thw hoped-for publication in J anuary. She sends you of course her love. Glad you have the George Eliot; I must read it some day. In going bac k over cor respondence I noticed I had ordered the Mackenzie book for myself; but because of strikes etc nothing has come from Eng land by surface mail for over three months. Amazing. I suspect the dam will burst one day soon, and my office will be flooded by packages.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

11 March 1969

Dearest Fido,

I struggled through my afternoon seminar, and because I let it out early I have a few minutes before the faculty meeting of professors of English begins at 4. These meetings are endless. With what joy shall I face a few days without them!

Lunch was with a visiting Australian professor who is teaching in the department of history, and I had put down to give a talk in the June series on Australia, for the Alumni. I think I told you that I am scheduled to talk on Australia and the Arts as part of the same series. That is, if only I can manage to learn something about both Australia and the arts before then.

A letter from the State Department says that my suggested reading list for ambassadors etc is OK, and so I send you a copy for your amusement. I wonder what you will make of it? Horace certainly would not approve, I fear. And I doubt that many of these are actually your cup of tea.

I need not say how delighted I was today to receive the first three pages of your missing chapter. Almost certainly the other pages will arrive before I leave, so that Mrs H can have it all nicely typed up by the time I get back. Needless to say I am anxious to see what you have done, and will read it at home tonight when we return from the symphony concert. I still haven't finished weeding the anthology, nor begun my income tax. I'd much prefer skipping the symphony, but Susan naturally wants to hear Curzon who performs at the piano.

Poor Tiger. I suppose her instincts, especially after the break, remind her that all is not as it once was at K enwin. What will you do with her if you take Inex to Zuri. We found that eventually to be one of the chief problems of having a dog.

And now to my meeting. How wonderful it will be to see you; because of Australia I have had hardly more than a glimpse since I left you at Cetona.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 March 1969

Dearest Fido,

By a process of elimination things became a little
easier today. I came to the office early to have a phone call
from my accountant, to say that I could put off giving him my
income tax material until after my return from Kenwin. I
really don't see how otherwise I could have taken off tomorrow.
Then my gym man phoned to say he was home with the flu, so my
sense of moral obligation was relieved and I had that extra
hour free. Then with the mail came your final missing
pages, and these could be gone over for typographical mistakes
and given to Mrs H. I had time also to dictate the last tape
of outstanding letters and these were typed, signed and
posted. I was a little troubled when Robert Penn Warren
phoned to have lunch with me, but I said yes and then realised
this would give me the chance to go over the typescript of a
new longish poem on Audubon he had sent me for my comments.
Letters about a poem are difficult to write even when one
doesn't have much to say. Or, rather, just because one doesn't.
But the two or three verbal points I had to comment he accepted
or said he did. And one, more structural, point where he had
shifted the time sequence by inserting an airplane he agreed
might have damaged the illusion more than he helped it on time.

Mrs H stayed and helped check the xeroxed sheets
for the anthology, and I shall go from this letter to you to
the final attempt to eliminate as much as possible before
sending the final preliminary selection to Wesleyan.

So far as my graduate seminar was concerned, most
of the students had already left on holiday, so my lack of
preparation didn't matter so much. We chinned for an hour
on Holmes and Whittier and then I sent them home.

I don't think I told you that I had had a very
nice letter indeed from the Brigadier, who was full of enthusi-
asm and gratitude for your visit to Tregoning.

The flood of packages of books from England has
begun, but the boys' annuals I am transferring immediately to
be deposited (not yet given) to the Rare Book & Library.
Octopus 8 of Mackenzie's book of memoirs has arrived. The
references to you I thought were very nice. I have not of course
had time to read it yet as a book.

I may manage a note tomorrow morning, but as of
noon I shall go home and pack. Once in the air I shall each
hour be nearer to you, and I hope letters will reach you more
swiftly. All love,

and excitement at seeing you,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

I was ashamed to send you so brief a note yesterday from

the plane but thought of it at least partly as a way of using up the
few escudos I had not been able to exchange when we left Portugal
before. And of course even though there was no news there was very
much in ~~my~~ wanting to thank you for the trip, the very happy
time you gave us, and me, at Kenwin. It is sad to think that this will
have been our last visit to Kenwin but I cannot wish it otherwise,
since it will certainly not be our last visit to you somewhere, even
if across the street in New Haven.

As I told you there turned out in fact to be no alternative flight to New York, and there was a certain advantage perhaps in stretching our legs in Lisbon. Quite unexpectedly friends of ours boarded the plane there, and we had a chance for talk occasionally on the rest of the flight. We were allowed the extra third seat and so had room for elbows, and since we were given the emergency window we had room for our legs. Actually only four persons were 1st class from Lisbon on, although the plane was full in both classes up to that point. I wondered if perhaps the BOAC strike may not have caused an extra rush. Everyone was so kind, and the new airport departures are so much better organized that I did not use your card which I now return for a later time or your own need.

It was 32 F when we reached the New Haven Green, and 24 F when we got up this morning. It had snowed here on Saturday and there was still some white on the ground, although I am told they had much good weather during our absence. The burglar protective system had worked well, and Mrs H had taken good care of the orchids. Only this morning my car would not start because of a dead battery, and I am still without one tonight. Presumably it will have been repaired by tomorrow night. It needs washing anyhow and that can be done at the same time.

We phoned Pup on our return and wished her a follow-up Happy Birthday and it was delighted to have your up-to-the minute love. They both are looking forward both the Greek trip and to Cetona, where John is also to go.

One or two yellowbacks are in the pile of accumulated mail for
me, stamped in enormous letters which read

DELAYED BY STOPPAGE
IN STEAMSHIP OPERATIONS

AS WELL AS three books which were no doubt shipped long since. Baldwin's
*The Search for the North Pole*, Leslie, Jameson, and
Murray's *Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in The Polar Seas and Regions*, and Hå
Hayes, *The Open Polar Seas*. All most useful additions to the collection,
for which I thank you.

As to the mail itself I scarcely dare begin, and will wait
until after tomorrow's seminar.

We do both thank you and miss you. Our regards please
to In es, and our love to you,

(we won 3rd
class, 3

(we won 3rd
class, 3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

Having my first letter from you today pleased me of course,

mostly, but sadden ed me to think that there would be nometeting you in
the library or for tea or after supper. But at least yours came th rough
in good time, and one hopes the speedy transit continues. I forgot to tell
you that everything arrived saf ely in New Haven, Because the two
crown j ewels were carried by hand there was no excess baggage charge
for them, and so in every way it proved the best of all chances to get them
safel y to this side for you.

This morning I got the history of psychiatry which Catha
wanted and will post it to her airmail tomorrow. (Today was chiefly consumed
by my grauate seminar and preparation for it. I also got your Portnoy which
too will be mailed. But I learned rather sadly that the Hemingway
biography had been airmailed in my name to Kenwin on March 14 the day
after I left New Haven. Something obviously must have happened to delay
it but I hope it will reach you eventually. One wonders of course if the
Co=op un derlings despite orders didn't really send it by surface. When
it does at last come, however, remember that it was to be a present from
me to you, and so still can be. If too long an interva l occurs I will
send another.

I ppent part of the time after the seminar taking a bus to
the garage where I picked up my car and its re-charged battery. Today
is a little warmer, in the mid 40's an d so perhaps parking it all day
long will not be so disasterous as in February.

Last n ight went again to going over second-class mail
received at home, and tonight I sh all try to work at the accumulation of
New York Times, saved since we left, plus beginning on my income tax
which must be finished for the accountant by the beginning of n ext week.
One can see that roses are not yet in blossom.

Postcard.

I enclose a sample of a newly published English

All my love, as always -

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

This has not really been a wholly satisfactory day so far

as accomplishments are concerned, although the sun has been shining and thus made even a chilly day much more tolerable. We are promised good weather for tomorrow but then rain for Easter and the day before it. This, if it turns out to be true, will be sad for we were planning a family picnic at the shore. Did I, by the way, tell you that we are promised that the man will begin laying the stone terrace at the shore on Friday or the first fair day thereafter, and will also construct the needed seawall to keep the waves from eroding the shore in front of our cottage. He will also level off and relay the stone in front of thegrage and in the front courtyard. I hope he can, for this is a much needed improvement.

There was no letter from you today, and indeed 1 ittl e mail at all. Which so far as other letters than your own is pleasantly helpful, for I have been picking away all day at paying bills and transferring old envelopes into the waste-basket. Sunday being Easter I shall hardly have the courage to come to the office and so must make the most of the time now.

Today is middle Susan's birthday and we have invited her and the two children to the house for dinner. The children leave for New York after early dinner, to be with their father. But they insist on returning for the Sunday picnic, so their absence will not be for long.

I posted off Portnoy's Complaint to you today as an Easter present, and wonder when the Hemingway, sent by air mail three week s ago will arrive. When it does note how it was sent, for the airmail may not have worked. This was to have been a hostess gift to you, so accept it as a belated one.

One feels stupid to have so little to relate, but that is only an indication of how

limited my life is at the moment.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday,--not because it was Good Friday
but because I kept so close to my desk and the desperate effort to pay bills,
begin to prepare my income tax material for the accountant, and dictated
enough letters to keep Mrs H going next week. To combine three weeks
accumulation of mail with first-of-the-month bills is almost too much.
And I began the day first by my visit to the gym and then to the doctor for
my cold shot. Half the morning was gone.

There was no letter from you after the first, until today when
I found three in the box, one of the 1st and two of the 2nd. As you know
now from my note posted in Lisbon (the plane itself only mails first-class
passengers' missives), Swissair would not acknowledge the existence of the
plane you cited, and indeed nothing was up on the board for one for the rest of
the day. As it turned out, and dreary as the Lisbon airport is (they have almost
completed a new one), it was not helpful for Susan's back to be able to
stretch her legs for a half hour. And of course I could post the letter to
you!

I was sorry that Consie should die, for I always admired the spirit
of her letters to you, and of course was fond of Gады; yet in another
and truer sense I was happy that she need not linger in this prolonged dying
that we go in for with the help of wonder drugs. As you say, her husband will
be lonely and feel helpless. At least it was nice that the California
daughter could be there just at this overlapping moment.

Despite the weather we really did have a memorable time on our
farewell to Kenwin. And as Susan says we remember only the good days, which with
you was the Sunday afternoon walk along the lake shore. Actually we have to learn
to expect bad weather at this time of the year, and so long as I work I have
no choice of time, taking the holidays as they are patterned for me. In fact
I must be almost the only one of your friends (except for Chester) who is
salaried. I checked on last year and had forgotten that in fact we came six
weeks later; so no wonder we had mustard in blossom then.

I am eager to meet Mrs Peary; thank you for sending her along.
The snow will have melted by her arrival and she can walk dryshod.

Much business of course amongst all the mail here. I shall
be depositing $59.80 in royalties and permissions fees to Hilda's account.
106 copies of her Helen were sold in the last six months, 60 copies of *Bid Me to Live*, and 15 copies of her *Selected Poems* were returned with no new ones sold.

Pantheon has now raised the problem of storing the
Ghandaran book, but I see that I ought to have had a xerox copy of the letter
made for you and so will wait to discuss that until I can send the copy along.
But I did xerox the correspondence from Pokross which you can read for yourself.
Obviously we will have to make some sort of decision as to the fund when you
are here next summer and we can go up to Boston together to see him. Meanwhile
I will try to talk over the general situation with Fritz Redlich who was
one of the first beneficiaries of the scheme and is therefore highly sympathetic
to the problem. Altho a psychiatrist he is now Dean of the Yale Medical
School. The proposition made in the letter is a little tangential to
what we envisaged, yet on the other hand the sum asked for is not great, is an
interesting experiment, and I sympathize with Pokross's wish to allot some moneey
in order to show the validity of the fund. My recommendation would be yes, but

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

there is time for your confirmation or rejection. Only do let me know in your
answer to this so that I can let him know. I will drop him a note perhaps to
say I am consulting you.

It is raining today and one hopes that tomorrow will be fair enough
for us to hold our picnic at the shore. We will eat in the courtyard outside
the garage, so as to be shielded from the wind.

We do miss you enormously. Tell Ines that her food was so good
that I am now six pounds overweight and must go on a strict diet. I fear that
my forced exercising makes me want to eat more. And her cooking.

Bless you,

And all love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

I didn't write you on Easter Sunday, nor yesterday; and even today I find myself at the end without time for more than a note and a pat. Easter of course was consumed by the picnic at the shore. Saturday it had rained all day and most of the night; Easter morning was cold and overcast and even drizzling. Yet by eleven or so it looked as though one might cook out of doors and so the various families convened at our shore house in the courtyard by the garage. People shivered, but about two the clouds broke open and the sun shone through. Coats and jackets came off, everyone began to smile, and when it was time for the eggs to be hidden and the younger children to search them out--one would have thought it late spring indeed.

Yesterday was fair too but I hardly had a chance to find out, for I spent my time over the desk putting things together for my accountant, so whom I delivered them this morning. He has phoned me a few times since but is presumably hard at work finding out how much more I shall have to pay the government to cover my liabilities for last year. Still the sense of spring was strong enough for most of undergraduate seminar not to appear, so I cancelled the class for those who did come and got back to the office in time for a series of visitors, the last of which have just left at 5:30. And tonight we must out to dinner and then to the symphony, worse luck for the preparation of my graduate seminar on Whitman for tomorrow. The world is too much with me soon or late--wasn't that the way someone put it?

Not having heard from Helene I finally phoned her at the office and found she had been away on her spring vacation and would not be back until next Sunday. Which will explain why you have not heard from her or from me on the subject of The Snowflakes and double publication.

Catha's book and your Portnoy went off yesterday, and yours should arrive soon—I still wonder what happened to the Hemingway and only wish it might have reached you for an Easter present.

We have searched high and low for the favorite Quaker Oats foodstuff for Marie Ann's dog. My secretary finally even called the regional distributor for Quaker Oats. "Ma'am," he said, "you must come from the Middle West or something; we don't carry anything like that in these parts!" So for the moment I am stymied in coming to his rescue. What a pity! I had hoped to ship him a package for his birthday.

Your letter of the 4th arrived this morning. Good Friday isn't good for much except for answering mail. Here everything is solemnly shut up. [ One is amazed by the idea of duty being charged on proofs. Don't you think the customs man must have thought they were going to be used as undergarments? I knew a Harvard graduate in New York who wore newspapers that way, but being as I said a Harvard man would use only the New York Times. I am sure deBeer proofs would be particularly comfortable.

How I too wish one could shake your paw personally; and you AND I could at least eat in the kitchen if not the kitchen. Tell me we have been much enjoying her chocolates in Paris. Love,[NR]onan

2 3 1 H G S
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN·CONN

9 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today but I hardly deserved one
after my two days of neg lect over the weekend. I still struggle
to keep abreast, al though with only dubious success. How-
ever I did begin by depositing mon ey to Hilda's account,
money which Mrs H had mistakenly deposited to my checking account
during my absence. She now has about %1,500 accumulated. Then
to the gymnasium where I lifted weights an d otherwise made
my tawdry effort to keep fit or get fit. Working out in
this way does, it seems, keep me a little straighter during the rest
of the day.

There were th e usual interruptions to prevent me from
properly preparing my graduate seminar on Whitman, but God was
by m e and the seminar went off pretty well after all. At
l east I had a few inspirations to keep me and the rest of them
moving during the two hours.

I enclose a letter from Andre Schiffrin about the
Ghandaran book, a letter I have rather dreaded receiving, partly
because it eventually seemed inevitable. I very much want to keep
the book available however, and long for the old days when storage
was cheap as well as possible. I'd like your reactions of
course, but suspect that the best thing will be for me to discuss
the matter when I see him at the Smithsonian meeting in a few
weeks. Otherwise I will see him in New York in June. One
really needs to discuss the alternatives, and correspondence would
be as endl ess as it would be confusing. But what a fine impact thhe
book has made, and how many would be grateful to you if they knew
who had made the book possible.

The sun has remained out today also, and one daffodil
is in blossom by the side of the house. S usan has begun working in
the garden again.

An envel ope arrived with what looked like a tie in-
side. Fel t like a tie, that is. On that chance I save it for
Sunday.

All love and thanks

2 3 1 H G S
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

10 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

It has turned cold again and it drizzles. Still I must
set off in five minutes for the last bit of slicing. The do ctor
called and wanted to postpone this because of an emergency. But
I was to be busy at the end of the month when he had his only
free time, so I am to go and wait until he returns from the
h-spital.

I seem to have done nothing this morning but answer
letters and dictate more for Mrs H to do. I must get as much done
as possible and free the weekend for revising the encyclopædia article
on Hawthorne which is due in a few days. We seem somehow to
have piled up an immense conglomeration of engagements, and Susan
is already fatigued even by the thought of them.

Among the items I ordered this morning was the copy of
the French Beowulfinscribed and given by you to Masefield. It was
being advertised by Blackwell's along with ten or more other
pages of books from his library. The daughter no doubt is sensibly moving
into smaller digs. I also ordered another of the very early Blakeston's
for your collection of his work.

And had a chance to look at a newly arrived book called The
Who's Who of Children's Literature with long entries for all of y our
favorite entries-and-b-authors and books.

Must dash now but at least I can send love.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

12 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

At last my new typewriter has been delivered, and I have an accent
again. It came on Friday, and after our long wait and several substitutes the
arrival was almost like an early birthday present. Indeed I seem already to have
begun quietly to celebrate this 60th event. Your tie came (as yet unopened) and
in one of these letters this morning (none since Wednesday, and Saturday is
usually a blank for the letters therefore in themselves were a kind of birthday
greeting) was the surprise of your $100 cheque. We will indeed have some sort
of celebration and I thank you very much indeed. Yet I have already had my
birthday present by the cheque for the trip and the Henty Collection. And
oh yes, a birthday wire came from Marie Anne's Foxie. Not having her home
address, and knowing that she wouldn't be there for anything on Sunday, I sent
it so as to arrive on Thursday or Friday. I should have address it to Foxie
Coigny, had I not feared that a shudder of horror would run through the Swiss
and British of Montreux, that the official representative of HM government herself
was called Foxie (like your Fido). So my cable was diplomatically addressed to
F. Coigny, British Consulate. Fortunately Marie Anne seemed to guess the true
recipient.

And, oh yes, one other Friday early morning. My accountant returned
my final tax statement for last year and discovered that I had so overpaid the
government in my quarterly cheques that I could claim the first two quarters of
1969 as already paid, and ask for a rebate in addition. My income was down con-
siderably from last year, in terms of both my earned and unearned income (store
and the like), and in addition the costs of my secretary and running the office
were new and high, as to make the difference. This will benefit you too, and
Hilda's account, for this puts me down a tax bracket, and instead of having to
pay 50% of my income I need only pay 33%. Thus less will have to be withdrawn
from your savings account. I will work this out tomorrow, but it should net you
$1,000 more at least.

Letters seem to be coming through more slowly these days. But today
there was one from the 6th, 7th and 9th. You will have heard of the sun which
surprised us by coming through on Easter afternoon. There was an egg hunt for the
younger children. Justus energetically found 17 but (so an aunt told us) quite
independently rehid over half of them and then guided the very young so that
each could have a half dozen instead of only 1. I thought this very nice of him,
and only a cynic would suggest that perhaps he feared having to eat up 17 hard
boiled eggs himself, since his sister did well for herself without help. * Quite
clearly I think the Hemningway went surface. But will you carefull notice when
it does come, for if by surface they agree I am to be refunded the over $7 for
airmail postage I have already been charged and paid. They were silly, sending it
air parcel post instead of air book rate. * What fun it would have been to be
with you at the Escale. Please do give Monsieur our greetings, compliment him again
on his food, and thank him for his constant kindness. Given the chance I would
have him cook my communion bread and serve it with local wine. * Older women can
be quite impossible when their pride insists they need no help, as Marie Anne's
mother apparently does. I was most lucky that my own mother never got that way.
Pride can become unconscious sadism. * I was written by a young British firm who
wanted to try their hands at poem cards, and begged nicely for the chance to print
Hilda's. I asked no fee, so they sent 50 copies (I believe, I have not counted
them). The idea is pleasant enough, tho I would not send thru the mails. * Am glad
you kept at the burning, especially if you insist on doing it yourself. One tidies
slowly so one must tidy steadily. I have written the Library asking about the
Vivid Collection and to check the journals. Actually they repeated interest orally

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

but it will be better to have in writing. * Congratulate Joan on having her phone back. Susan did so much enjoy meeting her, and I to see her again. I like her very much. * Yes I do suspect the George Eliot may be a little dull in handling, but the data apparently fascinates. I like a little later period perhaps better, but in this case must dig in. I am shockingly ignorant of her life, which was not true in her own day when people were shocked by being aware of it. * The post offices of both Switzerland and the States were cooperative in letting your birthday greetings arrive at the last possible moment. * Your news of Ethel's unglück is disturbing in every way. Firstly the damage to the car and inevitably to her nerves and to Kenneth's in the future, then the possibility that her license might be withheld, which would kill her I think; and thirdly the increasing possibility that this might happen again. Do I gather that you are not, after all, going to the Queenwood affair? It might have been a good change for Ethel's nerves, but I understand what a constant stream of visitors you are soon to have.

Last night we went to the Smith College dinner. Three couples came to our house for one drink beforehand (including the John Pope's); the President of Smith College is a classmate of mine at Andover and Yale, and spoke well; and we were all allowed home early. Tonight we will probably look at the slides of our pictures from this last trip, all having now been returned. Tomorrow nothing is planned, and I will try to divide my time between the garden and writing a revision of the article in the Encyclopedia Americana on Hawthorne. Promised for the 21st.

Alas, they tell me the anthology for Wesleyan is 100 pages too long, but I have chivvied another signature of 62 pages out of them and they must now reckon with strict care before I try to peel it down further.

Many thank for all you have done for tomorrow. I shall wake with thanks on my lips to you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

Last night after dinner your birthday cable came. And this morning
after breakfast I opened your birthday tie. I did not wear it today, for I
have been only in work clothes. But when I dress up the tie will be the making
of me. It will go wonderfully well with several suits and all occasions. I
do thank you, for you tie me to you in every conceivable way.

We spent the evening going through the photographs from the trip,
weeding out ruthlessly. For space is really a problem, and we seldom show
them except to ourselves. Still a number came out interestingly, including
a representative number from Philip's. I think you will agree with me that
Montegufoni is in his mind; this is the style in which he attempting to work.
Philip has done very well indeed, although he lacks just that stroke of
genius and spark which Kenneth gives to his decorating and construction.
I envy them both however their taste and the time in which to develop it.

This noon, while waiting for young Susan and her children to
come to wish me a happy birthday, I looked at some slides that the Danish
National Museum had sent, I thought of the Viking exhibition of last year,
but unmounted were several shots of the Brattahlid mural sculpture, put
up against the cliff in mock at my suggestion, to see how it would look.
A telegram had preceded the slides, both of which came during my visit
to you, but although the wire promised an explanatory letter this has
characteristically not come.

I worked hard at the office this morning, finishing reading
all of the applications for fellowships, to be discussed a week from tomorrow
in New York. But I knew if I didn't get these done now they never would. You
may suffer gaps in correspondence, the week shaping up so hideously full.
Then I catalogued a number of Dusty Diamonds and took them back in the car
with me at noon. Several were not firsts, but I did have a Ballantyne first,
MY DOGGIE AND I, and before the Henty sale was accomplished I had ordered a
fine copy of the excessively rare JOHN HAWKE'S FORTUNE. The shipment from
England has at least not yet arrived in New Haven so I don't know whether
this was in the other lot. In any event I rather think I may make up a set
duplicates (excluding your personal copies) and sell en masse later.

I was interested too to read the entire last issue of Eskimo
devoted to an account of the visit to Greenland of Father Rousselière. He
really did pretty much what you and I did together, though he went out by
plane and missed all the fun of the Disco. Still, he traveled to the capital
by the new Disco, he says.

After lunch I worked for a while with Susan in the garden,
sadly sawing down two heavy shrubs that had grown too big over the years. They
were good tough ones, I can assure you, and gave me as much exercise as a
workout in the gymnasium.
on Hawthorn

This afternoon I sat down to it and re-did my article for the
Encyclopedia Americana. Re-touched it, rather, by a somewhat different
beginning and ending, in accordance with their needs and requests. I did so
reluctantly but preferred doing it to have someone else work over my compositions.
I feel rather pleased to have that out of the way, especially since it was not due
until the end of the week.

And so now I am sixty! I have not been lucky in every way, I suppose,
but I have learned something from whatever has happened to me. And I have been
lucky in my friends, especially lucky in your love. And I have tried to do good,
not piously but as a privilege.

With love & thanks, Norman

(first done
10 year
ago)

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

Two letters were pleasantly in the mail from you: your second of the 9th, and one of the 10th. So I am not so far behind after all. I am pleased that *Portnoy* has arrived and am curious as to what you will think of it. Alas, I have not yet had time to read it--but must before my State Department appearance in late May. The Hemingway must quite obviously have gone by surface; but I shall wait until it does actually arrive before making my claims. For perhaps it never will arrive at all! As for the *Portnoy*, yes it is an Easter egg, and I should judge first hard-boiled and then deviled.

Congratulations on your plan to turn the palm trees over to the gardener across the road. An excellent solution for their problem and comfort as well as yours. * Much interested in the goings-on of the son of Conan Doyle; he has had much publicity for his museum, but one can be too canny I fear. * The Brigadier will also be on edge as for the future, quite naturally. But this makes for tension between them which is too bad. * The plans for Consie's funeral seem sensible and the honors deserved. I agree with her husband that there is no point in his starting out again all over. And he would not enjoy a super-market ambience.

Apropos of the Ghandaran book I should think it best not to bring the matter up either with Pup or Kenneth, although no great harm if you have already done so. Better first for me to discuss all alternatives and arguments with Schiffrin, especially since I would like the books to be be somehow available on order. We shall see.

I will tell Pokross to go ahead with this particular payment, especially since it will be useful to him for tax purposes. But he will understand that we re-talk the whole situation when we see him late in the summer on your visit. I hope you will plan two or three weeks after Labor Day so that the various ones to be consulted on this or that will be back from their holidays. I am sure I could persuade him to make a grant to Patrick but you would have to persuade Patrick first to accept the idea of a full analysis. I doubt that you will be able to spare enough time to do this in person when you come over, and so perhaps should begin the discussion with him by mail. I can only leave all this focus to you. You might approach the matter by saying that there are these funds, that you might be able to get enough of them diverted to enable a full analysis, and that you feel he would benefit. I can sometimes help people who come to me for help, that is take the initiative; but I find it harder to make the opening play.

This being Helen's first day back from the vacation I phoned her this afternoon and had a good chat with her. She said she had written you after receiving your letter, and I explained to her that I had told you I would not send her *The Snowflakes* until you gave me permission to do so, which was the reason she had not been sent the ms immediately on my return. She is so anxious to see it however that I have taken it out this afternoon to have it faxed-- two copies for her, and one for you if you'd like me to send it. Actually I think I'd better send one to you for there is one possible clearing up that you might or might not want to do. Queried by Mrs Hamerman when she read the typescript for typos during my absence. I gathered that Helen was not especially against the dual publication so long as she had the ms of the memoirs nine months before publication date. We did not discuss the matter at length because she had already written you. There would be not enough time on a nine-month basis for a dual January publication, but there would be for

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

spring if you got it in by mid-summer. Or one could bring the novel out in
January and the memoirs in Spring. Or simply cancel the novel. As you
prefer. Helen seemed tired--this was a working vacation she said-- and
very much worried at the impact of all this on the personal relationship
between the two of you.

I have spoken to Horace on the phone just now. I called him
yesterday but Marya was away and so no one could come to the phone. He
seemed in excellent spirits, has now reached page 300 of his memoirs and
is full of Ireland. His 92-year-old and favorite aunt has just remarried
at the age of 92, which enables her to move in with boy friend without
scandalizing Milwaukee. Patrick is off next Monday to England and Ireland
on a purely business trip and the effort to scrape up some more mss for the
Atlantic Monthly Press. Horace feels he is doing superbly well for the
Press, and the financing of the trip must indicate that they have confidence
in him.

I did such gobs of work over the weekend that I fear I have rather
laid down on the job today. But tonight I have to go to Jonathan Edwards
College at the request of Donald Gallup to hear a paper he is to give on
the relationship between Eliot and Pound. I believe he hopes it will go into
the Atlantic Monthly, but whether it has been either sent or accepted I
hardly dare ask. I am to comment on it publicly in the conversazione which
follows. Tomorrow A.D.Hope comes until Thursday which will occupy me, per-
haps so much so that I may be haphazard with letters. But I did over the
weekend get the chance to go over the transcript of my interview on Hilda,
and will send along a xerox of it tomorrow when the xeroxing is completed
on it and the novel, so that you can correct me on any immense misconceptions.

The clipping has been about for some time, but might still amuse

you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 April 1969

Dear Mr Fide,

I am back from the gym, and Hope has not yet appeared.
So the day likely is a bit overstuffed, I had better write what I can of
an interview report now - then being a lunch I give for him,
then my seminar, then bringing him back to good stead for
supper, and his poetry reading tonight. It gives one a little time
to himself, and I found yesterday at 11:30 p.m. when I took him
to one's self. As I found yesterday at 10:00 p.m. when I took him
to his...

These are jokes rather than letters. But even now at the end of
the afternoon, Hope is in my personal office filling out deposit slips from his
lecture fees (I will post them for him tomorrow) while I take this slim opportunity
for a distant wave. Your letters of the 11th, 13th and 14th came today. I was glad
you could even for a few hours shake Kenwin's dust off your feet and go to Lausanne
and then Livet. What a spectacle your lad with the Bear sin must have been, and
how brave to appear as from Berne in Vaud. * Birthday? I worked as you know, but
the weather was good and I dictated so efficiently that I think Mrs H will not
have finished by the end of the week. I wonder how your interview went. His with
Simenon was in this morning's Times, and I will send you for your archives. * The
idea of giving to the British white elephant sale is a splendid one, and permits
happy homes for so much one would otherwise simply have had to toss into the pile.
This was very clear of Marie Anne. * And then your snow! As for my birthday. It
was to celebrate how cold I am, or what a chill I give others. I am sure. *As to
Hilda Quick's cover I am sure you and the others are far more correct than I in
admiring it. It's not a generation gap, so much as a county gap. And of course
I never rolled a hoop.

I enclose a non-boxer possibility for you in New Haven if you keep
up your Tibetan loyalty. But I think you would always stick by the Boxer rebellion.
Forgive me. In a couple of days I shall do better.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday, and today I am already late for a lecture I must attend, in honor of a retiring professor of philosophy. Obviously I will fall asleep, at least I will if my typing is an accurate reflection of my mind. I must say I feel exhausted. Actually I did well to get through the taping of a radio interview on Mary Ellman's *Thinking About Women*, which I did with Mrs Ellman and a lady professor of English here. Fortunately it can be cut and spliced, for it will need just that.

Tomorrow I will try to stagger to the office and write more properly. I am on my knees to you to crave your pardon. Your letter of the 14th arrived today, and I rather think a later one came yesterday. I am deeply sorry about Oonagh and David, but glad in an odd way that Petrie will never know. Somehow a splitup seemed inevitable, for difference in tastes and in social standing. I suspect the marriage was not easy for either of them. Do you think Robin really knows about Oonagh's various adventures. I suppose some, but not necessarily all. More of this tomorrow.

This is really as before, little more than the chance to send love. I will review the week that was, tomorrow. Now to the lecture, then to a reception, and out to dinner in order to save Susan having to cook. She has been in New York and meets me at the reception.

enclose the interview with Simenon. No others have appeared so far.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

19 April 1969

Dearest Fido, I am not sure whether I come or go, but I shall at least honestly begin a letter at the end of this morning, and finish it before I begin anything else tomorrow (Sunday). I ought perhaps to have started with you, but could you have seen my desk after a week of frenzied neglect you would have understood why some semblance of order there was as effective as a tranquilizer.

I do thank you for the cable which came this morning, about the interview on Hilda. None certainly was needed, but I naturally valued your judgment. You may well actually have some points of view to correct. No one knew her as you did. I could give only impressions. But for whatever good there may be in it, I rather think this good came out rather better and more broadly because of the form of an interview rather than an article. I suspect my book eventually won't say much more.

This past week rather stares at me over my own shoulder, though my figure of speech is a little Kincomprehensible, just as the week was. I'll run through that in tomorrow's letter.

First let me say that I have tried in telephone directories and in all medical and psychiatric journals to find some other address for your Dr. E. Gero Heymann. With no success. Can you give me some other clues which might help me? I assumed that he was an analyst but of course he may have been an historian. If he were I would start out in other directions. Or would Annie Reich know? Help me to start afresh. Meanwhile I am holding your letter to <u>him</u>.

As you will see from the enclosed xerox, Yale (as I thought) would be delighted to have your Vaud Collection. You were right in suspecting that the Vallesia was here but we seem to have forgotten that they also have the <u>Revue Historique Vaudoise</u>. This being the case you might try the London Library or simply sell through some Swiss dealer. The De Beers could no doubt help with advice.

I enclose also a letter, at last, from Mrs Dobson's lawyer. I shall simply send along to Philip, with whom I spoke again about the matter, for him to handle. I simply do not know the etiquette, and would think this a matter between the Ballantyne daughter and Quayle. As for what I bought (we bought) (you bought) from Brimmell, one knows he is in the clear. And what a job it would be to put down piece by piece a list of each ms that came from Quayle.

I repeat how sorry I am, though not altogether surprised, by the split between Oonagh and David. I wonder if at times Oonagh herself, perhaps quite unconsciously, might have felt and made herself felt as socially superior. One doesn't know, one doesn't need to know. But for Robin what a second blow, though Oonagh conceivably might spend more time with him. Personally I am glad not to be tied to a house, but naturally I have no sense of what such a tie really means. I am sure it is stronger than either legal or felt marriages, for it was always there.

Your double letter of the 15th and 16th came this morning, so with the cable in addition I was in gala. I am glad the interview went well. He seems to have used an even smaller transcriber than I was given for mine. But they do work wonderfully well, and one is relaxed if for no other reason than the impossibility of thinking slowly as when one waits for a slow shorthander or steno. Once you are settled here, we quite obviously buy you a good one so that you can send your tapes out with your laundry. I had not realised it was hard to get into Taiwan. For an American anyhow he just steps out of the plane. But few want to go. * It is very sensible indeed I think for Miss Hutchinson to put her papers in Edinburgh. Your clippings are superb, a great triumph and I don't know whether I want the St Bernard or the Fiat Lady or Greenland all for my own.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

20 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

There were torrential downpours yesterday afternoon, and at home the streams from the driveway flooded the garage floor and even went down the stairs into the cellar. But today the sun shines and the little green leaves begin to appear and the world seems docile. I certainly am, for except from cleaning out some drains at home I have been at work at the office and am about to begin what I hope will be the final revision of selections for the poetry anthology. Tonight we have to go the Lawn Club for a dinner before the opening of a show on Connecticut pewter at the Historical Society.

I enclose the second of Whitman's interviews but this may be the last so-called newsworthy ones at the moment. Yours might well be held until nearer whatever season you choose for your books. The little notice on Haley is followed up by a longer account today, which details how he felt out of step with the younger generation which didn't want to stay with the old format. I will send it along, not tomorrow for I leave on the 8 o'clock for New York and a meeting of the ACLS committee on American Studies. I then take a late train back, change into dinner jacket for a dinner and annual meeting of the Trustees of the Library Associates, and then hurry home where Susan and the poet Barbara Howes and other guests will be waiting, or at least be.

I forgot to mention that in addition to several dusty diamonds my new book acquisitions include another of O.B.'s very very early ones before you truly knew him, and what is said to be McAlmon's first appearance in a book. This is called THE POETS OF THE FUTURE: a College Anthology for 1917-18, and from the University of Southern California is a poem, "My Free Soul" by R. Menzies McAlmon. The only other name I recognized among the contributors was Steve Benet.

Just to explain why last week was so irregular in correspondence, let me go back over it. Monday night to Jonathan Edwards College to hear and comment on a paper by Gallup (Eliot and Pound) which he has written for the Atlantic Monthly. Tuesday my seminar, then A.D.Hope arrived, and we took him and the Marteens and the Maynard Macks to the Lawn Club and then back to the house afterwards. Oh, yes at 4 that afternoon he lectured on Dryden and Satire. Wednesday morning he was with me after my session at the gymnasium, and I gave a luncheon for 7 in his honor at Mory's. Then my graduate seminar, after which he arrived at my office and I took him home for dinner alone with Susan and myself. Afterwards he gave his public reading of his poems (I gave the introduction), after which was a reception in his honor. Thursday morning he came in after making some recordings of his poems and I arranged a trip to Mexico thru my agent, how he was to get to South Orange, New Jersey etc. Then to lunch, at which we were joined by John Montague, a former student of mine just for the moment in this country, who is regarded by many as the leading Irish poet today. The Gregories would say Richard Murphy. After I took Hope to the bus I came back to Montague who stayed until I had to go to a meeting of the board of the Conn. Academy, and after that to dinner at Isobel Wilder's in honor of her brother Amos and the birthday (tho he was absent) of Thornton. Thornton is 72. Friday morning I taped the radio interview on Mary Ellmann's *Thinking About Women*, had student appointments in the p.m., plus a visit from an Australian lady professor, and went to a philosophy lecture in honor of Paul Weiss, and a reception in honor of his retirement from the faculty. Yesterday was less full, for the charity fair I intended to go to was too crowded for me to get in.

I did enjoy Hope very much and he did me the honor of asking if he could dedicate a sequence of poems in homage to Baudelaire, to me in his new book this Fall.

All love, and love fate

NORMAN

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

Back at the desk again if only for a few minutes today, while I look
at the mail and get ready to begin work again tomorrow morning, Actually I am
going to try to get in a few minutes at the gymnasium shortly, having not been
there for several days and being scheduled to be out of town next Monday.

The flight back late this morning from Rochester to LaGuardia was a
good one. I read away at the biography of Hemingway but have not yet gotten him
to Paris as a writer. The author has done an immense amount of research but
seems to get no life or grace into his prose at all. Nothing comes alive nor is
there even a sense of humor. I never did care much for Baker's book on Hemingway
and I could not really praise this as a book had I been asked to review it. I
daresay I could have done no better; I am sure I could not have done worse.

I think I told you that my mission in Rochester was to see the opening
of the baseball season there. A Bernard Schilling has been my friend for many
years, was once a semi-pro plare himself and now is a professor of comparative
literature. Year after year he has asked me, every year I have refused. Until
the situation was on the edge of being personal. So this year I agreed to go.
We took a noon plane up on Wednesday, it was late in starting and we arrived at
the end of the afternoon. They had a dinner party with a pleasant group of cademics,
and on Wednesday morning we went to the art gallery where Mrs S is an art historian.
They were putting on a show of regional art (they have otherwise very fine paintings
indeed) and I surprised myself by buying a modern piece of furniture for
the new terrace at the shore. You will have to see it to understand it. But
alas the rain had been so heavy for two days before that the baseball field was
under water and the game was postponed until today. His luncheon for men was
still held however, and was very pleasant indeed, and later in the afternoon
we went to tea with the architect of their house (a woman specializing in
restorations) and the wife of the president of the university and the wife of
the provost. A dinner part again last night, and today was devoted to returning.
Obviously I felt very much a rakehell to be away in midweek but perhaps it did
me good.

I will write a proper letter in answer to yours, tomorrow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

26 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

I go off again tomorrow morning, latish, to Battimore and a meeting of the Smithsonian Council that evening and Monday. And so, having gotten back only late yesterday afternoon I have been spending the day feverishly at work on my desk. The Lord knows there has been plenty to do, and I have tidied and paid bills and dictated enough to the machine to keep Mrs H going tomorrow. (I got up at that moment to see if by opening a window I could give freedom to a very angry bumble bee. The stupid insect flies and crawls in every direction except the right one. But finally through another window I just opened he reluctantly departed.)

I went to the Co-op after lunch and bought you your copy of Bettelheim's THE CHILDREN OF THE DREAM. Later I noticed that it has a good review also in tomorrow's Washington Post which I will enclose when Mrs H mails it to you (surface) on Monday. I charged it to your own account.

I skip about a bit as I always must when I am cleaning up and want to put away as many scraps as I can.

You too perhaps had a letter from Mildred Brown saying that her Cindy had died. I do feel sorry for her; she wants another but says it is too hard for her to train an absolute puppy.

Blackwell's wrote to say that the BEOWULF you presented to Masefield had already been sold. Sorry to have missed it, but I am sure it will be treasured wherever it has gone.

Harcourt's royalty statement for the six months ending December 31st has just come. The totals $140.44-- 128.84 for hardcovers, 11.60 for paperback. The breakdown: CARTHAGE, 244 copies. ARTEMIS, 21 copies. JANUARY, 96 copies. AVALON, 118 copies. The paperback of CARTHAGE was 232 copies, up a bit I think.

I am sorry it bothered you I sent the xerox of THE SNOWFLAKES. But perhaps it is just as well to have a copy there even if unopened. There had been a question raised by Mrs H and previously noted by me as to whether you had or had not spoken of a man as dead at one spot and alive at another. But under the circumstances it doesn't matter. I will check again with Helen as what Harcourt's (not her) deadline would be for a joint January publication, and what for a joint June 1970. I think it is nine months ahead. Somehow, perhaps wistfully I had thought you might just possibly consider January for the Vaud and June for the memoirs, and so sent Helen a copy of the Vaud to read and perhaps get ready for the printer. But I can recall this after I hear from you when I find the schedule. I only do beg you, out of my love, to remember that this is not a feud between you and Helen who has nothing to say about time-tables, nor really a feud between you and anyone (or vice-versa). It is just an immoveable fact of modern publishing. But there really isn't anything I can add to what I said at Kenwin. So simply, in the end, give me my instructions and I will carry them out for you as I have always tried to do.

The group of new, old pictures of H.D. you've been sending along are of course immensely important. It was clever of you to come across them and not to have tossed them out understandably without bothering to investigate. I have a hunch that some of them can be identified by Margaret Snively, and will eventually have copies made to send her to try her hand at. One or two in particular look as though they might stem from the time Hilda loved with them in Venice. And many come from Philadelphia, including the interiors.

I was much saddened by Sachie's letter, although of course pleased if he thinks the chance improve of his getting his poems into print. But that he should again be in Osbert's disfavor is a shame. Yet I suppose that it is natural that Osbert's attendants-cum-boyfriends should be jealous of the family lest they be cut out from any anticipated bequest. I only hope I never become quite so

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

as Osbert and hence quite so dependent. Poor Eugene O'Neill got that way even with
his wife. * Philip's letter about the chateau was, I thought, a very real and honest
document, about his love and ambition for splendor. My only feeling is that somehow
he also looks upon the chateau as an investment which can be sold easily. I have
my doubts about that--it is too big, too splendid, too expensive to take care of
both in money and manpower. But this is hardly my worry. * The Brigadier sent along
a very nice letter indeed thanking for the Christmas cards and sharing some of
the Christmas letters and Easter cards the children have sent him. The children
are most grateful, and I occasionally wonder if (military though he is) he would
have found grandchildren pleasant to occupy himself with.

I read a bit more in the Hemingway biography last night. I repeat the
author has researched it hard, but takes no chances, nothing comes alive, is even
clumsy in his own style. But now he is (Hemingway, I mean) en route to Paris as
a writer it begins to pick up a bit. And everywhere one does learn new details.
No, Dorothy Baker was the wife of a Harvard instructor and poet named Ted Baker. She
was well thought of, and then I think died. Baker I think would be pleased to have
a letter of praise from you. The "pem name" Bryher I am afraid can never be washed
down though I change this whenever I can including an article on Hilda for the
Wisconsin number. It was a pen-name at first and so they stick to it. I explain
over and over again about the difference between England and the States, although
here one can change one's name also. I know how you feel about Anne and Annie. It
is like referring to Henry Longfellow or Oliver Holmes. * I trust the white-
elephanting goes well. I only wish I could go to the fair and be a purchaser. *
I must remember to discuss Ghandara with Schiffrin tomorrow night or Monday. * An
excellent letter to Patrick. You may not bear for some time however, for at the
homage to Dudley Fitts on Tuesday I met Pat's boss who said he would be away some
two weeks still. * Yes, whatever happens don't miss the chance of having Melitta
go through her things. And don't forget ahead of time to throw the syringes etc
into the Lake. * Letters have now come in about Brattahlid from Krogh too. Now I
await a visit from Ingholt on Wednesday to advise as to how best next to proceed.
The cost is not outrageous and they talk of a dedication at the end of July. I
wish you would go out with us if we go, but no longer even dare hope of persuading
you to a trip. * I'm sorry about Islay's mother's visit but really doubt that you
want to be there at the same time. Kenneth counts on his scraps of talk with you
and advice, and these would be precluded especially since his so-to-speak public
hours have to be limited. * Can't remember just what the Harding book was, but
if I suggested adding to the rest it was only because Hilda might have used it,
like the other Egyptian volumes in the same set which are already here. Since she
didn't, just don't spose of it otherwise. One day I shall put you to work defining the
books that are here. Other than as a list one keeps only the ones she used or
annotated.

I must dash or this will never make the post tonight.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

Down to the office for just a few moments, to pick up work to do
on the plane to Washington and perhaps tonight if nothing much is scheduled.
Alas I have to make the most of what little time I have. I was much impressed
by your clipping as to the British problem of working after 65. I should face
just such a problem; perhaps then it would make me take more time off.

At any rate I must run home and get Susan to take me to the hotel
for the limousine bus, from which I get a plane to the Baltimore airport, and
a taxi from there for a ten mile ride to some country house the Smithsonian
owns and uses for conferences. Many institutions get these houses for tax
benefits to the donor, but I happen never to have been to such a meeting. Since
it is spring, and Maryland is farther along in its flowers the visit might be
a very nice one indeed.

To go back to your two letters of the 23rd which came yesterday,
I have (as I wrote you yesterday) got a copy of the Dream book you wanted and
Mrs H will post it to you surface tomorrow. I have written the Co-op to present
evidence on the Hemingway, and ask for a rebate. Think of all the money I shall
enjoy from such forced savings!

I am sorry about the veto on Zurich for longer than three months,
though I hope you will go there frequently anyhow. Ruegg was so positive, but
of course he is a finance man not a lawyer. Coigny and Philip would be the best
advisers for your Swiss passport.

What a pity about Sir Ronnie's eyes.

I do not get home tomorrow night until after nine, so I expect no
letter to you. Forgive and I will try to write on Tuesday.

All love, and peace be with you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

29 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

I have my ten minutes between my undergraduate seminar and a meeting of the English Department professors. What the latter is about I don't know, and so cannot tell how much time I shall have afterwards. But like yesterday I do not want too long to go without even a word, and so may do a brief note now and take my chance for a later one if the meeting lets out early.

My return flight yesterday was made doubly hideous. A group of five teen-agers played loud bop on a battered tape, so one could hardly think. The stewardesses ought to have stopped it, and finally my companion complained. Then the plane (which originated in Miami) left 15 minutes late from Baltimore, was forced to circle LaGuardia for twenty minutes before being cleared for landing, and once on ground I waited literally thirty-five minutes for the luggage to appear. So I lost the bus to New Haven I originally had planned to take. But just as well perhaps for that made me too late in New Haven to go the lecture at the Historical Society which I had arranged for. Instead I unpacked, read my mail and the accumulated newspapers and waited for Susan to return.

A very nice letter indeed came from Marie Anne thanking for the wire etc. She had mailed it on the 23rd but it perhaps took a bit longer for she forgot to put on enough stamps for airmail.

Also a nice one from Philip, thanking for mine about his chateau: "Each of us, I think, has to express himself in some way or other during his lifetime, and I decided that it would give me more fun to do it this way rather than try and become Lod Chancellor, and I have never regretted that decision; it is also possibly a lucky escape for the British Commonwealth of Nations, as we call ourselves these days."

He also went on to the real point of the letter: "I am sorry that trouble reares its ugly head over the Quayle purchase, but I will not bother you now with any comment; I will get in touch with the lawyers and sort the whole thing out. I do not think that either you or Bryher need face any sleepless nights." I don't, and hope you continue to sleep well.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

30 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

This day gives every indication of becoming so topsy-turvy that I am seizing its beginning rather than its end in which to write you, Mrs H having been scheduled to take the day off. The little extra has been given me this morning because I cut my gym session, not feeling up to lifting weights. For at a quarter to seven I had a temperature of over 100, which is even more than that for me since mine is usually slightly subnormal in terms of others. I had a wretched night and ought not really to have come in. But Ingholt is scheduled to come in, so is a visiting professor from Australia and a graduate student from New York who would already have started out, to use my Hawthorne papers. This afternoon I have my graduate seminar and then I think I will go home. I had been supposed to attend the formal annual banquet of the Yale News, with a cocktail party beforehand. But I think I shall make my excuses. At this point I have just talked with the doctor, who thinks I have a gastrointestinal flu and am to love for the time being on liquids.

Quite suddenly too a painter appeared this morning to do the office bathroom, and more are to appear tomorrow to do Mrs H's office and mine. A nuisance at this time of the year but no doubt wise to get it when I can. So Mrs H has decided to come in late this morning and take tomorrow and the next day off.

Yesterday I talked with Helen on the phone and read her the relevant portion of your letter about "same day, same hour." She is naturally disappointed for she says both will be reviewed together and sales will be hurt when a reader chooses between one or the other. As for a joint "January publication, the latest possible date for an absolutely final draft of the memoirs will be this June 1st. She had hoped you might consider having Snowflakes in "January and a late April for the memoirs, in which case the final manuscript could wait until late September of this year. The absolutely deadline for a manuscript is seven months before the season when it appears. She says she had already written you a query about *Snowflakes* (she thinks mine was nothing to worry over), not realising that you would not open the xerox copy I sent you. But we will not put the Snowflakes into production at all if you do not wish it to appear in January. It can simply be put into the deep-freeze in case you should ever want to take it out.

I am simply stating what the situation is, and not trying to give advice. For I think none of us would dare do that. I do however wonder if you can possibly finish the memoirs, except in a slap-dash way, before June 1st, because of all your commitments to visitors. And it will be hard even by the end of September, in view of the summer visitors and your visit to Perdita. And I should be sorry not to have others share my pleasure and admiration of the new novel.

I wonder how my seminar will go, for I really do have a fever. But so does all the student world and each makes his gesture against the disappointing world and runs his own sort of temperature. We are having more and more protest meetings by the students, and soon I suppose some building or other will be seized.

It is now being held
if, pending your decision
about April

AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION

[ THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION ]

1 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

I have been as I warned you shut out of my HGS office
today while the painters were at work. So I have spent my time in
my Library office, and am using this second-hand electric machine
actually for the first time. The keys are somewhat differently
spaced, and it lumbers along in a quite different fashion from my
IBM one, but I will get used to it and so will you when you settle
in here.

Most of the time went into puttingbooks away, since
I spend so little time here. As a result things look much tidier.
I have hours more however to spend inthat way before I can rebegin
serious work on Hawthorne and on Hilda's manuscripts.

I am glad to say thatalthough I was exhausted last
night when I wenthome (I had to put away things in my office before
the painters came andso delayed longer than I intended), I had no
temperature and only a subnormal one tonight. I therefore had a
light lunch this noon and hope to regain a little nourishment
eventually. It feels better to be feeling better.

Your letters of the 27th and 28th came this morning,
for which my thanks. I will see whether your letter about Close Up
is useful to the lawyer. * As you now will have known, Mildred
Brown wrote me also about Cindy's death. She said she owed you a
letter. It will be lonesome for her without a dog; I hope she finds
one soon.

We keep to good weather, although a bit cool now.
The tulips we bought in the Netherlands are blooming bravely. We
have never had such fine ones. And the flowering cherries will be
out in a day or two. Susan has the garden in good shape, for which
I am glad.

I fear I was not suprised about DeGaulle's defeat.
The French were not so much against him as a whole human, but could
not stand being made to respond to his every be ok and call. Everything
became a vote of confidence. All of us have a tendency this way, but
since we can't resign we learn to take it. In the end we are less
lonely than DeGaulles.

I go tonight out of a sense of duty and curiosity
to a massive mass meeting in which the students confront the facukty
and comfortayion. Or rather not the faculty but the administration.
So far we have been lucky here at Yale, but obviously fashion and
considerations of status demand that the leaders of the SDS locally
show their worth. I will report fully when I can get back to the
other typewriter.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

The room has been painted and the after-smell has been tolerable enough for me to begin to re-hang the pictures on the wall and catch up with the mail I obviously couldn't handle from the Library office. I'm not sure that I prefer the present off-white to the former green, save that the latter had long ago ceased to be anything except far-off-green so dirty was it.

Your letter of the 29th came this morning. I really am sorry that your can't get down to see the Boys and their tulips. This must be one of the most effective times of the year for Cetona, to judge from what we saw when we were there at this time last year. How far back that seems, and how much has happened since then.

Lawlessness here? Yes, a great deal of it. And anything can happen. But one hopes it will calm down. Libraries I think are safe.

Last night's mass meeting of faculty and students went peacefully. There were angry moments and statements by a few of the students, the SDS, but generally speaking even parliamentary law obtained. Indeed a good deal of energy went into a game between SDS and standard students as to which side knew more about the parliamentary law. The Lerner boy, although not speaking last night, has come out against seizures of buildings and is apparently a moderate liberal. I went a little after 7 for an 8 oclock meeting, only to find that women could attend. So I went back for Susan, and you will have to come with me when you are here. We sat near the front surrounded by students who called themselves radicals but seemed more against Vietnam than for overthrowing the universe. The university president was there, as were all but two members of the Corporation (the governing Board). It was good for them to get the excited commitment of the students. But oddly when the vote came as to whether the meeting would or would not petition the Corporation to drive ROTC (army training) entirely off the campus so that one might not choose it even if he wished to, the vote came out 1286 for and 1286 against. And one is confident that the vote was not rigged. We left at 10:30, and the meeting adjourned shortly afterwards. The tie vote was too much of a climax in itself to go on to other topics. These will come next Monday night at a second meeting.

Now I must go to a faculty meeting where we vote as a faculty on the ROTC. The issue has become a symbol for more than even faculties know how to spell out.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Have been thrown rather off base today by a telephone call from
Susan's nephew in New York wanting to bring a an English friend--the nephew
of Keynes, the economist-- to lunch with me. All well and good but they didn't
arrive until half-past one, so it was half-past three before they finally left.
An interesting chap, in mid-thirties, doesn't seem to do much but collects books
and I fancy act as a kind of scout for rare books. But he claims to have the
finest Burton collection in existence and helped the Brodie with her book. He is
anxious to see what you have at Goodrich Street, but I really couldn't give up
the whole afternoon.

I went dutifully off to the faculty meeting where they discussed
the ROTC, and finally backed the administration's committee's report to allow it
to remain on the campus though without academic credit. This seems all right to
me. There is no reason one should receive as much credit for drill as for classics,
bu the left wingers naturally wanted it sent in shame to the woods. The meeting
went on and on and on while people argued parliamentary law. What a novice in it
I am. And intend to remain.

I am interested to see that a book of memoirs of life among the Russian
literary emigrés has just been published by Nina Berberova. She was the one I got
to catalogue and go through Nadezhin's papers, especially his poetry. She is said
to be one of the best of living Russian poets, but I should imagine her reputation
is with a certain crowd. She taught Russian here, but went on to Princeton. How-
ever she gave her papers to Yale, and I am told her correspondence was quite spectacu-
lar.

I am supposed to go to Hofstra University of Long Island next October
to speak, gratis, to the Library Associates, the Librarian being a friend of mine
whom I have put off and off. To gain a fee he asked if I would be willing to speak
also in the afternoon. This is the letter I received today:

"In exploring the University I find that on October 23, 1969, two units of the University would like to have you speak in the afternoon before you address our Hofstra Library Associates group. New College would like you to talk to their students group from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., at an honorarium of $75.00 and the English Department would like you to give a general lecture open to the entire university at 3:00 p.m. at an honorarium of $100.00. Please note that this gives you time for a leisure lunch and for cocktails before dinner without rushing."

I particularly like that last sentence!

When I wrote you a hurried note from Washington I didn't mean to suggest
that you give Kenwin away. Only when I mentioned to Dillon Ripley that you were selling
Kenwin, he said (in the best American fashion) why didn't you give it to some inter-
national conservation society in Morgues from which he had returned the day before.
They apparently must move. Here one might do such a thing for tax purposes, but I
gather your Swiss taxes are not high anyhow. I just grunted in reply.

This has been a beautifully clear spring day. I daresay Susan has been
slaving in the garden.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

A good day outside and a good working day inside, as well. I made a good plunge into what seems to me my final selection for the Wesleyan Anthology last night, and finished it this late morning at the office. I only wish it could be better, and I have had to deal with a good many poets not particularly congenial to start with. But I have done what I could. I doubt that many of these are your cup of tea, but will send you a copy of the book when it is out. I still have an introduction to do, but they can go ahead with the rest of the job.

After lunch we drove to the shore, I out of curiosity to see what the stone-mason has accomplished so far. At least he has made a beginning, and I think you will like the result. He has made a start on the new terrace on the sea-side, at the foot of the deck you saw last Fall. Then he has a sea-wall and the relaying of the stones in the lower courtyard and in front of the garage on the land side. A month or two more I should suspect, but he is a hard worker.

Tonight we go to young Susan's for supper. I gather she has a beau in whom she is interested, an architect. It would be nice if she found someone, but I hope she will count ten. Meanwhile she has a job beginning August 1st, connected with public health in the city. The beginning salary is $9,500 or a little more, which sounds splendid to me, being so much more than I ever earned when I began.

I talked to Horace on the phone today, and he seemed in excellent spirits I am glad to say. And a good letter from you yesterday, thanking for the copy of Monty's memoirs I sent him--having sent for one myself, I am keeping the one you sent me. He was pleased at the compliments to you but thought the book otherwise was dull. His first draft of the memoirs is, I gather, finished; and he is now ready to go back and fill in and polish and rewrite so that it holds together well. He has been taking this testament very seriously indeed, and I expect it will be a good one. His style is limbering, and he is less the finger-wagging schoolmaster now in his reviews. I shall hope to be able to drive down to see them after classes stop.

Have just had a catalogue from a bookdealer, offering Hilda's *Sea Garden* inscribed by her "To Margot..." Do you know who this is?

Schiffrin is to write me a letter specifiying the alternatives for the Ghandaran book. It appears there are now somewhat over 1000 unbound copies, and the number sold per annum for the past several years has been 20. 50 years seems to them too long a span. But first we will see the alternatives before doing anything. There is no rush and we can even postpone until your American trip in August any discussion viva voce. These things are hard to discuss in correspondence.

I am now drafting letters to the Danish National Museum, and will be interested to see how things develop. Ingholt was most helpful in confirming my instincts.

All love, as always

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 April 1969

Dearest Fido,

I may well have misdated my yesterday's letter and made it as of
the 5th instead of the 4th. Trying to re-settle in after the painters left put
my calendar where I couldn't find it.

Today has been more or less routine, although I began again at the
gymnasium after more or less a fortnight off. There was the usual first-of-the-
week mail to answer, including a letter from a man at Columbia who is doing his
dissertation on Hilda's prose. With a little luck she will come more and more
into her own, and if we can have helped her it will be a rich reward for both of
us.

The latest issue of the Harvard Library Bulletin has a long article
in it on the publishers of German expressionism, with a number of pages devoted
to Kurt Wolff. I hadn't really had his story straight, I think, and so was glad
for the outline. The article was most complimentary. Would you like me to buy
you a copy of the issue, or have the relevant pages xeroxed, or save my copy for
you until you come to the States? Or aren't you interested.

We had a pleasant supper last night with Susan and her two children.
She told more or her job; she is in charge of community relations in the City
Public Health office, but is in effect to be the chief's deputy. I gave the salary
correctly (he gets 23,000--more than a do by a good bit--but is said not to be
very clever), although she has very beneficial health insurance coverage gratis
for herself and children, making another 500 worth she thinks.

I excused myself in the course of supper and listened to the broadcast
of my triologue on women. It sounded reasonably well, and I will send you the
transcript when I get one. It might just vaguely amuse you.

Two letters from you today, one of the 30th, the other of the 1st of
May. The name of Gwen Baxetr sounds distantly familiar. But I don't think these
are scuptures made by her, but photographs of her being a piece of sculpture.
Tableaux vivantes, I think they were called, where one posed like a marble or a
painting. I have only seen them in Paris, as a small boy, where a more classical
nudity was observed. * The pictures continue to be an absolute trove, and I must
get Margaret Pratt on them. She will be invaluable in identifying just such
Gwens vivantes. * I keep turning over Philip's chateau in my mind, and come more
and more to respect his absolute simplicity and honesty in admitting his vanity.
Why not as much be known for a chateau as for a sonnet! And not all of us would
have the courage to build ourselves a chapel with coronets over the head of our
chair. * If the Harding book was about Jung then Hilda would not have touched
it with a ten-foot pole. * Poor Ronnie Edwards. I do feel terribly about this,
needing my own eyes so much these days when I begin winding up. * The Eurotel
sounds expensive, though I suppose one could sell easily. And on the lake side
far up it must be quiet and cool and convenient. And of course one could always
pick up an odd franc or two by means of prostitution.

I really don't know that I can add much to the matter I started to
write discussion but realised it was the incorrect word) of the manuscripts. The
only thing to do is to wait until June 1st and see if you have the finished ms
of the memoirs by then. You are not tied to Harcourt of course; you are only
obligated to submit your next ms to them, as is customary. One could only try
to find a third American publisher for you and explain why you left Harcourt.
In any event it would be irrelevant since your this-Fall, next January schedule
would be as impossible for a new publisher as for the old. The present problem
has nothing to do with Artemis since that was a matter of content, and yours now
is solely one of timing.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I can't argue about instinct since I guess I wouldn't be able to define
the precise role of instinct in the present case. Hilda had instinct as to what
was right or wrong within a manuscript, and it was instinct that made her charge
her mind about including the fourth part of her *Helen*. Her instinct always con-
fined itself to the work in question, not to the timing of its publication or
that it needed publication before the next book appeared. She had such a strong
belief in the work or art as a thing in itself that she had no worries about it
once it had been written. As for example her later novels, the later long poems,
and the book on Ezra. Publication, she felt was not something for the artist to
worry about; she wanted to get on with her writing. This isn't an argument, but
simply an answer to your *not* Hilda would not have done it.* She did. There isn't
the slightest reason for you to rely on instinct or anything you want to call it,
and each writer operates in her own way, but don't drag Hilda as a defense. I
really do mean that you must understand that no one is or wants to thwart you.
But Helen and Harcourt, nor can any other publisher, do the impossible. I
believe in your art and I hope you will too.

All love, always,

Norman

A letter from Ruegg says he comes on the 19th.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Last night Susan read from a corner of the local evening paper an announcement of Osbert's death. This morning there was a full-sized obit in the *Times* which I will send you, saying that he had suffered a heart attack on Friday and that Sachie was with him at his death. What a sad ending, and yet I am glad that it came before it became even sadder, It will be another break for you, and you will miss having him at hand, as it were, even though it was painful to visit him. For Sachie it will be a true blow, although perhaps not so much so as Edith's death was. But he will feel frightfully alone. He will need your friendship more than ever.

Yale has had this noon, I understand, a so-called mill-in, when students milled around the halls of the Treasurer's office after being refused admission to Woodbridge Hall. About sixty of them. It lasted only three-quarters of an hour before they were told to leave, and left. I was surprised for only last night they had the second of the open mass meetings, the SDS didn't come off well in the votes on the measures presented, and I would have thought they would let well enough alone for the moment. Yale, I fear (tho I cross my dingers) is too conventional for violence to be admired. Last night I was handed a pamphlet by a student, with a "Would you like one of these, Sir?" This seems hardly the rhetoric of a revolutionary. We will have to set you up at Harvard where there is real blood and real thunder.

Your letters of the 2nd and 4th of May came today, and I answer at least quickly because of the half hour allowed me between my seminar and the English Department faculty meeting. This is really seriously bad news about the trust fund for Consie's husband. Surely the Ellerman trustees must be responsible for an accounting. I daresay they simply never cared. But it must have meant that Consie herself received less and less income all the time. Philip will be invaluable in straightening things out. I know how you must have fought to get your own control of funds. And mighty lucky for you that you did. Trustees can be blitheringly indifferent idiots. * It would be fun to have seen the load of things you sent to the White Elephant Sale. You are wise in not letting Ines stash away baskets and the like. Far better to present her with a new one if ever the right moment came. For the moment all baskets belong to the Elephants.

Am not sure I remember who Helen Scrivenor is.

Alas, I must fly.

Is solely one of my friends.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

6 May 1969 (2nd letter)

Dearest Fido,

I take advantage of a few minutes after the departmental meeting to continue a little farther with my earlier one to you. For tomorrow will be another busy day, and my mid-weeks seem busier than ever.

First of all let me thank you for the two bundles of books which came this morning, the first of your posting since I was with you. Mrs Peary's *Arctic Journal* looks like fun, and the photograph of her in long gown and parasol is a superb testimony to endurance. There has been nothing like it since dinner jackets in the jungle. I was pleased too to have the extra copy of the Sylvia Beach number, the copy of Walden I had given Hilda, and the other goodies. You are a good soldier to send them along.

To keep with the Arctic for a moment, I was able to send out only yesterday my letters to Denmark about the monument and last touches on the restoration. I think I told you that the sculptor had naturally enough asked for his fee, saying that a portion would go to the curator. Ingholt agreed that the curator might lose his job if this were ever heard of. Then the curator wrote giving broad estimates for the cost of casting the relief and installing it. Rather than become involved in several small payments, I wrote the Director of the National Museum saying that he must give the full and official approbation of the Museum for the relief, and then pay the bills as from the Museum (although I would reimburse him) since it was the Museum who was doing the restoration and installing the relief as a part of it. (In truth I want them to bear any criticism for the relief, since it would be so easy to shift over to the shoulders of "that American." The Museum and Havsteen-Mikkelsen can decide what a proper fee is and how it should be distributed. I cannot get involved in that.

Do I take it that there still might be a chance of your going out for the dedication in July if there is one? It would wonderful for us of course, and you and Susan could take the walks together that I'm not up to. Since the restoration is indirectly due to your arousing my interest in eskimos and then in Vikings, no one more appropraitely could be there. If there were any ceremonies or little banquets you could slip away into your basket and no one would mind. But all of this is conjectural of course and in the future.

I begin to get the hang of this new machine and rather like it.

AT LAST! We have finally tracked down the Henty-Jackson things, which had been missing for so long. And now it is at the New Haven Customs Office where I shall go at 9 a.m. on Thursday to open it all for inspection. How I wish you could be here to go through the things with me and see just what is there in the way of books. I will have to fight out the matter of custom fees, but presume this can be settled amicably.

And now again I must hurry. Susan wants to eat early, for she is instructing a garden club tonight in Japanese flower arrangements. They will bring them and she will critiſe (constructively) what they have done.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

My graduate seminar (this time the first of two on Emily Dickinson ) is finished and I have a free moment or two before I have to go to the senior dinner at Jonathan Edwards College. Alas I have been able to go to the college so seldom this year that I feel I must make this gesture. Alas, too, my time between was cut into by a series of excursions to see if I could locate my missing raincoat. I must have worn it to the campus in one of the rain-forecasted days last week, and because it was never actually raining I therefore left it behind at some spot or other. Still, I never go anywhere and have checked what must be most spots. Only the barber shop remains, and this is closed on Wednesday. I saw nothing when I peaked through the window, but they might just have put it away once it had been unclaimed for a day or two.

Tomorrow morning I make my trip to the customs office for the Jackson books. It has taken over two months for them to get from New York to New Haven, or at least they were unknown wherever one inquired. How long they have actually been in New Haven I don't know, but suppose I will know when they charge me for storage. I rather doubt that they will claim anything as duty but one never knows.

The attempted seizure of a building yesterday fizzled out as nothing, and when the students were told that disciplinary action would be taken they left the building. The issue was ROTC and the SDS were fools to bring the matter up after it had been voted down three times in public meetings. I only hope their tactics continue to be foolish. Today I am told a group of art and architecture students paraded, asking for higher fellowships. They may well deserve them, I don't know. At the moment the mood is for protest, and as you say everything of that sort ought to be encouraged.

Have been doing reasonably well if the beginning of reading end-of-the-year graduate and undergraduate papers. But they seem endless, and in addition there are papers for the German habilitation that I must go through.

Susan was delighted last night with Mrs Peary's costumes, and actually discovered one relevant illustration that I missed completely. The book is a real find!

Your letter of the 3rd arrived today--that of the 4th came yesterday, so this fills in the details. Thank you for letting me see a copy of your letter to Helen, and her letter to you. It is important to know just what was said.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

8 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

This is one of those days when absolutely everything goes wrong. It began by being rainy and yet not rainy, not rainy enough to remedy the dry days so far as the plants are concerned, but if we are not really to have rain let us have sun. Then as I started out I realised I did not have my keys or fountain pen, got out of the car and went back upstairs to an empty dresser-top. Ah, I said, I must have left them in the office last night. I got the janitor to let me in, since it was before Mrs H's arrival hour, but the desktop was empty too. Then I noticed that I had on the wrong brown suitcoat to match the trousers, but could not go home to get my keys and pen out of the right one for I had no way of getting into the house. (Susan has gone to New York; I shall have to be sure she is back before I go home or I am locked out.) Fortunately there is an extra key to the office; it can be yours when you come. So I was able to leave for the Railway Express where a customs man was said to arrive at 9. I got there only to find he was not due until 11, and I had an appointment at 10:30. But, I said, let us locate the Henty box. We have no record of it they said (as they had correctly said earlier in another postoffice building where I went first). But I am told it is here. Much search to no avail. Finally a new face appeared--- why it's over there! Then: but there's no reason for you to come; the inspector will simply open it and you can pick it up tomorrow. So back I went and at noon came the message that I must after all appear, but the inspector was just then leaving. Call, they said, the main office and arrange for a man to come this afternoon. I called and an entirely new snarl appeared. They needed the records I had sent to Yale. These were obtained by Mrs H. They needed a detailed inventory of what was contained. But surely, they said, no one would send goods valued at over £2,000 pounds for insurance without an inventory? Otherwise how would anyone collect insurance? They had a point there but I had no inventory, so score one against Jackson or Pickfords. Now I am to write a letter detailing the inventory as well as I can reconstruct it from the early correspondence, and fill out declarations (books may well be non-deductible, they explain, but Crimean war medals certainly are! (???)), and go down again first to the customs office and then make another appointment for the inspection, and one hopes that by the end of next week (quite literally) by the end of next week (quite literally) since there are only certain days when the customs officials go to the post rather than to ships) I may know what the boxes actually contain. Pitifully I whimpered the request that they unpack it with me and see what was inside. No, they said firmly, we must know ahead by declaration what to expect.

Jay Leyda, who worked on Eisenstein and whose film of Eisenstein clips you helped to make possible, is here for a year, having just returned from East Germany and a nervous breakdown. He is an outpatient, he says, at the mental hospital here, but has no confidence in himself any longer. But is to teach a course on the film next year if he recovers enough. I am a little appalled at the thought of having to help him talk out things, even without analytic limits, but of course to reject him for my own convenience would be to deepen his lack of confidence.

And oh yes, I made my last searches for my missing raincoat and can only surmise now that someone has a new raincoat and I don't. A pity.

After lunch I went downtown, took some stock certificates to the brokers to be sold and the proceeds given to Yale from which to pay the expenses of my office. It is now a year since I established the fund and the well needs new water. Then deposited a royalty check to your account and one to Hilda's.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

and transferred from both the money owed for last year's taxes.

Then back to Yale for the only bright spot on the day's horizon. The container for the sunken garbage pit by the kitchen door had long since rotted, and I discovered that they no longer manufactured containers of this sort. But we like it, and the sunken pit is there in the asphalt paving, and the pit is really unsuited to being a flower holder. So I found a sheet metal worker at Yale who said he thought he could put a new container into shape using the old rim. I brought it down this morning, gave it to him at 20;30 and at 2:30 he phoned me to let him put it in my car. This is a true triumph and I shall present it to Susan for Mother's Day on Sunday.

Your letter of the 5th arrived this morning. I did not take the matter of the gift house seriously but simply passed this along. You had spoken of the possibility of simply shutting up the house again as you once did, and I agreed with you that this would be wiser than trying to keep it running through the worst of winter. I'm glad you're planning to.

I wonder if your Grace will actually reach you. If she doesn't you may want to think of going to her for a bit next winter.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Hard rain all today, and although the shrubs rejoice (and I
for them) it is not so comfortable for the average man. Still I went
bravely to the gymnasium for my exercises and listened to a description
by the massager of the original VE-Day which he thought was today. I
thought it was the 8th. He was in a Paris hospital, having been wounded
ten days before, but managed to slip out on a crutch. Of course I re-
member London, riding the lion in Trafalgar Square, having my car stolen,
and rejoicing with you and Hilda that the war was over. But how short a
time there was until Hilda's new war began! And yet how long ago it all
seems, as though one had forgotten the vividness of the scenes; over
twenty-five years since I went to London and had my first blitz.

A good part of today too has gone to the Henty shipment. I
went to the Customs with an inventory drawn up insofar as I could con-
struct one. This seemed to fit, although it took hours of consulting
books of regulations and defining Henty. Finally I was sent to Railway
Express again to get a certificate that all their bills had been paid,
took this back to the Customs, and now it is arranged the packing case
is to be delivered to the library, arrangements made for an inspector
to go there and open it with me. Some time next week one presumes.

For once there was a good t.v. evening, the first shows we
have watched in a month. But you would have liked the first, beginning
a series, -- this on the antarctic penguins and seals. Beautiful photog-
raphy and done with a sense of humor. The second was on the early
flights of the Wright brothers, Bleriot and Lindbergh.

Your letters of the 5th and 6th came today, through in very
swift time indeed. It is good news that Elsie may escape any penalties
as well as obviously having escaped all injuries. Fortunately there
seems to be no delayed response, I gather. * A good letter from Horace;
he is in good spirits, I think. * At the meetings I spoke of, anyone
could speak and often did--whether student or faculty or citizen. You
would have had your chance. I shall take you to one of these "open"
meetings some time if you like the idea. * Glad you have had a chance
to see Ruegg; he will be off soon to the States I gather. I hope we
will be able to see his wife and himself if they can spare a moment.

A yellowback came also, so that your report of Marjorie's
sales and her letters and others to you about her book complement each
other. I imagine the reason for the hardcovers doing so well originally,
is that friends are usually the first to buy and they always go for the
more expensive edition, as a sort of compliment. But you are absolutely
right in thinking that the summer trade is more apt to go for the cheaper
edition, as I would myself for a book of summer reading. She certainly
has been active, and I do hope she gets some reviews.

They promise rain for most of tomorrow also. Susan will be
pleased, her shrubs are thirsty.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

10 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

I was very dutiful last night and read steadily at Emily Dickinson's poems, so that I was able to finish them this morning. There are some 1600 of them so the task was no slight one. But the experience of going at them chronologically was useful; poems became redefined by context. At any event having asked the graduate students to do this, I can face them without inner shame.

We did take a few minutes out to go through the slides from last spring's trip. The sequence of Philip's house (as from the exterior) came out very well indeed. A pity it was not later in the spring, but of course his gardens can never vie with those of the Boys.

Rather to my bewilderment, yesterday's mail had a letter from Mary Hotson enclosed with a paperback copy of TODAY'S MARTYRED CHURCH TORTURED FOR CHRIST, by the Rev. Richard Wurmbrand. On the cover she has written "Return to N. Pearson." Her letter begins, "The other day I was rereading your essay on 'The Nazi-Soviet Pact....', and with the invasion of Czechoslovakia on top of that, I felt sure you would like to read the thrilling little book, and get it around to others." She goes on some length about the author who is, she says, to speak at Yale. Then about their own trip to Russia. And that Leslie's book will be finished this summer. But you know all this from the letter from Leslie to you (card, rather) in the last yellowback. Would you like me to send you the booklet?

Your letter of the 7th came through rapidly. I remember now that you said Zurcher's was to move. I shall be glad I took a farewell morning coffee at the old site in March. One seldom gets used to a new mise-en-scene for an old ritual. * Military service is the chief squeak of the students, but those at Yale divided fifty-fifty as to whether it should or should not be allowed (without credit) on the campus. I myself like the Marines' system best-- they crowd everything in to a couple of months each summer and let the students alone the rest of the year. * I do understand about the Kenwin money, and only passed the other information on as a curiosity. I myself have a hunch that the Eurohotel might work out well for a bit or a stopgap anyhow. And it is after all convenient, a real factor to me at any rate, when I consider my goings and comings. * I am a little troubled that David Scott has resigned from the directorship of the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington, having quarreled, the paper says, with my friend Ripley. I can guess that it may have to do in fact or symbol with Dillon's wanting balls to be held in the main gallery, where an inaugural ball for Lincoln took place. Poor David thought he was running a gallery, and my sympathies are at least a little with him. But my worry comes from the fact that it was Scott who was planning the Romaine Brook show and publication of her memoirs. Will his successor? Perhaps, because of David Bruce's influence and the substantial gifts of Natalie Barney's mother to the Smithsonian. I hope so for Romaine's sake.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

When I wrote you yesterday I forgot to mention that another
two bundles of books had come in from you. The Cooper I had once given
Hilda; the catalogue of the Paris show of friends of Sylvia; the newest
issue of Poetry Review, and the very interesting copy of Jesse Agee's
Amid Greenland Snows, an account of the missions, which I am particularly
grateful for. I still have a hunch that the Moravian missionary records
have not really been gone into thoroughly. But I believe they may well
be in East Germany. Isn't Moravia there?

I forgot too to say that I received a printed announcement
of a memorial service for Victoria McAlmon who had died on April 22nd,
I believe in a nursing home where she had been for several years after
a stroke or series of strokes. (She was as tough as they come.) She
was a little over 90 years old. The "inurnment", as the announcement
read, took place in Minneapolis. A new word for me but I understand
it, at least. Poor Victoria, she really considered herself as Bob's
mother or at least guardian. He in his turn, poor thing, resented
this and was scared of her. She really wanted to rule the roost, and
I doubt that there was room for either cock or hen on the roost with
her.

Keep your eye open especially for the Times Literary Sup
for 8th May which contains a full two pages on Jocelyn by an Olivia
Manning. This will help his memory I think, though I have had time only
to skim the article and am not sure of its tone. I wonder if Rota has
done anything about going ahead with a volume of his essays; I rather
suspect that he was wrong in wanting me to do an introduction: -- just
at this moment the touch of American might well blemish the book.

We went properly to a garden party at the end of yesterday
afternoon, and then to the Lawn Club for dinner so that Susan wouldn't
have to cook, and afterwards played bridge with the Martzes (he is a
professor of English).

This morning we were to have prepared for a picnic at the shore,
Mother's Day serving as an excuse for the various families to assemble. But
we woke up to rain, and although the rain later stopped, a phone call to
the Hobblitzelles, who live now on the Point, confirmed that it was cold
and windy. So we have asked the grandchildren and young Susan (Liz cannot
come) to Goodrich Street for dinner so that we can at least use up the
steak. Later I realised that this eased out another invitation we had
accepted for a buffet supper to meet the new officers of the International
Student Center (of which I was a founder), but I am grateful for this ex-
cuse. And, let me whisper it, grateful also for not having to spend so
much of the day at the shore. For already I have read the long chapter
of a habilitationsschrift in German, which I am supposedly supervising for
a visiting German scholar (it is on Bradley the philosopher on whom Eliot
wrote his own dissertation at Harvard); have then put together all of the
weekly reports by graduate students which I must now grade; dictated
another letter or two, and otherwise made hay while the sun does not shine.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

12 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Exhausted after an almost solid day of interviews with the foreign visiting research fellows. Alas, I have rather had to hold them off this year, so they are now solemnly being summoned for conferences. I am only sorry I haven't been able to do more for them, but my schedule this year has been more unmanageable than ever. And perhaps I tire a little more quickly than I once did.

I took Susan to the shore briefly, yesterday, after a sandwich at home. Apparently the other families went ahead with their picnics, but the wind did blow and it was cold and we were glad not to have had the steak chilled before it reached our mouths. However I was encouraged to see that the new stone low wall terrace had been completed, so now all we need is some furniture for it and a coat of paint again over the wood deck. But the stonemason can move on to build the seawall, for the winter waves have washed away still more of the soil. I am unhappy to have even a low wall, but there is no choice if we want any soil at all. Once that is done he can move to reveal the stones outside the garage and in the lower court.

No letter from you today, but the flow has been steady and I cannot complain when a Saturday's mail, as this time, had something in it for me.

An airmail envelope came from the Danish National Museum with three black-and-white pictures of Brattahlid and the relief, but no letter accompanying it. I suppose there is not yet time enough for me to hear a reply to my queries, and that this is only a still later part of the cabled promise of so many weeks ago.

Long telephone calls from CBS in New York as to whether I would be willing to testify in a suit Charles Norman is bring against the System for what he calls the plagiarism of his biography of Pound by a Chodnoff who did a three-part biographical account of Pound on their system. Chodnoff took a law degree at Yale and I actually helped him with the series, which (you may recall) contained a fine tribute to Hilda. But in the end it turned out that the trial is not likely to be heard until after I have left for Japan next February. Which is, after all, just as well.

I spoke with Horace yesterday on the phone. Patrick is back and had been with them for the weekend, had had a wonderful time, and been taken by another publisher for a weekend at All Soul's. And I think that would be fun; it is a great compliment to Pat. Horace thought he had made good contacts in a publishing sense.

It has been cold today and windy. But I warmed up at the beginning by making my appearance at the gymn.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

My last undergraduate seminar for the Spring Term is over, and now I need only face correcting their papers thus far. Tomorrow is my final graduate seminar. But oh so much still ahead in other ways. Other than preparing for a lesson on Faulkner, I have been reading a senior honors thesis on James, Wharton and Fitzgerald. One-third of that still to go.

Yesterday afternoon another package of books arrived, for which I forgot to thank you. *The Blue Guide for Northern Spain*, Ernst Herrmann's *Das Nordpolarmeer*, and an extra copy of Hilda's *Tribute to Freud*. For all of which my thanks now A card came also yesterday, at Goodrich Street, from Perdita as from the Greek Isles. They seem to have been enjoy themselves, save for Istanbul which they found sinister. Thank her, for they must be with you almost as you receive this letter. I am glad they can be there, for your sake.

Your two letters of the 9th arrived this morning, and that of the 8th came this afternoon. I will already have written you about Osbert's death, and like Sir Gavin I wrote to Sachie. Naturally I cannot claim to have been in the Guards together with him, as Sir Gavin was, but still ... I suspect the Memorial Service will be interesting and I wish you might go. But of course all will depend on when it is to be. * Many thanks for the additional snapshots.

I thought of the account of Kurt Wolff only in terms of his career; Helen of course used to be closer to you than he was. I knew him better. He was never a publisher of what I should call classical German literature, but particularly, at one time, of expressionist writers and always of avant garde. Only of course these are now yesterday's avant garde.

Your visit with Grace sounds unusually interesting, especially when she could tell you so much about what is going on in the Union. It must be a world very different from anything I am used to. She seems to have become well adjusted, and your mind must be much more at ease about her. I remember your telling me about Walter's shrewd analysis about the consequences of her mother's death.

I don't mean to go on about the situation with *The Snowflakes*, for as I told you at Kenwin (and of course didn't really need to) any decision is yours. But I do want you to understand that I have never tried to argue as Helen's agent (as you sometimes infer), for I am not an agent at all for anyone. I have from the beginning of your second career as a writer never done more than to help as best I could to see published books which I admired, by Hilda and yourself whom I loved. I have never touched the royalties which came from either of you, so that profit has hardly been a consideration to me nor on that basis whether books were published or when, except in terms of their reception. I doubt that I was actually of much help, but it always pleased me to think I might be. As an intention it was at least pure. At any rate that it why I cannot sign myself otherwise than as

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday afternoon another package of books arrived, for which I forgot to thank you. *The Blue Guide for Northern Spain*, Ernst Herrmann's *Das Nordpolarmeer*, and an extra copy of Hilda's *Tribute to Freud*. For all of which my thanks. A card came also yesterday, at Goodrich Street, from Perdita as from the Greek Isles. They seem to have been enjoyign themselves, save for Istanbul which they found sinister. Thank her, for they must be with you almost as you receive this letter. I am glad they can be there, for your sake.

Your two letters of the 9th arrived this morning, and that of the 8th came this afternoon. I will already have written you about Osbert's death, and like Sir Gavin I wrote to Sachie. Naturally I cannot claim to have been in the Guards together with him, as Sir Gavin was, but still .... I suspect the Memorial Service will be interesting and I wish you might go. But of course all will depend on when it is to be. * Many thanks for the additional snapshots.

I thought of the account of Kurt Wolff only in terms of his career; Helen of course used to be closer to you than he was. I knew him better. He was never a publisher of what I should call classical German literature, but particularly at one time of expressionist writers and always of avant garde. Only of course these are now yesterday's avant garde.

I don't mean to go on about the situation with *The Snowflakes*, for as I told you at Kenwin (and of course didn't really need to) any decision is yours. But I do want you to understand that I have never tried to argue as Helen's agent (as you sometimes infer), for I am not an agent at all for anyone. I have from the beginning of your second career as a writer never done more than to help as best I could to see published books which I admired, by Hilda and yourself, whom I loved. I have never touched the royalties which came from either of you, so that profit has hardly been a consideration to me nor on that basis whether books were published or when, except in terms of their reception. I doubt that I was actually of much help, but it always pleased me to think I might be. As an intention it was at least pure. At any rate that it why I cannot sign myself otherwise than as

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

My last seminar for the year is over. Now I have only endless papers
to correct. I shall begin by coming back to the office after dinner. Susan wants
to go to a meeting of the Orchid Society (her first in a year or two) but I have
begged off. One can only correct so many papers at a time, yet the sooner they are
out of the way the better.

No letter from you today but a yellowback came. I have gone through
it; alas, most are letters from me, and the greater part of the rest are ones I
saw while I was at Kenwin. But they remind me. One was the letter from Catha
asking for the book on psychiatry for her friend. I wonder if she ever received
it. I sent it airmail to her within two days of getting back, and an accompanying
letter saying I was doing this as for you. But presumably she will have written
you to thank for it. I am merely curious.

It is nice that Barbara Jordan still likes her car. These two letters
seemed somehow a little quieter as though more exhausted. And well she might be.
How patient and kind and good she is to her mother. Rose Odle seemed well settled
in her new house, and that was the total of the yellowback.

A letter came from Horace telling of a review of Marya's book just out
in the *Southern Review*. By Marya's book I mean her *Collected Poems*, and so the re-
view seems sadly delayed. But I can assure you no less gratefully received by the
Gregories. I shall try to read it in the Library. I do not subscribe. Indeed I
have been cutting down on my subscriptions, especially to magazines I seldom
have time for. On the other hand it is hard otherwise to keep up with the occasion-
al appearance of something interesting. As for example a new installment of
Robert Duncan's book on Hilda.

I had a phone call from a Baltimore man now in New York, who is work-
ing on Paul Robeson. I have had letters from him before. He says he has correspond-
ed both with you and Kenneth. He wanted to come up Sunday to go over the Border-
line clippings. But I said no; Sundays could not be given up. I either play or do
my own work. Not give up the day to serving his needs. At this season especially
with all those papers to get out of the way.

By the time this reaches you so will Pup and John. Give them our love,
and our greetings to Ines. I hope the season for snow has now long since passed.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

A day highly involved with Henty. Almost as though in response to your letter of the 11th which arrived an hour after my Henty-day began, in which you write, "I long to hear news of the Jackson-Henty arrivals." As I think I wrote you yesterday, my secretary had had no luck in getting answers from the Railway Express. So immediately after breakfast I drove there myself. They recognized me of course. "That box? Why we took it to Yale a couple of days ago!" And so it proved when I went on to the Library and found it there. Going to my office I phoned the customs, and quite unbelievably they sent some one immediately. So before my first appointment at 10 the case was unpacked and passed without duty. Of course could not examine each book but did open to the title page now and then. The books are in excellent condition, indicating that many of them might well have been the copies sent by the publishers to Henty. It is hard to say however how many of these are first editions and how many are later but pristine. I saw some of each sort. Now will come the process of checking them. At first I thought the personal things had been left out, but later I saw that an envelope had been included. This held several photos of Henty, but not the one on the Egret, a number of genealogical charts, one letter from Henty to Phyllis Jackson, and miscellaneous clippings of which many were about the Australian branch of the family. A number of things I rather expected, in view of what Mrs Jackson had sent for the Grolier show, but all that is here is nice to have. And of course you already had sent along the pennant of the Egret.

Many thanks for your letter. It is exciting to think there might be a possibility of your going to Brattahlid, for the only hotels are old army barracks and there is no dressing for dinner. If there should be one dinner you could always duck it. Otherwise the wisest would be trousers. Now that they have helicopters I want to fly out over the icecap, and perhaps take a quick helicopter trip back to Hvalsey so that Susan could see it and I could get one or two pictures I ought to have, as from the heights above. A day there this time. Then I want to go by boat way up the Ericsfjord to its end, just to see the sites of the other houses of Eric's neighbors. Quite a little hiking but one could do it or not. I suspect the officials if any would go back at once to Denmark or Godthaab. My idea would be to have an unofficial week afterwards. For I shall not be likely ever to go again. But I must remind myself that I have heard nothing, actually, from the Danish Museum, so there well be no relief and no dedication. If all is over that is to be over, I might still like to go just to see. Thank you for your offer to help, but I have reserved funds enough (I surely hope) to take care of the costs. This is my one fling in this direction; perhaps my substitute for palazzo and chateau.

I am terribly pleased that the visit from Grace has proved to be so interesting. And that she and Mrs Mackenzie worked out well as co-guests. Quite seriously why don't you think sometime of going to see Grace for a fortnight, with perhaps a side trip or two for you on your own. A safari to the game preserves for example. It would give her both joy and confidence to have you come out; and it would be a seriously interesting experience.

You have won a complete triumph of mystification. I picked up the clipping eagerly which you sent "about the Harvard riots from the Gazette" asking me to read it as "a sample of what the responsible papers here feel." But I cannot decode the clipping about "L'escargot filiforme", unless you meant to imply that responsible Swiss papers don't feel anything about Harvard riots? We do. And are shocked and troubled, just as we are about the resignation of the Supreme Court Judge under such circumstances. Will he return to our firm of Washington lawyers?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Just left were two French teachers, one from Lyon and the
other from Bordeaux. They were one half hour behind their schedule, and
so their quarter hour was hectic. They are here on a quick trip to
"survey." Originally I was to served these two, from a total of ten, tea.
But being pressed I did not try. My only regret is that since I was
waiting for them so long I did not dare begin anything.

17 May 1969

Dearest Fido again,

At the moment of typing the last key above, I let out an
anguished cry. For it was 10 minutes to 5, and I remembered that I was
to have fetched my car from the garage after lunch. And that if I did not
arrange for it by 5 I would have no car at all until today. So I phoned,
the garage sent a man around to pick me up to take him back. And since we
had to leave in evening clothes a few minutes after 6 for a dinner in honor
of the retiring Dean of the Graduate School, I kept straight on home. (I
had left my car to have the snow tires removed and summer ones put on.)

The dinner was pleasant but with many many speeches. However
another duty has been done. This morning starting at 9 I helped to give
two oral examinations in English literature for the doctorate. Both passed
I am glad to say, but I sometimes think the examiner is the one really on
trial. Now I can begin to grade papers, prepare a talk to give at the Mark
Twain Memorial Monday morning at the dedication of the billiard room, and
otherwise get ready for a week which will be hectic and hell.

But let me get back to things concerning you. If I do not finish
them all in this late-morning letter I can perhaps pick up later in the day, or
tomorrow.

Oddments: Hilda's hymnal arrived a couple of days ago, for which
my thanks. Today, fodor's *Portugal* came. For which again my thanks. I think
I told you I bought, and it has now arrived, a copy of *Priests Peters and Pussens*
by O.B., a presentation copy of his first book. I thought to add it to your
nearly complete collection of his later books. Sometime ago I got another
early book. It might eventually please him to think there was a complete
collection of his things available in the States. And he belongs as a part
of your "circle."

I enclose a clipping of another restoration which we can visit
in the fall when we go to Horace. I think I drove you by the outer mill
when we went North once in search of the Van Courtalndt manor. At any rate
I shall be interested to see what they have done.

Yesterday when I had begun the letter to you, yours of the 12th
and two of the 13th arrived ensemble. We too have had superb weather but
not warm enough to tan the navel. * How odd that you ever got Sachie's cable.
Things do not differ anywhere in the world. A Ruth Stefan (writes novels and
poems) had invited us to Greenwich for dinner today. A week ago Friday I
wired her New York apartment saying we couldn't. (Too much to do, really).
So in midweek she phoned asking politely what our decision was. The telegram
had never been delivered.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

In a way I rather sympathize with Sachie and Georgia in saying no letters, please. For I suspect they would feel they had to answer each one personally. In the States it is permitted to send out cards, printed with "Mrs W. Bryher is grateful for your sympathy in the death of her beloved Tigerli." But for most smaller families one doesn't, but writes by longhand. I'm sorry I had written before I knew, but I hope he will understand and simply not acknowledge. If you want to, and are writing him, do direct him to silence.

But at least your own cable from Helen eventually reached you. I did not know she had sent it or that she was going to. She must have gone down on bended knees to the Power to be able to bring it out any time at all in December. I imagine she may be able to start getting the copy she has ready for the printer, and will be grateful for the foreword when you can send it.

In your letter of the 14th, which came this morning, you give the good news of sending along the first bits of the memoirs. The title page doesn't matter, but I remember a rather extensive dedication. So be sure of that. And I completely forget whether you included the explanatory quotation from which *Jigge of the Watch* originally came. It is so long ago that I read what I have read of part Two. I will pull Mrs Hamerman off all else and put her to work on the memoirs.

Have not had a chance as yet to check the Henties, but hope to begin this weekend. I think I told you that out of sheer necessity I have put on deposit (not as gift) in the Rare Book Library where they will be stored for me, all periodicals. With some 57 volumes of the *Boy's Own*, for example, there simply wasn't shelf room at Goodrich Street. At least I have a couple of shelves more for the additional volumes of Henty. By having them in the Library I shall have a research assistant go through them and catalogue all contributions by the "known" names. No one has ever done this, and it will be invaluable. We still, for example, don't know where the Henty mss appeared in print. Actually for the moment I have more than an assistant, for I am hiring Jay Leyda thru the summer to work for and with me. I will have him catalogue the books in Hilda's library for example. He is recovering from a breakdown and the work and a small income will help to give him confidence. I pay him out of the American Literature Research Fund I established to pay the office expenses. Mrs Hamerman gets paid out of this, my typewriters are charged to it etc. I have just sold some stock to replenish the till. Or rather given the stock to Yale, since this eliminates any capital gains taxes.

V.E. Day experiences had better wait for another letter. But meanwhile you have your own victory with the clippings. I have missed them. I like the idea of a dress rehearsal for nudes. I wonder if an undress rehearsal is required for the "Cheerful, Energetic Girl"--though one would think clothing was a requisite for the Hebrides in gales. I only thought of the "other hazards." And I pray you what did Scottish women formerly wear when they climbed ladders. Quite seriously, did they wear trousers in the old days, or simply stay off ladders?

Hope your visit with Perdita is going well. Give her my love from a part of what I send you.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Have been spending the golden hours of the day at the office,
correcting student papers. The trouble with this season of the year is
that everything has to be done all at once, and in addition to academic chores
I must be in Hartford tomorrow and again on Tuesday. And in New York on
Wednesday and on Thursday. As for the papers I have done only three sets
so far, and must get at least one more done this afternoon in addition to
preparing my talk for the dedication of the Billiard Room at the Mark Twain
Memorial in Hartford. That is at 11:15 tomorrow morning, followed by a
luncheon. The Coe family from New York, whom I initially persuaded to
pay for the room will be up. I believe altogether they have put some
$25,000 in it as a memorial for their mother. Their graddfather, H.H.
Rogers, took over Mark Twain's portfolio and got him out of bankruptcy.
Rogers was a Standard Oil original investor. A good beginning.

I did however start out this morning by driving to the shore
to take a reading lamp Susan had bought in New York. To get it out of the
hallway at Goodrich Street where it stood in its packing case. The mason
has finished the bottom of the terrace and has almost completed the seawall.
I hate to have the wall, for it gives a formality to the former easy blending
of the shore into the grass. But the heavy seas each winter gnawed away at
the land and we had lost almost two feet so far. The wall is built a bit
away from the present edge so that we can reclaim some of what has been lost.

This afternoon Susan is hostess for a local tour of a local
equivalent of the National Trust Houses. Not at our house but at the university
Provost's. She receives the bus loads and explains the antiques. This is
not for me.

Going home for lunch, I idled a few moments by beginning to
hack the Jackson-Henty collection, against a list of a collection offered to
Yale which I had forme ly checked against ours. Of those this other collection
offered we lacked 7. Jackson-Henty had 3 of them in firsts; the rest were
much later editions. However of the Henty adult novels which I extracted so
as to give more room to the others, thanks to J-H I think we now have all six
titles where we had only 2 before. Which is a real advance. For the other
collection of 68 volumes, 61 of which were firsts the owner wanted $800.00. The
answer in any event was no.

Absurdly, I thought that two yellowbacks which arrived yesterday
were filled with the usual letters. As it turned out one was the first batch
of memoirs, the other the pictures. The pictures are superb, so are the
memoirs.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday was an exhausting one. I'm not quite sure just why I should have been so tired at the end of it, but last night I was good for nothing but reading and getting to bed early. Perhaps it was because I had forgotten the right book to take home Sunday, to use in preparing my dedication speech for the billiard room at the Mark Twain Memorial late Monday morning. As a result I went early to the office, read like mad, put my remarks together in note form, went home, fetched Susan and arrived at the Memorial a little after 11. What with one thing and another it was 1:30 before we went to the house of a Trustee for a gala lunch, four before we got back to New Haven. Then I had to get gas, arrange for my car to be inspected tomorrow and Thursday for spring cleaning, and go to the gymnasium. I felt too tired even to lift weights.

In a few minutes we leave again for Hartford, this time for the Memorial's annual dinner where I am supposed to introduce the speaker. But we will not stay for the reception afterwards. It is absurd to travel there two days running; but I had suggested the speaker and promised to introduce him, months ago. The dedication had to be scheduled when the Coe family could be there from New York.

As a result I had no chance to write you yesterday, altho your letters of the 15th and 16th were here for me to take home to read. Today an undated one, which looks like the 16th plus a second from the 16th came. So I am rich. But you will not be, I fear; since tomorrow morning I go to New York and will not be back until Thursday night. Tomorrow afternoon the American Academy of Arts and Letters (which I have not visited for several years) and on Thursday a meeting of the Council of Learned Societies--my last meeting with them.

I am delighted Perdita and John's visit has gone so well. And that she has chosen more things to go back with her. Time helps, and these are now from you rather than from Hilda. And as the children get older she becomes, one suspects, more domestic. Especially in terms of the new house which apparently suits them completely. I was sure it would. I much admire their courage in driving-it-one'sself but the journey from Cetona must have been immensely simplified by their own car. Islay's mother must really change life for the Boys and especially when there are guests. Too, other guests will make things even more difficult. Poor lady I'm sure it means everything to her to be part of the scene again, but Kenneth must feel inhibited to have to fit all conversation and innuendo to her taste.* NYU has a good faculty, and is hippy rather than radical. I myself would not care for Greenwich Village but of course you and I have had our share of all this and no longer are educated by trying everything. I doubt that music is the only attraction of a big city for Valentine. * Sorry John's visit had to be so brief but at least you had a chance to see him and talk to him. And the chance to be alone with Pup must have meant everything to you. I am glad she could come. Glad too that she is keen to have you in late August and September, and again in England in October. The idea of taking her to Ireland would be a splendid one, she would like Ballinamona, and she could carry part of the burden of conversation. You might want to spend a few more days in Dublin just to give her a chance to see that. * I must say I don't blame you for wanting to hold on to Kenwin, if Niehans is really out to get the property at a bargain. Naturally I can't blame him for wanting to, for if one could add yours to his and then add the property to the other side one would have (except for the railway and the traffic and the new public park) a very impressively desirable acreage. As things now look you may well wish to hang on for a bit longer, and it doesn't really matter if this costs more than only

a flat would. You can't take it with you, and the satisfaction of not giving in to
him would be worth adjusting the account for in the final report you give to St.
Peter.

To return to earlier letters, -- no to go on with them. Do by all means
send clothing and the like in several smaller packages. To cope with the mail is
comparatively easy as compared to what I went through with railway express and the
customs. A nuisance to you to pack, but worth it for Pup's sake. On the other
hand I daresay a suitcase carried through British customs by hand would simplify
things at that end.

I enclose Sachie's note to me. Don't of course return. I am interested to
hear more about Osbert's will and to precisely whom the divided estate went. But
of course happy if something from the trust fund now goes to Sachie. Younger sons
in England do get such a rotten deal of it even now. My brother-in-law left all
his property to his oldest son, nothing to the girls or other boys. But how sad
that Osbert should perpetuate his latterday twists by a will which went even more
unfairly than just to the oldest nephew. However one sees this time and time again,
when an older person suddenly forgets years of devoted service such as Sachie has
given and transfers in a pique all to new favorites. I suppose all this follows
from the anger Sachie reported a few months ago when he said he was now barred from
Montegufoni.

Perhaps just as well that Pup wouldn't read *Snowflakes*, although I suspect
that the xerox was chiefly a dodge, since she reads endless mss for John. But loving
you as she does she would feel on trial for her reactions. She seldom comments on
your books or others by her friends, and this I think is the safest of all practises.

You are kind to look up these details for Miss Sameyn. I notice you always
abbreviate as Melle; whereas I was trained to do Mlle. Habits differ from country
to country, but the French themselves I think do Mlle, don't they? I ask only from
a desire to do the right thing.

You ask about the timing of your visit to New York. I should base this
entirely on what is best suited to you and Pup, and we can pick up at any time to
suit your convenience and hers. As we did this last September. The important date
for you to consider is where you want to be on your birthday. We would count it a
privilege and honor to have you with us, but I suspect that Perdita might feel hurt.
The 2nd is on a Tuesday and she might like to have you there with the children and
her weekend guests. It could be fun and this is after all a special birthday. Settle
it with her and as you wish. To repeat, we would be honored and happy if New Haven
seemed more convenient.

I had a pleasant note from Catha, which was nice of her.

I enclose another xerox, to be destroyed, which I thought might amuse you.
Margaret Carpenter was a great friend of George Dillon, a poet and formerly editor of
*Poetry*, who died recently. Among his papers she found a sonnet she thought addressed
to Millay whom Dillon, although years younger, was enamoured. Very sad, unrequited
love and the like. A good sonnet really; she sent me a copy of it. So she sent it to
*Poetry* who published it gratefully. Now it turns to be by my friend Bill Meredith. But
I never thought that if love was unrequited for him it was because of a girl, let alone
Edna St Vincent. It is all rather sadly amusing.

And now I must go home and dress and hie me to Hartford.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

To be away even for two days is to return to a full desk of mail, this time complicated by the pile of papers that must be graded more or less by Monday. Can ??

Part of the problem is to restore order to the desk, and so I began rather confusingly for you with my thanks for bundles of books which have come from Kenwin. I list them for the sake of your record, and the chance to put down my thanks. Carter's _Tomb of Tutankhamen_. Your _Beowulf_ as given to Elsie. Hilda's _Les Saintes Maries de-la-Mer et la Camarque_, whose precise history I have forgotten. A copy of a magazine, _Threshold_, with article by O.B. in it. Gisele Freund's 19th century French photograhy. Hilda's _Books on Egypt and Chaldea_, vol.3, of which I rather think I have the rest of the set. And my guide book to Sapin. For all of which my bows and thanks.

I had of course a great haul of letters, for which I too send thanks. One of the 18th, two of the 19th, and two of the 20th. It is like one or the other stopping in for a moment's chat before going back to work. Only with you it was returning to Perdita. I am delighted that the visit went so well. She does enjoy being with you, but alone. The card from you all in Zurich was most gay. I remember going to the museum with you and Susan; you were gathering notes on regional stoves for your Swiss novel. It was good to have Joan in, "with love", as family.

Poor Pup! Yesterday morning I phoned their house, not being quite sure whether it was last Friday or this when she was returning. John was still there, having been to a party the night before and having to get the children off to school. He was woe-begone at the disasters confronting him on his return, and Pup on hers. Firstly his assistant was leaving to take a job with Holt's, and he would be aidless. Then their house on Long Island had been broken into and vandalized. He had had to rush out to be interviewed by the police. The invaders had broken doors, I gather, and made a mess. The police were iridignant and felt all this a smirch on the town. Finally he had had a letter saying that "because of circumstances beyond their control" the camp to which Elizabeth and Timothy were to be sent this summer would not open. So something else must be found. He dared not write Perdita. (I am glad to say) for she could have done nothing. Tomorrow he is driving her to Choate and back again, since she would be tired. It is possible they may stop by here. They were to take Nicholas out to lunch. I was much interested in what John let slip, that this was to have been a special summer for Pup in which "she could finish up her writing." Perhaps at last she is back at it again, or rather of course she has been at it but now is getting ahead. I hope so; if she captures anything like the tone of her letters she should be immensely readable.

Your comments on the rents in Switzerland make them sound formidable.

I agree it might make good sense to go slowly in breaking up Kenwin. Surely I should not present it to Nihans. By now he will need more than hormones to keep erect much longer. But I am glad that you can keep an eye on him frisking in his garden and holding his own. But keep his hands off your property. In the end you can buy his, plus the house beyond him and have a site not to be compared with for a fifty-story-high apartment building. It will be a nuisance, but the problem of storing books will not need to be faced. You can be like Auden and make notes as you travel, but write when you are back at home again.

I am glad too you talked with Pup about a visit to Grace. Might not she go with you? If not giraffes you could content yourself again with monkeys.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Still no word from Greenland. I hope not to have stirred up a hornet's nest at the National Museum. I doubt that, remembering how slowly they always seem to move about anything. I wish I could make my own plans however.

No word from Ruegg as yet, and perhaps I will not. I imagine he will be rushed in on from every direction, and as with a megnet drawn simultaneously to every scenic and historical spot he wishes to show his wife.

What a nice idea to give Perdita a painting by Wipf, both for her sake and the Wipf's! Especially since John liked the painting also.

Valentine's concentration of study sounds somewhat separated from life, though I don't know whether it makes me say that as a teacher of English. Too great a devotion to music always frightens me, that is I mean when it becomes a concentration rather than a hobby. And Valentine is not professionally trained, I think.

I envy Pup her croissants. We like them too and they are almost impossible to get this side, at least away from New York. Brioche I have come to like less well, if one has to choose.

This must now get out to the mail. I sent you an advance copy of Cummings' *Letters* by surface. It was too heavy for airmail, and is in any circumstance an advance birthday present. I hope it arrives in time. Do not wait until September to read it. I have not, really, read it but bought it at a bookstore in New York. Harcourt, Jere Knight tells me, had a copy specially bound so that Mrs Cummings could see it before she died. She did, went over it carefully and then phoned them to thank them and say the photographs were not dark enough.

Many thanks for the eskimo clippings and Philip's letter.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

I stop my work on the grading of graduate student papers, so that I can post this to you before the last collection at HGS. I am not elated but at least have only two more sets of papers to do for them. Of course there are all the undergraduate ones still to come. And I must be off on Tuesday to Washington for my State Department seminar on modern American literature. How will I get the papers done! How even will I prepare for the seminar?

Last night at home I checked Mrs H's typescript of your typescript for chapter one of the memoirs. I am not quite sure I got one sentence but put it aside to read again before inquiring from you. It may be that a word dropped out. More likely it is my stupidity.

I really did have a chance for a longer than usual talk with Dorothy Richards at the American Academy. I searched and searched for her, knowing that she would be seated. Finally I found her at a table so immediately front that I had passed by each time. Both she and I.A. were pleased to have word of you and sent their love. Shortly however he and I were interrupted by a British novelist, Richard Hughes who had given the major address that afternoon on history and the novelist, and wanted to meet Richards. I joined with them for a bit, then talked to R.R. and finally left her to become a trio with I.A. again. Hughes is said to have given an excellent talk in which he said historians couldn't hold a candle to novelists (I believe his genre may have influenced him), but I couldn't make out what he was saying and so napped.

I took Jere Knight to dinner at the Yale Club (you met her once when Hilda was with us in Bethlehem and we visited Hilda's school), and then went with her to 4 Patchen Place where I had not been for many years. She has been living there (a widow herself) during the six months Marion Moorehouse (Mrs Cummings) was in the hospital, visiting her daily, taking care of her affairs and guarding the house. She is to be a sort of literary executor and wanted advice. I am hoping that Yale can buy enough to fill out their collection of his printed things. Harvard appropriately has the chief collection of notebooks, but it would be fun for Yale to acquire at least a characteristic manuscript of one poem. Cummings had left everything to his widow and she had, until a few weeks ago, left everything to her sister and nothing to Cummings daughter by his first marriage. But a new will changed this and all his property now goes to the girl. Cummings never really knew her very well, and was always careless about his succeeding families (well, women, for this was his only child). He only married Mariang to please his dying mother. Jere says his copyrights are doing fabulously well now and that Marion was comfortable in the last few years. She still however continued to receive the 3,000$ annual subsidy some individual had given them for many years, as well as the other allowances which patrons allowed. He really lived this way most of his life, first from his parents, then from admirers. The house at Patchen Place had not really changed since I was there 20 years or more ago, no thirty. Only perhaps a little tidier. Rather simple, a fine bronze bust of him by Lachaise, and then chiefly his own watercolors. And books.

It has been a cold dank day, and I am sorry for Pup on her trip to Choate. We understandably did not hear from her, so I imagine she went straight back. She may even want to go to Long Island to see what actually did happen at their country place.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

At least I've finished the graduate student papers. But have not even begun those by the undergraduates. And hardly begun my State Department tutorial for Wednesday. All of this doesn't make much sense but at least I could put away the volumes of 19th century American poets which had been stacking my desk because of the graduate seminar. And pay some bills, and dictate some letters, and in general prepare for my absence in Washington on the Tuesday and Wednesday.

Susan went to the shore yesterday with plants for her gardens there, and reported that the mason had finished all of his work:--the terrace, the seawall, and both patios in the side next to the garage. This is really a great blessing, and not only because I had thought in paying the mason's bill I was ante-ing for only a part of his work. I think I told you that I bought from Sloane's in New York a few chairs for the platform outside, which Susan had liked. Bit by bit we will be ready for the summer.

Today is overcast and cold again, bad luck for the local Arts Festival, on the Green. Roysce Smith reported disconsolately yesterday that the books were beginning to show the damp already. He has a display of local authors during the past year. I am always amazed at how many there are. I don't mean scholarly books only.

Susan thought you might be amused by the obvious confusion that must have existed in Calcutta when a boat with so motley a group of passengers capsized.

Three yellowbacks arrived, for which my thanks. Ethel seems remarkably unaffected by the accident. I shall be anxious to know what your reactions are when she pays you her visit. * One is glad that Sylva Norman can get away. But, sadly, I am glad not to be her host. * What a nice letter you had from Isobel Hutchinson. Have you ever actually seen her? It might be fun to pay her a visit sometime. * I am shocked that Kenneth's daffodils could have been stolen in this way. One would have thought the townsfolk would not even dare.

The reception at the Academy and Institute was, as I said, pleasant but somehow not very exciting for me. Marianne did not appear for anything, and I was told she was quite feeble now. Leonard Baskin and Peter Blume were the only artists I really knew. Warren and Eleanor Clark were there, but one sees them anyhow. John Ciardi had a long account of how prosperous he was. He has a better line as real estate operator than as poet I have always thought, although I got him his position at Rutgers which he held until a few years and royalties and lecture fees ago. Babette Deutsch was good to see, and I could explain why I had not thanked her for her *Collected Poems*. Richard Eberhart bustled about. Ralph Ellison was as pleasant as always. And Matthew Josephson as deaf as always. Mark Shorer was gushing and wanting to know why I wasn't on the platform. My answer was simple. I met Ginsberg for the first time; he was on the platform and had looked like a cross between a bearded Whitman and an orthodox rabbi, with a Oriental prayer rug instead of a shawl. But he was very gentle, said "Ah I know you because of Martinelli" and I rather think I might like him under the right circumstances. John Hollander, whom I also saw, and when asked I could say that his book of poems never had arrived, which accounted for my silence. Stephen Spender was effusive and apologized for not coming down from Westerly this spring; he comes again next year but I will be away. And then Muriel Rukeyser spent much time with me. "I think about you always," she said, and wonder about you, and who you really are." I said I did too!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

Hardly even a note, despite the fact that it is too early at the
office even for Mrs Hamerman to have arrived. I came back late last night after
dinner and an earlier having to be at the Old Morris House, of which Susan is in
charge for the Historical Society, for the annual reception there of the Society.
That took until 7:30 and then we had to eat.

I am truly unprepared for the State Department tutorial of recent
American literature tomorrow. By which I mean I haven't had a chance really to
review the books properly, and sketch out precisely how I am to fill the two and
a half hour session. I shall resort to prayer.

Your two letters from Zurich came yesterday, and you appear to have
filled the time well with Perdita. I was glad Joan could meet her, or had they
met before?

The 15th sounds fine for your arrival in the States. We shall be happy
to have you with us whenever and for however long fits your schedule. Certainly
I hope it can be for one period after Pup and another perhaps just before you go.
We might even be able to work in your trip to Montreal or to some other spot you'd
like to visit.

Certainly we will not be going to Greenland unless there is the førmai
dedication. I cannot afford, in any sense, to go simply to see Greenland again,
and only curiosity (I suppose) makes me want to be there for the dedication and a
last look.

I take an early afternoon bus to LaGuardia and the shttle to Washington.
Back tomorrow night.

29 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

My airport limousine arrived back in New Haven yesterday afternoon only at six, so I fear there was no letter to you. Indeed the day was so hectic that I should hardly have had enough energy even had I gotten back sooner. For I discovered I had forgotten the keys to my suitcase, so I retired as was, without toothbrush or the prospect of a shave or a clean shirt the next morning in Washington. The motel promised me a quasi-locksmith at 7, when I was to be called, but they neither called me (I woke up anyway) nor sent the repair man with anything other than a note to come to my room sometime in the morning. Finally however I got him shortly after eight, he opened the locks with a screwdriver (I wouldn't call them very secure, he said), and I managed to shave and redshirt just as Ambassador Jones called at the motel to take me to the seminar. I was breakfastless, but did manage to have a cup of coffee at his office before I met my 24 senior F.O. men to indoctrinate them in recent literature. I was at least properly dressed, I gathered, since the Ambassador reported to me in a shocked tone that the other attempted lecture had been given three years ago by a professor who turned up in a Nehru shirt. I wore a sincere Grieder.

Actually the meeting went very well, I thought. They listened well for an hour, and then after a coffee break (my second cup) they seriously asked sensible questions. In the end I was told it had been one of the two or three best sessions on any topic that year; and I think it was chiefly because the list was truly contemporary or at least truly relevant. My chief topics were the three bibles of the young, since WW Two; Black Humor; and Ethnic writing especially by Jews and Blacks. Much to my surprised when we returned to the Ambassador's office he proceeded to read me two poems he had written. He had, it also turned out, painted all of the canvasses hanging in the seminar room and outer office, so it was fortunate I had not commented on them.

He took me to lunch at the Metropolitan Club, and I was delighted to see David Bruce who had been ambassador to St James and my old wartime London boss in OSS. He has just retired from London to the disappointment of those who consider the present incumbent infra dog for the post. Bruce jumped at once into questions of what had happened to Romaine's ms, what he had thought wrong with it, and etc. Quite a remarkable feat of memory considering he had not expected to see me.

Your letter of the 23rd, 25th, 26th and 27th arrived today, for which my thanks. I phoned Prutting's office to find your letter had just arrived, been put on Prutting's desk but not yet opened by him, or rather read by him. The secretary had ordered the prescriptions sent to you so all should be quickly well on that point. If Prutting's carries out his present plans his vacation (if any) will be on July and he will be at the office all through August and September. Presumably with the exception of Labor Day. So if you want your poison-ivy shot you could go straight into New York and get them before going to Perdita's. But I see no reason for changing your plans; John said they would be able to find another camp for the two younger ones, and it wouldn't matter anyhow. If you don't want to be with them for your birthday, you should just say that you'd rather not have a family gathering. Pup will understand that it would be impossible for you to be there with the group and not have celebrations--the children wouldn't understand. Anyhow I think also better not to be there for Labor Day, and let them entertain all of John's group. Come to us. We'll plan a little ausflug somewhere, although perhaps after Labor Day when the crowds begin to think (I rather like that, altho I meant "thin"). I had had sneaking thoughts of Nantucket as a possibility.

Being
major
alright
in
ny.

I am beginning to be reconciled to your hanging on to Kenwin for a bit
longer but not to your trying to keep it open all winter. I say hang the cost
or you will hang yourself.

Am glad you are not trying to attend Osbert's memorial service. Poor
Philip I imagine does not really want to go so far as Sheffield, and I can't say
I blame him. Am I correct in thinking that he and Sachie don't hit it off particu-
larly well? It is just a feeling I have.

Nothing as yet from the Danish National Museum, but I did hear from
Havsteen Mikkelsen, the sculptor, thanking for his letter and copies of those from
me to Krogh and to Glob (the head of the Museum). He seems to understand my position,
or at least does not imply that I betrayed him. "I am anxious to get going, and hope
to hear from National Museum soon, that all is in order. You write, that you hope
this relief will be regarded as one of my major works, to which I reply that nothing
has occupied me as much as this and that I am certain that I could not have solved
the problem in any other way. It is true that it meant a great deal to me, that my
family history is a part of Greenland. Not only has my father's life been spent there,
but my grandfather Gustav Holm, who found the remaining population of East Greenland and
in 1884--the Angmagssalaites--was among the first to map that Norse settlement in
South West Greenland. As far back as I can remember I have heard of nothing but
Greenland, and I have sometimes thought that perhaps I was the son of Erik the Red."
I wonder when I will hear from the others.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

30 May 1969

Dearest Fido,

You have had to suffer (if indeed the absence of a letter is suffering) while I finished reading the last of the undergraduate papers in order to make out my grades before we head off to Massachusetts. And they are now done, though they cannot be forgotten for my desk is a bedlam and I shall have to pick it up and put my records in shape on Sunday.

There was no post today, it being Memorial Day and a public holiday; and since I shall be gone tomorrow I will not have heard from you until Monday. I only wish I were to be here for the rest of the day and tomorrow as well, for I must dictate some letters and begin the ongoing task of preparting my talk on "Australia and the Arts."

But the oldest child of a first cousin is to be married in Fitchburg, Mass., not far from Gardner. The grandson of my father's older brother whom my father cared for after he became ill, and acted as supervisor for his children and widow after he had committed suicide (wisely because of an incurable disease). I never cared much for either of the two children, either the girl who is the mother of the groom nor her older brother whom I used to think a pest and now drinks too much. But it is de rigeur that I should appear; otherwise I would be thought to scorn this occasion to which we were asked last Christmas. Only it takes place at 11 a.m. tomorrow, so we must start out this afternoon and go to a motel in Westminster for the night. I'd prefer that however to being with my sister and her housefull and my brother who has guests. I only hope they don't feel offended.

For give me then for this poor excuse, and there will be nothing tomorrow. Sunday I hope will be another story.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

Well, at least I am thinking of you today; though this note will hardly be ample proof. But what there was of the morning I worked at my desk-- putting the undergraduate papers into shape, entering grades in my own books and preparing for the papers to be returned to the students next week. Except to two who handed nothing in. I wonder if they have given up the idea of graduating this year?

Our trip to the wedding was pleasant, the weather was good, we found a very good motel in Wetsminster (next to Gardner) which may be the answer to our Gardner visits. For we can stay there and divide time between my brother and sister, and perhaps even have a bit of my time for my boyhood friends whom I never see now at all.

Between the wedding and the reception we went to the groom's home and had a family gathering which was both pleasant and defined by the necessary ending time. Dutifully we went to a rather dull reception where lunch was served, and then Susan and I started back to New Haven. We drove by way of Princeton Mass, where you went several times with me when I visited my mother, and saw what was left of the home after the fire. Her earlier room was completely destroyed and she would have been destroyed with it; her later room would have been all right although she no doubt would have been evacuated.

After lunch today we went to the shore to take some new porch furniture which had arrived and kept my car out of the Goodrich Street garage. Susan was also able to water her newly planted plants. I see that the builder still has a promised job or two to finish, and the painters have not come. So I will have to be on the phone tomorrow morning early.

Ruegg called this morning at breakfast time, back from trips to Washington and Montreal, and now wanting to come here. So they will arrive in early afternoon on Tuesday and go back after dinner. They fly back to Switzerland on Wednesday. I had thought, quite understandably, we would not see them!

graduates from Princeton next week. I believe he
on to Beyruth. As for the American government.
careers mixed.

is then to go to Cairo for some months of Arabic, and then
I hope I am describing the right grandson. I getbtheir

All love, Burman

Give my greetings to your guests as indicated.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

2 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I wait now for the Professor Bryer who is doing the bibliog-
raphy of Hilda. I spent this morning going over notes that might help him,
and after lunch went to her filing cabinets and withdrew what seemed relevant.
I can leave him with them tonight, for I should hardly want to set him free
in the filing cabinets themselves. As for myself I have only been able to
make a beginning with the Australian lecture, and Ruegg is scheduled to take
tomorrow afternoon and after dinner.

Today I had a letter from the Director of the Danish National
Museum, but not the letter I shall eventually have to have. "Thank you," he
says, "very much for your most kind letter of the 5th of May which I have
not answered until now because of various travels. It has not been possible
for me to get hold of Mr. Krogh or Mr. Havsteen - Mikkelsen after having
received your letter because one is on the Faroe Islands and the other in
Scotland. As soon as they are back I shall take care of all the questions
in the best way, but I can assure you that I completely understand your points
of view and I shall like to promote them. The National Museum is very grateful
for your initiative and help in connection with Brattahlid." I had dictated
a letter to the sculptor, and added a P.S. suggesting he inform Glob that he
at least is back in Denmark. Actually I think the whole situation may be to
the advantage of the restoration if only by the assurance to the Danes that the
credit belongs to them. —

At that point Prof Bryer arrived and I have been for the past
three-quarters of an hour with him, explaining the pile of material I have given
him to work over, about Hilda's pseudonyms etc. I fear I shall have to trap
you in a corner some day and get you to go over the pseudonyms in Close Up.
For example Henry Dobb, does sound a lot like H.D., in the first issue.

Three letters from you came today, for the 28th, 29th and 30th.
But what a lovely item you have on "Ladies in Green." I am ravished by the
account if not by her. Congratulations for spotting it, and I only hope there
will be a follow-up. * But how very sad for Ines; this will mark a real division
for her, and visits to sister or brother will not have at all the same tone of
homecoming. Her mother's life must have been at least partly in Ines; her
siblings will be content with the lives of their own families. At least you
are lucky to have Mme Moret. And I wonder if Lotte is not Germanically capable.
A sensible idea by the way to have Ines entertain her sister while you are in
the States. Elsie would have been horrified but your logic is splendid. *
If I am to sign the contract with Helen as before I shall have to make out a
duplicate of earlier contracts and send it along for you to sign first. But
alas not until next week's lecture is over, and I can become normal again.
This won't affect production at all, so no need to worry over that. As for
any queries I may once have had, I can then go through a copy and send you.
Certainly nothing much is inoulved, if anything. * Yes, the Richard Hughes
is the one who wrote *High Wind in Jamaica*, a book much admired but which I
never got to read. * No, I doubt that you would remember Jere Knight (Mrs)--
her husband was an author friend of mine, Eric Knight--who wrote The Flying
Yorkshireman, Lassie Come Home, etc. Killed early in the war. The memorial
service for Marion Moorehouse is on the 11th, the day of my alumni seminar.
Pup's letter a nice one as always. John had not told me about the man who
tried to cash forged checks in his name. One wonders of course if he will
try again. * I talked with Horace on the phone yesterday afternoon. Joanna
and tribe were there, busily weeding the *Gregory Rose* patch. The grandson

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

This morning was the most advanced course in the training of Flower
Show judges, and Susan was asked to prepare a Flemish arrangement--one of those
enormous displays that Dutch and Flemish painters liked to limn--for practise
judging and then criticism and correction of their verdicts by the teachers. Last
night she worked hard on it, and this morning I dutifully drove her in her station
wagon so that she could hold it upright on the floor. At 8:15 a.m., no less. Up-
stairs she darted with it and her tools. Dutifully I waited, for it was my under-
standing she was to come down, take me back to my car and then return to tuck the
arrangement in bed for the morning show. But at 10 a.m. I grew restless, not having
a book, for she had still not reappeared and the class began at 9:30. I went up-
stairs, she saw me and came from the back row, and said she thought I was going
straight back. What a hunk gnawed from the a.m.! But the arrangement was handsome
and I hope both students, practise judges and real judges liked it.

Shortly after I got to the office, young Prof Bryer appeared, having
finished his work at Rm 511 last night, and at the Beinecke earlier in the morning.
So I answered his questions, and he went over books I had at 2731 (mostly antholo-
gies with her poems in it), and said in the end that it was well worth having made
the trip. Actually he turned out to be a very nice young man indeed, and certainly
his checklist will be useful to all of us even if some things are left out. The
chief mystery still seems to be Close Up and whatever Hilda wrote for it under
pseudonyms. He queried several reviews of films signed with the initials HLD; I
should think this must be her. If you ever finish the foreword for Hilda and are
killing time in bed at night, when not listening to BBC, how wonderful it would be
if you turned the pages of the reviews and jotted down the pseudonyms. Did she
ever use pseudonyms for L&L?

Your letter of the 31s came today, although the mail in general was
light. Ethel I am sure had a wonderful time with you, perhaps all the better for
the two of you having been alone. But diets can become difficult when they take on
tones of nationalism. * I suspect Lotte will be more fun that you think. * So
glad that the Bettelheim book has worked out. Yes, I did charge this one to your
account as requested. And will do the same for the Odyssey translation by Lattime.
It is said to be very good indeed. As is that by Robert Fitzgerald. Will go to
Pup as with your love.

Susan and I have rather planned that you would be, as last time, coming
to us after your visit to Pup. You may remember I suggested it to be good politics
to go straight to her. This is a symbolic gesture of great importance both to her
and her children. "She goes to Norman and Susan afterwards, duckies." I don't mean
to make too much of this; I mean to make something of it however, and I think it is
quite understandable. Stay as long with her as you wish. Then come to us. How you
work Prutting in I leave to you and to him. First P then Schaffners; or Schaffners
and then P and then Pearson, or Schafnners, Pearson Prutting. P for Pup and P for
Prutting and P for Pearson, make a P P P which can be arranged in any sequence.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

4 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

We advance towards summer. I went to the doctor for my last cold shot, and he dismisses me now until September. I laid in an extra supply of pills of various sorts; he prodded here and there satisfactorily; and then we waved goodbye. Yes, he even went thru my innoculations to see that everything was in order should we be going to Greenland. Everything was.

I feel remarkably virtuous, having begun the day at the gymnasium pulling weights and stretching myself. I must plan to go regularly, for the exercise really is helpful.

Yesterday's visit from the Rueggs seemed to go pleasantly for them, and certainly did for us. I met them at the station at 3:58, being a few minutes late but I had told him to wait confidently for me if this should happen. Having planned to take him to the Lawn Club for dinner--Susan being engaged with her judges school--I was momentarily taken aback by finding him in shirt sleeves only, but since the Lawn Club insists on jackets he made no fuss when I gave him one of mine to wear. (Don't mention this to him, of course.) I took them from the station on to Johnson's Point for a look at the sea and where you stay with us in summer; fortunately the day was a beautiful one and it was pleasant for them to wander along the rocks and see the woodland he had sent the Winson money for. On our way back I drove them through one or two of the redeveloped areas, but they had seen the university on Wednesday when they stopped unannounced for a couple of hours on their way back from Montreal. I was in Washington, Susan was in New York--but people really should announce themselves in advance, so I could not apologize. Going to Goodrich Street, Susan showed them the house, orchids and grounds, and after a drink we went to the Lawn Club for a quick dinner and they took an 8 o'clock train back to New York where they were to be met at the station for a later engagement. I gather they have much enjoyed themselves, and no doubt they will report all to you.

There is not much else to report. I read away for the lecture on Australia, which I fear will be a dismal failure. But I shall do my best.

Gallup's temporary replacement at the Library, while he is on holiday in Greece, reports back from a trip to New York to take recordings of Jean Starr reading her poems. The Polish boy friend was not present this time, and she has not made her mind up yet about moving to the home in Pennsylvania. She seemed chiefly concerned, he reported, much to my surprise, about when I was going to get down to it with the establishment in seeing that she had her rightful recognition as a significant poet. I fear I hadn't realised that this was my responsibility. I fear too that she overestimates my ability and power.

Tomorrow somewhat reluctantly I go to New York for a reception of the Academy of American Poets, at the 42nd St Public Library, as a part of their something or other anniversary. I have passed by everything else so far, altho I am a member of the anniversary committee, and of course a Chancellor of the Academy. Susan has planned a hair-dressing excursion and so will go to the reception with me; we will eat at the Yale Club and take the 9 o'clock train back. I can ill spare the time, but I must make at least one appearance or I will have absolutely no strength at all, let alone power.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

6 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I bring you love and greetings from Marianne. She was only one of the literary figures who paraded across yesterday. I went to New York on the 9 o'clock and with what was left of the morning after the train arrived I did errands of one sort or another. First to *The New Yorker* where I inappropriately left Hawthorne's copy of *Pilgrim's Progress* which Geoffrey Hellman, an editor and friend of mine, had lent to me. P.P. was one of Hawthorne's chiefest favorites. Hellman was not in, so I consoled myself with a visit with Brendan Gill, another editor, and I caught my first glimpse of a New Yorker's office. Tiny and as crammed with books and papers as any undergraduate's or eccentric bachelor's. He had to clear a corner of a couch to find a place for me to edge on to. Amenities having thus been paid I went on to The Seven Gables Bookshop, whose partner Mike Papantonio keeps the Elizabethans in order and I knew wanted to buy a duplicate 2nd folio or exchange for some Lizzie drama. I would have to be overwhelmingly convinced, or at least know more specifically what the exchanges would be before conferring with you. But I did lunch with him and H.Bradley Martin, a fabulous bookcollector who used to work for me in London, but whom I knew then only as a man the British said I should keep my eye suspiciously on since he was said to bet on the daily double in horse-racing. Even their sense of security was placated when told that he was one of America's richest men, and unlikely to be getting his stakes from the Germans. Once luncheon was over I hied me to the Metropolitan to see the Rockefeller collection of primitive art which he has just given to the Museum in memory of his son, a wing to accompany it. Everything was brilliantly displayed and much worth a glimpse by you when you come over. The Polynesian material is superb, the preCortesian artifacts not so impressive by comparison with other older collections. But I had gone chiefly to see what he had in the way of eskimo objects, on several occasions having been told that Rockefeller had one similar to a purchase by me. Perhaps he did; they were not on display -- only three or four fine harpoon heads and no free figures at all. So on the basis of evidence proffered, your collection outsrips his. An hour in a museum is about my limit so I returned to the Yale Club where I read a book on Australia and took a nap until it was time to meet Susan at the Public Library.

7 June

(in this letter, I/Ourne)

At that point I suddenly realised that I must go to the final faculty meeting of the Graduate School, especially final in one sense since it was the last meeting for my friend the retiring Dean. It was not over until I had to rush home to go to a party given by the present chairman of American Studies. It was to have been a buffet but we slipped away and went back to some swordfish Susan cooked for me.

To return to New York. The party was a reception given by the Academy of American Poets, or rather given in honor of the Academy by the NYPL. Mrs Bullock, the president, keeps asking me and us for meetings and dinners but it is never convenient. This chance seemed possible and Susan arranged to have her hair done in the afternoon beforehand. Actually the party was a very nice one, not more than sixty or so people there and many of them who I had not seen for some time. There were representatives of the dead, like Frost's daughter and Jere Knight for Cummings. Babette Deutsch was there, and the aged but alert Laura Benet, the slightly younger sister of Bill, and the one who thinks she was really the mother of her brother Steve. Padraic Column appeared out of the shadows. And Melville Cane my 85 year old lawyer and a sort of poet. Antony Hecht and Ned O'Gorman. And Richard Eberhart who received this year's award and was awarded besides $5,000 a scroll which said, I thought rather unnecessarily bluntly, that he had been given the award "by majority vote of the chancellors." I fear the names on the roster already begin to fade. But not the stars. For when I arrived Marie

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Bullock was beside herself with excitement. "Do you know who's coming? Ezra Pound will be here, and Marianne Moore!" They were, though not together. Marianne came in on the arm of a colored nurse, a very gentle one, and was taken to a seat of honor in the far corner of the room, actually where Susan and I were. She held court, gaining regal strength and fun as the afternoon went on. She was vague for only a split second when I announced myself, and for only another split second for Susan. But things began immediately to focus, she wanted news of you and of us, and we gave news mostly of you. Later in the afternoon (actually this was all between 4:30 and 6) she walked across the room to see Pound, and stopped again to talk to us. She had been last week to Bryn Mawr for her 60th reunion, and a friend of hers and mine said that Marianne had been much feebler at the reunion than here. She is really very feeble and shows the effects of her strokes. It is not easy for her to talk, and I noticed during the short speeches that she could not hold herself erect in the chair, her coed had not been away.

Pound on the other hand, whom I had never expected to see alive after my last visit to him in Merano, seemed unusually well, I thought. His face is somewhat transparent but his fluffy white hair gives it a kind of distinction and his eyes are alert. We embraced and his first words unexpectedly were, "You wrote me such a beautiful letter about the Hagia Sophia." This is the letter he used in the Cantos. But how odd that this should be what came to his mind. I ought to have said, "Welcome Home," for I was the last American to see him as he left the States for Italy, after St Elizabeth, and now I was seeing him quite by chance on the first day of his first return. Later I introduced Susan to him and he spoke politely with her for a few moments, as he did with I should gather almost everyone in the room. But nothing was extended. The whole visit was unexpected; even Laughlin (of New Directions) had not known of it until 10:42 that morning; and it was almost unbelievable that Pound could have arrived in the morning and been so fresh in the afternoon. How long he stays is uncertain but his ticket is for 10 days. I gather he has had a yen to see Haley, Idabo, his birthplace; Laughling thought he might possible take Pound to Hamilton College for commencement on Sunday; and I said that if he wanted to see Yale, I would have a car bring him up for a look at Beinecke, lunch at the house, and a look at the shore. I met Olga Rudge for the first time, and liked her very much. Mary de Rachewiltz is the absolute image of her, although the mother is perhaps the handsomer.

Mrs Eliot was at the party, and Susan recongized her first. I must say I had forgotten. But we had a pleasant talk together; you may remember that she and "our Tom" spent the afternoon and dinner with us at Goodrich Street on his last visit to the States. She had seen Pound in Venice a fortnight ago and had not known he even might come. I wonder if perhaps he will not take a look at the manuscript of The Waste Land, with his own notes on it, and thus help Mrs Eliot in editing.

The copy of Daniel Bruun's THE ICELANDIC COLONIZATION OF GREENLAND (given you by O.B.) has arrived, for which my thanks. It is obviously an important book, one of the Danish official series.

No letter from you today, but yesterdays those of the 2nd,3rd and 4th came so I feel amply fed. I do sympathize with all of the inconvenience of having Ines away. But think it rather fun that you can have the house entirely to yourself for a couple of days at least. I should run naked in freedom from one end to the other. A letter from Helen said she had received the foreword, which she thought "lovely", and seemed unworried about the remaining notes on which you are now working. But I can believe that you yourself will be relieved when they are completed.
*I wonder if I mentioned my troubled feelings about Ethel's blackout in your garden; it sounds oddly like a diabetic condition fully as much as a heart difficulty. But she will obviously have to be careful and I only hope nothing happens to her on her trip north with the Brigadier.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

I'm sorry that you don't feel able to get a quick trip to the Boys, but I understand your situation. Kenneth is eager to have you there I know. I had a letter from Downes who had seen them on one of his visits to the Rock-dwellers, and he had seen them twice. Kenneth is at out with him, as Islay explained. Downes thought Islay to look well, but Kenneth not so well. I believe the Rock Dr believes this due to Kenneth's very severe diet he keeps to. But Downes would like to pretend to a greater intimacy than actually exists. Poor Downes exists now on sequences of visits.

We wait for your letter from Prutting and arrangements with him. But it will not matter to us in what order you pay your visits. We will be grateful for whatever time you can spare us. If you are to take a little trip with me however, this cannot be until after Labor Day and between then and the 15th. Classes begin at the latter date, and accommodations would be impossible until after the holidays.

Do express to Ines our sorrow at her mother's death.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

The envelope really should carry an Australian stamp,
for that is where I am spending the day as I continue to prepare for
my talk Wednesday on "Australia and the Arts." Just recently I have
been reading Australian poetry--A.D.Hope and Judith Wright chiefly,
trying to put the nationalistic and classical schools in proper
contrast with each other. Only I call nationalism a sense of spirit
of the place; they use it mostly for poems about wallabies. Which,
I guess, is why Hope was so startled when I said Australian nationalism
had given their arts a boost. "I should have thought we were beyond
that," he said. But I still think that colonialism seldom generates
the arts. At any rate what there is of Australian arts occupied me
last evening and will again tonight.

Tomorrow is graduation day, and altho I had said I would
march in the procession I think I won't. Susan goes with the grandchildren
because their mother gets two degrees: a master's degree in Public Health,
plus another master's degree in Urban Studies. She has done very well
indeed to complete all of her studies and theses and take care of the
children at the same time. Actually diplomas are handed out at the
School of Public Health, with only a mass induction of degree candidates
at the main ceremonies. Still it is very colorful, with all the caps
and gowns. But very hot too, just because of the gowns. I must however
go to the diploma handout at the Graduate School, for they also present
four medals to distinguished graduates of the graduate school. This
year one is being given to the Auxiliary Bishop of Minneapolis-St Paul,
James Shannon, who took his degree under me in American Studies. He has
been the leading young (48) liberal bishop in the Catholic Church in the
USA, has been their spokesman for the congresses of bishops, was a leading
contender for Spellman's place in NYC, and seemed a dead certainty for a
not-too-distant cardinalship. Now suddenly he has resigned his bishopric
because his conscience will not let him tell untruths (as he puts it) about
birth control, and the Pope directs. There has been no reply from the Pope
thus far, but an immense amount in the newspapers, for no bishop has ever
resigned before, except for old age. Fortunately the nomination having been
mine I wrote both the inscription for the medal and the formal longer citation
for tomorrow. I have checked and nothing needs be changed. But I gather the
newsmen will be there, and his name at least sounds a newsnote. We were
supposed to have given him a dinner tonight, but after three weeks silence
after getting my formal invitation he replied on Wednesday that he would not
arrive until the morning of the ceremony itself.

So that I can go back Down Under. From which I send you

9 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I find it a little hard to know how the day has gone, but it
has gone. Fortunately the weather was fine--it rained during the night
but then cleared again--so that the large graduation exercises could be
held out of doors. Thus thousands of aunts and grandmothers could watch
the young receive sheepskins, and rejoice.

Bishop Shannon was given his medal, and a number of news-
paper reporters recorded the event. I was surprised to have him say that
he saw evidences of my fine hand in the citation, and when I showed my
surprise he explained that he noticed that the master of ceremonies read
from a sheet with my letterhead on it. Still, why shouldn't I get whatever
credit is deserved since he would not have had the medal otherwise.

Susan went to younger Susan's graduation. I shall hear reports
of that tonight. We take the three Addisses and Liz to Mory's for dinner.
At least no one except the Mory's cook will have to prepare the meal.

What good luck that Ines should so fortuitously have made
her reappearance. Of course you were right in sending her off, even if
she was late for the funeral. She was in time at least for the wailing,
and in the end this counts most. Masses are stereotyped, but mourning
is individualized and thus memorable at times of later family reunions.
And Ines will have been pleased too to have been back in time to help
you.

I am not surprised at what you tell of Ethel, and I suspect
she will withdraw increasingly into herself. This is all right so long as
you know and can anticipate this. But rough on the Brigadier, and I am
worried about their trip.

Your notes read excellently. I will try to go through the
typescript again after Wednesday, but I read desperately trying to finish
Patrick White's *Voss* by tonight. White, as you may remember, was ar
became a friend by correspondence of George Plank.

But how will I ever get the lecture together?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

10 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I waited until into the afternoon on the faint chance that a letter from you might be in the afternoon's mail. None was. But I had had one of the 6th early in the morning and so was not impoverished completely. Obviously it was a good thing that Ines could have gone home. Now she has been in from the beginning with family plans, and shares in them. Otherwise she would have been the absent one. Some time if you were ever to visit Florence again, as you might on your way back from the Boys, you would drop in for a cup of coffee with the family, et c. But you had better arrange to make it a quick visit, just before the train takes off. By the way what actually was the disposition of Montegofani?

Am glad the visit with Lotte has gone well. Have you ever seen one of her recent films? It would be interesting to. I wonder if one exists at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They should have a print. If you think she would like a copy of the Gaudíran book I can arrange to buy a copy and have it sent to her.

Philip's letter was of course a classic. It should be a coda for every account of Osbert's life! i do thank you for sharing it with me.

I forgot to write you that when I phoned Horace on Sunday, he suddenly became solemn and said there was something I ought to know. "Sarah Lawrence College had raised a fund (his name had been used as chairman of the drive committee) the income from which would annually be used to give an award to some past member of the faculty for meritorious living or the like. This to be known as the Horace Gregory Award." I was indeed impressed and pleased. Then he cleared his throat again and murmured that the first award was to be given to him. I applauded. "How much was it?" I asked softly but with true curiosity. "$2,000.00", he said. They must have done well with their campaign, and this is a substantial prize. How pleasant it is both that he should have the money and that the award should carry his name. If you can write him, congratulate him.

Tomorrow is unlikely to provide enough time for me to write, but you will forgive me I hope. It is Australia Day locally, so far as I am concerned.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN·CONN

12 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I greet you on my return from Australia. At least I feel as though I had been there. My talk came at 4 in the afternoon, then there was the reception for all of the alumni seminar guests at the president's garden at 5:30, a quick dinner at home, and from 8 until 10 a question and answer period at the university again. A cousin of Susan's and her husband were here for the seminars and came back to Goodrich Street after the question period. So there were more questions of a family nature until 1 a.m., and I was still tired when I got up this morning. I have spent today recovering from the voyage, as it were.

Still, it is over with and I have no other speaking engagements until the Fall. I am never much of a judge of how any talk by me goes, but the reception seemed to indicate satisfaction on their (the audience's part) and their applause was generous.

I simply could not write yesterday, since the program began at 9 in the morning and went on all day. I was in charge and so could escape nothing. As a result I am not quite sure what letters from you I have or have not acknowledged. The 6th? Yes I have spoken of that. But I think not that of the 7th. I hope you bought the Alma Tadema: he has become very camp, and there is nothing I should like more than a Roman maiden in a frame. Did Alma Tadema frame her himself? And WHAT did he do to her afterwards? Was he like DeSade? I turn to you as an expert on Roman maidens and Englishmen. Perhaps Ines would know, if there were maidens in her village. * I should think that Lotte would like America, and I am sure there are those who would welcome her in New York. The city I suspect is the America she wants to see, though one might throw Washington in too. * Poor Kenneth. I wrote you that Downes thought he looked unwell; whether isolationism or lack of exercise is the cause, there is no doubt but that the sort of life he leads makes him more vulnerable to germs. * Many thanks for the clipping on Osbert's memorial service. What a splendid tribute it was to have had two Dukes attend. Sometime you must tell me just what selection from Left Hand, Right Hand? Reresby read. Sachie would say I am sure. * And do they have memorial services for a "beloved boxer" and for a "green one-eyed frog"? Obviously the Canadian will not mourn his gold mine in Canada, preferring the life of a ketch as ketch can. * Your letter of the 9th came this morning. Yes, what a pity you did not have a tape-recorder to preserve the stories Lotte told you. Someone should take it down and then be the co-author of her memoirs. I gather she herself does not write. * I do thank you for your work on Close Up. If you want to amuse yourself pick up other volumes from time to time. I want eventually to be quite sure. Anyhow it is nice that Henry Dobbs can remain Henry Dobbs.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

It has been brutally hot today, in the 90's, and very muggy
in addition. I daresay there will be thunder storms tonight and I only
hope we are safely home before they break. As things now are, we must be
at the class reunion of 1924 from 5:30 until 6, and then for drinks at
dinner at the reunion of the class of 1949. It seems both like faculty,
though this is a new angle. I did not quite feel I could refuse, especially
since I discover that 1949 was the first post-war class I taught as freshmen.

Otherwise the day has been rather footless. I began to collate
the transcriptions of Hilda's letters to Flint, to be used in the Madison
issue (they are not, alas, going to republish the issue as a book), and in
one or two minor instances have found the transcriptions incorrect. Two
names I can't read and when I have finished I will xerox and send to you just
in case you might know. One may be a Cornish name. Various returning alumni
came this morning, plus the pianist John Kirkpatrick who wanted help in
tracing phrases attributed to Emerson and Hawthorne and Mark Twain and
Thoreau by Charles Ives, the composer, whose journals he is editing. Then
lunch with an art collector who had been intrigued by my remarks about
Australian painters. Followed by a trip to the dentist to have my teeth
cleaned. No cavities were found. And then I took a painting to be cleaned.
Which has left little of the day as you can see. And tomorrow afternoon
and Sunday afternoon there are weddings to attend. Which leaves little time
for the office. Susan wants to move to the shore next mid-week.

Your letter of the 10th arrived this morning. It is good news indeed
about Maria and Peter. Helen will of course be pleased, for this means some-
one at hand in case she is ill. I will treat the news as private, as should
you with the news that Christian is not to receive a promotion at Harvard
and so must find a new job after next year. Many, she says, are behind him as
a fine teacher; but this is an old academic argument. He does not write and
spend his leisure time composing music. We did not much discuss this, Helen
and I, but I know it to be true. It is the same with me, for I have not
published what is known as a solid book. A few articles is all. Most of my
creative effort has gone into you and Hilda. But I did become essential as
an administrator of American Studies, and I did become widely known. So that
Yale felt they could, or had to, break their rules. They have always preserved
their dignity however by paying me the lowest salaries. I am sure Christian
is a splendid teacher, but they are a name in the classics not in music.

I will go into all this more tomorrow, but a note from Havstein-
Mikkelsen says he spoke with Krogh on the phone and they apparently will not
have the dedication this coming summer. Not time enough, as I thought. So
it will be next year. Too bad since I perhaps will be in Japan. You can
represent me at the ceremonies. Anyhow this eliminates any problem about
your dates with us. One way or the other we will expect you in New Haven
after Prutting and Pup (no matter their order), and presumably for the beginning
of September on. Perhaps I could take you for tea or luncheon with the
Winstons. Brattleboro is not far; we once had a store there, in the old
days of prosperity. * The clipping about Rota is a little obscure. I will
have to get some one to clarify the history for me.

14 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I groan for our next door neighbors whose daughter is to be married this afternoon, with the reception at their home. For it has rained a good part of the day thus far and will be too wet for anyone to go on to their terrace for the refreshments. Their house is more or less the size of ours, and it takes very few to crowd us. The ceremony itself is at the Divinity School. I hope we can get there and back without being wetted. Foolishly I came down this morning without a raincoat of any kind, and had to walk to lunch in a drizzle.

Our two parties last night were pleasant, and we were able to slip away from the second at 10 p.m. so the evening was not impossibly late.

Today has gone chiefly into checkong the transcripts of Hilda's letters to Flint. I found a few mis-readings, but there were three words I could not get. I should have had these xeroxing but for the rain. This I will do on Monday and send to you just on the chance that your bells may be struck.

Your two letters of the 11th arrived this morning, for which my thanks. I tremble a little in fear for Rosemary's operation, for each one will be slower in the bone's mending. As for her man, I think it is better to encourage her to go ahead. If he takes her money, he can be a surrogate for Greek real estate operators but give her more staisfaction. The truth is that like many invalids Rosemary is passionate by nature (or thinks she is) with almost no chance for sexual experimentation. Other people can fumble and put aside; but first they fumble as she has never had a chance. Her heart is likely eventually to be broken, but not because (if she has him for a bit) because it is brittle.

This is really Marianne Moore's day. This week she has received an honorary degree from Harvard.

I always admired Molly Hughes's book and know she was a particular favorite of yours--as an author about girls, at least. A good idea for you to go over her again. I'm pleased that Ruegg enjoyed his trip to New Haven.

And now off to the wedding. We have another one tomorrow, and I must make a morning trip to the shore with lars et penates. So possibly no letter to you until Monday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON
231 HGS

15 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

At least a note from me, since this may well be the final Sunday
letter until the Fall. Susan wants to move to the shore in mid-week, for
her neice's wedding comes at the shore on Saturday and we are to house six
overnight guests. I took a carload of pictures down this morning, hung them
and then went on to the office to pick up a few things I forgot yesterday.

For we have another wedding this afternoon, that of the daughter
of the retiring Dean of the Graduate School with whom I used often to lunch
on a Saturday.

I forgot yesterday to mention Martita's not unexpected death, but
enclose the obituary which you might like to keep with your memorabilia.
Here of course she was best known for her "Madwoman."

One splendid joke has been turned on me. I re-wrote a little of
the article on Hawthorne I originally did for the Encyclopedia Americana, sent
it off for their revised edition, waited patiently and then received the
revised version which they had edited. Furiously I saw that they had changed
a sentence on Hawthorne and the Civil War so that it made the War sap H's strength.
I fumed. What right had they;;;;;; there was no such proof. Politely they
wrote back that they had restored what I originally wrote. I blush, even cringe.

Your Co-op account has come, and you still have a credit of $34.23,
sufficient certainly until you get here if you want to add to it then.

The weather is unblievably muggy. We all stew and snarl.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

A new week to begin on. The wedding yesterday afternoon was pleasant, rather more people attending whom we knew than for the day before, and the champaigne dryer and therefore more to my taste. I spent the evening reading the Sunday newspapers and beginning the manuscript of a book on Anne Bradstreet, the 17th-century New England poet. The English Puritan background is very nicely done. The book is a lifetime's work by a Connecticut woman who never got over going to Oxford and who could never be separated from the girl friend she made there. Rather like your girls who keep fighting the Battle of Hastings.

Have just spoken to Horace on the phone, he being in low spirits because Marya came down with bronchial pneumonia a week ago; he had gotten a nurse but she proved no good and so he had to let her go on Friday. Patrick came down Saturday to cope, but now they are alone again and Marya gropes her way around under the spell of antibiotics. She is, he says, tired as the result of the winter and he hopes to give her some sort of change. But how?--I wonder.

He had reports of the memorial service to Mrs Cummings, which he says was "saved" from the preparations of those who had taken over 4 Patchen Place (he made Mrs Knight seem like an invader, though she was Marion's closest friend) by the appearance of Pound who spoke nicely about his friendship with Cummings and his wife, and his admiration for Cummings' poetry. Cummings' brother appeared, and saved people from taking away things (what things?--it was held in a public hall), and then Robert Lowell came in dirty clothes, insisted on reading some poems of Cummings and explaining them, and almost undid the good that E.P. wrought. But I am glad that Pound could go, he does not appear publicly with any ease or pleasure.

I was grateful for the London clipping on Pound. It was much the same as that which appeared here--the only notice there has been that I've seen-- except that the account you sent from London omitted the fact that his hostess at Hamilton College had served him a roast chicken dinner. How could they (in London) have been so uninterested in so significant a detail as that! Your clipping were splendid, and Susan will revel in the defense of immigrant flora. I shall expect a confrontation of the part of revolting rhododenrons.

As you can judge, your letters of the 12th and 13th arrived this morning. One is sorry about Ines's malaise and post-mortem dis-ease. But you will have to be firm with her. She fought with Elsie but of course admired her (if for no other reason than fear), adores you, and would do everything she can to imitate Elsie and bully you. Not out of meanness, no more than Elsie did, but by possessiveness. It is not easy to avoid, and I too would be possessive if I could. Probably I am.

I rather think that the Scillonian deaconess will be fun, if for no other reason than the gossip she will bring, a bit or two anyhow about those who would not be commented on by your other friends there. A slight intonation of her voice, or a lift of the eyebrow may prove an entire glossary.

Poor Ines, she does not want you to go to Zurich so that you can feed her meat; I hate to have you away from your desk lest you not send me mail. But I suspect I get more mail than she does meat, -- at least oftener.

All love,
Norman

17 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, and indeed hardly any day. I began with a quick and routine visit to the doctor, then to my little old tailor to have a button sewn on, a trouser pocket mended so that my shillings would not drop out, and my Greenland jacket left to have the pockets repaired against a some-day return for the dedication. All this of course is in preparation of closing the house for the summer. And off yes, to the picture framers to have a screw re-set in one of the rice-paintings of butterflies I bought during the war at Maggs and now hang at the Point.

Lunch this noon was with a former student, now back in the Law School after four years of work with the American Indians. He is Indian himself but hardly looks it, nor is his name De Luria quite like Sitting Bull. But he surprised me by referring to the whites, and saying that he felt sorry for "the whites" because they had no place to return to for safety--as the Indian does to his tribe and the Black to his ghetto. The white doesn't know who he is, in the sense that Indian and Black do. This without any alliance between the two; indeed he says most Indians dislike most Blacks. It was all a line of thinking I had not been aware of.

For a fortnight or more I have been pestered by a Dr Selzer, a surgeon, who wants me to read his short stories. The name meant nothing to me, but when he finally came today with an armful of mss I realized from his face that I knew the rest of him too. That is, as a naked figure often at the gym when I went for a massage. I could hardly ask him to make himself comfortable in my office, and it was difficult to resist leaning back in my chair, and asking in my best medical voice what his difficulty seemed to be, and was he carrying a temperature or did he as an author suffer from occasional nausea. Anyhow I now have the mss to look forward to, although I promised him no deadline.

No letter from you today, alas, but I will have two perhaps tomorrow. Though you are always forgiven especially when you are heavy with guest. I did send along by airmail as printed matter a text of the rather incoherent radio trialogue I gave on women. Alas it is awful to read the lack of logical progression in a recorded transcript. But I thought you might be amused. Also a xerox copy of three pages of letters by Hilda which will appear in the Wisconsin issue in her honor. I have circled the words neither they nor I could read, on the faint chance that each or even one of them might strike a bell. You just might click, but don't strain if no immediate solution appears.

I am nearly finished reading the ms of the biography and critical study of Anne Bradstreet. It is much better than I had thought it might be. But Wesleyan grows impatient as I hold back from doing the introduction to their book of poetry.

The four new Henty first that I bought from the collector who offered to sell his whole collection to Yale, have arrived. We lacked them as firsts, and they were not in the granddaughter's collection. So I purchased: *Facing Death*; *Jack Archer*; *With Clive in India*; and *St. George for England*. No rhyme nor reason as to why we had not had them before, but at least the gaps become fewer. I have begun again checking the lot from England. Most are later editions but often in very fine condition, and when duplicates of what we already have almost always improve the condition on the copies.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I can't seem to get down to business, and two or three

days of this week have gone by with nothing really accomplished. Unless
going to a cocktail party yesterday afternoon is to be counted positively.
I daresay however this afternoon spent at the doctor's while he removed
the last group of growths is an achievement of sorts. My face is severally
bandaged, and altogether I feel like an old sock which has been darned to
the point where it shows. I won't be able to shave for the moment, but when
I do again I am supposed to be nickless.

Most of last evening I spent on the Henty's, bringing the
Marshall bibliography up-to-date. That and reading the rest of the Anne
Bradstreet biography, which as I think I said turned out to be most interest-
ing, to me at least. I was surprised after dinner to have a call from CBS,
the television circuit, to say they had heard from the Danish Embassy
in Washington, by phone, that the Greenland dedication is put off until
the summer of 1970. The interest in Brattahlid on the part of television
may stimulate the Danish National Museum into realising what it is they
really have. But I am amused that everyone seems officially to have been
informed of the delay except myself.

Your letters of the 13th and 15th came today, for which as
always my thanks. I was pleased with the description of Mrs Gillett, and
as you know I have always hoped that one day--possibly when you are no
longer in the dead center of the Montreux colony--you will do a novel of
these British types. It is almost your historical duty to do a Swiss-family-beowulf.
* Once I can polish off a duty or two I must write Margaret Pratt again. I
have left her in silence. I did however today have a glimpse back towards
New Zealand when the Vice-Chancellor of Canterbury University paid his re-
spects. He had wanted to see Prof Pearson but as he himself is an historian
quite understandably he was directed to George Pierson. * Your episode with
the drain-clogging bird has its air of mystery. Are you sure this was not
a winged manifestation?

Yeaterday the contract to be signed for Harcourt arrived. But
not having bought the rights from you I cannot of course sign. So I am
enclosing in duplicate a contract between us identical to those we have
made before, with a check which will be a nuisance to you but stands as
witness to the fulfillment of the contract between you and me. As for the
contract this must be witnessed either by one or two. Previously you have
done this by the Union Suisse in Monteeux but presumably this could also
be done by Mlle Coigny, since she can certify your signature as a notary
public. The bank does this. Have both copies properly signed and witnessed
and then send one back to me.

All love,

Why not send this check by mail to your bank, and we will defray
the cost. This would save us some trouble.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

19 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

My face being slobbered over with white surgeon's tape, I dis-like going along the streets and being asked by all ("if we may ask") whether I have been in an automobile accident. To say that I have had growths removed seems almost to waste the opportunity for everyone. So I now instruct them in the sort of conversation they can indulge when they meet the next person. In this fashion: "Have you seen Norman Pearson? His face is covered, absolutely covered with surgeon's tape. Now I don't know it for a fact, and you are not to repeat this to anyone, not to anyone, but I was told someone had taken a knife to him. Yes, a knife. No I don't know the details. Susan doesn't seem the kind who .... I know, you never can tell. And the truth is I imagine he can be pretty provoking. Yes, it could be his secretary. Or Mrs Bryher, if she's here. But a knife, just imagine: a knife!"

The truth is I was a little groggy last night with all my drugs, and still feel groggy with those taken today. They are insistent on anti-biotics for six days. So last night I really finished checking the back cards with the Henty bibliography. I can't tell yet, or until I have finished with the Jackson set (I think I already have most of the volumes entered which are first editions and not duplicates). What pleased me most was to come to the entry for *Nister's Holiday Annual, 1902* (not from Jackson) and read in the bibliography, "We have been unable to secure a copy of this work; and there is no copy in the British Museum." We have one. Then I made lists of the *Ballantyne mss* of books already in slip cases at the house. I have been having Leyda catalogue the most recent batch from Quayle, and these I will now also have boxed for the sake of safety. There are, I think, 25 full-length mss and at least that number of short ones. Leyda has also gone through all the *Boy's Own Annuals* and the other periodicals I have, cataloguing the appearances of Henty and the others.

One tidies. Just as I forgot to tell you that I now had the set of the OED back, with new covers. George had let them deteriorate so much it was almost impossible to use them. The cost of repairing was staggering, and I kept to buckram, but it was worthwhile and a fine set should not go to waste. So that too is out of the way as you will see when you come.

Your letter of the 16th is here, but I felt a little too groggy, and besides had a bevy of Japanese to entertain at lunch, for me to try to get to Prutting this afternoon. But I will call all tomorrow morning as a project and will let you know. I am sure all will be well. The check is unnecessary but I will obediently cash it. And oh yes, Mildred Brown has replaced Cindy so all is fair in Friendship.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

It is just possible that I have begun to climb over the hump. Fortunately I forgot my anti-biotic pills at the shore and could not take them as prescribed, which means that I am increasingly awake. And the huge swatches of white surgeon's tape covering my face from nose-top to moustache had come so winglingly loose that I called the doctor's nurse to know if I should report for a replacement. Use a bandaid instead, she said. I look disfigured still, but not just out of a wrecked automobile. As a result I have begun to think about the Wesleyan introduction, which was due last Monday. Alas, Susan's Lovejoy niece is being married tomorrow afternoon, and we have a bridal dinner tonight, a bridal luncheon tomorrow, and then the reception. And at 8:15 on Saturday evening have to go to a Jewish wedding in New Haven. But perhaps I Sunday I can desert the shore and report to my desk.

As a result of feeling better I got down to your New York problems this morning. You have a room at the Stanhope on August 15th (possibly a late arrival) which endures until the following Friday. If you want to shorten the reservation once there of course you can. Rates are from $20-28; I said a modest single room, preferably with electric lights, and a window. Helen will be anticipating devoting Saturday the 16th and Sunday with you. Your appointment with Prutting is for 11 a.m. on Monday the 18th. They will make all tests that day and will not need or want to see you again until sometime a week or more after when the reports on all tests are in. So I should imagine you might want to spend until the 29th with Pup, then either see Prutting in between or after some days in New Haven. Your final stay at the Stanhope we can arrange for later.

Your letter of the 17th arrived today. Martita's death will not be an actual loss to you, but it will be a symbolic one. * I forget now what I said about Alma Tadema, but one always remembers his lounging, classically draped maidens, like pre-Raphaelite damsels spun out of sugar and whites of eggs.

I spent the morning fixing rugs at the shore and putting furniture on the new porch. I think you will like it. I hope so anyhow. Poor Susan. Tonight we have six guests and a small baby sleeping chez nous. Susan must make the beds for them.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

As I warned you, yesterday was intolerable with weddings. Both of them I shall describe to you in detail tomorrow I hope. But I did not of course write you; -- how could I lift my hand to other than toasts with champaigne?

And today, when I write at the end; it is 5:30 and I must still drive home from the office to the shore, I had brought a sandwich and jug of milk and managed to type out a thousand words or so as an introduction to the Wesleyan volume. I simply hadn't seemed to be able to get into the thing; then I pulled out all my old files, and more or less in your way hotted myself up by reading the past. Nothing I have written is perceptive, but one can at least hope it is grammatical.

Your letters of the 18th came yesterday morning, and I picked them up when I came in to be shaved. How silly I must have seemed with my little wail of frustrated creativity. Creativity is never frustrated. And if I had not liked the way I led my life I should not have done so. Were I truly creative in my own right, nothing could have stopped me from creating. I solace myself however with the thought that I may at least have helped students and been a handyman, a chevalier to Hilda, and Fletcher and Gregory. And perhaps at moments even to you. For I bask in the warmth of your reputations, and your success in vicariously mine. I am like one of those twenty beautiful cats, or rather like the late Mrs Jane Watson herself who looked after them. No tears to be shed for me, nor kicks to be delivered. Just patience and wan smiles on the part of those who are near me. We must check just when the first Monday in September comes, and if Labor Day is then. If it is you might find traffic hard as you suggest shifting, and John would not be coming in. But I have ideas about your being put on the ferry for New London and my meeting you there. Which might be rather fun.

I note all about Montegufoni, but find it hard to believe that anyone even Osbert could so confuse matters. He must have been both indulgent and self-indulgent. Alas, what gave you and me our senses of responsibilities. What a cross to bear.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

Well, the introduction has gone off to Wesleyan and I only hope they find it acceptable. I should hate to have to start again. But if one must, I suppose one must.

First, and before I forget, the Monday after the 29th, when you proposed coming instead of the 29th directly, is Labor Day. Obviously no one will be coming back to New York from Long Island until at least the 2nd, so that if you wanted your birthday with Pup you would have to be there then. Actually you will find the trains in the afternoon on the Friday before a holiday like this unbelievably crowded, so that if you plan to come then you must surely have a pullman seat bought ahead of time. The trip across by ferry to New London may be the answer. But since Dr Prutting only wants you for the one day for tests, I should think you might like to go to Long Island say on a Wednesday after your tests, which would mean you could get to New Haven say on the Wednesday or Thursday preceding the holiday and thus avoid much of the rush.

Your letters of the 19th and 20th were in this morning's mail, especially good luck for a Monday. You didn't mention the Martita clipping in your earlier letter, I am glad it reached you. I know how you feel about letters to Horace and Marya; talking is easier, so I phone. But we will have to take one half day and go to them from New Haven. I shall be going down in a week or two to pay my individual respects, so that we will not seem to come only together--though what could be more proper. I spoke to Horace on the phone yesterday. Marya is much better and seemed in good spirits when she answered. I had unearthed a photograph of Marjorie Lattimer for him, in the archives of a Negro college (Fisk) in Nashville, Tennessee. She married a Black writer, Jean Toomer. The photograph would do, so Horace was pleased at that. He was also much excited about the only true successor to Dorothy Richardson, an Englishman named Anthony Powell who is writing a sequence of 12 novels covering the period from 1910 on. The newest, *The Military Philosopher*, gives the true England he knew in the 1920's and 30's, I gather. The tone is that of high comedy, however, which doesn't seem quite D.R. in manner. But I think you should taste and tryport to me. I have to be careful before I embark on 12-volume voyages.

Many thanks for the check which I will deposit to your account at the Co-op. Was delighted to hear of your successful phone call to Cetona, and although Kenneth was at his devotions, you never need worry about Islay's devotion to you. I suspect Kenneth has perhaps done well with his investments over the years, but I agree that a Cetona is a corona which I could not afford to smoke. Besides which I doubt very much that he objects to dipping into capital (for one of my upbringing, the unpardonable sin--tho I have sinned a little as you know with Greenland and the acres across the road at the Point). For after all he has no one to leave it to, and I expect that like Osbert he finds the present a problem enough. I am interested however that Ruegg has been summonsed, and glad that he can take the Carlebach goody with him. If Ruegg was "awed" by a little suburban house and a cottage by the sea, think of the effect Cetona will have on him. Understandably, for I think Kenneth has done miracles.

It is nice to think that Frau Ruegg may be enceinte. An American conception may well be possible, or have been a possibility. I suspect that in Lausanne he is too much involved with his figures to be entangled with hers. On the trip he was so to speak, on leave.

I quite sympathize with Ines. You need not think that by Elsie's death
the responsibilities of decorum incumbent upon any proper

upright dame of Vaud or Italy. And she has her own dignity to think of, as well.
It would hardly do, if .........

You have many remarkable qualities but I never cease to be amazed when
you rattle off the numbers of Henty. I say brava! -- and envy you, I who can
remember nothing.

Your suggestions for the letters may strike a note. I think bobbies
is a brilliant suggestion, as I look again at the xerox. I thank you.

And now I must dash out and get this in the box before the mail is
collected. It has been drizzling most of the day and is cold. No weather at
all to be at the shore, but we are. Susan escapes tomorrow to New York for a
permanent. At night we have dinner chez the Japanese.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I dictate away like mad. and am now on a whirl of reading
monographs that have been sent to me during the past few months, thanking
for them with enough appropriate words to let the authors know I really
read (tho perhaps did not fully understand) what they had written. Alas,
I have a long way to go. But I inch along.

I made a second sort of progress by taking to the bookbinder
I have found, the Ballantyne mss you bought for me from Quayle. They have
been lying in a small pile on the bookshelves at Goodrich Street, while
I waited to take them to a bookbinder in Pittsfield, Mass. But this woman
here is so good that I see no reason to wait. I took also the Henty
bibliography, whose paper binding had come loose. And also the old French
theological work we keep on the kitchen table at Goodrich Street, as a
cigarette box. I think I told you that the OED is now back on my filing
cabinets, nicely rebound.

Meanwhile I have started Jay Leyda at work putting back order
into the Hawthorne papers. It is a blessing to be able to have him help,
and fortunately the money is essential to him. I think I told him he had
a breakdown in East Germany and is now having treatment at the Yale Clinic.
Meanwhile of course he is pennyless.

I think I wrote that I am at least glad you got the radio program.
The man who sent the transcripts to me, wrote: "Having missed the broadcast,
I have just had an enjoyable time with the text of your YALE REPORTS
diallgue with Sunny Miskimin and Mrs Ellman (who slearly understands of
Mailer only what she chooses to). But this is to tell you that there are
worse things than being called Norma or Normal. A neighbour of my parents
in Vermont is a harmless half-wit called Norman Stearns, who spends
intervals in jail for swiping panties from neighboring clotheslines. My
father, rest his sould, was given to referring to him as Abnorman."

Your letter of the 21st came today. A yellowback too, but I have
not yet opened that. Am glad that Harcourt asked for the coat of arms of
Vaud; they may have remembered that you once called it "The Colours of
Vaud," a title I always liked, in part perhaps because it got Vaud into
the title as a definition of the book. Like The Coin of Carthage. I
should think they could manage with an old photo unless you make a quick
trip to Islay. When he takes you next however, ask him for one or two
which are not against lions. Just you.

You are obviously filled to the calendar with guests, but they
will mostly be fun. I am glad Bruno will be taking more away with him.
Perhaps it would be worth giving Melitta a ticket sometime to get her out
to you and back with her things. I hope you have tossed the injector into
the lake!

We go tonight to the Japanese.

25 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I have just survived a serious shock. I had been phoned and an appointment made for me to see our next door (the children in between) neighbor. And had assumed of course some complaint, since he can be diffi-cult at times. But it turned out he only wanted a donation to the build-ing fund of the New Haven Boys' Club. I was so relieved I almost made out a check on the spot; but common sense returned and I said I will think it over. I shall have to give something, but there are other charities which appeal to me more. One has to make choices.

The weather continues rainy and cold and altogether intolerable. Why be at the shore. Susan has her sisters in this afternoon while they make plans for the Fourth.

Our dinner last night with the Japanese proved to be most pleasant. The two ladies had worked their fingers to the bones in preparing Japanese delicacies; I can't imagine where they got them all. The two husbands and the unwived male drank sake with us as the meal went through its final stages of being made ready. We must dutifully have them all to the shore if it ever warms up.

Your letter of the 22nd came this morning. Your weather too, I see, is foul not fair. Storms within doors with ines seem entirely appropriate, if inner and outer realities are to coincide in life. * Poor Pup, at least from my point of view, for a pack of hounds can be a nuisance. * No hurry I am sure about the contract and your delay seems only sensible. I rushed it to you expecting you could do nothing until into the week.

Your paperback had the letter from Lady V about her home, and I could weep. I suppose the nephew thinks that everything is his by due. I must confess to having an aversion to those who wish to turn old family mansions into tourist homes. They always expect to make money and never do. They count on "those Americans who would give anything to stay in a place like this; we'll make packets. First we'll have to put in new bathrooms so that we can charge twice the usual rate. Oh, it will work out, you'll see! ......... Well, it did seem like a good idea. Now what can we sell?" But Lady V gave everything to the house and about has it turned against her. I am really shocked. * O.B. and Max seem to have had a nice trip to Jugoslavia. I wonder if I will ever go? * A curious undertone to Helen's letter about Maria; one suspects that this may be a bad age for the marriage. And I remember you suspected she was not strongly heterosexual. * Petrie's memoirs: -- I myself would be tempted to have the Irish publisher bring them out, even at some cost to yourself; then it would be done, and her book would finds its way to key spots from which it could blossom for those who read it. The book will never have a great appeal, but should exist for the record and because Petrie put so much into it. * Sylva seems to be having a rough time of it, but am glad she plans to take her holiday after all. I can't quite see the boys making a dash for a bowl of salad, but they might of course. * Your letter to Carlos Baker about Hemingway was most interesting. I doubt that he feels the scenes very deeply but he made an impressive assemblage of facts.

How I must dash off to have my stitches removed. At least I hope he will. It would be pleasant to have a bath.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

What hath God wrought today? Not much, I guess, through my agency. But I have kept busy in the morning dictating letters, against Mrs H's absence tomorrow when I have said she could have the day off to go to New York and despatch one of her sons to summer camp in the Adirondacks. And, I am glad to say, that my Norwegian student's dissertation arrived, in time to be submitted before July 1st, and thus require only a $500 fee instead of a $600, the latter being a quarter of his Norwegian salary (he with a wife and two children), and a move to make at the end of the year when he goes to a new and for him important post in Bergen. I thought I might have to pay for him, but when I made the politest of suggestions to the Graduate School Deans that he might be elegible for a fellowship grant of some sort they offered to pick up the total tab. I will pay for having the dissertation bound (two copies) but that will be the extent. Then, if it is accepted as I feel confident it will be, I have the blue silk academic gown of a now-dead friend which the friend's widow let me put aside for Øverlund. So another chicken is now almost a rooster.

Another pleasant thing happened last night. Jay Leyda had lost his notes on the Chinese cinema, the work of two years in the East Germany archives. I heard of it when my secretary put ads for him in the local newspaper, and persuaded the radio to send out broadcasts of the calamitous loss. I took some Hawthorne transcripts back to the shore to check what he had put down. There inside the envelope his notes also were! Both newspaper and radio are firmly convinced they were responsible for the recovery, so everyone on all sides is happy.

Your letter of the 23rd came this morning also to my great contentment. I am sorry there are things that cannot be written about at the moment, but you are wise to go ahead to other episodes; one can bridge later, and certainly discuss. This was before I arrived of course, so I shall not try to guess.

The plumber had arrived at the shore this morning before we had finished breakfast. The toilet for the guest room off the living room sounded like an avalanche. It was original with the house about 45 years ago, so has served its lifetime. But the plumber thinks it perhaps will go for a bit yet. Since I must reconstruct the back, children's bath in the other cottage, I am as glad to be spared the cost for the moment. And I still have fill to be put in on the land side of the sea wall. And a new dry well to be laid at Goodrich Street. With the inflation prices going up, and one's income, comparatively speaking, goes down. One reason I want to get as much done at the moment as possible. True economy, and your Ronny and your experience would confirm.

I ought to have said that in the matter of arms for cantons or districts, I think the only reliable thing for you to do is to make a trip to Lausanne for the exact arms. I would not dare risk a howler, and there might have been a tricky change at just the time of your book. I remember how, thanks to Ingholt, we had to change the gold coin of Carthage to a silver one. Stupid critics wait like vultures.

I feel by the end of the letter that at least little things were done. For I did start by taking two jackets to my little repair tailor--one to have another inside pocket put in, the other to have leather elbow pads sewn on to cover where I have worn the elbows through. And this afternoon I got finally to the library and began to put away accumulated papers. One table was cleared, but that is just a beginning. Oh, those shelves!

All love, NORMAN

their love,
occasionally.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

I have been a little drunk today I think. In almost a frenzy I
have read offprints of learned articles sent to me during the past few months
and then dictated notes of thanks for Mrs H to type out next week. I went over
the typescript of the talk I gave last November in Austen, Texas (an adaptation
of the Australian one) and re-adapted it as requested for inclusion in a volume
in Texas. I took the typed sheets of Overland's dissertation to the bindery and
will pick them up on Monday. Altogether I have dictated five new folders to
await Monday, and since she will also have the speach to retype I think I will
have her well provided for, in all of the week there is, the Fourth coming on
Friday. But of course what pleases me especially is that the pile on my desk
grows smaller, and so does the pile on the window ledge behind my desk chair.

As a result there is almost nothing of interest to report. Tonight
we drive to Lizzie's home for dinner with her there. And then back to Johnson's
Point to read a few more articles and prepare for tomorrow's dictation. But
I have only one tape left to dictate on. I feel like a champion, and will certainly
have to invent things to answer before long. Or at least I hope so. I ought to
have gone to the Library and done my lick there, but having the office completely
to myself (Mrs H having gone to New York to deliver her older son into the hands
of camp counsellors on Saturday morning), the chance was too good to work un-
disturbed.

I had a phone call from the young sculptor whose piece I bought from
the show in Rochester. He tells me it will be three weeks more before he can
deliver. But at least I hope it will be here to amaze you when you come to what
Susan now calls "Bryher's room."

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

Seven tapes of letters, plus a draft or two of others, and the Texas
speak now lie on Mrs H's desk to greet her Monday morning. It should be enough
to keep her busy for the rest of the week, and of course I shall be adding other
tapes to it as I have time. But for Susan's sake I will not try to come to the
office tomorrow (Sunday), for the first time this year when I have been in New
Haven. And so, alas, no letter to you.

I have had a harvest from you. 23rd, 24, and 25th came yesterday.
The growths simply come with my type of skin, mole-like things which tear if
brushed against and shaved into. So it seemed safer, my general practitioner
thought, to have the worst one or two removed. Doing that I thought I might as
well have others. Some will appear in the future, one knows.

Yes, Leyda is the one you speak of, who has written so much on
Eisenstein, and on the film in general. He mentions you in his big book. By
the way he says that Kenneth is credited with the ownership of many letters
from Eisenstein, which he allowed an earlier author to use. Probably he still
has them but keeps them close to his chest. Why not.

Yes, I think you will not want to travel on the Labor Day Weekend,
over Monday the first. Prutting will not want you after the first Monday you
see him, and we agreed that you would set the later appointment once you were
there. It doesn't matter when or how long delayed, for if there is some problem
he will be in touch with you or me. Write him if you want, but he can say no
more to you than to me. Were you to go to Pup on the Wednesday after your
arrival you could spend the week and travel to us on the following Thursday
perhaps. This will give you a chance for a good visit with Pup. I take it that
Elizabeth and the youngest boy will not be there; whether Valentine has by then
returned one doesn't know. But Nicky very likely will be, and he is at the moment
the most literary and like yourself a rebel.

When I meant that Martita would not be a loss I meant only that you
no longer saw her or wrote to her, and in that sense had already died. But I did
qualify by saying that as a symbol she would be a great loss indeed to you. I
thank you for Kittie Hunt's very nice and very sensible letter. I am glad Martita's
boy friend remained loyal to the end. I had read of the Chaplin's daughter's
wedding, the first of the girls to wed but not the first to bed. They all seem
happy at the idea and no doubt can now buy their furs at a discount.* By now I
gather you will have gone to the real experts on Lausanne arms. Don't fool around
with amateurs even if bankers. I don't think arms are such a bad idea, since one
obviously couldn't have either a vine enda snowflake, or the arms will help to
identify the locale. * A trip back to Africa might be fun for Joan, and I doubt
that her mama is up to travel other than with the Brigadier. * I have sent the
contract signed back to Helen so all should be in order. * Kenneth seems in good
spirits and I am glad the Goughs give a favorable report. Have you heard from
the Ruegg after his visit?

This morning yours of the 26th arrived, in very good time indeed.
Perhaps more planes now that the tourist season is here. Sometime, but not this
time, you will want to visit the Goughs in Toronto. My impression of the city was
not overwhelming when you and I camped there. But no doubt it is different now.
I had thought Montreal a possibility for us. Michael told me about Mary's book
which he said was going along beautifully. I believe she had finished most of her
research and now chiefly had to do the writing. Since Canadian academic holidays
make a dream world, she should be able to. They are finished in early April until
late September or early October. Shorter holidays however in the term times. *
I was most interested in Margaret Partt's letter. Surely this wasn't the story

Mildred Brown told us? I remember how Hilda took her for drives in the pony cart, and was so kind to her. Or am I dreaming?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 June 1969

Dearest Fido,

As I warned you I might do, I stayed at the shore on Sunday and did chores about the house. There were plenty to do. I pruned a few lower branches from the trees along the driveway. I reseeded the woodpiles so that there was one where they had been two. I accumulated a pile of things for the rubbish man to take this morning (only he didn't come) and phoned him to arrange to come on Saturday next for a huge pile from the garage of the #2 house. Also laid a rug on the porch of the #2, since it was one we would otherwise have thrown away. I burned rubbish. And I washed with hot soap and water the Pacific Ocean giant mollusc we use for a bird bath, and then went to work on Hilda's Venus. You can't imagine her filth after the bathless winter and a rainy then parched early summer. No invalid was ever washed so well, nor empress nor goddess so rubbed and oiled by her handmaidens. Her feet were black like a good Mediterranean peasant's. I washed her knees where she had been kneeling in mud. I took smudges from her thighs. And then, somewhat reluctantly for the sake of worm who had made it, I removed a cocoon from the shitter of her crotch. I may have destroyed the re-birth symbol, but I was afraid lest Venus itch. Thus went my outdoor day; inside I read several books which can now be returned to the library, and checked a series of Hawthorne letters which Leyda had transcribed.

Today I have done nothing of excitement except to pick up a repaired jacket at my *clothing* tailor's, and had the last of the stitches taken from my side by my surgical tailor. Actually I am trying to make both my jacket and myself last out one or two seasons more. Whether such thrift is warranted is not clear, but I thought it worth the economy.

Your letter of the 26th (evening) arrived this morning, unusual for a Monday. Yes, I think you must somehow avoid the Labor Day weekend rush. One, my newest idea, is to charter a small plane and fly to some smallish airport near to Pup, pick you up and bring you back. It might be rather fun. And save everyone at Cowbarnx the trouble of transporting you. The trip would be my birthday gift to you, with the chance for you to parachute down onto Johnson's Point as an additional treat. * I should have known you would know Powell. I think Horace didn't think of him as equivalent of D.P. except, as you suggest, as social history.

The Wesleyan editor talked to me on the phone. I think he liked the introduction pretty much but wished I had written an essay on poetry in our time. I doubt I have the ability but even if I did it would be inappropriate. The poets they publish are generally conservative (with a few exceptions) and of course don't have the names since the names already had the publishers. It is an interesting book but not a thesaurus in the sense of the books I did with Benet and Auden. This is a record. You will see for yourself.

Creativity? No, I am what is known in the States as a practical nurse. I can't mend broken bones but can relax muscles and give bed bath.

Horace was never willing to talk about Margery Lattimore with me either. Only I dimly remember from the bachelor days when Horace would escape from Bronxville and the children and come to batch with me, I got the impression that she was *the* girl, the one he wanted but never had, who I think did not want him but instead chose a Negro. The blackness aggravated it only because Toomer was a writer and Horace was sure a lesser writer than himself. Lattimore should have loved him for his genius, his mind, and let that take the place of body. But maybe this wasn't it at all. Only that there is and was some hurt, an intensity that he wouldn't like to reopen, whatever he felt and feels for Maryo

being filed under another dossier.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

1 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

I was a little startled today, after lunch, when returning from the Co-op I turned on foot around the corner by Mory's, was opposite the front door when I was suddenly struck from behind by a bicycle vigorously pedalled (illegally) on the sidewalk by a little black boy. He knocked me over, and the bike and I tangled. Fortunately except for a bruise or two where the handlebars made themselves felt, I seem no worse for the wear. But it was unnerving, I must say. And I was extremely lucky, I must also say.

Otherwise the day has been a quiet one. The morning I spent writing letters of recommendation. These never seem to stop. One was for a professor who wanted a Fulbright Fellowship to teach in Greece. Another was from a committee who are thinking of a former student of mine for the vice-presidency of a Colorado college. And the third for the professor of English at the University of Melbourne who wants an ACLS fellowship to the States in American literature.

And oh yes, I began the day after seeing that the two copies of the Norwegian student's dissertation were submitted, I went to the gymnasium and gingerly lifted weights. Gingerly, it having been so long since I had been permitted to after my most recent darning. And oh double yes, last night I took a bath. What a glory that was. I emerged as shining as my Venus.

The Co-op has sent an acknowledgement of the receipt of the check for $100.00 you sent for your account. So you must begin to think up what books you can squander all this one when you come.

No letter from you, Sunday having intervened. But a fat yellowback came. A nice letter I thought from Herring about Osbert. Perhaps he should be encouraged to begin his own memoirs. What with Osbert and Hilda and Dylan Thomas he should have enough to be of interest. * Sachie's letter I found sad, though one is of course glad that financially things will be easier for him. I suppose any addition makes things easier, and presumably when Georgia's mother goes there will be a little more.* I was interested in Pup's account of your annuity for Richmond Barthe. Where did you come in contact with him. Was he a friend of Kenneth's, -- though the Robber never lived like a guru. Perhaps his show will be on when you are still on this side. One could take a peek. * Poor Robin, one can only say Poor Robin. As you know, Doris and Nell Richardson were dire rivals. Nell was always rather soft on Robin, I was told, but Petrie couldn't stand her. * Kenneth's letters are always fine; so was the Brigadier's. But it must be hard not to have Doris's car for the moment, though no doubt all is now well.

The Addiss family moved down yesterday, so we have neighbors. This morning the tree people came and began their treatment for killing the pampas grass and the poison ivy in the new land across the road. It will be expensive, but one must do it or the land is not really either useable or attractive. I daresay for the moment however it will look less attractive, with dying leaves.

Sachie's letter is so involved I will comment on it on Saturday when I hope to come in town for a bit. Tomorrow I will stay at the shore. If only it doesn't rain, as it is now. A funeral this afternoon early, of a friend of Susan. How I envy you raspberries.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 H G S

3 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

I had hardly come in to my office at a quarter to ten this morning, after my weight lifting session at the gymnasium when a second telephone call from Horace (he had called before) told me of Patrick's engagement. He is to be married this August to the daughter of your Richard Winston, 22 years old, a graduate student in classics at Harvard who has a teaching fellowship there now. He has known her for several years because of the father. Patrick had only told them by phone this morning and will bring the girl for them to meet this weekend. Marya had told me yesterday that Pat had said he might get married rather soon, but she would not tell the name or anything save that she was 15 years younger. Patrick's other innamorata of late has been Marya's editor for children's book, six years older than Patrick but what he feared more was that she read nothing but children's books, earned three times what he did, and had Kate Greenaway as her favorite artist. I suspect that Pat chose wisely, and he does know the family which counts too. The girl, before Radcliffe, was largely taught by the parents. So she can hardly be orthodox. I suspect all this in the offing was one reason he hesitated to answer your offer of analysis, and he may feel that thirty hours on the bed is better than thirty hours on the couch. But how lucky he is to have broken away, for this could never have happened when he was tied to Palisades. Marya was terobly happy about it, and so was Horace this morning. And to be truthful so am I for their sake and for mine; given these circumstances there will be two to take care of whichever parent is left.

My visit yesterday was pleasant although I got started rather later than I intended to. I had to wait to pick up the typed copy of the talk I gave in Texas last November, which I proofread and sent off this morning to Texas by airmail. They are holding up a book for it. Afterwards I had to buy a flag for the pole I had rigged for Justus at the cottage next door. We will have flag-raising tomorrow; one had to do something patriotic for the Fourth, and one could either give a grandchild a flag to raise or a set of draft cards to burn. I preferred the former.

I had an hour and a half with them and they did seem pleased to see me. Marya went off on a ceaseless account of what a poor poet Eberhart was, until finally Horace begged her to leave Eberhardt to posterity. He had the cover of a volume of selected poems of Byron to show me, and did me the great honor of letting me read the first three pages of his memoirs. I must say they start off impressively with a fine description of his grandfather's house, and an aunt's parlor, and all the accoutrements of a period setting. As the third page ended, a clay relief of an aunt had begun to merge symbolically into a classical head of no particular identity, and I knew I was hell-bent for metaphor. But he has worked with great care, and if you write him tell him how impressed I was. They spent much time with questions about you, and Kenwin, and I of course promised to bring you to see them when you are in the States. Physically they looked better than I had seen them appear for many years. But the heat in the past few days had bothered Horace much and I think they will put air conditioning into one room to which he can retreat in the severest heat. I did not offer to install it for them, although they can use some of my mid-year thousand for this of course if they choose to.

I missed you however on the ride to and from. This is always one of our chances to go over things, and I always feel very much together with you when we are side by side in a car.

Your letter of the 30th came today. You did put 28th June twice, but need no mercy. I was glad you could shift your appointment with Coigny while Lettice was with you. I spoke with Helen on the phone yesterday, and she was hoping that if you could not get the Lausanne museum people to give you the correct arms that you might get from them the revolutionary symbol (knot, or arms, or whatever) that they used.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

Back to this office for a salvage of the weekend, and indeed I had a good morning with the tape. I have a pile of seven tapefulls for Mrs H to greet her on Monday morning. This will discourage her, but please me to think I have made that much more headway with my backlog. Now I must go to the house for a few moments, to pick up some things for the shore, and to begin packing my books to be sent to the safe. Hopefully they are "safe", with the burglar alarm protection but I will feel happier with them alongside the silver in the vault.

We had startlingly beautiful weather yesterday for the Fourth, with enough breeze both to blow the new American flag I bought for Justus, and for all the children to try their hand at flying kites. Water pistols seemed more attractive to them in the end, but then the water for swimming won out over even the water for pistols. Young Susan had a group of seven all together, and they remain to come to our house for broiled chicken cooked outside. Quite a conglomerate: the mother of her ex-husband and a woman friend of the m-in-1; the two children; an English metallurgist from seeds, and a youngish architect in whom Susan seems interested. Liz and a woman friend of hers were with us, and Liz spent overnight.

It rained during the night, and the weatherman was gloomy about this afternoon. Just now however there are flickers of sun and one hopes we can sit outside tonight. I loathe nothing more than cookouts eaten in the country.

There was a pleasant harvest of mail today from you. That of the 2nd and those of the 1st. I am not surprised at the great clash and smash on the highway below you. One listened at night as though an enemy attack were always in the immediate offing. More miracles must occur per time-span at your corner than ever within the Christian kingdom elsewhere. You will become the Blessed Bryher by the matrydom of your nerves and eardrums. You are the true survivor.

The Norwegian student was the one I spoke of in Copenhagen and he whom I went to Oslo to probe. Successfully as it turns out. But he was being worked too hard by the professor there (as commonly in Germany also) and my visit prodded the professor too to make things easier. The young man is elated at his appointment at Bergen but laments the absence of books on American literature and by American writers. I may have some duplicates I can send for the seminar library.

I look forward to going over your plans for the memoirs when you come, though I doubt any advice I can give you would be helpful. What might help is simply the chance for you to talk. Similarly about the will, although everything you say makes absolute sense to me. I trust Coigny's common sense too.*I am now really worried about Kenneth's health. When Downes wrote I laid much of it to jealousy and a mild feud. But the Dr on the Rock too said he thought Kenneth was starving himself to keep his figure down. The heart attacks may have much to do with it. After all, Kenneth cannot always have given his body an easy time of it, making unusual as well as usual demands. And I suspect he needs more physical exercise than he now gets. But all this is something he has to settle for himself. I agree that it is not all psychological, though I am sure the rejection of the novel and worry about the play cannot help. *I am sorry for Islay's sake that they won't take his account. Kenneth's yes, because of you, just as they will take mine for the same reason. But otherwise it would be too small. And Islay seems a little outside the 'family,' in the strictest sense.

The clippings were excellent. I took a great fancy to the fancy of the Queen in a hurry for the coronation. But I shall be worried beyond measure when we meet and face the problem of shaking hands with you. Perhaps I shall simply forego the problem and kiss you instead.

I can only applaud the Tom Devison first in English at Cambridge. This is

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

a real feather in the cap and will ornament him for the rest of his life. He can go far on this. You should be well rewarded for your help. I rather think you would like him. He may well be smart to step outside the ivy walls for a bit; he can always go back, but they can be poison ivy to his mental and psychological health. I suspect too that he may have writing in the far back of his mind. If so he is well away. The boy in the States is obviously playing it cagy; I should doubt he came back with a Princeton degree. * Melitta's letter was most interesting, and I think she seems increasingly relaxed. No, if you have a few days, visit the Boys rather than have her visit you. * I think Jean Starr may well prefer the Berkshires to New Jersey. You may not remember but I took you through Great Barrington on our trip to the Berkshires and Lenox.

I don't have Sachie's last letter with me, but he seems both confused and elated. The money may very well make a great difference to them both, and I am happy they have it. As to Montegufoni, we would normally say it made great sense to leave the place to Reresby and thus save the death duties so soon again. But if it isn't to him (Sachie) why does Sachie say 'we' must sell it. And why does Reresby have the lawyer to defend himself. Not against his father, surely. It all sounds like another volume of the memoirs.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 H G S
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

7 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

I feared that I should not even have a smidgin of time in which to write you today. For when I arrived, after the gymn, men had been here to wash my rugs. Chairs were piled on my desk and there was no room for me until half past eleven. Then a musician came to check footnotes on the notebooks of Charles Ives, and after him there was a young instructor from Frankfurt who I had engaged myself to take to lunch. After lunch came the sixteen-year old son of my masseur, who had given me some 200 pages of poor short stories and bad poems. At three I had to go to Goodrich Street to finish packing up the Elizabethans, having engaged the back men to come for the cases at 9 tomorrow. Fortunately I packed the remainder with some speed and so have 20 minutes at the office on my way back to Johnson's Point.

Yesterday the weather was ideal, and I sat in the sun reading along in the Baker life of Hemingway. Events carry the pace a little better now than in the beginning, and the details to fill in what one only half knew or knew wrongly are fascinating. But it is a slow book to read for all this, and Baker seems almost talentless as a writer. I did however, mostly with Susan's aid, re-paint the top of a clothes hamper, and will next move on to the one in "Bryher's Room."

Your two letters of the 3rd and that of the 4th came today. I envy Lettice her trip on the boat, for we are usually too early in the season to make one. And I sympathize with her list for shopping, though I think by now I must have bought one example of everything in Montreux.

Kenneth's letter was disappointing that they could not get off to Capri. I suspect it may be a bit too late now for Freud. He has his womb and is returning to it, rather like Roderick Usher in Poe's story. Isn't the bath room, be-jungled and quasi-orchided, really a womb who to which one slips. naked, with sensual delight? For me this is the only frightening room in the house; I myself would treat it like a womb and not even yearn for a twin, being narcissus-like content with myself. I saw by the way that the newest TLS has a review of Islay's book, very favorable too I thought, or at least written by someone who felt friendly towards Islay. As I may have told you, I did finally order the book from Blackwell's and it came, though slowly. Susan read it and thought it interesting, and I intend to.

How you flatter both my training and my self-discipline. That I should be "always preaching" is of course a natural self-defensive action on the part of one who is not really sure of anything. And based principles, as you put it, are only applicable when one is unquestionably in the rear.

Today it has drizzled and been humid, while what we need is real rain. Things are drying in the gardens and woods. But humidity only frazzles nerves.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

8 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

An absolutely infuriating day. I went duly to Goodrich to be there at nine, to wait for the t.v. man and those from the bank to pick up the books. At 10, Mrs H drove up to say the bank had misunderstood and thought I was bringing the books to the bank myself. But I had arranged of course for the t.v. to be taken so I said I must stay at least until 10:30, the deadline for leaving for a funeral. No one came. I met Susan at the chapel door, and afterwards asked about the t.v. They had called the office number at 9, thinking it was my phone at home, had no answer and so did not go. Similarly I had been told that the truckers would come tomorrow instead (we have disconnected the phone at Goodrich St.), and when I checked I was told, oh yes indeed, some time between 9 in the morning and three in the afternoon. I begged that they come first thing: oh, they are very busy people, you know; we can't tell them in which order calls should be made. Not even my tears prevailed. So I daresay I had better take a sandwich. In between I tucked in a visit to the Yale postoffice to ask why my mail is constantly being sent to Silliman College, but don't think I got anywhere on that except for apologies. One is held up two days by the shuffling back and forth.

One cannot really save a day that begins in this way, nor am I likely to be able to do so tomorrow. But your letters of the 5th and 6th did help. I take it, finally, that you would not be amiss if I were to get a plane and pop over in it to fetch you. You mustn't deprive me of the fun of the flight across the Sound. I always find it exciting to see the coastline from the air. Pup has very kindly sent a timetable for the ferry, which is a good idea for bad weather. We will see, but Pup absolutely agrees that it is sheer madness to come by way of New York from Long Island to New Haven. * What an unusual job Lettice's sister had, and what a poor investment it turned out to be. * Better bring both suitcases to New Haven via Long Island, for if we make a trip you may need a variety of things. I still rather fancy taking you to Nantucket for two or three days after Labor Day. * As for London it is much the best idea to clear up as much as you can during these summer days, for you will be equally busy in the autumn.

To return to yesterday's mail, I didn't mean to seem to joke about Kenneth's bathroom, but took it as both symbol and symptom of his desire to build up a withdrawn and self-sufficient world. Not that the idea of such an existence doesn't appeal to everyone at some time or other. But the rubs give energy which the womb does not provide with its soft walls. * I was most distressed to hear about Baddeley's visit to Herring, but perhaps it has been instinctive fear of just this that has kept me from renewing contact with him. * I see now why Barthe comes back into notice, for we search desperately for any Black with a modicum of talent and then hoist him high for applause not for what they have done but that they have done anything at all.

How I dread tomorrow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

No, today really was worse than yesterday. I was at the house
in town at twenty to nine, since both the bank and the telly group work from
9-3. At 9 promptly the television people came, and were surprised because
they had been told to collect a phonograph to take to the shore. But they
took the television and so Susan should be able to see the landing on the
moon if there is anything to see. But the truckers from the bank did not
come and did not come, until a little after half-past one. They claimed
they had been there at eight, but I had been told nine and anyhow had to
come in from the country. Still, both tasks have been accomplished. I
was solaced, if at all, by the fact that I worked hard on the Jackson-
Henty collection, and almost managed to finish going through it and
checking. I will report on that when I have done. I had brought no
lunch of course, and had to go to the bank before it closed, and then to
the tire-man because the front wheels of my car shimmied last night when
I drove Susan out for supper, and then to the tailor to have a button
swed on. And I had to walk a mile from the tire-shop back to my office,
stopping to have a milk shake en route. So that by the time they had
phoned me to fetch my car, it was half-past four and I had done nothing
in the office. Tomorrow I drive to Andover to go over Dudley Fitts's
papers and hope to come back Friday afternoon. It is a year since he
died and I have not yet been there to act as literary executor. But
better to wait and let things settle, I firmly believe.

Yours of the 7th came today. You were lucky to have the
rain; we have had nothing and by us things srivel too. I trust the de
Beeers did manage tea; it has been some time since they were with you.
I shall phone the airport next week and see what is with the small plane.
Luggage, however, you chose to handle it will be simpler by air than
on foot.

Now I must get back to Goodrich Street and shut off the hose
in the rose garden. We have guests for dinner tonight, the Piersons who
spell their name so shamefully.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

Two days away from the office are enough to put one's schedule into a tailspin. Now I have just written Horace and sent him his July 1st check (which had to wait until I went to the savings bank), and a letter to a local charity to whose building fund we had pledged, paying that; and was then about to write Ruegg authorizing him to send the money to the Danish National Museum. Only I cannot put my hand on Glob's letter, and this infuriates me after searching for it in vain. I dare not try to remember the exact sum, and so will wait a day or two and then write Glob for a (grumbling to you gave me an idea, and I now have found it; glory be!)

I began the day by a visit to the Hamden postoffice since we have had almost nothing forwarded to us since we moved to the shore. A sizable group was still there, and when the Saturday mail was delivered here today there were the magazines from the end of June on. Really quite maddening. Then to the jewelers to have new batteries put into the Accutron watches--one had stopped. Thence to the bakery, and after that to Goodrich Street where I worked on the Jackson Hentys until I ran out of the slips on which I was entering the books. But I have only a few more to go. And then to the office where I have dictated and paid bills and read the accumulation of mail which came during my absence, including yours of the 9th which came today. Mrs Hamerman leaves for her vacation on the 25th and will be gone a month. But I can get typed anything you send over, so send as much as you can or want to. I am sure Helen would want to talk over the book if you want to. * I had not thought about the Winston girl being Catholic, but that seems to matter less to the young than to our age group. And Marya is as close to Catholicism as a Russian Jew can get without taking the veil. * Raspberries are my most favorite of fruits but they come a little later and not very long as a season. I always prefer them as is, without cream or sugar.

The trip was a useful one, at least as a preliminary. I arrived in early afternoon, took my room at the Inn and had a late lunch and then went to the Fittses. They had the papers in various boxes and filing cabinets. I could not work on them of course, simply see what there was. Ask the son who is not working after returning from the Peace Corps in Africa to prepare a bibliography of his father's book reviews -- a Herculean job; as well as of poems etc. I cannot be executor without something of this sort. There is a box of reviews of Dudley's own books by others; I suggested they come to Yale after the children have looked at them, as they think they want to. They won't, but shouldn't be denied the chance. Then I went through his filing cabinets, separated the papers into correspondence in general, things having to do with his Latin-American anthology--and brought these back to go with the rest of that material he had years ago given Yale. Went through the literary mss which were fewer than I would have thought. I had pictured a hidden treasury of his own poems, but this didn't exist. Then I went over his library and mostly advised them to keep the books particularly the inscribed books, since noth children are literary and ought to have souvenirs. And there were not as many of this sort as one would have thought. You and I have had many more. However he did have one inscribed to him from Horace, so on that score he is one up on me. You have deservedly been luckier.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

The trip up was uneventful, except that I still had the troublesome shimmy in my wheel which I had tried to get rid of the night before by having the wheels are checked by my tyre man. I had planned to stop for a cup of soup and a stretch of the legs at Ovides, where I have often taken you for the same but found the place burned down. Instead I went to the candy shop beyond, for I did need the stretch. When I came out my front left wheel was absolutely flat. But an AAA man came and changed it, and there was no shimmy after that. Still I was a little annoyed at the tyre man for missing the leak I said I thought I had. I got back to New Haven at 5 p.m., took the flat to him and waited until it had been fixed.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I shall stay at the shore. I hope the weather is good. It has been rotten today, drizzle without real rain which we need.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

So you get a Sunday letter after all. Last night it began raining and has rained almost ever since--much needed rain for the forests and gardens and even the newly seeded soil at the shore where the loam is now filled in behind the newly built seawall. I did sit around inside all morning and read the Sunday newspapers and bits and pieces I brought home with me. But the prospect of all afternoon doing the same was too much. So in I came, and have dictated a couple of additional tapes--this time of much-needed letters of a sort I have put off and put off. But with only a fortnight more of Mrs H's typing I need to get at least the letters out of the way. I mean those already on hand. I can do my best with the day to day flow for the next month.

But there was one triumph to help pass the dreary weather by. Justus being ill, and the Swiss tent we bought for Greenland unused in the attic I brought it down to lend him for the fun of setting it up. Set it up he did last evening before the rain, and such a splendid tent it is. Really amazingly fine, much the best I have ever seen. He wanted to sleep out in it, with a 9-10 year old cousin. The two grandchildren were spending the night with us, and why not I thought. Expecting them both however to come running inside after a few hours. There was a series of thunder storms and heavy rains but they were as tight as bugs in a rug. Justus gained great prestige on the Point by having a grandfather who had such a tent, just as I had great prestige by having you as its grand supplier. The two boys, joined by various others from time to time, played in it all morning in the rain, also. Since he put it up directly in front of our new porch, between it and the sea, the tent will have to come down in a day or so. But he can try it again sometime, and will. And if I can ever get you on to the ice cap how cozy we will be in our tent.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

This has been a quiet Bastile Day and I have not even lost my keys. I began by depositing a check in the savings bank-- a small one but at least it will earn interest and maintain my own -- then re-fueling my car and finally going to the gymnasium after too long an absence to lift weights again. The weights themselves seemed glad to see me and tried to make themselves lighter as a burden. Alas I am no muscle man.

Otherwise I have mostly gone over the box of Dudley Fitts's papers about his Latin-American Anthology of Poetry which he did in 1942, and which are to go with others to the Yale Library. They are not exciting but are, certainly, a part of history. Then John Kirkpatrick came in with still another question concerning his annotation of Charles Ives's notebooks, and I lunched with Gallup. This afternoon I went to the Library and looked up McAlmon's letters from Joyce to answer a scholar's query as to a possible misreading of Gilbert's transcription for his edition of the Joyce letters; and with that discovered (there was no error--connect was connect and not correct) a dicatated the answer as well as a series of other letters and notes that needed doing. Alas, I have been stalling a conference with a young doctor and surgeon who is a would-be author of short stories, to go over a half dozen he sent me. He phoned this afternoon so say he was dizzy with anticipation and when would I. He writes better than one would expect a surgeon to do, but few want to read now about the war in Korea. I must read them again and phrase my answers so as not to draw blood or leave scars. For I must serve as surgeon too.

The two boys slept again in the tent last night, snug even in the drizzle and chilly wind. But today the sun has been out, even if the temperature seems more like early Fall.

What a pity Ines did not take her outing to Lausanne. But she likes the familiar rather than the strange. I prefer a new and out-of-the-way corner. * We can talk about the Norwegian when you come; but you need not worry over him. It is simply that I have a number of duplicates from my mother's library and a few of my own that might help. He will need a grant. * I shall be pleased when the next chapter comes of the memoirs and will see that Helen has all I have before your arrival in New York. * This was splendid news about Michael Gough and the Honors List. He must be pleased; who would not be. I only wish you could be-bibbed with decorations. * What a wretch Mme Moret was if she did say what Ines said she said. But I suspect there is at least the suspicion that the statement became a little stronger in Ines' mouth, because (perhaps) you had not praised her macaroni that day. You must learn to keep your new girl friend happy by praising her pastry. Or what's dough for!

Now I must toddle back to the filling station to pick up my car, from which they were supposed to remove some paint I had rubbed the side against.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 July 1969

Dearest Fido,

This has been a beautiful day weatherwise, but for some reason a rather dreary one spiritually for me. Perhaps I have run down a little. I seem to dictate to the tape with less enthusiasm; I dread going to my desk to read the short stories by the surgeon (last night I read Nancy Cunard's new book on The Hours Press instead; I found it most interesting and will put it in your pile for perusal while you are with us: a brief essay on each book and author).

And so especially of course my thanks for yours of the 12th which came this morning. I shall be interested in your lunch with Anne L. Helen keeps saying she wants us to meet, but is (I think) a little frightened. No, I remember now, we did meet briefly and pleasantly at a cocktail party chez Helen. * I think Grace will rather enjoy herself with Ines, and it is kind of Marie Anne to check up on things. * Glad you have been able to do some pages, and hope you'll flesh all out, especially with the Sitwells who deserve a full and friendly presentation, with the rest of the contemporary world against them.

I have phoned the airport and reserved a plane for the 29th. I tell the time after you are in Netherfield and have confirmed. I shall fly over with the plane to pick you up, and would not be cheated out of the flight for anything. I must confess to being amazed at how dirt cheap the charter is, although I thought perhaps somewhat more comfortable for you so I engaged a twin-engine rather than single-engine. But if you prefer the single engine I can always change. I find all this rather dashing.

Two paperbacks (yellowbacks) arrived, one yesterday and the second today. Kenneth lives in Gothic terror as well as splendor. This, I take it, is the cook who left and returned about Christmas time. One expects a newsflash that the English milord has been assassinated by a household terrorist. But I should not find it all pleasant to experience, and coming on top of Mummy the experience is enough to make anyone's heart flutter. But what a steady stream of visitors, and how kind it is of him to take in Valentine and chum. * I was very much pleased that Brother John had responded to Claud's difficulty. No less than he should of course, but in any event more than he might. * O.B.'s letter about Lotte was a good one. I always forget O.B.'s film past, tho this was how you met him.

And now I really must get back to the surgeon. One of the stories is of a French woman in love with a rooster. This is perhaps the influence of de Gaulle!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

Just back from having my moustache trimmed and a shampoo so
that I will look sufficiently groomed for the husband of a Director of the
Historical Society which is having the dinner opening if fund drive tonight.
One only hopes the speeches will be over early and we can go home. We take
with us the widow of James Rowland Angell, once President of Yale, she being
still a Southern belle in her early eighties and somehow getting away with
it.

Otherwise I have been seeing students, reading a long paper on
Nabokov, and sending off to you a flood of Christmas packages by air.
They are, I fear, mundane (with one exception) but one knows you do not
want to accumulate. One package has a small square box, with a pin in it,
for Ines. But I send to you so that she may be given it whenever you
think the height of the Kenwin gala.

Last night I settled down with your recent letters and the list
I had sent you and tried to work out something for Helen. It went off to
her this afternoon so they can get at it for those in the States at least.
I will send you a xerox tomorrow and you will see that your list to her
and this one overlap a good deal; she promises to have it checked, but if a
few get two copies then they can pass on and the good word will spread.
Somehow Vaud has been dogged with confusion, for previously your lists
have always gone in through me. Helen was a bit confused, and so when we
talked on the phone this morning she said to be ample and they would
correct. Three extravagances but charged to me already will not, I truly
pray, upset you. You said one by airmail to Ethel, and she would indeed
weep were one not there by Christmas, and I thought Joan also could read
during her visit. Her copy goes surface. Then I had had such a nice but
such a sad letter of lonely woe from Lady deB that I thought she could not
wait until their return from England for her copy, and so sent hers by air.
This being done and the chances of her commenting on the book to Marie Anne
being good, and Marie Anne being hurt (no matter how much or how little she
liked the book) not to have one similarly, I sent hers by air also. That to
Lettice by air you said you had instructed Helen to do, also for Rosemary--
your two writing friends, as you put it. I omitted those you said to omit,
with the exception of Ingholt whom I inadvertently had told he would be
receiving one. The item which will stagger you is the extra number to Pup.
I had sent hers to her earlier, from the four sent me. These four are for the
four children, each of whom is old enough (with the possible exception of
Timothy) for its own Bryher collection). I know how younger children feel
when they grow older and have so few of their elder siblings' treasures.
They may not read the book for a while but someday they will and then they
will be pleased that it came to them from Bryher. So I am telling Pup,
although you can disclaim this if you prefer. The bill for the earlier
shipment on your list went to you--it has always come out of the royalties
before. This additional list will be billed me so do not worry about it,
and above all do not worry Harcourt for Helen is already in the throes of
departing.

No letter from you today but the mails will be irregular from
now on. A note came from the new dealer in England who calls himself a
Henty specialist, saying he will send a list of Henty first which they can
offer, soon. He is sending _A Dozen All Told_, which I ordered

Also a letter from the Dr Stein in Paris who was interested in

Hilda's Freud

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

A full day but not easy to define. No letter from you today or yesterday, however, so perhaps the day was not altogether full in the right way. I began by an hour with the dentist, and the first two fillings were accomplished. But the x-rays uncovered the necessity of more inlay work on upper molars, and this will require at least two hours more. But remembering dental chairs in Japan, Thailand and India, I shall not be sorry to get these at least out of the way.

Then to the bank to cash a check so that I could have something in my pocketbook for over the weekend. Then back to my office for what was left of the period, to dictate a few more letters, including one for the fee for reading the Wm Carlos Wms manuscript. Luncheon I took with a visiting associate professor in American literature with whom I should have done more before.

And then for a meeting with the Librarian since I had received a letter from the Provost a month or two back, saying that I must choose between the Library and HGS. I bridled and snorted when I first heard this, but they are of course crowded for space. I had spent some time with previous interviews and defenses and hoped that I was winning my case. It proved he only wanted some way to save me and help me. So I have it exactly as before, save for the fact that instead of my name on the door (which makes it seem like a private office) the sign reads AMERICAN LITERATURE RESEARCH PROJECT, and gives my telephone extension without name to phone in case of necessity. I really don't know what I would have done. I simply have no space for those filing cabinets and books in my HGS office. I have not told you about this before lest you worry. But all is serene now.

Last night's dinner was pleasant; we had an unusually good table of people. But the talks went on for two hours after dinner. No one apparently had been warned to be brief. What was worse each talk was good in itself. But the impact of them all! Anyhow I could read for awhile after our ten-fifteen return.

A yellowback came yesterday. I was touched by Marianne's un-Marianneish letter which must have been composed as well as typed by her amanuensis. And the signature made one want to weep. For the very first time I found Lethbridge's letter dull. It needed a wand waved over it.

The weather is still foul, and our cellar leaks water at each corner. But there will be nothing to tempt me away from my desk tomorrow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

Apparently the boy who sorts mail on Saturday is not coming in today so there will be nothing until Monday. With nothing yesterday or the day before I am in the spot I put you in so often, though this is surely not your fault but a consequence of the Christmas spirit of confusion. I added to it last night by doing some 50 Christmas cards with notes to go out. Alas, only a beginning. Susan really hates doing them at all, and I find this my function. She is busy getting decorations together for the Christmas tea at the Historical Society tomorrow. And getting increasingly tired too. At least I persuaded her to phone the florist this morning and ask him to make the twelve corsages for the hostesses. And did the breakfast dishes and went on a few errands. I hope she can last out the season.

In yesterday's 4th-class package I sent the list of recipients of Vaud plus a xerox of the revised itinerary for the trip, which I thought might interest you. Many of the hotel reservations beyond Australia are not confirmed, and when the final version arrives you should destroy this. You may not want to post often anyhow but save and send in batches, postage is so dear. I need the record and the barks. It should be an interesting trip and as you will see I have mostly let the local arrangements for tours be up to me, so one can guage Susan's fatigue; and am going only to places generally for several days and without long motor trips in buses in hot weather. In Penang we have friends, the great-grandson on Hawthorne.

I have after too long a delay I fear asked to have sent to Melitta a copy of the new American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, as being full of the four-letter words that must creep into the conversations of her patients. For Joan I had thought not, since businessmen generally do not write them down or dictate. I have also asked for a copy of Margaret Nicholson's A Dictionary of American-English Usage, which is based on Fowler but compares what the British and what the Americans would say in a comparable situation. This is by now an institution for editors. I am still looking for a guide to proofreading symbols etc that might be useful to her, something from a publishing house would be best. These first two have been charged to your account and go with your compliments. In my card to Melitta I explain that they are indeed from you and at your suggestion. I am sorry to have been so long at it, but slowed down a bit for awhile.

I write this in the morning so as to get an earlier collection by the postman. So must get back to letters of recommendations.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

It has been snowing lightly all day and is said to be
becoming heavier at nightfall. I drove Susan to the Historical Society
with her nosegays for the attendants and came on to the office. Now
having tidied a bit I must go back and make my appearance. But she
wanted to be there early to make last moment changes in the decorations,
and I could not face a two-hour tea.

Not much happens. I worked last night again on cards, and
read two books which I could then thank for more briefly by Christmas
card than letter. I have a good many more to go but work by the motto
that if the card is dated before Christmas my heart has been in the
right direction. One's comprehension of the books and articles is
considerably limited by this device but I learn where to turn back to
should the need for that particular source of information ever recur.
Or occur.

I sent off a copy of the interview on Hilda, and the offprint
of the early works of hers to Kenneth and to OB. I had earlier sent a
set to Joan in care of her mother's. I thought that Ethel wouldn't
particularly want, since she didn't really know Hilda. But of course
Joan did. I can send her the whole issue if you think best. I will do
that to White and to your research man whose name for the moment escapes
me.

Of Most of my oversadas cars are now en route. One hopes they
will arrive by Easter. On the whole I am no worse off that other years
and perhaps just slightly better. Still, I daresay the mails will bring
in piles of unexpected messages which must be acknowledged.

Last night when I got home I found a special delivery letter
from a blind lawyer in California who writes the many novels and short
stories he writes in a manuscript. He sounds cocky but I guess it is to
keep his courage up. He simply announced that willy-nilly he was coming
to visit me on the 13th and would barge in whether I liked it or not.
Susan was at the Society most of the time decorating--during the afternoon
at least. I was at my office all day. No one showed up. What happened?
I answer his letter however tomorrow.

I have noticed no other city that precancelled the Christmas
stamps with the city's name. So I enclose copies of the stamp without
the name for your serious collectors. One has it, just to remind you.

Hope all goes well. Perhaps tomorrow's mail will have a letter

from you in it.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

Fortunately the snowfall was not so heavy as predicted, although last night when we went to bed all the ground and the boughs of trees were covered white with sticky snow, beautiful even without moonlight. The men were at the house at seven this morning to plow the driveways and shovel the walks so that I could get out at the usual time.

You will notice that I found the extra stamps, and thanks to my first call of the day at the postoffice can explain the New Haven cancel better. I asked the man why I had not seen similar cancellations by city name from elsewhere, and he said that New Haven was one of only four cities in the country to be chosen for this experiment. Be didn't know what the other three were. But point out to your special and serious collectors that these are items, and that they should have an example with and without the special cancellation.

A heavy mail today as you can imagine. But cards from Marie Anne and from Margery which were pleasant to have. Also a letter from the Brigadier but I will read that tonight. I was particularly pleased to have a letter from Kyoto agreeing to my teaching only one course there. Doshisha has agreed to one course for them, two. This instead of the original suggestion of two courses for each. Life now becomes possible and I can have a little free time. Their original idea would have been for a schedule twice as heavy as I teach here, coupled with running back and forth across the city on several days of each week.

The heavy mail included six letters from you. the 8th,9th, two on the 10th, 11th and 12th. Plus Pup's letter and I should say an unusually fine batch of clippings. I shall cherish and quote the "annual lecture, but not always." I like the man and his rhetoric!

I purr a little at the success of the Renault book and my hunch that you ought not to wait for the English publication nor even the 25th. The New York Times reviewed it yesterday but I will not send since you take the Book Review yourself. It seems indicated that this is the first of two, but why not. I see what you mean about Henty and am sure I would agree with you. Helen did like Renault, but Renault worked through an agent who wanted to stay with Pantheon rather than transfer to Harcourt as Anne L and you did. Helen is very loyal to those within the "family" and does not have the time really to read anyone who is not. * I was so sorry about reservations on Scilly for June. This is precisely what we are up against in Japan because of trippers, there.

I coossed Dorothy Doolittle off but will send her Vaud if you wish. You must insruct precisely. And precisely whether you'd like a copy to go to Renault or not. I have to leave this to your judgment. I rather thought the Richards would be off to their island again, but the book will be waiting for her when they return. You will note that I have had a copy (at your summer suggestion) sent to Prof Colbeck, so do not give her another. I am amazed at the reaction of the Swiss bookdealer but you have warned me about this before. The Swiss themselves are not really cosmopolitan; they are happy unto themselves, like the Spaniards. Mountains make people that way.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I am so sorry about Oonagh. It is all part of a frightening manifestation of disintegration in society. Not simply in the UK but here as well. I feel a little as though Oonagh was doomed. Do get the book out while there is time; its appearance would be too wretched if the seams open up to the public.

What bad luck with your typewriter. A pity you could not have guessed and put it in for a checkup and overhaul while you were in England. What bad luck also with the temperature. No, Kenwin is not a place for the winter--not now at any rate. Is it all possible to put in a larger electric heater for your bedroom, to supplement therother heat when the load on the circuits is not so heavy? At least you should be warm with the deBeers on the 26th. Wear woolies!

We can get you a bigger credit card as from your New York bank any how for Brentanos, thus obviating your carrying cash. But the cost of bookkeeping and billings seems to be so great everyone is trying to get out of it. The Co-op for example will charge nothing less than $1.00, a nuisance because one doesn't always need more.

I continue to eat well and not mind much the slight restrictions. I do mind the four tranquilizers a day as they make me sleepy. Perfectly fine at night but not during the day, itself. I had a phone call from my doctor告告说 the emphysema tests. All but two of them were good; the other two not so good but I couldn't understand. Nothing one can do about it anyhow, and the trip will be good for me since I will walk much more and they want that. Vivienne's grandson's case was disturbing to say the least.

I am naturally much interested in Robin's and Oonagh's case. One can understand the provocation on her part but the trouble was not her father's doing and one does have to have compassion. I fear she was spoiled into thinking chiefly about herself. I remember Mrs Powers well; she sat down and had a good talk with me at the dinner party Petrie gave for us--buffet actually. She has a brother who is a judge in Washington, D.C., but is devoted to the Master. And I think liked Petrie too, though she is a family servant and Robin's was the family. She half brought up Oonagh.

I still stick to the Stanhope suggestion, and Helen was much in favor of it. Would like I think to be a Marie Anne one night a week. And it would be warm in your room. But I suspect there is a point of hot nor about staying at Kenwin this winter anyhow, as you see it, so shall not argue.

The woman who was to have arrived on the 13th as from the History of Consciousness did not, as I expected, show up this morning. One wonders what happened to her, as to the blind lawyer also from California.

The Christmas tie I have dug out not opened yet, nor will until Christmas Day at the tree. I was only grateful for the package containing what the customs declaration "said" was a tie. It may be marijuana.

When I wrote Kenneth for Christmas I suggested that if he was worried about the state of Italy (I did not quote you of course) he might like to do as Gertrude Stein did and put Uncle Norman's papers in a bank here or deposit (not give yet, tho he has promised them) to Yale, in the Yale Library. I don't think he looks at them but having them by him I suspect strengthens his strength. I was thinking only in terms of Uncle Norman himself.

My seminar was over promptly today so I was able to do rather better than usual with my letter.

All love and a warm heart to hold you,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, but obviously the mailman was so bowed down by the weight of your six yesterday that he could not stagger along his route this morning. A yellowback however did come, and I will get to that later if there is time.

What has my day been like. Visitors and letters of recommendation. For I have at last broken the ice on the latter, and the stream is beginning to run again. Although -- one would know it-- a young man came in needing four different letters; and an Indian (from India) needing all sorts of things to straighten out for her. Two letters indicated there anyhow. And oh yes, a request from the lady poet we visited in Amsterdam wanting me to get the material ready for a radio program on Hilda to be given over Radio Holland. How I can manage it I don't know. But I feel I must try, somehow. I do my best for her as you know. Doing it for her is doing it for you too.

One adds to the glory of the American postage stamp. I had a triumphant note from the Academy of American Poets (of which I am a Chancellor) announcing that each year there will be a new stamp in a series honoring American poets. Who is the first one? Edgar Lee Masters. I wonder who thought that choice up. I remember him in a rocking chair at the Hotel Chelsea, in the 30's-- rocking and growling. Another announcement in from an obscure publishing house telling of an introduction by Sir Gavin to Robert Chambers' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Will you explain to his knightship as you give him a knightcap that I will be in the Far East when the book appears in Spring.

There was a letter in from Brother Volant (I had just written him) explaining his silence because of emergency kidney stones last summer when he was on a retreat in Winnepeg. They rushed him to the hospital. I think I told you that Eskimo announced that Brother Volant, (the J turns out to stand for Jacques,) was celebrating his 50th anniversary as a religious. In my letter I offered to send him to the great Eskimaux -Indian exhibition, begun at the Musée de l'Homme, in Ottawa, if the Order was stingy about it. But his letter said they had indeed sent him and he was sending me a catalogue. He is busy as always, "Churchill n'ai plus une place tranquille." So maybe not the place for you to go when it is cold at Kenwin.

I have just finished a very bad book, *The Golden Cowrie*, on New Caledonia. But one does learn from even bad books, a little. As for example: the author is in a tribal village along the coast, as he searches for sea shells. "At first they also asked for information about the 'great lands over the sea' (to them, of course, all incredibly remote). Switzerland had provoked their curiosity at first, but they completely lost interest when I told them that there were no sea and no reefs there, nothing but some freshwater lakes in which there were neither crabs nor shrimps and not more than five or six kinds of fish. Our enthusiastic descriptions of mountains and glaciers left them quite unmoved, once they realised that snow could not be eaten and in fact did nothing but make you feel cold; this seemed to them a particularly useless quality." I thought of you!

I have just been sent a biography of Donovan the head of OSS. It come out after I leave, but would you like me to order a copy sent on to you. It might be rather fun. I don't figure in it, but my milieu does.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

I started to type the date as November; it was only a hitherto suppressed desire for more time. But at least my classes are over. As I wrote the innumerable and delayed letters of recommendation I began each one with the excuse of my bleeding ulcer. The salutations were carmine. Now I commence with, "I have been suffering from classes but fortunately am now much better."

My first trip was to the dentist, and alas he is far from finished. The cavity for the new inlay grew bigger and bigger, and I was dismissed with the capping of a nerve in the root and an appointment tomorrow for the impression of the inlay and another on Tuesday for the inlay itself. Then I start on another job. Still, I am glad not to have this to face in a Japanese dental chair. I had my hair cut too, but the barber fortunately discovered no complications. I had a meeting at lunch concerned with Historical Society programs-- I am relinquishing that duty to some new as yet unknown, the choice of whom is not my responsibility. The rest of the time has gone to the letters of recommendation and to more and more Christmas cards. By fingers are about to drop.

The day was made pleasantest--it was 16°F when we got up this morning -- by your two letters of the 15th. Congratulations on disposing of more or Elsie's papers. Things march even if slowly. * As to those in Switzerland to whom books have already gone, you will have had the xeroxed list sent to Helen by now. Airmail were sent to Lady deB and to Marie Anne. Otherwise, I think I am correct to none. None to your Swiss writing friends. Well, let me check all this tomorrow. None I know will want to Wendy since you said you would send.

It is now past six p.m. Let me write more decently tomorrow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

20 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

No letter yesterday and not much of a one today. But oh, the slogging at my desk--and oh the number of multi-purpose Christmas cards that have gone out. Only a few done to Japan or to Australia but these will simply have to be New Year's greetings instead. With the Japanese it will be more proper.

I started out this morning, went to the drug store to pick up some things I had earlier ordered, and then to the International Student Center to see about a middle-aged Japanese scholar who is working under me, was involved in an accident when his car was hit from behind, and suffered what is known as whiplash. This can be very serious to the neck and nerves. He has not been well, vomits and still suffers headaches a weekafter. I will see that a doctor sees him on Monday. Then to the postoffice for stamps and to post a 4th class envelope to you. Just junk to be tossed away, but I thought the story by the young girl something out of the Gothic horror tale. And I wondered what you thought about the psycho-analyst who wants Hilda's photograph. But at what age? When she knew Freud. This can be expensive. And I wonder what he intends to do with them. Advice, please. All letters I send you now are xerox and can be destroyed. It becomes simpler, I can send as printed matter. Letters I may have to have sent on to me in Japan I will xerox for the same reason. Mrs H can keep the original here.

Yesterday afternoon was completely wrecked; hence no letter to you. I was furious. I had a dentist appointment at 2:30 for a model to be made for an inlay. I got on the chair, he said "You're not in a hurry, are you?" and went off to picking up instruments to make an extraction from a man to whom he had given novocain and sent into the outer office. I at least asked if he shouldn't do this in his best chair where I was. So I had my robes removed and was seated at the secretary's desk. It was over an hour and a half later before I was back in the dental chair. A rugged extraction, but.... why should he have scheduled this overlapping. He made a great thing the time before of why he had to charge $300. for a court appearance because he might have to wait as much as two hours. Why can't patients send a bill to doctors for the time they are kept waiting and away from their own work and income? I had a four o'clock faculty meeting; I did not leave until after four-thirty. So I went to the tail end of the meeting anyhow, in time to vote and have my nose counted as present. But there was then no time for you.

Now I have to go home and dress for a cocktail party given by a geologist who is a great Arctic buff. He lives now on the West Coast and is just back for a conference. Actually, for once, I look forward to a party.

I will write again tomorrow.

All love,

your Christmas cable came on Wednesday. Many thanks

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

Another Sunday morning at the office and a few more Christmas cards written. Especially thanks to Mrs Jarrell for the copy she sent of her husband's complete works of poetry, to a Norman Talbott in Australia for his book of poems, and to Babette Deutsch for her completed poems. If only these were all that needed to be done. But each, anyhow, is an accomplishment.

This afternoon I will help Susan pin up the cards we received, on cloths we hang from the molding in the living room. It is traditional for her family and really does make a gay effect. By myself I would probably be too lazy.

Harry Moore writes that Southern Illinois has bought some Hilda letters and says their librarian will send me xerox copies. At Kershaw's suggestion, he says, he is now getting out a volume of Aldington's letters. He has said nothing yet about using Hilda's for a new task. I will wait to solve that one until we have to face it. I suspect he is scared of the biography as too big and too complicated a task. I must say I shouldn't much care for it myself.

The three volumes of Ainsworth's THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON have arrived. I had not realised they were rebound in a gorgeous red 3/4 morocco. I have acknowledged their arrival to John Maggs, thanked him but suggested they sell you only first editions in their original bindings. On the whole this is better for a collection, although they tend to cost more than the rebound.

I have been over the lists as you remembered them from what you sent Helen. By now you will have had the xerox of what I sent as a list to her myself. She promised to have them checked against each other. There may have been a slipup and Lady deB and Marie Anne each received two. Perhaps they will return one to you. I fear I may have been too splashy, but felt that Lady deB would want hers before they left for England, and by surface she could not. So if Lady deB then Marie Anne too. Frau Schnack was sent one, Mrs Ruegg, and Maitre Coigny. Wendy's copy you said you said you preferred to give from those sent you. Simon's also, I gathered.

What a fine letter Chester Page wrote about Vaud. I think he did understand it.

As I told you, your Christmas cable came on Thursday, for which our thanks and love. No letter from you yesterday, and I suspect the local postal clerks began to take things easy. Yours of the 13th I only briefly spoke of. I think you might be uneasy in Italy at the moment, though they are out for those who go to operas. The country folk may be different; one hopes so. Marya's letter in the last yellowback was interesting; she puts her whole life in Horace. I wonder what would happen to her if she went first. I spoke to him on the phone this morning and he was in good spirits indeed, although a note from Marya on a Christmas card said he had been so ill with flu she feared he might be hospitalized. No trace of this in his conversation. He is back in Ireland on his rewrite of the memoirs, and will shortly begin what is to be a 20-30 page postscript bringing his career farther along. I imagine this is Pat's idea.

This obviously won't reach you until after Christmas but I will have been sending my love by extra senoary devices.

All love, and special Christmas wishes

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

I did not write you yesterday. Instead I spent most of the afternoon getting a 37-year-old visiting Japanese professor into the university infirmary. Two weeks ago, apparently, he was hit from behind in his car, the car wrecked, and he underwent what is known as a whiplash to his neck. I found out only that he was absent from my seminars, then that he had frequent headaches and sometimes vomited. He had seen only a doctor at the out-patient clinic of the Yale New Haven Hospital. This is not good enough, and so the doctor at the Health Office agreed that Sadoya should go to the infirmary, rest where medicine could be given (he was living at the Internation Student Center and living off the rice he cooked) and where he could be thoroughly examined. He (the doctor) did not seem worried but said also I should get Sadoya a good lawyer for damages. I feel much relieved but it did take time.

Have just sent off your Christmas cable and hope it gets to you in time. I have been trying the phone for the last half hour, always to find Western Union's line busy. But what fun if I could have said it to you. Yet I never find trans-atlantic telephone conversations very satisfactory. I always freeze up as though the headmistress were at the other end of the line. Or headmaster. But love went anyhow, and many thanks for all your many kindnesses and generosity to me during the past year. They have made life possible.

Yours of the 17th and 18th came yesterday, and of the 19th today. Not too bad considering the state of the mails. I certainly have not helped uncrowd the letter slots. I am almost finishing my 400th card, all with some message or other on them. It is scandalous, but when a former student sends what can I do. Yesterday I had a card from a couple (both ministers) whom I met on a short launch ride in Tahiti two autumns ago. But it has been nice to get others. Phyllis, Hilda, Sylva, Silvia, Rose, Joan, the Goughs, Barbara Jordan, the Urzidels, Miss Scarlett, Marie Anne, the Rueggs, how many friends you have also given me.

Glad you had the talk with Coigny, but don't feel that although you keep Kenwin you must live in it in dead winter. Good that he will stand by for Kenneth. Of course it may all be a scare now, but someday the tale will be different. * Very interesting to know what books of yours are at Renishaw. Maybe more Elizabethans which you had forgotten giving her. In any event I should have whatever it is back. Reresby obviously is not interested. * The cancellation of a stamp is when a postoffice inks it upon its being mailed. Occasionally this inking is done before the actual mail to save time or to decorate. As for example a cancellation from Valentine, Missouri sent to that postoffice for mailing back, before February 14th. This New Haven was put on the stamp ahead of time. Only three other cities tried this. I have had a similar one from Mepmphis but wonder what the other two were. * This is great luck about the earlier possibility for the Scillies. I have an idea it will make a great difference to Pup, for whom July may be too late. * I remember long speeches from Lady V about Oenone, and the name always fascinated me. Female bulldogs are quite miraculous. I have just been reading about one in Bali, or rather New Guinea, and will tell you about her tomorrow. All letters will be in your hands the same day, one judges from the many close-shop days your postoffice seems to have.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2731 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN·CONN
06520

24 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

It is almost the night before Christmas. Which is to say mid-afternoon. The offices are closed and the secretaries have gone. Mrs H has had her Christmas check and a copy of *Avalon* to add to her shelf of Bryher. She gave me a Christmas cooky with my eleven no'clock tea, and a little box wrapped in blue paper which I am to open tomorrow. Susan called to say that the Christmas tree at Goodrich Street was all trimmed, Lizzie having come in to help this morning. We go to her house this evening for dinner, a long drive but she wants to entertain. Young Susan also goes with the two grandchildren. They all come to our house tomorrow morning for the tree and luncheon. Then the children take the train to their father's in New York.

I shall take out the unopened yellowback with my Grieder in it and put it under the tree. I thank you ahead of time again, but I shall thank you still once more when I see what it will suit. They always do suit something, which is the fun of it. Mrs H was immensely pleased with her scarf, and Susan with her check. But I daresay they will write when things are less hectic.

I am now well over the 400 mark for cards sent, though as I told you-- many are multi-purposed.

Your letter of the 19th arrived this morning. I was sorry to hear about John's accident and had hoped to bring you up to date when I phoned them this morning to search out an East Hampton address to write a thank-you note to. It was 11:15, and John and Pup were out, Elizabeth with her horse, and the two older boys still asleep. So explained Timothy who was very much at ease. I asked him to search out the desired number in the phone book, he tried valiantly and decided it wasn't there. But all ended well, for Mrs H phoned telpehone information and they gave her the address and phone. Timothy must have slipped in his research. Their card, which came this morning, was of Elizabeth on her horse.

The book to Dorothy Doolittle went off to her this morning, with a season's greetings card marked, "compliments of the author." It was easier and certainly much quicker to send one from my stock than involve Harcourt in it.

Bad luck with the Escale; I know their closing periods but knowing doesn't help feed one properly. Sorry the three Raubers dragged a bit, but you have done your duty.

I wait for the explanation of the emphysema test until I have my general physical early in January. I could understand no more than I told you.

I began the day by calling on my Japanese at the infirmary. He seemed relaxed into being there, but had had word yesterday that his mother had died in Japan. He wept as he talked and I did my best to console. There seem to be further complications about his accident, so I think a doctor is well indicated. That is a next Monday's task.

Did I tell you that when the workmen finished the basin replaced in the bathroom I use, they set it in at the center of the counter rather than lining it with the mirror (recessed medicine cabinet) and recessed sopp dish. So one had to crane a bit in shaving to get the mirror, quite apart from the aesthetics. The contractor thought there could be adjustments. I said it had to be done over. He came yesterday morning, walked into the room with Susan and exclaimed, My, how I goofed." So now it will be days and days with no extra usable basin at all. But I should have been irked for the rest of my life, and made even crookeder than I am.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

I told you of the stalwart Englishwoman I read with reference to New Caledonia. She was actually Anglo-Irish, and the first part when she tells how she became a newspaper correspondent in order to travel, sounds in part like Petrie and in part like Lady V. Her name: Beatrice Grimshaw, and the book (her 28th) *Isles of Adventure* not so good in itself as about her type. Here are samples:

"Wandering once through the Mekeo forests I met a sorcerer whom I happened to know."

"No female foot had ever polluted the threshold of the Tabati *Laki-laki* house until the chief admitted mine, and one could see that the youths thought it a hazardous and unconventional proceeding."

"In the cooking pots the dinner might have been man-meat, boiled with herbs from the bush. Some of the pots would have had a plump baby inside, neatly trussed like a fowl."

"The babies were never tough; a baby is always the best of eating. Our women were very fond of babies, I remember." "How--fond of them," "Fond of them to eat, chief. They were always bothering us to go out and get them babies to eat; and of course it wasn't always convenient to do so."

You can't say she didn't know the tricks.

I don't think I told you a possibility that had occurred to me *doe* salvaging the Ghandaran book, though much remains to be done and I need your approval. This would be to present (otherwise they will be pulped) all the bound sheets to the Connecticut Academy which, because Ingholt is a past president, would then act as publisher. I would give them the funds for a new title page, listing the Academy, plus a simple paper binding. The book could be marked down to say $10.00 or so, and of course the Academy would benefit from every copy they sold--so their own publishing fund would be aided. The cost to me of the new title page and paper binding could then become a gift to the Academy and hence a tax deduction. This is dignified, it seems to me, and philanthropic. Ingholt is excited, but altho he promised to take the matter up has not done so. I tried it out on one of the powers in the stablishment and he liked it. I will try a few more and try to get their agreement. Then if I have yours, I will try Pantheon. I am sure they will agree. I do hate to throw the book away, and perhaps with a lower price it will sell better. Storing the copies T Cetona will do no good, and Islay can't handle the distribution. Let me know what you think. Everything is at a preliminary stage and I did not want to bring up with you until I knew there was at least a chance with the Academy.

I shall be thinking with love of you tomorrow and again for the New Year.
My greetings please to Ines and to Marie Anne. My love to you,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

It is blowing hard, snowing a little, and the thermometer is in the low 20's. But I managed to make my way to the office after being completely snowed in yesterday. Christmas Day was fine, the Eve passable so that we went to Killingworth in order for Lizzie to be hostess. But when we woke Friday morning it would have been impossible to get the car out of my garage. Perhaps little more than a foot fell, but with the wind the drifts were four or more feet high in places--one place being the front of the garage. Later it turned to a cold rain which weighted everything down, and the men who came to shovel strained to move it. The whole city actually stayed at home, hardly a car was on the streets. And very few were this morning, but I wanted to write you and see if there was a letter from you and so ventured forth. I stopped actually first at the Yale infirmary to see how my Japanese scholar was doing. I had left two wrapped books to be given him on the 25th, and he said he had had a laughing lunch in the dining room with the nurse and one other patient. He seems to improve, but I shall have to confer with doctors on Monday and get a lawyer to represent him.

Christmas itself was pleasant. The grandchildren and the two girls appeared a little before eleven, and the children opened their presents with enthusiasm before being taken to a noon train for New York so they could see their father just returned from Europe. Apparently he returns after Christmas, why I can't guess and wouldn't ask; he is fortunate in not having worked since his divorce.

(My how the wind howls, and sneaks in through the crack of thr windows.
I shiver even in my office).

I opened my tie respectfully and ah'ed with approbation. It is my first
Grieder wide tie and I shall cut a great dash in it. I do thank you. A very nice
Christmas gift indeed. I had one other tie, some handkerchiefs from Susan, a record
from young Susan and some jams made by Lizzie from her, fudge from little Susan and
an ash tray of clay turned and painted by Justus. The Schaffners sent two books,
one of them by Constance Wright, the other may well be the novel they sent you.
Lizzie had been anxious to invite a neighbor (late-middle-aged female), her boy friend
and what appeared to be a reserve boyfriend. Normally we have never
asked anyone outside the immediate family but this did seem to be important to Lizzie
so we agreed. They were pleasant, arriving however a little before the presents were
finished. The woman seems to be interested in the theater in New York and have her
friends in that circle. The regular boy friend, of say fifteen years younger vintage,
was in a play which opened here last Monday, but had had his part written out the
day before Christmas. Because he was too good, only appearing at the end, and over
shadowed the others, his friends said. I could not say. He is also stage manager so
has a job. The Christmas Day performance had been cancelled and he left soon after
lunch for another rehearsal of the emasculated play. The reserve boy friend was a
slightly aging pink-faced juvenile, closer to the lady's age, who had done acting on
Broadway and in Hollywood but was now a carnival barker in a show featuring Sally
Rand who was a risque fan dancer a decade or two back. The conversation was probably enlivened
and less family-centered than if only Susan and I and the girls were there.

Christmas Eve at Lizzie's was pleasant; she served a wild pheanst some
one had given her plus a chicken. The grandchildren also went. But all left early
because of the weather and the day ahead.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

I had taken enough work home so that I had plenty to do during the day of confinement. I answered one or two cards--my total sent now stands finally at about 415; then read the book sent me by a student of 20 years ago who wrote in a letter that came with it that I had said he could write a book if he kept at it. Quite interesting, about Minnesota. Non-fiction. Then I read another book on Pound's *Personae*, sent me from New Zealand by a man I had apparently helped when he was writing it as a dissertation at Manchester (England) some years ago. I met him in Canterbury, N.Z. and he had reminded me of this then. A rather painful poem-by-poem glossing of the early poems, but of course I picked up all sorts of oddments. I had never noticed that one of them was about Hilda, in the poem too he called her Dryad. Then finished a book on New Caledonia, and began one on Bali. But most of all I worked in the cellar while Susan was vacuuming the ground floor. We have no maid and she does all housekeeping and housecleaning. She works on the second floor today. Her birthday comes Monday and we are having a cocktail party. Or I am having one for her. Firstly I was wiped and polished all of the скimo ivory pieces in the collection which because of the flooding byandalas last summer had become gray and thick with mildew. It was a long task because there are so many of them, but fun to look at them one by one and slightly to rearrange them. I had attempted to show them to one or two people lately but closed the drawer in disgust. Then I picked up the workbench where among other work I shine my shoes, and tossed away old cloths and worn brushes. Even boxes that had held things. From there I moved to two flat large tables on which I thrust everything, but on which our house-watchers may want to put things that arrive and must be kept during our absence. And what did I find as I put books back on the shelves or moved them to more convenient spots? A drawing by Wyndham Lewis that I had bought so long ago I had forgotten I owned it. And best of all the water color by Ballantyne that Quayle had given me, and I had sworn I turned over to the framer. He could not find it but was so convinced by the sincerity and detail of my account of the transaction and transfer that he offered insurance. Not much of a water color but of course done by one of the masters of dusty diamonds. I phoned him to apologize, for the loss has frequently been mentioned and apologized for. This morning after the infirmary I took it to him to be framed, for as with your gift from Wipf I have proof of how things can be lost.

Once at the HGS I found that no mail had been sorted yesterday, and none apparently delivered this morning. But it had been de-sacked and was on the counter. So I went through it for anything that might be mine, and found the card of thanks from Ines and three letters from you, which made it all definitely worthwhile. Those of the 20th, 21st and 22nd. * I am so sorry about your eye but was pleased that some one could take care of it for you. Apparently with you as with us, emergency cases are taken care of in the early morning. But I trust you had a lavish roll with your coffee at Livet. I know how good they both can be. * Poe begins to come back a little into fashion, but amongst the critics for his black humor, stories like "The Imp of the Reverse" etc. The younger still stick by the tales of horror, ratiocination etc. And they make good Gothic reading when one does them for the first time. * As to Kenneth's papers I doubt very much that he actually will send them over for safekeeping. They have a kind of talismanic value for him. I was rather sorry in Islay's letter to read that they are moving the statues from the old theater to the new garden wall. I always thought the theater was one of the charming follies, and the truth is I shall have to see the wall before I know whether I approve of it or not. * One really can't do much about the Ognagh-Papa affair; you had similar conflicts but thank God you also had stamina and a certain amount of tact and perhaps even gratitude (though that usually comes later--I am thinking of how good you were to your mama.) * I hope for Israel for you

3.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

and also advise an early Spring trip to the States. Both for a check with Prutting and a visit with your friends while they are still in town. Actually of course I hope your Fall visit will not be until October so that I shall have a chance to see you. (Of course it might be in Greeland). I'm not really sure just when I'll get back. My course is over at the beginning of August but one thing or another may hold up my return and I'm saying, with some truth, simply that I'll be back by September. But of course the first moments after a six-months absence will be hectic to say the least. Think of the accumulated mail and the beginning of classes!

Your weather has been cold, ours has been equally bitter. The lowest has been 6°F one morning when we got up, but it seldom gets above freezing. This is one of the coldest early winters we have ever had. * Most interesting about your mother's dolls. I wonder if Pup wouldn't like them as a display for one of their rooms. They do need respectable furnishings, and some cases with old dolls in them would be superb. Or the Victoria and Albert might like them as period pieces and costume. They mustn't be discarded. Apparently they are going through things at Renishaw, which of course is highly sensible. You haven't heard so much from Sachy lately; having more funds may have relieved his loneliness. * I do think it might be sensible to write a xeroxing general letter next year and then add a note at the end in your own hand or typing. I have several friends who do that, being careful to leave enough space at the bottom of the page, but *not too much*. * I was much interested in your brother's picture. He has an attractive stance and interesting lips and face. Not untypical of the young Englishman I should think. It's rather a pity that he is so withdrawn. You might well get along with him, but not his family I should think.

But *where* did you get your triumphant clipping, and how dare whoever it is drag my name in as panderer! "Common entrance" forsooth. How vulgar can either an "exceptional tutor" or an "interested boy" get? I am immensely intrigued. Can't you, won't you write and ask for photographs and biographical detail both on NP and the tutor, saying that people have always recognized you as intelligent and that you might well be interested. We can begin a drama.

What a nuisance about your lost check book. It must be all this having to move back and forth between the two rooms. But your dames will be grateful for the checks when they do come. One of the things I did yesterday at home, since the cancelled checks had arrived there was to arrange them. I saw your second check still had not been cashed. The simplest thing is for you to endorse it for deposit only and mail to your New York bank to be added to your account with them.

I was not a Mark Twain enthusiast as a child, found him dull. Still do not think he was a genius. But the house is fun. * Edgar Lee Masters is *Sppon River Anthology*; he wrote lots more but accomplished little beyond that.

If only I could bring you your beer every morning. I would be a good porter even though not portly.

Have just phoned Pup to thank for the books. John is quite well again but looking forward to substantial damages. Mr Fred shivers in his stable. They are glad of the protection against gales and heavy rains but they did not have the snow. She is happy you are going to the Scillies in July which she says is the best month for her. (I never breathe that I see her letters, but as with the accident simply say that you wrote about it. Which indeed you did.)

Because I need insurance on the Sitwell mss immediately, or at least have a full description against loss, I had the local appraiser of mss and rare books describe them technically and put an estimate of what they would fetch at auction. This becomes legal. If you ever send over the Maggs estimate we can use whichever is higher. He puts a value of $9,500.00 on them. I forget whether that is higher or lower than Maggs; I think you were not sure in your memory when you wrote me.

All possible love and a happy new year.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27th Dec (2nd letter)

Dearest Fido,

I have to admit that this is my season for apologies. After having posted my letter to you this noon, I set out on my afternoon's dictation (this will have to wait until the 5th to be typed) and then began to balance my checkbook. Your check was among them; in putting them in order I must have escaped seeing what the check actually was. So I do thank you, and all is in order in my mind too.

The rest of the time has been spent starting to get my income tax material ready. It is not due until April 15th (a final payment on last year is due in a fortnight, but that is another matter) but I will not be here and must get my accountant to put all in shape. A very dull business, working mostly from my checkbook as I pay all expenses that way. However it is convenient, and the check is a receipt.

I was somewhat surprised but not unpleased to have a greeting card from Mary Hotson to say she was back in New Haven and thank for a card I sent her when she was sick in Maine.

I forgot also to thank you for the two volumes of *Close Up*, part of 1931 and part of 1933. No, I guess it is the whole year for each of those. Very good to have, and in the fall I shall try to put all of my copies into order. I think perhaps transfer them to the American Literature Research Project for convenience.

We go out tonight for supper, and I only hope my car will start after our meal. The wind has been whistling in my rooms, and I finally broke down and put on the radiators. Normally when I do it is stifling, but better to stifle than to turn into an icicle.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

Very little indeed to report since my yesterday afternoon's letter. Everything was iced and slippery but I managed to get home safely. Getting up into the driveway is sometimes a bit of a trick. Only when we started out to our dinner party the wheels simply spinned once the car was partway out and Susan had to take over the wheel while I sanded beneath the spin. This morning I scattered sand pretty much all over the glare ice in the driveway, for the temperature is too much below freezing for the sun to have any effect.

The dinner was pleasant: the Martzes, the Popes (he is the Beowulf man) and the Hilleses, -- all English department people, and our hostess (Mrs Martz) was celebrating her birthday as it turned out. We played bridge after dinner, and the one time Susan and I were partners our opponents held such fantastically good cards that the score for that four hands won the prize for each of our opponents for the evening.

This morning, once I got here, we breakfasted late, I have stuck to my income tax material, and have sorted out whatever is gleanable from my check books. So that is a great step forward. Next I must put all my receipts in order and see if by chance I paid anything by cash. Then of course to reckon my income from various sources and this is always sobering. But I do feel that I've accomplished something which simply can't be done unless I'm uninterrupted. Mrs H will be away on holiday until January 5th so this should be finished long before that. Actually it's important to have all this straight too before I talk to the man at the bank who will have to handle my bills until my return.

I spoke to Horace and Marya on the phone the day after Christmas. They had had both children with them, and he seemed immensely in good humor. Had just that day finished his revision of the memoirs, and was now ready to begin the postcript which I gather brings him more up to date. He seems to like Pat's wife more and more, which is pleasant, and they come down to see him with some regularity.

I stay home this afternoon and watch a football game on television. And make final preparations for the cocktail party tomorrow for Susan's birthday. Her 65th.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

I did go back to watch the football game yesterday, but the reception for the first half was not good and tired the eyes. Then Susan discovered it was also on another station, switched and it was perfect. Only the game was very lopsided. She had prepared a nice duck for dinner, we ate it seriously (there was nothing left) and later watched the Forsythe Saga, to which she is devoted, and called it a day. Now we are preparing for the cocktail party (at that point came a loud knock on the door. Justus. To lunch with me and then get his hair cut for the party this afternoon. I must say he needed, which was why I made the suggestion at Christmas time. We lunched, I gave him the money for the barber, off he went and when he reported back afterwards I must say I saw an improvement.) later this afternoon, and I will take eleven for supper at Mory's afterwards. I hope it will have seemed gala to Susan; we have two maids in and they made the hors d'oeuvres.

Actually I didn't go immediately back to this letter but instead began sorting into appropriate piles all the bills (receipted) I have. Out of these I can take what expenses were met by cash, the appraisals of gifts to the library, and so forth. The piles have been made, all the medical ones sorted by doctor, and put away. My desk looks like a mess but I can't say I care much.

A yellowback came this morning. I take careful note of the excellent photograph of Hesse. How Nicholas would grab for it! * A very nice letter to you I thought from Sir Ronnie. He has obviously made a mark for himself. * Reresby's letter was interesting, and no wonder you wonder what the books are. Somehow I think that he as well as his name fit Renishaw to a "t"; sometime you ought to go up just to see what changes he will make. And Sachie really does long for his big house too, doesn't he; and I suppose the other two did have their crack at Montegufoni and he has a right to his. Still, I should think it would use up the money fearfully despite the little he says need go into it. I do hope both he and Georgia can hold on to their health. * Nice notes I thought from both Mary and Leslie. I tried to take you, you know, to see how the trees have grown. I knew it would make a difference which was why I suggested it in the first place. Even without the other houses, there was otherwise no definition. * And Helen did seem grateful for her cheque. My hunch is she helps the boy a good deal, and perhaps Kurt's two children. * Poor Jean Starr, life must be sheer agony. I do sympathize with her but doubt I should have the courage to take her on.

Your letters of the 21st and 23rd came this morning, and I draw nearer to your Christmas. Alas sadness seems everywhere. Kenneth certainly has it. So does your Hermanes. Ines is grieved. And you are cold. I do think you underestimate how pleasantly warm a New York or a New Haven room can be in winter. With things to do to break up the cold when one ventures out. * Don't worry about the Bagnold. My little old friend Silvia Hay had told me that the Bagnold was an old flame of Hodgson's and that she had splendid letters from him. She tried to get them for me, but with no success. Poor Mrs Hay has had a stroke, I was told in another letter, and she had been barely compos before that. I ordered a copy of the Bagnold sent to Aurelia and one for myself. I had not really thought of it as your cup of tea, and the girlhood decades were different than your own. Or so I judge. * Your Securitas man sounds like a good diplomat. I wish we had an equivalent here in the States.

I shall have to go home and brush my nails before the party.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 November 1969

Dearest Fido,

Well, the birthday is over and apparently Susan had a good day. The sun came out, the snow-removers came and shoveled the front walks and sanded the sidewalks and driveway, and the guests managed somehow to park in the streets much narrowed by what the plows pushed to the side. About two-thirds of the invited guests came which was more than enough, and the three special maids in for the party took care of everything nicely and had all the silver and dishes washed by the time we returned from Mory's. There were eleven at dinner (about 8 o'clock): the two girls and two grandchildren, the Hoblitzelles and Footes (from Hartford) and the widowed sister Jane. Everyone talked warmly, the grandchildren had the lobsters they had ordered in advance, and Justus even proposed a most elaborate toast to his grandmother thanking her for making his mother's, his sister's and his own life so happy. Susan was deeply touched. We were home by ten-thirty, and on our way to bed at 11:30. Susan turned on the house alarm, I waited a bit downstairs, but she was hardly at the head of the stairs before she noticed the house surrounded by police. No one knows what happened, save that somehow accidentally when she turned on the alarm it was tripped and rang at headquarters. I must say the two cars of police came within three minutes at the most. Remembering how, last summer, the alarm man had driven in the back driveway while the two robbers escaped out the front door, this time they crept up and surrounded the house. I think they were a bit disappointed when I opened the door to greet them. The false alarm must have been mechanical in origin, but I must say I was considerably relieved to learn that we were so well covered by the police. Because of all this even when I remembered I had not put the garbage out for collection, I dared not turn the alarm off again and we prepared to skip a week. But the collector came to the back door while we breakfasted in the kitchen to ask where it was. A final birthday gesture, I thought.

A dentist's appointment at ten rather broke the back of the morning. But I did come to the office for an hour beforehand, and sorted a few more bills and receipts. Then this afternoon, except for an hour's visit from the would-be-writer-son of my masseur while I went over a group given me last summer, I kept at the income-tax material. Donations, especially to Yale and its library, although put down from my checkbook, except for the stock I gave to the American Literature Fund to pay for Mrs Hamerman's salary etc., needed their acknowledgements to be legitimate. I could find most, and had formal appraisals for all but two minor gifts of books and mss., so there is plenty of time still to have that done. Now I have to work on traveling expenses, and entertainment expenses. I take my engagement book and my Mory's bills back home with me tonight.

I was most grateful to have two other volumes of *Close Up* arrive, in their gay bindings, and imagine this is what you have sent. There was still a stack of stray Christmas cards. A letter from Mrs Fitts asking for appraisals of her gifts to the Yale Library of her husband's papers; she is in Italy for the year. Letters of request from Australia and Japan. Greetings and books in German from Germany. From India. And a nice letter from Melitta. Saying she would like the books you are sending her. They are on their way. The dictionary was so heavy I sent surface.

And best of all your letters of the 24th and 25th. The mittens are rather a joke but I thought might amuse you. The books we will be glad if you find something to amuse. All can be given or burned. I congratulate you again on Jill Cooper's letters to the Times. "As a student I thought Professors only talked in other people's sleep." This is splendid, and if a chestnut has never been roasted by me.

2.

I was so sorry about the cracked cup, but sympathize with any shopkeeper at Christmas who misses a flaw. * I remember from the pictures he sent how proud Weinberg was of his daughter, almost pathetically so. I am glad she is worthy of it in looks, and perhaps keeping her older patron warm serves as a surrogate for her father and an incestuous relationship. I have often thought that Catha, like others who were devoted to their papas, might be happier if she had married a much older man. Then all could be naturally expressed. * The review in the Saturday Review simply didn't like the book as much as your others, which the review re-praised, but did add on the sour note of indicating you didn't know how serious revolutions were. Which is only to show she didn't know how to read what you did say. Actually the casual reader will not think Swiss history so "sincere" as Roman or Carthaginian. A curse of history is the tent pole struck down over so comparatively few spots in past time.

Having your Christmas letter did make me feel closer to you. New Year's Day doesn't matter. I shall simply stay home on the Eve and do more back reading of books to be acknowledged. But Christmas Day is a time when I should want to feed you a biscuit and scratch behind your ears and pat the tail. I wonder what you will make out of Ambler? I don't find myself a very good reader of detective stories. Real life was better.

You must not think about a "proper" Christmas gift. You yourself are that to me always. And you have been so generous in the past year that I neither deserve nor need more. Love is the best exchange, and we do that always.

As now,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 December 1969

Dearest Fido,

My last letter of the year. We were wakened this morning at 6 by the fierce grinding of tires on Goodrich Street outside our window. Never such a noise could one imagine as he spun his wheels on what was a new layer of ice. Finally he made it but neither of us could really go back to sleep again. It was raining lightly, and sometimes snowing when I drove to the baker's to get some little cakes for the party tomorrow. How I wished I were back in Switzerland for some of the cakes you have. How the Japanese would relish them. But I got what I could, brought them back to Goodrich Street, and then began to spin my own wheels in the driveway and only with difficulty finally got tread enough to move. Indeed I had to beg Susan's help at the wheel while I scattered, rather ineffectively, sand beneath the wheels.

Then, rather late to the office, and several telephone calls. The Grace Dolowitz who worked for me in the war and has become a neighbor of Pup's in East Hampton (they have now bought the house directly across the road--- she and Pup were friends in X-2) wrote to say she was coming on Friday while her daughter is having an interview for admission as a freshman to Yale next Fall. This is the one Nicholas is apparently keen on. So I phoned her and asked for lunch. Finally Susan broke in to say my dentist was wondering where I was for my nine o'clock appointment. It was now 10:15 and he had come in specially for me. So out into the ice I went again but finally had another inlay laid in. A few more times to go, but I so much prefer a little before-need work than subjecting myself again to dentists in Japan, Thailand and India as I did the last time.

Lunch with Gallup and Jay Leyda, and then back to my income tax material, which I am glad to say I have now done so far as it can be done. I found my entry for royalties from Viking incomplete--nothing for the second half of the year. I checked and found I had never deposited the check and so had not entered it. 166$ which will be most useful for Christmas bills. Now if I can get Susan to do hers, and get two estimates of gifts to Yale of books, I can call in the accountant.

Speaking of estimates of books, I was much interested in the comparative evaluations of Osbert's mss. I had not been sure you would send along the Maggs one, and so had Wenning do one here, along with complete descriptions of the mss for the insurance people. Wenning said $9,500.00. Maggs said £4,000, which I make out roughly to be the equivalent of $9,600.00, which is certainly remarkably close for this sort of indeterminate evaluation of anything unique.

Christmas cards still pour in, mailed after Christmas by people to whom we did not send. The total must be about 450 now. A great package for the Brigadier.

Have just bought a Ballantyne note about the Heimskringla, written to a "Dear Madam". Madam of what I wonder.

Your letter of the 26h was most welcome. Glad your lunch with Sir Gavin went well. I have a damning review of his new book by Cecilia Holland, the young girl who lives in a nearby town. She is getting too big for her minis, takes him to task as though she were a schoolmistress. Personally I can't manage her writing and no longer send them to you. * I had forgotten that Simond reads no English. Of course no book then unless with the sentiment the Japanese use in sending me their books in Japanese. * No, I expected you to be horrified by the horror story. I certainly was. I doubt much that psychiatry would have helped much in this case.

The biggest day of the year for the Japanese is New Year, so for the past three of them we have given a little party at the house. This means they have been entertained and they particular like being gala. Last year we said bring the children

in their notes to each other and is pleasant, and I always write firmly 4-6. Unlike Americans they take the limit seriously. This year I am having a maid so we won't have to do the dishes. All right for the new year. Bonnens

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

Nothing really to report, but the first letter of the year had to be
to you. I wonder on how many others I will write 1969 as usual.

And I mean "nothing to report." I had meant to bring down the card from
Frau Schnack but forgot it, its chief burden being "where is Bryher?" She has seen
you on three occasions on the street in Zurich but usually you were with a young
woman (obviously Joan) and on each occasion when she tried to get across the street
or catch up to you, you walked so briskly you escaped her. Once I reeall was by
the station. I had said on a card that I was having a book sent her, but she had
not yet received it. Obviously this was one of those I had sent surface. Still, I
daresay if you were on one of your midwinter jaunts to Zuri she would love it if
you asked her in for a cup of coffee.

We spent the evening quietly, actually I watched a football game for most
of it, not feeling quite up to serious work. But when that was over I did some more
annotation of Pound's early poems, as from the book which I must acknowledge; and then
read on in an increasingly dull book on Dreiser which I must also thank for. I may
be fairly well caught up on correspondence by the time Monday comes, but there are
still Guggenheim recommendations to write (eight of them, assorted between scholars
and writers), and at least a half dozen more books. But I can only do what I am
able to. We did not try to sit up to welcome in the New Year, but since it was
twelve before we had actually retired we could wish each other well.

And I wished you all blessings too, so that both sides of me could be
completed.

I shall have to shovel the light snow off the front walk, unless the men
come, before this afternoon's party, and toss a little sand on spots of ice. Or
else the Japanese will have broken arms and legs. The sun is not shining, and the
temperature was under 20°F when I came down to the office, so I think a fire in the
fireplace is indicated. I do hope they have a good time.

Naturally there is no good I will not wish you, including good times of
whatever definitions you choose for the day. Good memoirs, gutesreise, good weather,
good luck with Kenwin and Ines, good health, and just plain goodies.

Consider these as a letter of credit with my love as collateral.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

As you can see I did get the year wrong, even on the second day. But no doubt I shall adjust, finally. Our party yesterday afternoon for the Japanese seemed to go well, and having a maid in and some little sandwiches made ahead of time by her kept the work down. Though there was still more than plenty for Susan and she was tired by the day's end. But the Japanese women wore their kimonos, as did a child of three, and enjoyed simply having a party on that day. Susan had done an arrangement of white crystalline mums on the William Morris table in the hall, with pine—the orthodox New Year's arrangement. One woman said it had not felt like New Year's during the day but when she saw the flowers she knew that all was well.

Before and afterwards we watched football, or at least I did. Three games in all, a new sort of narcotic.

Today's chief event has been entertaining Grace Dolowitz, now Mrs Levitt and her daughter Alexandra, Nicholas's friend. I must say she is a most attractive girl and obviously intelligent. Grace was full of questions, naturally. I took them to the Lawn Club for lunch and Susan met us there.

For the sake of the record, here is the Snack missive. "But where is Bryher?? I saw her once in Bahnhofstrasse and lost her, because of the changing traffic light. Then I saw her in Kronenhalle, when she left, but she went so fast and talked to a young lady, that I could not arrive in time."

Your letters of the 27th and 28th were in the morning's mail. I shall not worry at silence from you because of the closing times of the Swiss post. Cold with you! Cold here, too. Not over 26°F during the day. We had a fire yesterday for the Japs. * I am so pleased that Lettice liked your book. She knows how to read what has been written. * And I am pleased that Elizabeth has been accepted at her school. I know nothing of the school but judge it well fitted to her needs. * No, I don't know where one gets the training about singling out voices. You may have to write the author. It was with great self restraint that I kept from reading the book myself. * As to the Royal Society, I remember when you joined. But if you say OK why not let me send copies of most, as I have them, of the recent novels. No reason why you should give up your Kenwin copies. And no reason why they shouldn't be at the Society. * Glad to hear that Max Barsis is safe. Remember us to him when you write.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

Classes begin again tomorrow and my getting ahead will wallow. Still, Mrs H has enough to do for a few days--probably for all week. Which may be a good thing, for I think of going to New York on Thursday to get my Japanese visa. I am told I should do this myself for working permits may be involved. Still, nine tapes of dictation have already been done and if I am lucky still another one may be accomplished before the end of the afternoon. I say "if" because Robert Duncan is supposed to appear at my office at three to pay Sunday homage. He lives in San Francisco but came east because his mentor Charles Olson is dying of cancer in New York City. Olson is the guruh of the Levitoff, Duncan, Creeley group of poets. There will be much talk of Hilda naturally. His book, nominally on her, is said to be being published sometime soon, at least the first sections of it. Its composition goes on and on like that of Pound's cantos.

The house is now back to normal again. Susan had put away the ornaments from the tree, and I carried the tree out to a snowbank in the driveway before dinner last night. I wanted especially to do so because it had been snowing lightly and I was afraid much much more might come. Only an inch and a half did, and the shovelers were at the house by seven-thirty this morning so it didn't matter. But the tree was out anyhow, and after dinner I carefully took down the Christmas cards from the wall hangings, packed them nicely into a box for the Brigadier and even brought the box down here today to be started off. I obviously feel one shouldn't dally, what with our departure.

Halfway through this past paragraph, Robert Duncan did come and stayed two hours. The talk was general but pleasant, and he brought me a new little book he had published. The first part of his Hildabuch will be out in the late spring, he thinks. Autumn will be the actual time is my guess.

You will be glad to know that Larouse is opening a big French bookshop in New York at 572 Fifth Avenue. Or, has actually opened it up already. It may be fun for you to poke about in, as possibly a little more literary than the French bookshops in Lausanne or Zurich.

AntiChrist is the name of Cecilia Holland's new historical novel, the subject being the Emperor Frederick II. "Fredrick is a virile and attractive hero," the advance announcement says, "his love life is described with gusto, and the delights of smoking hashish as discovered by the Crusaders are rendered graphically." So now we know what she learned from marijuana!

Almost dinner time, so I must run.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2731 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN-CONN
06520

5 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

As you can see I simply cannot accept the passage of time, and
keep trying to push myself back into last year. But I feel very much in
this year's stress, and one counts the working days before departure much
as in the American countdown before Christmas--- "only fourteen more shopping
days."

Mrs Hamerman groaned this morning when she saw the stack of
tapes on her desk, but stayed valiantly on for an hour longer than usual
in order to get the Guggenheim applications and one of the tapes done. Oh,
yes, there were other things she accomplished also and her desk does look
somewhat less overpowering.

I began a bit late from having gone to the gymnasium, done my
exercises and then having to wait for the leisurely return from vacation of
the masseur. That is, he came on time but dallied while he talked over the
past fortnight with everyone.

Robert Duncan came for lunch at twelve, but arrived at twenty
minutes to noon--pleasant socially but not useful for my morale. However in
the meantime I had secured a speaker for the one last opening of this year's
list of speakers at the Historical Society. And so my task is done, and I
can put away the records and the responsibility. However I have to introduce
the program on the 26th, so I speak too quickly.

My passport photographs (for visas really; do you remember how
I had to scurry in Rome when I found I needed one for Istanbul?) arrived today
and I enclose one for your roguish gallery. I can't quite analyze the expression
and what it signifies in terms of innate character. But think of me shortly
as without jacket and clad only in a sarong. Will I appear less smug? I look,
I think, like one of the clergy whose higher pay has just come from his increased
productivity in virtue.

So you see that your letter of the 29th was here this morning, and
its clipping much appreciated. Its letter too. I always forget how to translate
five below from Centigrade to Fahrenheit, but yours sounds cold anyhow. We
have been 12 or so F each morning but I suspect our houses are warmer. * I do
weep for Lady deWipf, -- her letter to me about the horroes of Switzerland
was such a sad one. I hope they find a snug hearth in London. * Nine days
for letters from London to you is awful. I had a letter today from Brimmell
saying that a book of someone's watercolors I had sent him in October as "and
early Christmas present"had arrived Christmas Eve. He seemed grateful anyhow.
* I don't think you've shown me any of Ida Gandy's books, but I must read one
some day when I am with you. What rotten luck from Harvill. I quite give up
publishers as a breed.

Tomorrow I begin with the dentist again at nine, and at three in the
afternoon have a complete physical from Dr Swift. I must plan my pills and shots
too against the diaspara.

which someone sent on to him from the States. Tonight I take Susan to the
concert hall, and they threaten heavy snowstorms. Too bad if I miss lunch
tomorrow with a former student who has written the book for a new musical
opening this week in town. I hadn't planned to go; perhaps I shall have to
now.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

Rather a hectic day, and hard to say what accomplishments at the desk if any. At the dentist, I suppose yes. For I began there and he took the imprint of an inlay which is to be inlaid on Friday morning. But the parking is so dreadful because of the snow that I could hardly find a place in the regular lot, and just managed. The morning was spent in trying to persuade faculty members to take part in an alumni seminar in June--why I should have to do the arrangements I can't guess, save that the topic was my suggestion and I am on the payroll until February.

Most of the afternoon, except for discussions about visiting fellows for the second term, whose appointments also have to be arranged by me, I devoted my time to the doctor. But from here to a distance of five blocks (I was mad not to have walked) it took me half an hour to go and to park. Discussions about my breathing tests but I'm not sure the doctor could quite read them, and in the Fall I shall go to Philadelphia and see my old Dr Gray. Nothing so far seems alarming to me. Then I had my first cholera and typhoid shots, plus my common cold one. Then we discussed my diet which I am sorry to say doesn't get changed very much, except for a white coffee in the morning. This will save Susan a bit of work, which is the only advantage. Greens in salads but nothing else; no nuts, no marinis. We went over what pills and medications I would need for the next six months, and I shall go like a black marketer. We also discussed anti-dysentery pills, for that too can be a problem. Then I went through the routine of all possible tests, of blood and heart and the like, even to a chest x-ray. And so the afternoon was gone.

Ah yes, I forgot that Robert Duncan wanted to know about Bobby someone or other whose ex-husband Lord Hayden Guest had known Hilda. It seems she left Guest and married a man of considerable means on Long Island. I think perhaps from what Guest said, that she still supports him a bit.

This morning's mail brought another addition to your Henty collection, this time A DOZEN ALL TOLD, including "A Shark's Fin" by G.A. The bibliography describes this as an exceptionally rare book, and that none is in the British Museum. But, alas, Indiana which is your chief rival does have one. At best we draw a little nearer to the latter, and pull ahead of the B.M.

Three letters came from you today in late mails. Those of the 30th, 31st and 3rd. One I know is missing because you couldn't find it. Whether two are only time can tell. How I shiver when I hear of your cold. The Gide letter I have already thanked for. It came two days sooner than your letter about it. You got a bargain. I think keep with your archives for the time being. * The Scillonian dates sound splendid, I know Pup really prefers the July issue. * I will check on the book about Marston. You can, of course, always read it as from the library here, but if very good I will send to you. * My tail wags too in rhythm with yours at your letter from the Renault. And now you must go out--a next year's excursion I should think. * Am surprised that Kenneth had seen a review of Vaud; it must have been the one in the Saturday Review which

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

My margins vary, for I usually use the same margin that Mrs H has left. Forgive me for offending your aesthetics. But I shall not do so at any great length for Mrs H did not leave until 5, trying valiantly to make headway with the tapes of dictation, I had to put together what I need to take to New York tomorrow when I try for my Japanese visa, and as usual I am almost at the stroke of 6.

The morning? The gymnasium to begin with, but we were fortunate that the six inches of show at a minimum we had been promised turned out to be only a scattering of white. Then a Japanese girl who is writing essays on Black American women novelists, followed by three-quarters of an hour with the girl who came on from California, with the possibility that she might do her doctoral dissertation on Hilda for a degree in History of Consciousness. I asked her what such a History was; it's different for each person, she said, and indeed it must be so. But she is young, very nicely mannered and modest, and became wildly mad about Hilda when she read *Helen in Egypt*. Whether she will actually go on with this for a dissertation I don't know. I am giving her a few unpublished ms to read: *The Gift*; the *Pound* book, and the later poems.

Then lunch with Tom Manckiewicz who has done the book for the new musical opening this Saturday at the local Shubert. It was nice to see him; he had been one of my Pundits. "I used to go to every show at the Shubert when I was an undergraduate," he said, "and I couldn't helped but be thrilled this time when I walked into the lobby for the first rehearsal, and thought 'this is *my* play!'" It will cost $700,000 to produce so someone must love it.

After lunch I went to the Library to check on some things, and at long last was able to look up whether or not there were letters to Hilda from you when you were at Eckington and Cornwall during the war. I didn't count, but about fifty I should think. Wouldn't you like me to have these xeroxed (I'll omit the postcards which aren't in my census anyhow) and sent airmail to you? They count as printed matter. Then you could toss, since the originals are here. I should think they might help.

Your January 1st letter and one of the 4th arrived together today. As to the Cambridge moment with W, why not (if you want to use it all) include as a flashback when he comes in at the end. This makes much more sense to the reader. Helen already has everything except the most recent chapter which I have been waiting to have typed until you call quits on it. We can work out a modus later before I go or after. * No one printed the list this year, or if so I missed it, so I hadn't known about Coward's knighthood. He deserved it * Am glad you included some Xmas cards, for their own sake as well as for the record and my knowledge.

I only hope my letters eventually began to arrive. None tomorrow I fear for I am not likely to get a chance at the typewriter.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

10 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

This was a day of enormous output of energy and with some success at debridge. I began by a trip to the postoffice where I mailed a package of books to myself in Kyoto, and by registered mail the passports of Susan, Lizzie and myself to the Japanese consulate-general in New York. Of that more later. Then I girded my buckle, or is it buckled my girdle, and went to the Co-op to lay in supplies against the trip. I bought several pairs of new hose (socks) to take with me; then some short shorts to lie in on the beach if we ever escape the rainy season. Then I put an initial supply of films, enough at any rate to take us to Australia where I can re-stock. Photographs are my souvenirs from a trip. Then I bought razor blades against the trip. And a cookbook which Susan would like to have in our Kyoto apartment, which we can then give to a Japanese. I wrapped the cookbook and several other books for Japan, and will post Monday morning, as well as books to be sent to others. Also the Christmas cards which I can post Monday to the Brigadier. I launched with the Chairman of English and got answers or partial answers to a number of questions I need to ask and be told, took some material to be xeroxed, of which I enclose two samples. And then sat down with bills and notes and putting things together, and especially writing because Mrs H must do her accounts for me to give the tax man, and she almost but not quite finished what I had waiting for her last Monday morning. She worked extra hours too, and in fact I could not write you yesterday, for when it was time for me to go the gymnasium at 5 p.m. she was still typing at the machine I now use. Indeed the only machine in the HGS office.

I enclose a copy of Kenneth's letter because of his kind remarks, really very kind indeed, about the interview on Hilda, and his note on the Douglas papers. I think they are a kind of talisman to him, and being asked questions about Uncle Norman revitalizes his power better than hormones can. I'm sorry his Vaud has taken so long; he is joking of course, for I know he so admires your writing that he is occasionally jealous of it. I don't imagine Vaud ever had enough crocodiles to be really exciting to him.

Bother Volant's letters are always sweet; he mellows like a russet apple. My gift was as usual a small check to buy him pipe tobacco or the smile of a concubine (in the best traditional method of arctic missionaries, now adopted by the priesthood as a whole).

I would have included them with a larger envelope of printed matter had it been finished by the xerox people in time for me to post the first thing Monday. For I decided, what with time growing shorter and you so harrassed by all the demands on your time, I had been foolish to ask you to decide whether or not you wanted xerox copies of your letters to Kat from Eckington and Cornwall. How could you tell, and how will you know what little stream of memory an apparently casual remark in the letter may now freshen in your memory. So I had all but two or three postcards xeroxed and will send on to you by air. Since I have the originals, simply toss these into the basket when you have finished your last draft.

Alas, I shall never finish tonight but can't let you wait a third day without a letter from me. So I shall start with the letter in today's mail, the two of the 6th. Yes, by all means send me what the Society has: I note Artemis (British edition) and January. You say two others. I can add to those and order from the publishers if you don't already have extra copies. No

No burden, for Mrs H will do the wrapping and mailing. I will write
Authors-if-you-like the Royal Society if you like, but I think it is
quite enough if you say others are coming from a friend in the States,
or as the MI's put it, "my man in New Haven."

I am glad to know when Helen returns. We will make arrangements
so I can see anything in Japan, via New Haven or her. We will lay all on.
* Naturally I'm delighted that you may come end of September or October as
you said you might this next time. For I should hate to have two years go
by without seeing you. * I do have an income tax man prepare our statements.
But my expenses are so various, and my sources of income equally various
that I have to prepare the material to give him to work on. He does most
of the work, and defends me against objections by the government. Since
your income is handled chiefly through Fides they can have all data without
bothering you. * Why not write the Industrial Espionage man? I did not
want to read it lest you think it was a hand-me-down present. * I am of
course perplexed that you should have had nine letters in one batch. But at
least at last they came. * Mittens were in part a joke, and one ccould wear
only when taking a walk for the fresh air. You hardly need to do that
these days, with all your marketing. * And what a smile you must have had
to think of your caller as fille weinberg. But my instincts were correct
in guessing that the older man was her old-boy friend. Girls often work
that way. I am waiting until my seventy-fifth birthday and then will hope
for a protegee. Now I simply have to be content with my two.

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

11 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

Mornings at the office are never long enough, and on Sundays they start late and end early. For we must go for miday dinner to the new Yale Librarian's, the other guests being Louis Untermeyer and his present wife. I doubt very much that Jean Starr will get into the conversation.

This morning I wrapped and will post Monday on my way to work, a copy of the comparative guide to Anglo-American usage, written by a woman I once knew at the Oxford University Press. It is, by mistake, a double order since the other volume has gone to Melitta. I thought you might be interested in it, and indeed it makes train reading for a person like yourself, or something for the five minutes at Kenwin before the butler announces dinner.

Last night I spent mostly going over the eight or so weekly missals, missives (?), messages from Norman Macleod which I am beginning to feel wear me down. I am glad I leave on February 1st and they will have to go to the Beinecke to answer, even though he says he will still still address his letters of explanation and notation to me. It is so hard to know what to say, and I don't really want to be that intimate with you. I am intimate with you and was with Hilda and am with Susan; this is enough really even for a Mohammedan like myself. Quite apart from joking, I see nothing against plurality or plural intimacy, but there must be love to accompany it.

I worked more on my desk, wrote the letter to the professor in Senegal who wanted information on Hawthorne and Scott; it made me re-read *Marmion*, and (whisper it only to the reads, I never liked Scott). Then about an Australian woman professor who has thrown herself on my switchboard to arrange her affiliation with Yale for next term. Plus an accounting and balancing check to the Historical Society for what I went above their budget in arranging for speakers. I knew I was doing it, so count it as the income tax people will, a contribution to a worthy society which likes history.

Have not yet gone over the corrections but am mindful of them, and will so that Mrs H can proceed. I'll perhaps tonight after real dinner at home. * Glad you agreed with my disappointment that the Boys had broken up the theater at Cetona. If one wanted to retreat that was the place, and I should have had my crocodiles dance shamelessly on its stage, or enact revels and orgies there. But this would require endurance as well as imagination, and I am p.v., post-virile. Mrs Hamerman will let you know any details about Greenland. I actually suspect there will be nothing, or I would have had at least a greeting.

Susan phoned; I must rush for the noon lunch

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12* January 1970

Dearest Fido,

This was my seminar day, on Wallace Stevens, but my last one
I am glad to say. I shall have papers to correct and term themes to read
but no more classes. Actually these two were extra, at their request. A
pleasant compliment but my own time grows shorter.

The luncheon yesterday was pleasant, although larger than I
had thought. But I had a pleasant chance to talk to Louis Untermeyer
whom I enjoyed more than in the past. He actually gave me a tip on some
letters of his he had given to Buffalo which will be vital to me when I
do the letters from Vachel Lindsay to Sara Teasdale. We were home a little
after three-thirty, and I sat down to watch the super-bowl football game.
Alas I fell asleep, and then it was time to go to the cocktail party. We
had a light supper afterwards, and eventually watched the current installment
of The Forsyte Saga. And that was it.

A lightish mail this morning, including one from a former student
of mine, Jean Joubert, French of course. He teaches in the south of France.
Is sending me his new book of poems as well as a new novel, nominated for the
Prix Goncourt and now put up for the Prix Femina. If it comes in time you
must be told the name and publisher, for I should be interested in what you
think of it.

Your letter of the 7th arrived. So pleased that they can return
your typewriter, and would fetch it again if necessary. I think in the States
we phone more often to inquire if they do such services, but I gather in
Switzerland it is not good form to inquire. At any rate, you know now. As
for typewriter ribbons why not let me know what size and I can have Mrs H
purchase a supply to send you. She asks me to say she will be delighted to do
any errands of any sort while I am away. She can arrange with Co-op for
books to be sent etc., since I will leave your card with her.

Yellowbacks. Why not simply keep sending although in larger batches
perhaps, thus getting them off your hands. I will tell Mrs H to leave them
unopened against my return. She is doing this with much material of various
categories.

A very nice letter indeed from the Goughs, I thought. They seem
to have settled in well, although of course they are used to shifting pieds-
a-terre.

Tomorrow promised to be a hectic day, chock full of appointments.
One with the doctor for the last of my shots. One with the accountant on
income tax. One at the bank to discuss the handling of my bills while I am
away; complicated but entirely possible as I discovered the last time we were
in Japan. I shall be writing Ruegg soon as to a letter of credit etc.
Still another meeting tomorrow with my successor as chairman of programs
at the Historical Society; I can hand over papers to her, with a sigh of
relief.

Susan gave a talk to the local garden club as you can see from
the enclosed. I hope it went well; I expect it did.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

The day has been an almost complete shambles. Not that things haven't been accomplished, but I can't even try to fit the pieces together in a letter. The chief reason of course is the English Department meeting of professors at 4 p.m. which is over only ten minutes before six. This is symphony night and I must rush home to take Susan to the Lawn Club for dinner beforehand, but I must at least send you a note.

The morning was solid with appointments. After lunch to the doctor's for my booster shots and signatures on health certificate to go with my passport. But someone had had a breakdown as of the other end of a telephone conversation, talk of seeing lawyers for an abandoned wife in consequence, and I could see him sweating in the distance while he had to listen to it all for twenty-five minutes while I waited. From there to the bank for a discussion about handling finances while I was away. This morning was a talk with my accountant as I handed over what I so-dar have of tax documents, and an hour with my successor as chairman of programs at the historical society.

Ruegg's letter came with the announcement of your absolute bounty, for which I am, as I need hardly say, immensely grateful. But more of this when I am less breathless.

Also interestingly a letter from the Southern Illinois University Library saying that they had among their Aldington papers bought presumably from 'atha--I know of no other sources-- 242 letters from Hilda to R.A., numbering 378 pages. They plan to publish only a select few, so they say. (They will have to get my permission for that). They have agreed however that I can have xerox copies of all of Hilda's letters, in my situation as literary executor and, altho they didn't mention this, owner of the copy-rights. They charge 20 cents a page!, but "as a courtesy to you I would charge only half that amount." I paid 3 cents a page for what I sent you! I am intrigued by this, for obviously Catha couldn't really have sent everything to you as we thought she did. Perhaps she thought she did, and these turned up later.

Tomorrow afternoon looks a little better, and I hope to be able to write at length.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

A day of mixed tricks, but towards the end of it I began again to bring a little order to my desk. After the gymnasium I had a Japanese woman in so I could help her rewrite her application for an extension to her ACLS fellowship. She is working on Black women writers. Then a German postdoctoral Fellow two of whose long and rather dull articles in typescript I had to read and discuss with him. But he is now off to Minnesota for six months and will have returned to Germany before I to New Haven. There was another but I don't remember, and then the son of a man who worked as an enlisted man in the communications office in London- the son now a sophomore at Yale. Rather overserious but nice.

The passports are back from the Japanese consulate, and now we send in for the others. Australia is required for Susan (mine still holds good), and we both need for Indonesia. But most places, like Hong Kong now, require nothing but the passport. Alas, passports are not half so impressive with only tiny entry permits (if at all) considered.

I forgot to tell you that we were a little startled two nights ago when the phone rang about 9:15 p.m. and it was Nicholas wanting to come to us for dinner on Saturday night. Fortunately we were free, our only night. I said I would drive him back to school afterdonner (I suppose he will want the latest possible) if he could make his way to my office in the late afternoon. I suppose he will arrive at 4:15, when I need the time for preparations.

The extra copies of the H.D. issue have arrived at last. I have sent copies to Pup for Timothy and Elizabeth--she said they wanted a plus one for Nicholas and one for Valentine. Also to Joan, to White and to Collins, and Eric Heydt. I sent the interview to Margaret Pratt. Oh yes, and the full issue also to Kenneth who might be interested in the early letters.

A fine day for me, yours of the 8th and 11th arriving. One hopes you will soon be at the end of your letters, although I imagine people answer your answers which thus requires re-answering. How fine it would be if Marie Anne one day could come back to your help. * Am so pleased you found *Strangers* a good lead to other books. These out-of-the-way books are often great fun, a series of discoveries. * I am most grateful for the Royal Society List. No old books of course, but anything I may have extra from the second life. * I think I told you that the group of passport pictures disappeared completely. My subconscious must have destroyed them. So I think you have the only extant copy. I will have one tattooed for you the next time we are together. Then it would not be lost.

Suddenly late this afternoon Mrs H had a phone call from my ex-student who has done the $700,000 musical opening here, saying tickets would be at the boxoffice for tonight if wanted. So we go. Last night was the symphony, featuring a very long work by Mahler--the first three-quarter hour long movement of which had been lost and recently bought by James Osborne, whom you have met several times. I whisper quietly but firmly that I now see why Mahler lost it; it was long and boring to my ears.

Etudes Freudiennes. I asked for six copies of each issue, so you will of course get yours. Pantheon is turning the copyright back to me. The book may be put of print but it isn't dead by a long shot.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

How the days roll by. Still, things get more and more done
and I only hope I shalln't be undone by the process.

Last night we went to Georgy. Seats in the third row center
aisle, which was a little close to the orchestra, but of course one could
see everything including people backstage. It got better as it went on,
and the music was musical. The players acted well, and one or two voices
were good. I had read neither the novel nor then the movie so I don't
know what my student did or didn't do to the plot. But it seemed a bit
foggy here and there. It was played without an intermission so we were
home early.

Bitterly cold. 8°F mornings and seldom up to 20 during the day. But the sun shines and that makes the days more tolerable. I will not be sorry, though, to see the Polynesians around me when we get to Bora Bora. I began with a trip to the doctor for my bits, and then to the savings bank for the interest on the various accounts, for the sake of the accountant, then to him with the bankbooks, and for a talk with the Trust Company about the extra bit of land at Johnson's Point, of which more later. Then to my filling station man who agreed to put the two cars up on blocks on February 2nd after we left. Back to the office, and phone calls to the man who does our investments in New York (miraculously we are a little ahead despite the bad year in the stock market). And so it has gone until I almost forget what I have done. Letters of course and much to do with Hilda's affairs and the Gandharan book. But more of that tomorrow or Saturday.

Your letter of the 8th arrived today, out of sequence but no
less welcome. Ruegg had told me of the three thousand, for which I am truly
grateful. For as I told you, six months without salary, plus the extra
expenses of the trip make life no easier, though not impossible thanks to
my savings account. I had thought with that to ask him to give me a letter
of credit which I could draw on as needed in Japan. That was what Beney did
the last time we were out. I had actually thought five thousand might be
safer in case of an emergency, but he can use stock for the extra two. You
have been so generous there is no reason to give more. If I don't use in
Japan, as I am likely to have to, with Susan and Lizzie there too for so
long, I will simply draw on it after my return and put in my depleted
account in the States. You might alert him to this. Better Japan than
Australia, for I can take enough to get me that far, and I have friends
who can lend me money there in a pinch. The bank in Japan should be a
Kyoto one, and he can give my Kyoto address as Konoe Hall, University of
Kyoto, Kyoto. I will try to write him over the weekend, since I have other
instructions to give him and have never given my financial matters to
a secretary. I'm too New England I guess. One reason for my call to New
York was to say no reports please until after my return. To Ruegg I shall
say the same.

Many thanks for the letter from Aurelia. She did get, as you now
know, a copy of Vaud as from you. She may not like it--in fact I don't
think she reads much poetry or fiction but prefers books on religion and
on education which help her in her public life. But she does like, and
needs, the friendship of attention.

After repeated letters from Dr Stein in Paris, and conversations
with Pantheon in New York, I decided to let him print a French translation
of Hilda's Freud in

Managed to get two tapes of dictating done, plus a long string of shorter notes.
Tomorrow I should really make progress, for I think we have nothing scheduled.
There will be time for a Sunday letter to you too.
All the best, Eusman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you but otherwise a tolerably good day. I wait
now, more (or, less for Nicholas, was what I had begun to write, when I heard
a knock on the door and there he was. Looking very like a schoolboy, hair down
over one eye in a bang, pink linen trousers and a pink shirt, tieless. But
smiling of course. He had been out buying records to take back to school with
him. I startled him a little by saying we were taking him to Mory's for
dinner. He had never heard of it, which is certainly a change of generations.
Mine would have given an eye tooth to get inside the doors. "I should have
brought a jacket and tie," he said; I waved that off but am glad it wasn't
another place or two we might have taken him.

Last night's fete by the Japanese was good fun. The ladies had
worked in the kitchen all afternoon, ' cooking and talking," was their explana-
tion, and we were served a most elegant meal. I was pleased we could use
chopsticks and not embarrass them. But one good thing about a Japanese meal--
we were invited for 6 p.m.--is that shortly after dinner is finished one gets
up and goes home. Which we did at nine, and this gave me a chance to begin
reading into Merrill Moore's last book of poems, quartrains not sonnets,
published after his death and not known to me. His son sent it.

This morning I was off reasonably early and went to the jewelers
to get a new strap for my green-faced Accutron which I am taking instead of
the beautiful gold one you gave me. Being there I also had a new battery
put in for safe measure. The green-face is easier to spot if some gets off
with it, and very much less tempting than the elegance of the gold. The
gold will be put safely away against my return.

Then to the travel agent's with visa application forms for
Australia (for Susan), Indonesia and Taiwan, these being the only ones
except for Japan which require visas. We have the Japanese already, and my
Australian visa is still good. Afterwards to the glazier's for pictures
which had been promised but they were not ready. And yes, I forgot, I had
to get it at the travel agent's, and went into a nearby bookshop where some
five years or so ago the owner told me he had some Henties. I saw two shelves
full, and can hardly believe I have them all. So I take my box later Monday
morning and check.

A yellowback came yesterday. I thought it a very good letter from
the Secretary of the Sesame. They were truly appreciative. * And how lucky
the Brigadier was to find a man to fix the discarded typewriter so well. I
rather like the blue ribbon. * Herring seemed in reasonably good spirits,
though I should find his life intolerably dull. The remembrance of the calendar
pleases him. I did not of course send him a Vaud. * Glad to learn from Sylva's
letter that you move on with Petrie's book. Mr Fall might very well be able
to make a suggestion. As it happened I wrote him earlier today to order a book.
Those ordered on November 24th have not yet arrived, but the Christmas season
naturally slowed everything up. They will be awaiting my return. * Could not
make out from Dean's letter whether the dog painting was supposed to be by
Valasquez or (as she put it) Levesque. I suspect that Ethel was more nearly
correct, for a Valasquez would interest Sotheby's and Levesque (whoever he is)
would not. If Ethel's guess is right Dean should be in for a small fortune.
How slowly the sale of Doris's house goes; I can see that Dean is anxious to
get it off her hands. * I was touched by Mara Barnes's letter: her own night
work and Harry's bad hands for oystering. People like them always put me to
shame.

arrive, you can have one bound and sent to Mary Renault. You will all receive copies of the new edition of course; that is, if the Academy accepts my proposition as I think they will.

18 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

I am still, this Sunday morning working madly at my office desk, even arriving a little after nine, which is promptly indeed for a Sunday. And I could have no better indication of the state my desk was in than by the fact that at the bitter end of yesterday afternoon I discovered an unopened letter from you among several that had been read. It was of the 9th, and you had been ice-bound by orders of the radio. They do much the same here under conditions of that sort. Actually the temperature went up to 40 yesterday, but the blessings are mixed. For much melts and then freezes, so that for example our open drains are now covered by ice whereas, before, they had been shoveled free of the snow and could carry the water off.

Your end of the year gifts to the old in England and elsewhere are impressive, even more so because of the thoughtfullness and care that went with the funds. But you do know what will happen if anything occurs to you, and how they will manage. For I have promised you to take them over and mean my promise. Not the least reason for our being together, as we are, is that our instincts work in elective affinity. I know of absolutely no one else whose sense of doing good is so close to my own; it is not that others are selfish, but that the thoughts honestly ~occur to them. I was ~~they~~ way from young manhood at the very latest, and I remember a friend at Oxford saying it was a pity I didn't have funds because I did pleasant things for people. Thanks to you I do have funds.

I am so pleased that things are apparently working out for Sachie, and I am pleased too that he is not going to cut Francis out from Weston Hall for the sake of a compromise with Reresby. Actually Reresby is likely to have a son eventually, but I doubt that private funds can carry a Renishaw in another generation. It is good too that Sachie has a good deal more. Only I fear I still cannot see why Osbert should not have been more generous with Edith; I can understand why he might have let Sachie fend for himself, but Edith was a person unfitted for the plow.

I am much intrigued that our Mr Jackson is re-married. I'll bet he sent a cable to the advertiser and said she must accept by return cable, sight and funds unseen. I'm sorry not really to like the man.

Alas, I have no extra copy of Gandharan, or at least think not. I'll search. But how nice, although expected by me, that Mary ®enault liked Vaud. So does anyone with sensitivity. And the book will makes it own way. I've only seen two or three reviews, but the reviewers taste is for heavy sex beneath Black clouds.

As of your end-of-the-year interest (all this of course before taxes) is $22,909.46, which I think a very nice penny bank for a thrifty girl like yourself. Hilda has $1,860.17, with another fifteen dollars to go in tomorrow when I reduce my own account in half to pay for the tickets and our trip to Japan.

The enclosed letter should be self-explanatory. I sent a copy of it to Islay with another letter to him, a copy of which I forgot to take. But it said that at your suggestion I was asking to have five copies of the unbound sheets sent to him and to you, and I ordered for Ingholt as well. Everything is in storage and can't be got out until the time of the shipment; or I will arrange to have these shipped from here. Perhaps from your five if they ever

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

January 16, 1970

Professor W. K. Wimsatt, Pres.
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences
Drawer 93A Yale Station
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Bill:

As you know I have discussed informally with Sumner Crosby, Evelyn Hutchinson, George Kubler, and Talbot Donaldson, and yourself -- all members of the Academy's publication committee the possibility and appropriateness of the Academy's taking over the publication of *Gandharan Art in Pakistan* published originally by Pantheon Books, with photographs by Islay Lyons, and text by Harald Ingholt. They all seemed agreeable to the idea, Mr. André Schiffrin of Pantheon Books has agreed, and Mr. Wiggin of Archon Books is willing to handle the distribution for the Academy on the same terms as for all of the Academy's publications.

The matter must be acted on of course at an official meeting of the publication committee; but if it should be favorably acted upon, the following procedure will take place. This letter will authorize the unbound copies of *Gandharan Art in Pakistan* (about 1,000 in number), plus the cost of shipment from Random House to Archon Books, plus the cost of printing an appropriate new title page and a paper binding. The costs for these expenses would be paid for by the Academy, which in turn would be reimbursed by me as a further donation to the Academy. All proceeds from the sale of these copies, other than the usual percentage to Archon, will go to the Academy for whatever uses it wishes to make of them. The copyright will remain in my name but be assigned to the Academy for this edition.

It would be my hope that the Academy would benefit from this arrangement, and it seems to me that, like the Severs Manual, it need not be counted as a publication for exchange via the Yale Library. The book has been listed at $18.50; my suggestion is that it be repriced at about $10.00. In this way a new public may be stimulated, since the majority of large libraries have it already. But the new price will be better determined by you.

I leave it then that if the Academy does wish to follow this arrangement, you or Louis Wiggin will be in touch with André Schiffrin and carry on from there. If you will address me at 2731 HGS in reference to the cost

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL IS RESTRICTED

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

19 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

There is still not much time, again not much time I should say, for a proper letter. For Mrs H worked until after five valiantly trying to make a dent into the tapes I had dictated yesterday. This is most kind of her, for it is important to get some of these letters off in time for an answer or protest. I have written Prokopius, of the Hans Sachs Fund saying to get in touch with you for any emergency and that I would be up to see him in the Fall with some ideas as to how to dispurse the funds. That would be within 1970 and just as good as now. I phone the broker locally, went to the savings bank and transferred enough funds to pay my ticket and Susan's, Lizzie's will come later, and one hopes that bit by bit things will fall into order. Tonight, within a few minutes in fact, I go home to find the nun and the Indian lady already the house while they watch Susan prepare supper and find where things are. They will move in on the day we leave.

One waste of most of the later morning, after the gymnasium and bank was to check the Henties at the Channel Bookshop. They were two dollars apiece and so I bought 37 in all, only a few of which were American firsts new to us (3 or four, not more) but a bibliographer will be interested in the several different sorts of editions, including a penny dreadful. I do what I can for the Bryher Collection, though I fear not enough to do you proper credit.

As you will see from the enclosed, I have taken care of the matter of the Royal Society (do I address you as a member, as your Highness?), and I think they now have all indicated with the exception of Avalon. Would you like me to have Helen send them a copy? It might shiver them a bit, but why not. For some reason I do not seem to have extra copies of this title. These I had paid for long ago, so do not worry about the cost. It is simply a homage to you.

Alas, a pleasant invitation from the Stadelmayer's for a lecture by Konrad Lorenz and a reception afterwards at Goethe House. But on Thursday the 22nd and I have a faculty meeting. Moreover this is not the time for me to go into town for an evening.

I forgot to mention Valentine's letter to you, which I thought more relaxed than previous ones.

Yours of the 14th arrived today for which my thanks. I remembered your earlier warnings about Lord Guest when he offered to be Hilda's permanent escort in New York (at the time of her projected move) if I would give him a proper allowance. * Sorry the butcher flunked his kidney test; Susan adores them, I am not partial. Nor to brains, although I will eat a proper liver. * Poor Joan must have had a nightmare rather than an adventure. Yet perhaps she never was allowed to sleep enough to have a proper nightmare. * You ask about British intelligence during the war. They had some good agents, including Canardis. But most of all they had Bletchley and the broken codes. That was their weapon.

Sorry not to report on Nicholas; nothing startling but a good visit and he can be easily entertained. He worries most of course about college, and as second choice would like Yale. We took him to Mory's and by chance I could introduce him to the Dean of Admissions. But I will write in detail later.

Such a good
enclosure from
Puf! I
called John
today about
Nicholas's visit

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

20 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

Still not time to describe the Nicholas evening and you will be bored by excuses before the weekend gives me a chance. But I still try to tidy up the room. Phoned New York at last and got the fourth speaker for the alumni lecture series on "The American Indian Today,"-- a task I shouldn't have been asked to do. And mostly read away on my Norwegian protege's accepted dissertation so that I can write him about it tomorrow. Also found that it was eligible for competition for a new prize on the history of the West (he wrote on Cooper's THE PRAIRIE) and am submitting it for him to that. Arranged more about legal forms so that Miss Sweetapple, of Adelaide, can get a visit to come to study under me during my absence and a Japanese professor get his visa to arrive next fall. I must say they do take time.

But I was rewarded by a letter from Kyoto saying that high officials of the university had after all found us a room for a few introductory nights, at the same hotel we stayed at before, while we settle in at the apartment. And from the U.S. office in Tokyo saying they had gotten a room for Susan and Lizzie in May, so those plans can go forward as scheduled. And a note from Brimmell, the Hastings bookdealer you visited with me, telling me was sending as a gift a Fenn and a Mitford we didn't have. He had wanted to make a gift of two others but you had them.

Last night was more or less out, while the nun and the Indian lady came to be shown the house. The Indian lady is a vegetarian which is too bad for the nun, but I guess the nun knew it. I only hope the nun won't find things too comfortable and decide that a lay life is better than that of a religious. Last night's New Haven paper said that 9,000 nuns had left the ranks last year, as against 1968 when 4,000 quit. Do you recall the stir when the book *I Leapt Over the Wall* appeared? Only to think that some one *dared* to leave! I have a picture now of a long line of nuns, one behind the other, advancing as they *jeer*.

*Our tour a bourbon before supper.*

Two letters happily appeared from you today, that of the 15th and of the 16th. Why, oh why, don't you let Mrs H have some typewriter ribbons sent over to you by air. She can charge your account, as for books. Which reminds me that from time to time books will be coming to you as from me, when they are published, that I thought you might enjoy. The book on Donovan I found quite disappointing except for the early section about Churchill and the States' involvement in the war before official entry. This comes properly from me to you. Also an arctic book to be published in April, as well as a book on Tibet, and one reviewed in this morning's *New York Times* on family life in Plymouth Colony which seemed interesting. Think of me; I fear your forgetting.

The nuns were shown everything, (nun and Indian) and I think we are lucky to have them. I suspect they will stay on through the summer so as to prevent or help to prevent vandalism. *

No charge for the xeroxing of letters. Too complicated otherwise. Also I discovered my extra copies of Avalon and am sending to the Royal Society. They should know whatasort of a fellow you are. * So sorry to hear about the Scarletts. I only know Marie, but she is charming.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

It is slog, slog, slog all the way. And when Mrs H left I kept
on dictating to the machine so that she would have something to begin with
tomorrow morning when she comes. I keep thinking I am nearing the end, only
to have a fresh mail come in. Or, as this morning, I busied myself picking
up the Library room and putting Hilda's things away, before I took this
afternoon a Mrs Friedman there to see what I have of Hilda's library. This
one comes from Wisconsin, where she studies under Dembo, and is stressing
Hilda's use of myth and the classics. She was a classics major as an under-
graduate and knows her Greek and Latin. She is the first I have shown the
books to. The others would not have understood.

I lunched with Roysce Smith, of the Co-op who sends you his
greetings. He tells me that Cecilia Holland has a very jazzy modern novel out,
under a man's name, and that it is filled with sex and drugs.

My general mail? A letter from a magazine which is getting out
a book of their articles, and they want to use one I wrote called "Williams,
New Jersey." I'm not sure I even have a copy myself so they might as well.
A letter from some man on the West Coast wanting me to write up an account
of my memories of OSS in London for material for a book he is writing on
the same subject. A letter from the president of the University of New
Mexico asking me to come down this spring to examine their American Studies
department. I can't of course, though it would be fun and they would pay.
A card from Max Barsis as of Las Palmas, but I fear I can't quite make out
the address. Send it to me in Australia and I'll send him a card from
Bali or Java. Then a letter from the Australian poet, A.D.Hope saying he
will be in Canberra when we are there. He has sent his new book of poems
to me, with a section dedicated to me, but obviously it hasn't arrived so
I shall not see it. His airgram letter, sent ---no it's not so bad-- it
was dated December 29th but only postmarked January 16th. A combination of
absent-minded poet and absent-minded professor, he being both.

We have two sets of guests for dinner tonight--both necessities--
and then all entertaining is, I hope finished. We will box up the silver and
send it off to the bank, though I suspect Susan will want to wait until the
last minute before she lets her beloved orchids go to old-plants-greenhouse
(if that is the right phrase for it?). I must say they have never bloomed
so magnificently, as though bursting to show themselves to her before she

bave.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

January 23, 1970

Mr. R. Inslee Clark, Jr., Dean
Office of Admissions
111 Prospect Street

Dear Inky:

I had thought only to write concerning the application of Nicholas Schaffner for admission, but now, suddenly I can congratulate you on the headmastership of Horace Mann. It is a fine school and they renew their good luck. I know of it best because one of my closest friends, Eugene O'Neill, Jr., came from there to Yale, was devoted to its faculty and demonstrated in his own academic excellence the quality of their instruction. Actually the real excitement and challenge in private secondary school education comes in the day school rather than the boarding school. More and more demands will be made on the former, less and less on the latter. You have the understanding and you can cope.

I had waited to write about Nicholas Schaffner until he could come down from Choate to see us. To explain my connection with him: he is the grandson of the poet, Hilda Doolittle ("H.D.") whose literary estate I inherited from her, and whose papers have already been given to Beinecke by me, or committed to it. He is also by adoption, the grandson of the English historical novelist, Bryher, whose literary copyrights I own and whose literary affairs I handle. She (Bryher) visits New Haven regularly, and her papers also are committed to Yale. I gave Nicholas' mother in marriage at her wedding, in lieu of a father, and so have a somewhat avuncular relationship to the family.

Nicholas is H.D.'s true grandson. He is the one with the literary and musical talent, the one to like the out-of-the way, to cherish independence. But he has a gentle side; comparing himself to his older brother who also went to Choate, he told me, "I like Choate, I'll go back, I'm sentimental you see." Somehow, I gather, the faculty advisor at Choate doesn't think he's square enough for Yale. I don't know how square Yale still is -- fortunately less so than it was, I gather. But I know that Nicholas is the kind of boy I myself would enjoy teaching. He wants to learn. He wants to write. He is editor of Choate's literary magazine and is troubled that the boys would rather take pot than contribute.

I hope he makes Yale, and I am glad you could meet him at Mory's. He doesn't need a scholarship but he does need a school like ours where he can be exposed to the best and live up to his two grandmothers.

NHP/wh

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

I simply give up! Today I expected to be able to write at great length, and in the mid-afternoon a local young man, a former student who like Christian has lost his job at Harvard wanted to come to see me and came. I was glad to see him, wanted to keep him the feeling that I cared what happened to him, but oh the time this takes.

But I have, all the same, kept plugging at my desk, and each day brings me a little closer to cleanliness as well as departure.

Now let me get at a few things while I think of them. The addresses on the itinerary I sent you are all OK. As of April 1st my address will be Konoe Hall, University of Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan; and I will be there until August 1st. This is our apartment, and they will hold mail until my arrival. I have already begun to send things out. As to letters from you, I still hope you will write me daily or twice daily but perhaps not mail except in batches. I should think no address before Australia, which takes less than a week to reach. After that, perhaps Singapore, or Penang. And what if they do pile up at Konoe Hall? They will make me feel all the more in orbit again. As for yellow backs, simply send to HGS as letters accumulate, and they will be held against my return in August. Not opened. But they will drive you crazy if they accumulate for too long at Kenwin.

Bits come in. For example the notice that your credit at the Co-op is now $105.52. So you can spend like mad, by asking Mrs Hamerman to see you get it. Perhaps safer than leaving to the Co-op itself. And she will love to have things to do.

I have gone over 1942, and all seems to be here (as per your proposed table-of-contents,) except a second section called "Friends", and the final bit drawing the year to a close. Actually I am not sure about "friends" since you actually leave a little space and go directly on. So perhaps you gave up that idea. Mrs Hamerman will type after my departure and when you have sent her the rest she will forward on to Helen. Actually I can read any later parts in Kyoto and send back to New Haven with little more than a week longer having been taken.

I enclose my second note to the Royal Society of Literature, to show that I have I think now sent all you wished them to have. Do not return this, nor any xerox copy I send you (I notice you have been). I always have the original which is enough. No point in paying the extra postage for something I only toss into the basket here.

The first reports have come in from Pantheon, for the six months ending September 30, 1969. Of Gate: 13 copies. Of Ruan, 123 copies. Of Beowulf, 371 copies. Of October 202 copies. Of Players Boy, 100 copies. Of Roman Wall, 289 copies. Of Ghandaran Art, no sales. The checks to be deposited totalled $1,363.49.

I checked to see how many new first American editions of Henty were among the lot I bought from the local bookshop. There were six, which was a good haul I thought.

Two yellowbacks have been in. With interesting contents. Sorry to hear about Bryan's accident. I am not quite sure what he is doing now. Alan I take it it still at examinations before his course finishes. * I am intrigued as to how well disposed Agnes now is towards her Canadian former rival on Ralegh. I gather they are to edit an edition together and that she goes out to Canada for him or examinations. * Somehow I had thought Beaumont-Wadsworth was a little younger. But he seems very much on the go all the same. * I had thought Melitta had a publisher for her at books. I hope she does not go on writing a series of them until she

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2731 HGS

06520

gets some sort of guidance from a publisher whoever he turns out to be. For there
are so many rules for children's books--what one may and what one may not do. I
shall be curious to see what she is doing. I take it you like them. I agree, that
her repairs and her shifts of staff are the consequence of a nervous tic. But what
does it matter if she is happy or kept reasonably happy by them. You are quite
right. * Margery works so hard at her new book that I hope she will have a publisher,
or do you plan to do this one for her also. No reason why you shouldn't if you
want to. It does make her so happy to be an author, and indeed I was grateful to
her for having written her first. * Dorothy Richards I still find remarkable among
women. How she manages to do what she does, I can't conceive. Or couldn't if I
didn't know her. * I did not, I think, send a letter to Helen Katibah; for Helen
Wolff can if you want her to. * Jay Leyda, who was at the house for supper last
week, turned out to know Love Reiniger and to be a great admirer. He agreed that
someday there should be a sample or two of her films in the States. Says she is
having a revival of esteem abroad.

Your letter of the 18th came yesterday. I am heartbroken about your
snifflies. Always a new strain of virus and no inoculation seems to protect against
them all.

Today yours of the 20th and 21st arrived--in remarkably swift time. And
I am still heartbroken by your loss of voice and faith. Glad you took a peek at
Decade. I agree, there is nothing here to combine with the great poetry of the
earlier century. Alas, the poets know that too, they don't eant to imitate and
they don't know how to go off on their own. * I had hoped to write Ruegg today
but will have to try again tomorrow morning. I wail at my failures.

All love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

No afternoon today at the office alas, for there is the afternoon program at the Historical Society, the last of my appearances as chairman of the lecture committee. This is on Daniel Read, a late 18th-century composer of fuging tunes and hymns, very influential, who lived in New Haven and whose manuscripts are at the Society. This is the first modern recital of his music, and I have a lecturer plus four professional singers to illustrate. We must go to lunch before-hand and then to your Susan's for a farewell supper (Lizzie comes too) afterwards.

One of this morning's tasks was to make the corrections in the first two chapters of the memoirs as indicated in your sheets. Most of them of course were typographical and I had already made. In a couple of cases I didn't know. As on 1-3, line 11--are both Nows to be changed to Hows? And I could not find on page 17, line 9'' I had seen her''. But these can be put in later. Mrs H will retype one page where there were many verbal changes, do 1942 and the Foreword, and then re-xerox all and send to you and another copy to Helen. Eventually we'll have a retype all the way through. You can either send new chapters to me in Kyoto and I can send to Mrs H to type, or you can send directly to her. Copies will always go to Helen. As to the renumbering of the pages in 1941, this was because at one time you thought you would have some material to go between where the pagination left off and where it began again. I have renumbered. I take it you have now omitted the section on friends in 1942 which was to have come just after the opening section. My reason is that in the second copy you sent me you left just the usual white space and went on the next section (as of your outline) on the same page. But your conclusion can easily be tacked on. So can any insertions actually, so don't worry.

I have only five minutes but let me tell about Nicky. Actually he came to see about getting into Yale, by my influence if possible. But he was nice about it, and his father had told him (so John said) he had written me. Actually We sleyan is his first choice. he is highly critical of most of the faculty at Choate, what boy is not. He is alert and very pleasant and easy to talk to, is open in other words. Flashes of his eyes and a toss of his head remind me both of Hilda and Pup. His reading is psotty; he gets at what he likes and makes no effort I should think to build up the usual background. I put him at reading Hilda on Pound, and he was fascinated, had never read anything by her in private, and I don't think had read much of her poetry. But this is just as well, and I imagine Pup has tried to keep them from being too Grandmother-conscious. I gave him a copy of the Wisconsin magazine, and of the Freud. Only one issue of his literary magazine is to come out this year, but he hopes it will be the good and promised to send you a copy. I imagine he has tried marijuana but he seems troubled by the boys who do much with it. His best friend had just been expelled for this. Valentine he says has woven a cocoon about himself and does nothing but read and listen to the gramaphone. This was begun at Choate where he was unhappy. In the best p.a. I suggested that perhaps Valentine had been hurt somehow or by someone. Nicky thought not, although I didn't press the matter. Valentine is now to major in the cinema, although at frankly doesn't seem much better than history of consciousness.

Alas, I must fly.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

As you will believe, the days become more crowded, even hectic.

Yesterday there was no letter to you, for Mrs H worked at the typewriter until nearly 4, and at 4 I had an American Studies Departmental meeting which lasted until after 6. I took home notes and worked valiantly there, but only to pile up more work for Mrs H. Still, my course assignments for next Fall at Yale have been made out, and my reserve book room lists as well. In that respect I am for once ahead of time. Yet, nothing similar done for Japan. I want to get the other things out of the way and concentrate finally on Kyoto. Letters come in, planning entertainment. Mostly in Australia, but Price someone or other wants us to stay with him in Bali (we won't); a professor in Taipai, and so forth.

A pleasant letter yesterday from Gretchen Baker in Nova Scotia. Her boy friend has just celebrated his 90th birthday but still wins from everyone in cribbage. * Goulden and Curry wrote; Mr Fall was weighted down by Christmas, but I gather eventually some books will come. * I began the day by going to the Savings Bank so that I could deposit your royalty checks, and a fee of $45 for permissions for Hilda's poems. Your account is now $24,272.95 and hers, $1,920.17.

Warmer yesterday and today, the temperature going finally into the 30's above freezing. But there is still a long way to go before the drains are unfrozen.

Several good letters in from you today. That of the 23rd with the fine enclosure from Pup. Glad the xerox of letters arrived. Do toss out when you are finally finished with them. They may tickle off a memory or a detail or two. What a pity, in terms of the line that Reresby isn't to have a son. I gather they don't go for these pep pills that guarantee quintuplets out of a fence post. * It would be great fun if you were to see Mrs Packard some day. I have a hunch she would talk to you. All her things, I gather she sold long since to Pete Martin, those things now at Indiana. * We'll see what the Gandharan amounts actually to, in the end. Gandharan began by having little to do with me, but before I got the book out I had spent so many days and weeks on it, pulling Ingholt's teeth and planning with Kurt, that in the end it had much to do with me. I think there is a touch of me on every page, quite literally.

That of the 24th arrived also, and one hopes for your Monday's letter before the end of the week. Many thanks for your bon voyage wishes; our only regeret is that you wouldn't come mit. In spirit at least you will always be there. * As I wrote you, a fresh xerox of the earlier parts will go to you along with a xerox of 1942 when you have sent the final paras for that year. So don't try as of your end. * Poor Ines and maps! But we will send her a card or two en route and from Japan. * Les Noms Vaudois must have been an experience defined by your novel itself. I wish I might have heard.

Your letter of the 22nd chiefly about Close Up was most interesting. I fear Kenneth will never answer. The original film is at Eastman House, Rochester, New York, the biggest film collection in the States. Your letter to Marshall I thought excellent. I will drop him a line tomorrow or the next day and tell him where Borderline is.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2731 HGS

06520

28 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

We each have our own version of a dog's life. Mine this morning was to go to the gymnasium and then pick up my tickets at the travel agency. I went through them and found that the New York office had shifted our Melbourne hotel reservation (reported to me a month ago as confirmed for the Southern Cross) to a Motor Lodge. Why? The New York office consulted by phone said they had been having trouble with the Southern Cross. The probable real reason? A bigger cut at the Motor Lodge. Anyhow I had been writing all Australians to contact me at the Cross, so a cable went out that it must be changed back. Had I discovered this only in Tahiti, my ulcer would have bled again. To the house afterwards to leave Lizzie's ticket for her, and there was no morning left. Work, work, work this afternoon. A little closer perhaps. Mrs H worked late, generously, and most of the time since went with the enclosed letter to Ruegg. That I am inexpressibly grateful to you for the added dollars can only appear in the relaxation of my heart. The whole thing, like so much else in life, would have been impossible without you.

A letter from Melitta thanking for the dictionaries you sent her. Or rather acknowledging their arrival. She really did sound delighted to have them, and it was a clever idea on your part to send them. While I am away Mrs Hamerman (one m at each spot I discover) will cope; she will have your charge card at the Co-op. A long letter also in today, from some magazine in Oxford which wants to do an H.D. issue. I must ponder how to reply tonight.

Yours of the 25th did arrive this noon, so I am fulfilled. You will have new addresses in the itinerary which went out to you this afternoon by air. The times for posting are from the States of course, but the idea of addressing us care the travel agency rather than the hotel may be a good one. For the agency will forward on to the next most likely place if there is a delay. Hotels seldom do.

Your letter to the Rosslers was excellent. Why do readers pair characters in novels? Because they want novels to round off as life never does. But the novel maintains the illusion, perhaps even the hope. And to pair is to round, as Noah knew.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 January 1970

Dearest Fido,

The days here diminish, alas in one sense and hurrah in another. Susan has gone to New York today to get her hair done, always a semi-final gesture. But she performed wonders yesterday, got her travellers checks and letter of credit (for her trip back with Lizzie) and even signed some papers for the trust officer who is handling our, what is known as, agency account. Then she moved all her orchid plants to the commercial greenhouse to be taken care of during her absence. The man hated to take them, but he had promised me.

As for myself, bits and pieces and odds and ends. I read the last of the papers for students last night and finished a few smaller tasks. I have one paper not yet in, but that can wait until Japan. I will not read a paper on Hawthorne under a palm tree. This morning I dictated a few more letters, and honestly think except for notes of one sort or another I have pretty well finished off what has come in. These late arrivals are however not easy. There was a proposition for an book to be published in England on H.D., and I will send a xerox of it and my reply in a sort of weekend catchall to you of printed matter. Similarly a report on Adam from the University of Rochester which I send a xerox of, but perhaps better not for circulation. But do simply destroy these and any other xerox copies, for I have the originals. Also coming to you will be Susan's and Lizzie's itinerary on the trip back, for your amusement. Long conferences at lunch with Gallup on the jury for the next Bollingen Prize in poetry; I'd like the juries to have a little more blood in them. And just before lunch the angel of the lord descended on me and prompted me to call the lawyer for the Foote estate and ask if anything could be done about the strip of land along the lagoon at Johnson's Point I had been trying to buy. He had done nothing, but the fear of the lord must have descended on him, for a bank representative was there, we had a three-way conversation, and the lawyer called at noon to say if I agreed that the purchase was for conservation I could have it now. I have mailed out my check, and now all is done. The important thing is that when they come to continue the work with poison ivy on the other piece I bought they can now do this too. The price was that we had several years ago agreed on, $2,500.00. Not cheap, but altogher it is 1.1 acre.

A letter came from Islay today and I had meant to xerox it when yours of the 26th announced that you too had heard from him. Your quote was verbatim with mine so I do not send after all. But he seemed pleased, and that pleases me. * I think the Dowding book must be Dowding of the Air Force which I got from England several months ago. He's ot my cup of tea leaves, but a brave man in the air. I will check the Tibetan book but suspect we are duplicating. Why not let them send it anyhow and give the second copy to Joan. * By the way when you see her say I hope the H.D. interview reached her safely at Christmas time; I sent airmail to her parents. Later we sent lump sugar for her horse but made no effort to have it reach Switzerland while she was away.

I laid out my Hawthorne assignments this afternoon for the University of Kyoto. Tonight I shall fiddle a bit with the course on romantic poetry I am to teach at Doshisha. Also finish instructions for the agent's account.

There will be letters tomorrow to you and Saturday. Sunday, when we leave, I am less sure.

All love, in extra measure,
Norman

HOTEL BORA BORA

BORA - BORA
(POLYNÉSIE FRANÇAISE)

6 February 1970

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday was a quiet satisfying day, with the sea a surface of emerald and Sapphire, and a stiff wind lifting the surf high over the outer reef, as we sit on our deck and watch. In the morning we spent an hour and a half on the glass-bottomed boat drifting over the forests of coral and watching the fish dart in and out from the leafy branches. It was as pleasant as when I went two years ago, and I was as fascinated anew as Susan was for her first time. The skipper of the boat put on his air lungs and dove below the boat, pulling a great clam off the bottom, opening it and feeding the rainbow colored fish as though they were sparrows after crumbs.

But the best moments of the day, and those which you would have enjoyed the most, were in the afternoon when I persuaded the captain of a sailing outrigger to take us not on the standard trip out and back, which we did the day before, but out and around a large nearby island, in a spanning breeze which let us skim like a swallow. He and his assistant (who runs back and forth on the balancing beams to keep it steady) found

HOTEL BORA BORA

BORA • BORA
(POLYNÉSIE FRANÇAISE)

found it exciting themselves, and so did a pleasant older woman from Maine who was trapped into coming for this longer ride, because she had bought a ticket for the same trip. But she got more than her money's worth, for I had silently bribed the captain to give us the necessary extra half-hour or more that this unconventional voyage required. The lady however proved to be a sailor herself in Maine and close friends to several friends of ours from Yale who summered where she did. In the cabin on one side is a couple we met in the Los Angeles Air France lounge; on the other a couple from Hot Springs, Arkansas who we have drinks with. We leave this early afternoon for Tahiti, and on Monday morning for New Caledonia. We will miss Bora Bora, but like Tennyson's Ulysses voyage on.

All love as always,

Zorman

HOTEL
TAHITI

Sunday morning 8 Feb

Dearest Fido,

This being what our schedule optimistically calls a day of leisure, we are waiting to take a long ride by auto around the island of Tahiti. We will be back by evening. Papeete and the hotel here seem metropolitan by comparison with Bora Bora, and although this is pleasant the other was a better place to begin at. I wrote you last just before we left the smaller island, our flight back given a special character by the fact that a guest at the hotel (a heavyish wife of a doctor) slipped on the rocks and broke her hip. There was only an infirmary on Bora Bora so she was brought on to the plane by stretcher and laid on the floor behind our seats. Just behind, in fact, for we sat at the back. Poor woman; she was plucky but we had to make a landing en route and the pilot, probably scared lest he jounce her, landed with such a thud and bounce that she could only scream out in pain. Doubly scared, the pilot made an even doubly rough landing at Tahiti, but this time she could only moan. Her husband sat across the aisle from me, his knuckles white from his clenched hand. She was to be x-rayed in Tahiti, to see what kind of a broken it had been, and he hoped (if possible) to fly her back to Oregon, his home, to have the operation there. He gratefully accepted my offer ("my wife once fell and broke her hip") at the airport to get his bags and transfer them to his hotel, but the bags came suddenly and he grabbed them and hurried off to the hospital after the ambulance.

As a kind of comic relief I was greeted in a new way by the man sent to meet us and take us to the hotel. He held out his hand in such a way that I could read his name, Tiny Gobray, tattooed on the inner side of his index finger and palm. Thus identified he advanced his hand to shake mine.

Yesterday, it being fair, as indeed it has been since our first wet welcome, we took the boat trip, an hour and a half each way, to the nearby island of Moorea, larger and scenically more studious than Bora Bora, so that Susan could see it and join in later arguments with all visitors to the Polynesians as to which island is the favorite. Actually I went to a different hotel for lunch this time, and the partial tour of the island emphasized different points so that I was glad to have made the trip again. And the scenery is superb, always the jagged rims of volcanic craters, gentle lagoons and the small cocoanut thatched and walled village of the natives. To make a foursome, informally, two pleasant older ladies from New Jersey joined us then, and after dinner at night, last night, watched the grass-skirted and loin-clothed Tahitian dancers perform their special kind of hip-nosis. I use the phrase because I am much struck by the local advertisement for "the Pitate Restaurant, where Acajou, the well-celebrated Tahitian chef now mesmerizes his menu." When we disembarked from the boat I took Susan to the famous Quinn's, a bar much favored by French sailors and the Foreign Legion (who are almost entirely stationed here) and by writers like Maugham in their stories, where she could have the distinction of being the only non-prostitute.

HOTEL H TAHITI

Now back from the motor trip, during which it rained frequently and hard, as though to remind us it is still the rainy season, we are about to go to dinner and then pack for a 5 a.m. rising and 7:15 a.m. departure for New Caledonia. The ride was again a beautiful one, though with nothing much very new to me about it. But I enjoyed the inland river pool of Pierre Loti more this time because of the heavy rains and because it being Sunday there were innumerable children (tho no naked damsels) bathing in it. Indeed everywhere we went the mouths of the mountain streams were full of families at bath. Loti reminds me that I meant long ago to see if one of your French bookshops in Switzerland had or could get for me a copy of Loti's *Marriage de Loti*. If you are ever browsing ask them for the directions to an edition in print, and I will order it next Fall. I know you don't like the Montreux shop any longer but perhaps there is one in Zurich or Lausanne. The highlights for me become literary here, or artistic. Point Venus and the monument that Captain Cook erected to celebrate their observation of the transit of Venus before opening his orders and going on to Australia. Robert Louis Stevenson's home for a few weeks. I'm not sure where Rupert Brooke stayed and shocked England by his sonnet to a vahine. Gaugin of course. And the site of the home of the Gardner widow who ran off with a married Boston man to Tahiti because she lost all the Heywood money if she married again. This way she kept both the Boston man and the Gardner money. She was a symbol of freedom to the local young.

History crosses and recrosses our path. This noon at a restaurant near the Musee Gaugin we met up with the Bora Bora sailing lady and her professor husband, and shared a pleasant lunch with them.

RELAIS DE KANUMÉRA

KOUNIÉ - ILE DES PINS

(NOUVELLE-CALÉDONIE)

Susan's homage to the hairdresser In Noumea. I had my own hair washed and walked about the neighborhood while I waited for her. I might have climbed the hill to the Cathedral of St Joseph, overlooking the harbor--but then, almost everything overlooks one harbor or another-- but I contented myself with shop windows which seemed hardly the equivalent of Paris. Finally when she was done we tried to find our way to the central park and the statue of La "belle Celeste" at its navel, in order to report to the travel agency for some unknown reason. But we became confused and in the end took at taxi back to the Chateau Royal. We had a pleasant room with a balcony overlooking the Coral Sea, but actually took little advantage of it or the beach for we left early the next morning for the Ile des Pins and our hotel, on the coral reefs of Kuto peninsula. Here we had the cabin whose picture we sent you, sunshine to revel in and one of the most perfect beaches I have ever seen. Almost no one was there and we felt it ours. There was no coral and the sand was velvety soft and white. Even I, who almost never go in the water, for obvious reasons, went in and out, paddling or wading up to my neck. It would have been your heaven. There were a good many banyan and flame trees, a few of the wild orchids that spring up in the fields, but always the Baie de la Corbeille as a center of our attention. We took a trip by car around the island, and to a grotto, saw the cells where the political exiles were sent by Napoleon III after the Paris Commune of 1872--these were the elite prisoners, the convicts were kept on New Caledonia itself, and went to an extremely attractive village with its old chefferie made out of palm fronds and its new one looking very much like a roofed-over picnic ground which I take it it also is whenever the thousand natives on the island get together. Beyond this there was nothing to do, and since we wanted to do nothing we were perfectly satisfied.

I only wish we might have stayed a bit longer rather than to return to the Chateau Royal with its Louis Quinze rooms on the edge of Anse Vata. But the food was good, and the rain poured more or less constantly for the day and a half remaining. We took motor drives for views that didn't exist, though the countryside was interesting if you like Scottish-like countryside, went to the aquarium for a fascinating collection of gaily colored fish and coral, and stopped at one nursery garden because the driver's wife, who went everywhere, admired the roses. Susan talked orchids a bit for he had some, and I presented me (the driver's lady) with a dozen roses. Overcome by this, I was invited to dine with them that night, at a small restaurant. The two of them, two younger children, a son in military service with his fiancee, and a daughter and her naval officer husband. It was the driver's birthday, and there were snails, steaks, much wine, champagne and even a birthday cake. They did seem to have a good existence as famille. His father had been high in nickel and a member of the Legion of Honor, he had worked for Le Nickel but found it dull after 27 years and now preferred taking the few tourists about. There really wasn't much in Noumea to see, exist a small French city, and in the end I felt much as you and I did about our tour of Toronto. Still, we have now been in New Caledonia.

MENZIES

SYDNEY

18 Feb 1970

Dearest Fido,

The time in Sydney has gone so swiftly that I have hardly had time to be reconverted to a sensible correspondence. But after the first of your letters, sent to the hotel, had been opened and read on Sunday, on Monday I was given four more by the travel agency. I shall miss further letters from you until April and am only sorry that I did not explain that the postal addresses were at the back of the itineraries I sent you, and that in addition to several other intermediate addresses there were actually two, not one, for Australia. It was stupid of me not to have explained that you should read through the itinerary, and I apologize. Actually, for the sake of an emergency, there has been one change in the schedule. After Alice Springs we will return to Sydney for the night of March 1st, stay at the Menzies again and depart from here for Bali on the morning of the 2nd. At the moment, everything from then on is as listed. The address for Globetrotters was incorrectly given in the itinerary I sent you and is actually 123 Clarence St., Syndey, NSW 2000. Luckily we found out that despite the fact of our tickets (paid for), no flight actually existed from Darwin to Denpasar, and what a thing it would have been to have discovered this only when we were actually and remotely in Darwin! Much worse than a wasted time when we went to the wrong address for Globetrotters in Syndey--the one listed wrongly, for they had moved. Irritatingly there are many hundreds of dollars in extra expense to correct the Darwin error but perhaps I can recover some of this when I get back to the States.

First of all let me say that Mrs Hamerman had xeroxed the *NYTimes* review of Vaud, and it too was waiting me as from the agency on Monday. Naturally I beamed with joy for it seemed to me that Duhamel understood the historical relevance~~ about~~ better than I myself had. In fact I think he wrote with the Saturday Review notice in mind, for he seemed to be answering it and the other two. Since the Times notice is paramount in importance, Helen will be as pleased as I was. Don't bother to xerox and send out as from your copy since I have already seen it.

The royalty account, and when started? At the very beginning. Except for taxes I have never drawn against it from the start, not even for the expenses connected with the publication or sending out copies to your friends. Such has always come from the income you have made possible for me, and I have preferred with your royalties as with Hilda's never to have been able even to hint to myself that any decisions reflected income from the books that came to me. Legally the money is mine, morally it is yours.

14 CARRINGTON STREET, SYDNEY, N.S.W. 2000. TELEPHONE: 2-0232. CABLES "MENZOTEL" SYDNEY. TELEPRINTER 20-443

MENZIES

SYDNEY

2

I am not sure that I know quite what Kenneth means about
trouble with Marshall (who is he?) about films, but quite agree
with you that the simple facts are better given so that history
is not, at least, crooked through one's own faults. Kenneth's
reasons for "quiet" are better understood by his analyst. ** I
see by the paper that Lord Dowding is dead. I wonder if it would
be worthwhile for Philip to pick up what I was unsuccessful at,
trying to get the originals or copies of Hilda's letters to him.
He figured very prominently both in the later poems and in *The
Sword Went Out to Sea*, for in addition to her real love affairs
she had a number which satisfied her fancy or fantasy. Dowding's
occultism was important to her, and she did write to him as I know
from his one or two cryptic replies. I wrote Dowding several years
ago, as a scholar, asking if I could have copies of her letters to
him. He did not reply, and of course may never have kept them in
the first place, for she was nothing to him. Do as you think best.
** Mrs H says that the rest of 1942 has reached her and I congratu-
late you. ** Alas, as you can see, we do have to depend on travel
agencies when we are on a trip like this, for I have too few connect-
ions to arrange matters for me in places where I have never been.
Mostly, however, we are lucky. ** Romantic poetry is used loosely
by everyone, and generally is applied to that which is opposite to
18th century poetry of reason. ** Yes, by all means do get back to
the Sesame and Philip if you can, especially now you have done your
quota for the memory. Then perhaps Gandhara or Israel or South
Africa--the possibilities are exciting. ** Glad Aurelia liked the
Bagnold book; I still haven't written her to say I sent it. I
rather gathered you didn't approve awfully much of it, but thought
she might like it from what Silvia Hays had said of Hodgson's affair
with the Bagnold. ** I had instructed Mrs H to order another copy of
the Glassco Paris book for me, so pass yours on as indicated. **
Yesterday I solemnly bought two Australian books to send you as an
advance birthday present. I hope eventually they arrive. ** A
privately printed edition of Petrie's book may be the best solution,
though I am normally against this as depriving old Queenwood girls
and a few libraries from ever getting them except through an immense
personal campaign on your part. In essence the plan I approve was
what we followed with the Gandharan book, the costs being absorbed
by you financially and by me in a supervisory way, but the distribut-
ion left to Kurt. If you prefer to wait I am sure I can arrange
something in the UK by popping over for a few days in the autumn.
Perhaps you could be there too. Naturally however I leave to your
judgment. In any event do not shorten the book except for omitting
the post-marriage section. To do otherwise would be an injustice to

MENZIES

SYDNEY

her as a writer. Part of her successful affect is precisely in the
detail.

As you can see from the enclosed xerozes sent to me by Mrs H (please to destroy since they are answered and the originals are in New Haven), I have not quite escaped from the office. I have written Pantheon to go ahead as suggested with the 500 copies of Gandharan, and indeed this will be better for the Academy if they accept the idea. It also shows that Kurt did not overestimate as much as we thought. * I have given permission to use Hilda's poem in the introduction to the French translation of the Freudbuch.

** Have had an invitation to go to India for a seminar at the end of May, which of course I cannot accept; and to the south of Japan for a seminar the end of April which I shall probably have to appear a t. Tropical islands are never completely remote.

All love,
Norman

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Canberra
Australia

21 February 1970

Dearest Fido,

After our comparative solitude on the islands, Australia has been intensely social. In Sydney we became more or less the property of Rudy Komon, the art dealer who handles the paintings by my friend Leonard French and from whom I bought the two gouaches I brought back on my last trip here. He met us at the airport, though we had our own car, and took us to dinner that night along with the head of the Matson line and his father-in-law. He took us to lunch the next day, and out to dinner with the artist whose vernissage we attended at the end of the afternoon. And although we took a long harbor trip by boat On Tuesday afternoon, and drove out to wild life preserve on Wednesday, we met him again for dinner Tuesday night but begged off for Wednesday on the excuse that we must pack. Still, he was at the airport to see us off to Canberra. I bought a watercolor by Dobell which I think you will like, and an oil which you would like only if by a Wipf. Fortunately the latter was very low-priced indeed and was by Daws whose opening we attended. As much a gesture on my part as an act of connoisseurship.

Canberra has been personally much fun, and I think I begin to see and to understand Australia with more enthusiasm than I felt on my first trip. I suspect the fact that this is summer and I have no flu has a good deal to do with it, though Susan indeed came down with a severe nose cold largely I think because of the shift from tropical heat to over-airconditioning in Sydney. On our first night we were entertained for dinner by a Fred Langman who teaches at the National University and had been at Yale. There also were A.D. Hope and his wife, whose (the wife's) book I sent you, and who himself dedicated a set of poems to me in his newest volume. Also a professor of English from Melbourne whom I knew from the last time, and the professor at the national military academy for whom I made the address on my last visit. Last night we were given a dinner for 18 by the director of the Australian-American Foundation, in a handsomely situated restaurant on a hilltop overlooking

22 February

(So it goes.) the city and then back to his house afterwards. They want me to return by way of Australia in order to attend the August meeting of the same Australian New Zealand American Studies Association I went to two years ago. That is, if they can raise the money. We shall see. Yesterday morning Hope took us for a long drive into the country and to the hills, so Susan could get a sense of something besides a city. In the afternoon we took a boat trip on the 8 1/2 mile long artificial lake made to beautify the capital and cool it, as it does. The lake was dotted with small sailboats, drifting

H6.6

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Canberra
Australia

rather than floating but colorful against the muddy <u>brown</u> of Lake Burley Griffin. A dinner party again last night, this time given by the Hopes at their Faculty Club, and then back to their house afterwards. Mostly the same group as before, with the addition of the head of the Canberra Institute for Advanced Studies. The luminaries of the Friday dinner had been Sir Leonard and Lady Huxley, retired Vice Chancellor of the University.

But none of these distinguished and pleasant Australians rivalled our companion on the flight to Canberra from Sydney. Once we were in the plane we were startled to see a tall man sitting bolt upright in the seat across the aisle. It was not his somewhat militarily stiff posture however which caught our attention so much as the fact that he was in 18th-century costume with a wig. With him was a vivacious young woman, sitting at his side, with her hand on his. There were explanations. The man was Captain Cook or at least an overlifesize wax figure of him en route to Canberra where a new Captain Cook Motel was to be opened. Photographers were lined up to take him when the plane arrived, and he was whisked to an air conditioned car for his entrance to the city. "He gets a little soft at 90," his girl friend observed; but as A.D. Hope added, when I told him, "don't we all!"

A few more minutes and we are off to Melbourne.

H6.6.1

STUART ARMS MOTOR HOTEL - ALICE SPRINGS

Northern Territory, Australia

TODD STREET, ALICE SPRINGS - P.O. BOX 17, ALICE SPRINGS, N.T. 5750 - TELEPHONE 2 1811

27 Feb 1970

Dearest Fido,

It is hot here, hot even enough for you, for the temp they say was close to 110 F as we made our day's tour by bus to Standley's Chasm and to Simpson's Gap. The former was a 250-foot high, 12-foot wide passage through the red rock; the latter a watering place, steeped, as they say, in Aboriginal mythology and in the souvenirs of the horses and cattle who are its most enthusiastic visitors. Indeed at the farther end of the smallish water hole were two abos with a half dozen horses whom they whipped away only to have the animals bolt and return to drink. Our contingent's magnet was in reverse for we hurried back thru the heat to the tins of soft drinks packed in ice in the bus. The chasm required a half hour walk up a dried river bed, while we swatted flies as thick as those in the arctic, but when the rains come and the usual drought is broken, torrents apparently race down between the red walls. The magic moment to wait for was that, about noon, when the sun poured straight in between the walls. We waited, the sun came, but somehow rocks and landscapes and even people appear better to my taste when there are shadows. What an extraordinary landscape it is, no homesteads, little if any livestock, just sandy wastes, an occasional gum tree or eucalyptus, and the great ranges of reddish rocks that hem everything in. Even more extraordinary when seen from the air yesterday were the dry lakebeds, hundreds of miles long, of dead seas, white in the sun with their salt making the beds look as though snow covered them. It must have been a desolate land to pioneer, with the only consolation the proof of one's hardihood. We arrived yesterday shortly after noon at this frontier town (frontier but not picturesque except for the aboriginals who walk slowly up and down the streets in clothing which would be quite ordinary if it were not so exceptionally dirty. We saw them a little cleaner however yesterday afternoon when I discovered from asking the driver who took us from airport to hotel that the aboriginal reserve was open on Thursday afternoons. We drove out, perhaps seven miles from town, to what I suppose could best be described as an experiment station where they try to adjust them to eventual town living. They adjust slowly, for as the Australians freely admit, the ambitious abo has nowhere to go. So they prefer to walk slowly and drink fast, and exist on an unemployment allowance which they can spend as they choose. We had tea with two of the white matrons and three of the aboriginal women, and I think you would have enjoyed all five, tho the blacks contributed little beyond grins. After we had finished there we went to the now restored site of the original Alice, a telegraph station which even until the 1930's was the farthest out or "back" in the central part and dancing eyes.

Northern Territory, Australia

of the country. And there I could have Susan see flying wild some of
the parrots and other Australian birds really too shy for the cities.
There were pink and gray parrots, and a pair of emerald green ones. As
well as small, shy yellow ones, and many doves that had crests like
cockatoos. But we hurried back happily at the end of the afternoon
to our airconditioned room, where contrary to our custom we keep the
20th-century conveniences on.

Your two letters which reached me in Melbourne were an unexpected
delight, but I shall save answering them and telling you about Melbourne
until my next letter. Save to say that I had been asked to return to
Australia on my way back, to address the same American Studies group
I met with the last time, and then later to talk to the congress of
all teachers of classical and modern literatures, from Australia and
New Zealand which also meets, concurrently in Melbourne. Tuesday night
when I left that day's dinner party for us, it was with a half promise
that I might return. But when I got to the hotel there was a letter
sent on by Mrs H, from Glob the Director of the Danish National Museum,
in which he says, "Now we have got to the point in the work with Brattahlid
that we find it possible to accentuate its termination by a
gathering for a few days at Brattahlid in August. We are tinking of
the possibility of leaving Copenhagen by air about August 18th with
return about August 24th. I kindly ask you to inform us if this will
suit you so that we can continue our work with the plans. May I
finally thank you very much for your good effort in this matter." So
I have had to write the various Australians and say no, and to Glob
and say yes. But I have of course also asked if you and Susan might
not also go, and said that we would list you as a working journalist,
explaining also that we began all this together, you and I. Now if
you can go you must go, and if you say you will go you must live up
to your agreement. For it is quite different from the usual trip, or
even the last one when I went without you. Not even the sale of
Kenwin can make such a trip impossible. I will let you know of course
when I hear, but this is not likely until Japan. I have given Vebaek
as reference in addition to myself.

Now I must rush off to dinner, and afterwards give over the type-
writer to Susan for her journal. You should be receiving the first
installment soon.

Northern Territory, Australia

TODD STREET, ALICE SPRINGS - P.O. BOX 17. ALICE SPRINGS, N.T. 5750 - TELEPHONE 2 1811

1 March 1970

Dearest Fido,

We have been away a month today, and it hardly seems so long a time, for we have been busy or tired from having earlier been busy, and hot. Yesterday at Ayers Rock it was 108°F in the shade; the day before it was 102. But of course the heat is dry. How could one have humidity when there has been no rain for three months!

Susan who has priority on the typewriter whenever there is a moment for her journals finished up some 15 pages on our Australian events, last night, and these with this letter and my last one to you will be mailed from Sydney tonight when we reach there on our forced change of plans for arriving at Bali. I shall, with luck, if we are not too tired, write you again tonight for this is just before midday meal on Sunday here, with our car coming to take us to the airport at 1:45.

But I can at least answer your two wonderful letters to me in Sydney. First, as to stamps on my letters to you: Justus will have had sets from each of these countries so send them along to Ethel or anyone who wants them. I enclose a review of Rosemary's new book which I thought you might be interested to read and perhaps send on to her. The magazine is an Australian equivalent of Time or Newsweek. Since Mrs H sent me a xerox of the NYTimes review of Vaud, and will have saved the original for met at HGS I return the original you sent for you to keep with you books. I still glow when I read it; none of the others matter.

I will of course let you know what I hear from Glob about Greenland, and I beg you to come if you can. This is all so much a part of the two of us, and indeed was begotten on me by you--if a player's boy can beget. * The ribbon slipped out at that point. Am not sure what letters I have commented on. As to the Richards I suspect their financial talk is a natural attitude of older ages. Their income would be much cut if they returned, nor despite the mountainclimbing agility would she or he like England. Maybe she like the Wipf is the one who really wants to return. Ivor keeps busy as can be and is a kind of senior statesmen here as he would not be in England.

By now perhaps you will already have gone to England for Philip and returned, or to Zurich to be with Joan. Don't forget Frau Schnack if you ever have an extra moment there for a cup of coffee. How I would like to drink one with you.

2

HOTEL
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131 EXHIBITION STREET • MELBOURNE 3000, AUSTRALIA

(sorry, there was only one sheet of Menzies paper in the drawer but I had thoughtfully taken all away from Melbourne in case of just such a drought) met at Alice, without previous notice. This new acquaintance was living with an abo girl (a taste not for everyone except in cases of famine), in a shack in the desert. Perhaps he was intending to write a book. Her Englishman was most attractive I thought, and although she said he had a proper Oxford pommy accent, no one in Australia referred to him, as they did to most Englishmen, as "that pommy bastard." I spoke a good deal with him and he turned out to be a cousin of a Lewis Curtis, just retired from the hsitory department at Yale and an old friend and fellow fellow of Jonathan Edwards College.

The only sad thing, in a way, or rather it might have been fun, was that he had not mentioned that at the same motel was Gerald Durrell, his wife, and a secretary, and he and the girl had had good times with them and she wished we might have joined them on the Saturday evening. He is writing travel articles and a book, and it seems to me rather swank to take along a secretary to dictate to. Sachie certainly does not. You must watch for the inevitable book on Australia, and I will order a copy. The best about meeting him would have been to check on your version of your visit to the zoo on Jersey. And to talk of you, though he may still be disappointed at your reluctance to endow a giraffe.

I liked both the young Oxonian and the painter. They seemed to me both to have curiosity and will, to want to get out for themselves and rough it. And he too combined in what is the best British way, when it exists, the drive that got England somewhere and may just possibly do it again. But the world has changed and these two had to hit out for down under, in order to make it.

I have gotten the feel of Australia a good deal more this time, and although I doubt I should want to transfer here I can see why some people do.

A phone call just then says the car is here a half hour early. So there is time for nothing more but love,

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SANUR - BALI - INDONESIA

5 March 1970

Dearest Fido,

We are now safely settled, if one can be settled in
such an incongruously multi-storied Miami-Beach transfer as the
Hotel Bali Beach. But I must say it is pleasantly comfortable,
the swimming pool and beach make excellent spots to lounge by,
and thanks to automobiles one can be quickly on the road and into
the villages and along the rice paddies. This is Bali without the
Beach. To come suddenly into this incredible green lushness, aft-
er flying over the waste land of northern Australia is to be grant-
ed bounty. There is apparently a constant mixture of seasons,
for the some rice paddies are yellow with reopened grain, others
emerald colored with foot-high stalks, and others with water-
filled paddies, a few aspiring blades and either white herons or
innumerable ducks. There are palms and cocoanuts and banyans,
and flowering plants. Every household compound has a temple at
the center, and the women walk the roads carrying flower and rice
offerings on their heads to place at some temple ceremonial or
another. Beautiful high creations of golden marigolds and white
frangipani and red hibiscus that must have taken hours to create.
And they walk the roads carrying other things too: long bamboo
poles, baskets filled with rice straw, pots, everything -- the
women straight and easy as they stride along balancing their
loads. Even the schoolgirls carry their textbooks on the heads.
The men are more apt to carry things by a single pole over the
shoulder with baskets hanging from each end: baskets with hens
or fighting cocks in them, trays with cocoanuts, or two men with
one pole and a pig slung in a basket between them. Watching the
people is an endless fascination to me as they work in the fields,
keep tiny shops by the roadside, for their fellow Balinese not for
tourists, or simply sit and talk with each other. Somehow this
is one people who have taken tourists in their stride. The
children shout hallo as one goes by, the younger women occasion-
ally draw a cloth over their otherwise naked breasts, or the
men modestly cover themselves with one hand appropriately placed
as they bathe in the rivers or in the ditches along each side of
the roads, filled with water from the rice fields. For there is
water everywhere, lakes high in the hills filling old volcanic
craters, and of course our room looks out over the sea. Bali is
said to be a poor country, but no one looks thin and certainly no
one shivers. We sweat in the humidity, they simply bathe in the
rivers at the end of the day, and keep cool as they work by
trudging back in the forth in the muck of the rice paddies. No
wonder people come, and the hotel is filled especially with two
sorts at present: one, somewhat surprisingly is British and
lower middle-class from my standards, rough and course and cockney,
and the women dressed in slacks and evening clothes bought off
the rack to fit their fantasy of themselves rather than their
own reality. The other, perhaps equally surprising, is German,

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Bali BEACH
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SANUR - BALI - INDONESIA

younger by two decades, one supposes they are successful industrial-
ists, not junkers certainly, but some at least won a sailing title
in Adelaide having shipped out their own eighteen-footers. There
are a few Japanese, but these are not liked by the Balinese; the
Australian season is later, in their winter; and only a very few
Americans, although one couple (names unknown) whom we first saw
at Bora Bora have appeared here.

We make trips during the day to reasonably remote temples,
"distant" would be a better word, and manage somehow to retrace yest-
erday's route most of the way. Twice we have been in the villages
to see Balinese dancing and I was of course reminded of Beryl de
Zoete, whose book on *Dance and Drama in Bali* is put down as one of
the half-dozen best on the island in the only small guide I have
been able to buy. What was particular fun, and I should have enjoyed
telling her about, happened yesterday when we began the day by
attending a formal presentation of the Baron *Dance* (the barong being
a mythical animal rather in the shape of a tiger and danced, like
the horses in clown circuses by a man in front and another behind,
all done for the tourist of course but in a Covent Garden manner of
excellence. Later in the day we were going through a small village
and noticed what we thought was a festival but turned out to be a
wandering group of dancers who put on performances whenever the
villagers could raise the money. They were doing the same dance,
clumsily but gaily, no more honest for the clumsiness but with great
guilty. And this morning, on another country road we came across
a ceremonial procession for whose convenience we drew to the side
of the road, and there was still another barong dancing along with
an umbrella held over its head to keep the heat out.

That has been the fun, really, -- the unexpected. We have
a car and river and a guide, and the guide finds out what we want
and tries to satisfy us. Susan wanted to see a cockfight, and we
found one yesterday afternoon. They are less bloody here than in
Tahiti, where I saw one last time, for knife blades are tied to
the cock's spurs and they slash at each other as they fly to and
at their opponents. The result is death to the loser, quickly.
We watched three and Susan felt she had seen enough, her curiosity
having been satisfied.

The prince we were to have visited, and did, was not at home
so our moment with royalty was frustrated. But he may have been
the originally frustrated one, for when I replied to his invitation
to stay with him in his puri (or palace, extravagantly translated)
by saying we would call at the hour and day he suggested but not
stay, I did not realise he ran his place as a hotel. So I do not
blame him for having gone to another island to see his California-
educated daughter. We were shown around and were glad we hadn't
chose to stay so remotely, and bought a scarf for Ines made by his
household, which we will send her when the chance arises for me to
get a sturdy envelope.

We have a few more days, but I doubt the impressions will
change much.

All love,

SANUR - BALI - INDONESIA

8 March 1970

Dearest Fido,

Tomorrow is the Njepi holiday which begins the Indo-
nesian new year. Quite sensibly they call it "quiet day". There
are no fires, no cooking, automobiles are not allowed on the roads
nor is anyone supposed to walk on visits. For the tourists no
tours, no dances to watch, and an official permit is required even
to take one (which means us) to the airport for the plane to
Djakarta. Actually I will take this letter with me to Djakarta to
mail for of course the posts are closed in Bali. But this quiet
day really doesn't interfere much; we have seen our temples and
our rice fields and our dances, and spent most of today lying in
the sun on the beach. Tomorrow if we can get packed in time we
will hope for another hour of tanning hides. One discovers that
this hotel is the only beach resort in a radius of a thousand miles
or more, which explains why the average guest does nothing more
than lie in the sun.

In that sense we have not been average, and each day
have set out for somewhere. The somewhere is not so important as
the odd things one sees by chance in the fields or villages. To-
night on our way back from watching another performance of the
Monkey Dance, it had become dark and in each village the children
were brandishing flaming torches to frighten the evil spirits away
before the New Year begins. Day before yesterday it was to sit
for an hour or so on a bench in front of a woman's stand for sell-
ing drinks and foods to the villagers while we waited for a pro-
cession to come from another village of women carrying high and
elaborate floral offerings to offer to our village shrine. At
least the village seemed "ours" by the time the thirty or more
women and the gamelin band walked in from a country road. We had
walked back and forth along the inner village paths, followed by
a crowd of twenty or more urchins fascinated by our every detail.
Like their parents they respond winningly to a smile, and seem to
adore having their pictures taken so long as it is politely done.
Yesterday, too, it was unexpected to go to the village home of
our guide's father, who is a priest. Happy to receive us the
father sent a servant up a palm tree to cut off two cocoanuts
to drop, and served the cocoanut water to us. The father was a
handsome poised man, with a hibiscus in his bun, has four of his
sons and their children, and his wife living with him. The others
of the thirteen children help to support him, as do the villagers.
A life of calm. He was sitting on a platform when we came, and
went back to the platform when we left. A priest prays in the
morning and then sits around to wait for anyone who wishes to con-
sult him. Otherwise he must not leave his home compound. We had
been also the guide's grandfather's compound in Denpassar (his
wife is librarian at the university here), and to Prince Agung's
compound, and to one other. So we have had a bit of the inside
of Bali as well as the landscape. The economy, I am told, is

INTER-CONTINENTAL
HOTELS

SANUR - BALI - INDONESIA

catastrophic but I am sure hardly effects the average Balinese who lives off rice and fruit and fish and doesn't bother to listen to the radio. He belongs to a cooperative organization which runs the politics of each village and to another cooperative to control the water supply to the rice fields (which they patrol each night walking between the paddies by the light of a lamp), and still another which shares the harvesting. Each works for the others on a quid pro quo basis, for the political organization's rice fields whose yield takes the place of taxes, and each owns his own fields which he divides amongst his heirs. All, that is, save one group which redivides the community land every two years. And the people really do smile, which seems a miracle in this century. And they run to do things for one. And they are pleased when they are thanked, and in turn thank you for it.

Presumably something of this will change as more Germans and Scandinavians come here. The Americans are still outnumbered, and German is the dominant tourist talk, although the Balinese speak English as a second language, and speak it very well too. The manager of the hotel is German, so is the head of foods and wines. The Germans are young, middle-aged and old, but all are, one supposes, affluent. The English horde has left but a few new ones come and a few linger on. The couple who were dressed off the rack needn't, one imagines, for the plump wife sports a diamond ring that must have been spawned by Elizabeth Taylor. Their fat daughter of fifteen seems unhappy and does not, repeat does not, despite requests, kiss her papa goodnight. The older son with a somewhat better accent but a slobby physique dips in the pool but does not, he acknowledges to an uninterested public, swim.

Perhaps one of the pleasantest aspects of Bali is that one does not have deep thoughts. So you must forgive my letters for their shallowness and take them simply as a conveyor of love,

INTER-CONTINENTAL
HOTELS

2

統一大飯店
PRESIDENT HOTEL

we made a longer drive up into the mountains to see the usual water-
fall, the last mile or so being in rickshaw-like railcars which were
pushed uphill by sandled Chinese. The muscles on their legs ballooned
as a sign of their trade, but used to it as they were they still seemed
to enjoy the coast back down when we returned. A village of souvenir
shops stood at the top, peopled by costumed aboriginals who permitted
one to take their pictures for a fee. I liked the old women's heavy
tatooing on cheeks and forehead, although the younger girls will have
no such ornamentation. The old women smoke little pipes whose decora-
tion I admired. The shops sold little pipes too, but made of hard
woods rather than bamboo, and I felt triumphant when a woman finally
agreed to sell me a real one for fifty cents and went home to fetch
it. This is my only souvenir.

But the real treasure of Taiwan, and worth coming to see, is
the National Palace Museum which houses the 260,000 objects from the
imperial treasure in Peking, brought here by Chiang. They can show
only a fraction at a time, but because of this the Taiwanese keep
returning, and yesterday being a holiday it was crowded. They see
the treasury as the Jewish people regard the ark in the temple, as
a central symbol of community and status. We went twice, the electri-
city breaking down in mid-morning of our first visit, and were open-
mouthed as we moved among the paintings, the porcelains and the jade.

We fly late in the afternoon to Osaka, where I hope we will be
met and taken to our hotel in Kyoto where we stay for four nights
while we settle in and buy whatever we need for Susan to cook with
and to keep the flat going. The first days will be busy ones, and
I shall have to start from scratch with my lectures. But I hope my
letters to you can go more regularly than they have been. You have
been wonderful to write so often. I can't begin to tell you how much
they have meant. Susan joins in pre-Kyoto love,

Norman

A031-100 X1000-58-7

臺灣・臺北市・德惠街・TEH HWEI STREET, TAIPEI, TAIWAN, CHINA

CABLE ADDRESS: PRESIDENTEL TAIPEI.

TELEPHONE: 551251

Cameron Highlands Hotel Berhad

TANAH RATA, MALAYSIA.

P. O. Box 4, TELEPHONE: 212.

CABLE: "CAMHOTEL" TANAH RATA.

CAMERON HIGHLANDS.

12 April 1970

Dearest Fido,

(I hope you forgive my Yankee thrift in not wanting to waste the stationery I pilfered from so many of the places we stopped at. It was always because the next day I was sure to have time enough for a letter to you; occasionally I did, but not so often as I should have liked. You will get old envelopes too, for I dare send these to you while for others, and especially those in Japan, I have bought new ones, and clean flimsy typing paper. So I shall not publicly disgrace your friendship.) We are back from the Noh plays, as cold as a barn, and Susan shivered so I gave her my jacket and sat in shirt sleeves. I was glad of a cup of coffee on our return, although I bought a pot of tea to help during the four hour performance. But I shall leave any account of that or this morning until tomorrow, being anxious to get back to your accumulated letters. I will write Mrs Hamerman to expect the books from Maggs, or rather from Renishaw via Maggs, but she would in any event not return them, having learned to expect anything and everything. This is as of your letter of the 16th. Tell Ines that I too now am a foreign worker with a special entry permit. On Tuesday last Susan and I solemnly went to the prefecture office to be fingerprinted and given our alien registration cards. * I am sure it was a good thing to turn the trust over to Perdita; anything of that kind which does not modify your own living in consequence will simplify things later. And to be frank she and John will need the money just now with all their bills for the children's education than they will actually need it twenty years from now at your death. * I had forgotten that you bought some of O.B.'s pictures. Forwarded from Yale in xerox was a long and fine letter from him as well as a full page from the Max--a little to my surprise, but Max seems to stick by me when we have our Open Sesame. 20th of March, after an interval while you were waiting for my arrival, I was fascinated by the fact that Choate was sending Nicholas and most of his classmates home for "projects" in their last term. The truth is that most prep school boys slack off once the applications for college have gone in since not much matters anyhow. Aately, friction and the use of drugs and general disruption of the school for the underclassmen has been the consequence. I recall that Andover expelled several seniors a fortnight before what would have been their graduation. But of course simply shift the burden on to the parents who didn't want it in the first place. The British have long done this, for once a boy was accepted at a university there was no point in formal study. It was during this period that I enrolled a Trevelyan nephew at Yale for a term (without credit) at Yale as a freshman. + Constance

Associate Hotels: Merlin Hotels, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang.

Kyoto
Hotel

520 ROOMS 1000 GUESTS
ALL WITH BATH & SHOWER
TELEPHONE (075) 211-5111
TELEX 5422-126
CABLE ADDRESS: KYOHO KYOTO

KAWARAMACHI -OI KE, NAKAGYO-KU, KYOTO, JAPAN

14 April 1970

Knoe Hall

Dearest Fido,

The birthday party is over, and the bill
paid this afternoon, so it is now a matter of history and
memory. The thirty-odd guests seem to have had a good
time--most of them knew each other anyhow-- and by 9
they could wend their way home to various parts of Kyoto,
to Osaka and to Kobe. The room looked very well, altho
it was lucky that we had gone early to put the place
cards at the table, for they had set too many places, and
it was obvious that Susan had for etiquette's sake to
sit by me rather than opposite me, so all arrangements
had to be done over. The reception beforehand was held
in one-half of the room with chairs arranged for the
guests to sit at. 8-10 girls served the meal, which was
a little cold by steaktime nevertheless, and a half-dozen
boys passed out the cocktails. I made a little speak in
my most florid manner saying howeHonored we were, how
honored I was, etc. The senior guest then made a similarly
florid speak in Japanese saying how honored they were,
Then I was presented with a red silk robe and hat
worn only on one 61st birthday, and I gather then put
away for another generation, -- and a very lovely pair
of carved wooden dolls illustrating one of the famous
Noh plays. As the guests left, each was given a bunch
of tissue-wrapped carnations (I didn't remember having
ordered these) and each family a box of ten cream cakes.
We had one ourselves, and at least in one sense each re-
cipient will be rich.

We came back to be greeted in the entrance way
to Knoe Hall by a German-refugee professor now teaching
in Melbourne and his Australian wife who is apparently
a well-known scholar of mediaeval Burmese history, both
very pleasant and living across the hall, as hemmed in
by two children and hence lonely. They queried the boxes
of the gift and ended up by coming to the apartment and
staying until midnight, rather alas, for I was by then
tired.

Today it still being rather chilly I took
Susan to the department store and bought her at least a
spring coat, she having understandably brought nothing to
the tropics, and expecting warm temperatured spring here.
Then she went back to the Hall and to Kewpie, for market-
ing, and I walked two or three miles (literally), found
a place luckily where I could buy seeds for red carrots
as just requested in a letter from Islay, and found out

Kyoto
Hotel

CABLE ADDRESS:KYOHO KYOTO

KAWARAMACHI-OI KE, NAKAGYO-KU, KYOTO, JAPAN

17 April 1970

Dearest Fido,

No letter to you either Wednesday nor yesterday, but last night when I came in, yours of the 11th was here to greet me. We too had had a letter from Else Hansen. Susan had sent Susan Hansen a dress from Taiwan as a belated Christmas present. Erik has applied for an ACLS fellowship, the awards for which will be made on the 34th of this month. I wrote on his behalf and naturally want him to get it. But whether he will is another matter. He is a curious chap, and as you know has a propensity for discovering enemies. I surely sweated over his dissertation on my return in 1964 and spent a small fortune having every reference checked (he was abysmally careless, and a fortune of my own hours in correcting the grammar. Yet he bames me for not finding a publisher for it, even before the revisions I recommended.

He is one of the sad cases of a farmer's boy who has risen wonderfully but is wretched because he is not an academic pope. + I had a letter from Horace, delayed because he addressed it only to the University of Kyoto instead of Kanoe Hall as I had suggested. He has been revising and pruning his manuscript he says, and then filled the letter out with an essay on world expositions, how the day for them had passed, and how vulgar the Japanese Expo 70 is. It will fit in very well into the volume of his collected letters. + I am glad you asked to have Annie Reich's letters from you sent to the archives at Yale. They fill out a side of your activity, or sides, which are not otherwise represented. + Sorry to hear about Mme Moret's secret operations. I've known so many like her who gain dignity in ratio to their ability to make trouble.

We made our first visit Wednesday to Expo, beginning by a couple of trips around the edge on the mono-rail (all things of this sort are free) in order to get an idea of the whole, which is better from above than at street level. Then we were loyal and made a visit to the American pavilion, far and away the most popular of all because of the moon rock, capsules actually used etc. Normally the lines take two hours or more to get in; we were lucky and made it in 3/4 of an hour, partly because they pulled me out of the queu and sent us in. I thought that, *as for the final futuristic exit, the exhibit was awfully well done. Except for the astronaut section there was nothing except American culture--the best small show of Indian artifacts I have ever seen put together, a fine small group of Navajo blankets, another of New England bed quilts,*

京都・河原町・御池

京都ホテル

電話 (075) 211-5111
テレックス5422- 126

Kyoto,

18 April 1970

Dearest Fido,

It rained yesterday afternoon and all night
and is still raining by the end of this morning. The cherry
blossoms will have been battered from their boughs, for they
were beginning to fall yesterday morning from over-ripeness.
But we were lucky. We went to the Heian Shrine, one of the
larger ones, said to be famous for its cherry trees, and in-
deed there was reason for its fame. There was an acre or more
of nothing but cherries, their boughs splayed out over bamboo
frames to make a canopy of bloom. And beside the various
temple buildings were large trees that were white-pink against
the dark sky of a threatening storm. Thousands of people,
by which I mean mostly Japanese from all over the island were
there to enjoy the sight. Their gay kimonas added a degree of
human picturesqueness to the grace of nature. The refraction
of the blossoms in the pools and pond was unforgettable. How
the Japanese do love the cherries; trees line the railway
tracks, a filling station will have one in a place of honor,
back streets of dwellings will have stacato points of blossom
scattered along its path. I think Susan is well pleased,
and though we could still see more, even if the rain has ended
the season we will have seen enough. Now we will wait for the
azaleas to bloom.

We took Kewpie to a Japanese hotel for luncheon,
where the rain actually began, and then because there was no
sense to garden-hopping we went to the second of the small
meiko cherry-season dances. The performance was diverting,
more elaborately staged, and somewhat livened-up for the
market. But again we were the only non-Japanese, and how proud
a foreigner is when he can say that.

Last night after dinner we went across the hall
to the apartment of the German-Australian refugee professor
of Southeast Asian politics and history, his wife being the
mediaeval historian of Burmese ecology. They are lively con-
versationalists, and since we have several Australian friends
in common--particularly A.D.Hope, the poet, who was her tutor
when she read English, there was much about everything to dis-
cuss. They are younger, however, and more energetic, and I
felt it wiser to say no when they proposed another talk to-
night. For we catch a train at 8 a.m. to visit Ise Shrine
near Nagoya. It is one of the oldest and most famous, which
we did not see before and are not likely to take the time to
do once Lizzie arrives.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2731 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN, CONN
06520

April 29, 1970

Dear Bryher,

A xerox of 1944 went out to Mrs. Wolff this morning and so did a copy go out to you. I had no trouble with the manuscript and it was indeed, in very good shape, which is to say it was highly legible...enjoyable too!

I have not yet received the letters from Dr. L. Reich Ruhr, but will let you and Dr. Ruhr know as soon as they do arrive.

I am behind on the journal and have no hope of catching up before I leave tomorrow for a two weeks' holiday. My mother and I are taking a Caribbean cruise and I find I am quite ready to succumb to two weeks of luxury. Our stop in Puerto Rico will give me an opportunity to visit with family and to see the changes that have taken place since my last visit ten years ago. We will also be stopping at St. Thomas, Caracas, Curacao, Aruba, Jamaica and Haiti (if they're not having a revolution). It promises to be enjoyable and to say the least it will be a change of pace for me.

Life at Yale has been somewhat tense during the past ten days and the entire community is fervently hoping the activities of the May Day week-end will not erupt in violence. The impending trial in New Haven of nine Black Panthers has catapulted the students into a strike; in addition to alleging a fair trial is not possible, they are making several demands in regard to Yale and New Haven and Yale's responsibility to the Black Community of New Haven. The faculty has supported the strike and it is entirely possible that classes will not resume this semester. But this is a capsule report and very inadequate. The student - faculty - administration relationship is not antagonistic at this point and the people at the University seem committed to non-violence. We just hope the thousands of outsiders coming to New Haven for the week-end demonstrations and programs will adhere to this philosophy. Precautions throughout the University have been taken to protect property and I have done what little I can do here in the office. And I mention all this to bring you up-to-date for I imagine the International News Service will have reports abroad.

I hope you are well and look forward to hearing from you when I get back in the middle of May.

2

MENZIES

SYDNEY

and of course a period of even comparative rest may make all the
difference. * Sometime when we are together you must instruct me
also on "denial of ground". One thinks of denials of grounds for
divorce, but although this is martial it is not strictly military.

* I pick up one of March the 12th but can hardly believe that it was
sent to Kyoto. However to repeat, I cannot really believe that Philip
wants more than the feeling of thrift by pretending to put his chateau
on the market. At best of course he could only sell it for one half
of his investment in it, and the best would require the best. He
has had his fun, and as he says has "created" something. But it is
strictly his own. * Sorry you did not see the Fellini *Satyricon*.

Do be my gentle poemographer and report on it after your next trip
to Zurich. * But did Marie Anne ever find her lost corpse? I always
enjoyed the phrase *corpus delicti*; it sounds like a desert. * Will
you in turn thank Ines on our behalf for her letter of thanks. I
can't quite believe the good luck that her scarf arrived on her
birthday. It was, as I think I wrote you, woven by the wives of
the Prince Agung of Ubud, in Bali. Or at least by his inner house-
hold. + How nice it would be if Irma could marry her "old" man,
and Ines could have her pruner. In the latter case you could save
both your trees and your household. I am so sorry about Maitre Coigny's
boy, for the father's sake; but the young will simply not heel and I
suspect that papa blows a stern whistle. * Some day perhaps Susan
can actually see an Inmos orchid when she comes to Kenwin. Her
biggest horticultural experience in Japan so far has been when we
were given a vegetarian luncheon which included a soup which con-
tained a salted orchid blossom, to be eaten. She did. So did I.
Perhaps Ines could pickle the Inmos orchids when they have lost
their first bloom. If she can learn to pickle them for him, I dare-
say she can have it instead of the pruner. + I was of course
much interested in your reaction to Reresby and I am glad you liked
him. Poor Sachie and Georgia; don't be too hard on their Claridge
spree. No one ever had to play role #3 over so long a period. And
I can never quite adjust to the idea that a second son should have
nothing, perhaps because I was a second son. Sachie has thought
he was dying and probably thought he would before he became worthy
of Bart on his tombstone. Call this his wake.

I come close to the end of the page, which I can allow by
guessing the weight of the letter and not waiting to post it from
town. I pick up yours of the 16th of March. Naturally I am pleased
you are keeping the travel books together for they seem to me to be
so much a part of you. I will be your London Library in the colonies.

* You grow smarter as the months go by and I am pleased that you
both welcome Kitty Hunt and put het up at the hotel. She is not
for Kenwin under the present conditions anyhow.

Hotel
Okura

3 AOI-CHO, AKASAKA, MINATO-KU

TOKYO, 107 JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS: HOTELOKURA TOKYO

TEL: 582-0111

3 May 1970

Dearest Fido,

Gaps, gaps, gaps -- your life will be punctuated by holes in correspondence. But as you know, we were back in Kyoto only late last Monday night, and off again Thursday morning for Tokyo. We arrived in mid-afternoon, I promptly and properly had my hair trimmed (to look less "beat" for my Friday's lecture), and at dinner time my old friend Paul Blum (from OSS war days, who has lived in Tokyo since the war) came to take us to his apartment for supper. A bachelor, he formerly had a house and a separate building for his library. Now he has a smallish flat, but comfortable and beautifully furnished, with an internal winding stair to a large room below where he has his books and prints. Friday morning an Embassy car came to the hotel and took me to the conference, of Japanese teachers of English in secondary schools who had been to the States on Fulbright Fellowships. I listened quietly to two talks and question periods in the morning, and then after a semi-official lunch I gave my own paper (the one on bibles for the American young) and am glad to say I could turn it enough in the direction of the morning talks and the occupation of teaching to give it sufficient relevance. Susan meanwhile stayed in the hotel, had her hair done and began seriously to try to catch up on her account. At six the embassy car came again and took us to the home of the American in charge of the conference who was giving a reception ("Cock-tail party") in our honor. Some 50 or more came, including a number of former students, and we went home to the Okura at 8:30, I at least rather exhausted. Fortunately the conference on Saturday did not begin until 10 a.m., but I went bravely off by myself this time, and heard the morning talk and the first of those in the afternoon, with another lunch sandwiched in between. I quit then and went back to the hotel, picked up Susan who had bravely typed again after doing a few errands, and we went to my shirtmaker to have myself re-measured since six years ago. Normally he sends me samples and I order by mail, but I really needed some summer shirts and others too, and had some sent to Kyoto when finished and others to Yale to wait my return. Doing it this way, whether by mail or directly, gives me a completely tailored shirt (one sleeve is longer than the other, one half of my back narrower than its mate, etc, for seven and eight dollars apiece, for the finest material, as against 25-30 for the same shirt untailored in New Haven or New York. Cheap labor of course but fine labor at the same time. That having been accomplished we both returned to the conference for a final reception, and I solemnly bade the sixty individual goodbyes.

Afterwards in a fit of nostalgia we taxi-ed to the Imperial Hotel where we had spent a month or more on our former visit. The old Imperial where we had our suite was torn down and a monster of a hotel had taken its place. To us it seemed cold and immense, and we were dwarfed in its foyer.

Hotel
Okura

3 AOI-CHO, AKASAKA, MINATO-KU

TOKYO, 107 JAPAN

We were glad to be staying at the Okura and came back to a roast beef dinner here. We have so much Chinese and Japanese cooking that a hearty western piece of meat makes a fine substitute for raw fish.

This morning was quieter. We took a car for a couple of hours, and after doing an errand (for Sunday is simply another day to shops: business offices close but stores do not, of the Macy's and the Gimbels close on Monday instead) we were driven out to see a startlingly impressive new building by the architect Kenzo Tange, the Catholic Cathedral finished in 1964, after our visit, to replace the one destroyed by bombs in the war. It is hard to describe, and late to begin. I shall have to depend on showing you postcards which will do it no justice either. They were about to begin a noontime mass as we entered, and the sound of the organ filled the rolling walls. But it is at any rate one of the finest modern buildings I know. There not being much time remaining before lunch, which we were to have at International House with a James Baird, from Connecticut College, a Yale PhD now also a Fulbright lecturer here who had been on Saturday's program, we went to a large park to see the azaleas. They were not yet quite out, but most of Tokyo was. I like seeing parkland studded with picnic baskets as a center to family outings.

After lunch we finally completed one of the missions of our trip, which was to deliver to Shoji Hamada, the most famous of living Japanese potters, the heavy eskimo soapstone carving we had lugged as a gift from James Houston to Hamada, from New Haven here, always by hand and in the cabin with us lest it be broken. I had said "of course" to the idea of taking a little piece, but this was little only in comparison. However Hameda was delighted with it, and with a Steuben glass snail we had brought him as a gift from ourselves, and we had a pleasant half-hour chat at the Folk Art Museum of which he is president. We will perhaps see him in a fortnight at Osaka where he is having an exhibition of his ceramics.

Then tonight, I am just back--or was when this letter was begun from a dinner given for us, nineteen present, by former students in this area. It made an easy way for me to see them all more at less at once, and I enjoyed the loyalty which made them, or prompted them to come together in our honor.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with embassy officials, a trip to the bank to cash my government check, and an afternoon meeting with some Japanese professors. Now they want me to go to Korea for a few days after Susan leaves. One wonders.

But not about love to you,

Hotel
Okura

3 AOI-CHO, AKASAKA, MINATO-KU

TOKYO, 107 JAPAN

TEL: 582-0111

5 May 1970

Dearest Fido,

This properly cannot be a letter, but what happier opportunity than even a few minutes of a letter to you while I wait to take down our bags and taxi to the station for our train back to Kyoto.

Our stay has remained packed. The dinner given us Sunday night (there were 19 altogether present) was a good way for us to see still more of the Japanese we had known in New Haven. And since in the afternoon we had safely delivered the skimo carving to Hameda, we felt it to have been a day of accomplishment.

Yesterday things were accomplished too, but at the expense of some frustrations. I walked to the Embassy Annex, past the Japanese police stationed every twenty feet around the American Embassy proper, and the Ambassador's residence, and had my consultation with the Information Services officer, and went back to the Okura to pick up Susan and run to the bank to cash my monthly check. You may recall that the previous one I had had difficulty with in Kyoto, since as Kyoto said, it was issued in Tokyo ("Can't you go there to cash it?") The bell captain was supposed to write out directions in Japanese for the taxi driver to take me to the Hibeya branch of Mitsui, but instead I was taken to the main bank. What difference, I thought. Quelle difference! it proved.--No theman at the head bank said solemnly, we cannot cash this check; it was issued from our Hibeya branch. Yes, we know it is the United States Government account; this is not the point: the point is that we cannot cash a check issued from an account in a branch of our bank.--But can't you telephone and confirm?--Very sorry, is not possible. You walk to branch bank perhaps, is not far, maybe kilometer. -- So Susan and I sat out to follow his directions to proceed straight down the road and the branch would be on the left. One trouble was that neither of us is sure, in walking, how far a kilometer is. Another trouble was that, after we had gone too far, and made a series of forays back, aided first by a slightly speaking member of a glass manufacturer's office, and (out of my desperation) a second floor office of the Anglo-American Aircraft Company, the branch turned out to have been on the right hand side instead of the left, and not on the main road at all but part way down the block. We went in exhausted, but pleased to have been led to the bank by an aircraft secretary (this is a nice side of the Japanese), and were greeted by Hishi's and bobbing heads, and were given the 369,000 yen in a few minutes. Because, of course, they had indeed issued the check originally.

Our lunch was at the snack bar of the Embassy so that we could be first in line to have our passports re-validated, after three years, and extra pages added to it for stamped entries and exits. This at least was smooth. But

Hotel
Okura

3 AOI-CHO, AKASAKA, MINATO-KU

TOKYO, 107 JAPAN

TEL: 582-0111

when after lunch we tried to find the new Tokyo gallery of an
art dealer we had formerly known in Kyoto, the taxi driver be-
came confused with the Japanese of the bell captain and trium-
phantly deposited us at an imposing building which housed Fiji
Films but not the dealer. In her few words of English the girl
explained that they we 1-7-6-chome, not -1-6-6-chome where the
gallery was. But she pointed in the direction of 6 chome and
we set out. Finally another gallery told us the side street,
again, up which we should go, and we finally arrived.

Travelling even within a city is adventurous.

Perhaps there will be a letter from you waiting at
Konoe Hall.

Kyoto
Hotel

CABLE ADDRESS:KYOHO KYOTO

6 May 1970

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday, coming down on the train from Tokyo, it was dismally cloudy. The nearby mountains, the rice fields, and the little farmhouses were wreathed in mist. The only gay spots of color were the cloth carps floating in the breeze to celebrate Boys' Day in Japan. A wind-filled carp for each son in the family. There has been a lot of male-breeding in the country. Alas for the city-dwellers one can tell little; for, as the newspapers lament, apartment-livers can only hang miniature paper fish from the doorways between rooms.

Today the mist and clouds have turned to rain, and Susan and Kewpie-san were damp when they came back from their shopping. I was happy enough to stay at home and try to prepare for my first teaching tomorrow at Doshisha University. The course: "Romantic Poetry in English", and although I know little about so erudite a topic I daresay teaching it will be good for me. We stayed in again this afternoon, and except from a visit from Professor Suga to discuss Noh, plays and a committee we serve on together, coupled with another visit from a young member of the faculty who wants to come to Yale to study next year, I have kept at William Blake with whom my course begins. The other break was your welcome letter to Susan, for which she will thank you; and, to my surprise and delight, the gift of a Mayflower tie from Ethel. She hardly knows how much I prize it, not only for the sentiment but because I stupidly packed mostly brown ties, with almost nothing to go with the sincere black suit and gray suit which I must wear to class to prove myself a professor. Indeed the brown suit, having worn out at the elbow, has had to be discarded, as has a brown pair of shoes whose soles suddenly opened like a dying clam shell. My only pair of black shoes threaten to do the same, and I will no doubt have to buy myself one of those needle-pointed Japanese shoes which I observe on others with such horror.

I spoke of Susan's letter from you. I must shout about my own good fortune in the five letters waiting for me last night when we got back to Knoe Hall. "Housemother" bowed low and pointed to the cornucopia. I bowed low, and reached out to it.

2.

Kyoto
Hotel

KAWARAMACHI-OIKE, NAKAGYO-KU, KYOTO, JAPAN

Yours of the 23rd: How wise to have Ruegg help with the affair of the Camargue hotel. Somehow I originally had the impression that Catha's husband and his father had sold their property, which would have been foolish but not scandalous. I am not quite sure how they were disposed, or why Jacques is penniless at this moment rather than later. But you can explain it all to me in September when you are in the States. * It is hard for anyone to like the trend of the modern world, certainly not myself since I cannot begin to define anything. As to intelligence, I had not known I sniffed at yours nor you at mine. Schoolteachers like Kittie and her Chum, or like me, can't help but be confused when the students change textbooks. I suspect they are far too active intellectually to like retirement; the joy of archaeology or gardening is that you can go on without an age limit. * Of age limits in voting I too cannot be impressed by reducing the date of franchise. But I am a little surprised that you with your hippy instincts would not chime in with the convictions of just-puberty.

Of the 26th: Does your Carthaginian think himself a sion of Carthage? * Glad Jean Starr is in a better mood with life, for it has not been easy on her. Some day we can discuss her books at Yale in memory of her son. She gave her correspondence, which is perhaps more interesting, to the University of Buffalo. * We can discuss, too, Kittie's hip. One gathers from *Time* that there is a new operation to provide hips for the hipless. But arthritis is a condition as much as a location, and at her age (as at Hilda's) one wonders at the balance of rewards and payments for an operation like this. I am not speaking of money of course. I think of myself. In any event all Prutting could or would do would be to refer her to an orthopedist. This is outside his scope. * Am delighted to report that so far the loose screw after treatment *downturn* has remained fixed. * I hope they will be successful with their diagnosis of Michael.

Of the 28th: Have had no reply to my letter about Ghandara book and binding, but we can discuss when we are together in the Fall and know both what the cost has been and how your various accounts stand. * One is excited at the Violet Hunt material. I am most, most grateful. * Am pleased Philip agrees about the disadvantages of an English will. I am quite sure of my own convictions, along the line I mentioned.

by a
mechanic
not a
psycho-
analyst.

Kyoto
Hotel

CABLE ADDRESS:KYOHO KYOTO

Of the 29th: I am very disappointed indeed at Nicholas's failure to get into Harvard, Yale, or Wesleyan. Being conservative by nature I should much prefer the University of Pennsylvania, which has fine standing. The Florida institution sounds like a major in cinema. But of course no word of this to the Schaffners. They, which means Nicky, will make the decision. And if he is an honors student at Choate he will be (if he wishes to be) the same wherever he goes. Why he did not make the other I can't guess. But they want Blacks, and geographical distribution; and probably the unfaorable letter of his adviser wasn't completely discounted. I should have liked a son but would have had ulcers over him. As it is I can console others about their sons, and breed books with you. Valentine for the moment is opting out of his old environment but in a different way from my generation which tried to be on its own financially as well as morally.

Of the 30th: Congratulations on Marie Anne's capitulation to Kittie, but Kittie sounds as though she would capture anyone. Perhaps she shares some of Martita's talent. * So sorry about Rose. I shall try to write her a letter when Susan has gone back to the States and I am alone.

This being a longer letter I shall have to have Susan take it to a nearby branch postoffice for weighing tomorrow. And so enclose a letter just in, with your batch, about the red carrots, a package of whose seed I think he shared with you. Do not return here but some time enclose in a yellowback to HGS.

We send our love,

Kyoto
Hotel

TELEPHONE (075) 211-5111
TELEX 5422-126
CABLE ADDRESS:KYOHO KYOTO

7 May 1970

Dearest Fido,

You will be getting several letters in a
single batch, for I wrote you last night and Susan wrote
you today. But it has rained so dismally that we could
not walk to the neighborhood postoffice to have yours
weighed. It seems that one cannot give the man who de-
livers mail and mail to take. The unions do not allow.
So all will go tomorrow, weather permitting, and I per-
haps would not have written, but prepared my class for
tomorrow, had not your letters of the 2nd and 3rd been
waiting for me after my return from my first class at
Doshisha, with your worries about the future of the papers
at Yale. I am sorry about this, because you have so much
else to worry about these days that this seems still an-
other burden. Yet you will be relieved I know to hear
that Mrs Hamerman after what was apparently a great series
of conferences with the trust officer at the bank, decided
that even the steel and stone buildings, the steel doors
and the iron gates were not security enough, and had the
Sitwell manuscripts and the most valuable papers removed
to the comparative safety of the bank vaults. I had known
nothing about the involvement of the Yale students with
the trial, locally, of the Blank Panthers, and it is diffi-
cult for me for anyone from a distance to properly assess
what the true dauger was. I would judge it to have been
even more difficult for those locally involved in what
must have seemed limitlessly explosive. She even had
extra guards, I gather, put on the house at Goodrich
Street, and she must have suffered from the sense of re-
sponsibility. Fortunately however she was able to leave
on a three week's cruise of the Caribbean and by the time
of her return all will have settled down. I should not
have thought, considering the nature of Yale's buildings,
and the fact that the disturbance was not against the
university but the trial of the Blacks, that the danger
was under-stated. But at any rate everything was safe
and will remain so until my return in September. The
situation will be far easier to understand and evaluate
then, and we can discuss it all at length on your visit.
From a distance I can't believe that I should have joined
with the majority of the faculty in supporting the strike;
had I been on the spot I might have felt differently.

I don't have Eliot's poems with me here, but
suspect that a phrase from London Bridge is falling down
may be in The Waste Land. Perhaps in the section about

hotel Takakura

7-21, Watanabe-dori 2chome, Fukuoka City, Japan

about the secretary, or The Chess Game. And probably not at "London Bridge's falling down" but simply a reference by the refrain "My fair Lady." It sounds like an odd tribute to the Queen, but if from The Waste Land would be from his most famous work and suitable for that reason. I will try to get hold of a copy.

Kittie Hunt's visit must have been interesting in most ways, but apparently depressing because of her views on the slip of time. * Still, as to the general situation, Ruegg has every reason to be pessimistic about the immediate financial thermometer. Nothing that anyone does seems to work except as a depressant. The only safe place I think is within one's self and in a belief in one's work. * I had not realised that Nellie Kirkham's novel had been re-issued. I shall have to borrow a copy when I am next at Kenwin. Did I tell you that all is agreed on for the trip to Greenland, but I shall of course have to begin to arrange for tickets to Copenhagen so that we can leave there on August 18th. What fun it would be to have you pop there before we left or on our return, so that you could see Chris at the same time. Or is he already back in Greenland?

Susan was pleased to learn that the photographs had actually arrived. Some of them are excellent, and all will help to give you an idea. Yesterday afternoon I was presented with an album of colored photographs of the birthday party, unusually good I must say for photographs of this sort, with really first-rate color. I wish I had a duplicate set to send you.

I have been amusing myself recently with Japanese words connected with English. "Buggage" is one I particularly like-- a convenient telescoping of baggage and luggage.

And I am be-mused by an English synopsis of a Japanese naturalistic novel, given me for the conference on naturalism in Fukuoka. "Beides being a poor businessman, Tatsuo has a weakness for women." He deserts his wife, takes up with a mistress, repents and comes home and takes up his old business again. "For a while he works helping with the business and his financial situation improves somewhat and then his malady begins to raise its head. He peeps a young geisha secretly--young enough to be his daughter--who bears him a baby." Now, I ask you as an authority on English, what actually is it "to peep a geisha." I can hardly ask without blushing, but if ever I should meet a geisha I feel I just know.

hotel Takakura

9 May 1970

Dearest Fido,

When I returned yesterday afternoon from my first class at Kyodai your letter of the 4th was waiting for me. It does seem so fine in every way to be back at least on the basis of regular letters between us. Alas, I may skip a day or day or two but I rejoice that you do not.

The sun shines this morning, on one of its very rare appearances. Even the Japanese press has been complaining of the cold and rain; there has been snow in Hokkaido, to the north, and coming back from Tokyo we saw young men carrying skis. I do hope we have good weather for Lizzie when she comes, and for Susan too who has been somewhat kept out of her looked-for gardens.

One needs a little more time to accustom one's self to the Japanese classroom. I talk and at least hope that something gets across. However each appearance was an introduction both to the course and to me, so we may swing together eventually. The one at Doshisha is on "Romantic Poetry in English," including both English and Americans from Blake until Wallace Stevens. I wish I knew enough to do the subject justice. But the initial attendance was pleasing to Doshisha: 12 graduate students enrolled, and 75 undergraduates. I shudder when I think I must somehow give a grade to each of them. As I talked, a protest went on outside the building--against Cambodia but not against me-- so the discussion of Blake took its place in a duet. But the class runs from 12:50 until 4:00, which is a long time in which not only to hold forth but hold out. The course at Kyodai, simply on Hawthorne and hence rather specialized had an attendance above thirty. But I am not sure how many graduate students there were, and how many undergraduates. A few, I know, were faculty members.

I am glad that Kittie made such good company, and feared only that her gloom might intensify your own. But her relationship to Martita, her deep interest in problems of education, and her concern with what is happening to the world give her many bonds of common concern. Does she write a good letter? * I wonder what Ruegg will do with the funds you now add; you must tell me, if discreet, but only out of abstract curiosity as to the placement of funds not the amount. I wonder, for example, if for the moment he may not simply use it for loans at the present comparatively high rate of interest.

hotel Takakura

I was sorry to learn from Mrs H, on the eve of her holiday cruise with her mother, that she had not yet been even able to find time enough to type out the journal from our arrival in Japan. So I am sorry that neither you nor young Susan and Lizzie have really had any detailed news; indeed the two latter will have had no news at all. But Susan goes to Tokyo tomorrow where Lizzie arrives by late afternoon plane from the States. They stay in Tokyo for sightseeing until Thursday when they come here. Fortunately our flat has two bedrooms so the Expo-induced problem of rooms is not a problem. Fortunately too, having the flat has reduced expenses significantly, for we find everything some three times as expensive as when we were here six years ago. But I daresay this is true the world-over. Anyhow, thanks to your help we are managing nicely.

Sorry the page of manuscript was destroyed; but knowing you, have no fear of your being able to replace it. Naturally I shall be eager to read as much as you have done by the time of my return. Better that way than to comment scrap by scrap.

The States seem to be in a turmoil so far as students are concerned, and certainly Nixon and especially Agnew seem to lack sensitivity to anything except the Southern reactionaries and the northern industrialists to whose vote they owe so much. I fear Nixon is in over his depth, but not to be is difficult. Fortunately, if one judges from the account in *Time* magazine, the Yale affair turned out far less dangerously than had been expected, at least by Yale. But I find it hard to approve Yale's President in his assertion that a Black cannot get a fair trial anywhere in America. He insists he said "sceptical of the ability", but the weight of his inference is against the courts, and thus bad education for the young or old. I know the Judge (Herbert Macdonald) who is to try the Panthers (a friend for 40 years of Susan and her siblings, and I think you have met him at the Point on Labor Day picnics), and he will lean over backwards to be fair. Yet, he told me with a shudder last July 4th that he had never been more shocked in his life than by the tape-recording the Panthers took themselves of the torture, interrogation and murder of their fellow member. Took, in order to play to other Panthers and terrorize them. It simply is not true, as the Panthers claim, that the government made the tape up, for two have confessed and voices identified.

As to Asia, I too suspect we think alike. Alas, how could the States do otherwise than march into territory already seized and occupied by the enemy, and used as a pincer? That war is always distasteful doesn't alter reality.

All love, Nomon

京都・河原町・御池

京都ホテル

電話 (075) 211-5111

テレックス5422-126

10 May 1970

Dearest Fido,

It is absurd to begin a letter a quarter of
an hour before midnight, simply to get the consecutive
date on the letterhead. But of course no day seems really
right or complete without even a note to you. This late
morning I put Susan on the express to Tokyo (150 miles p.h.)
and she will have met Lizzie and be safely settled at the
hotel (I hope) long since. The day, since I left her as the
train pulled out has been confused.

(And so, I think, must I have been to try to
begin a letter at so late an hour. My head began to nod,
and so it is now the morning of

11 May 1970)

Once Susan's train had pulled out, I took a taxi to Taka-
shimaya's, a large department store and did two errands
for myself. One was to buy a pair of black shoes to replace
a brown pair that had been irremediably worn out--so the
cobblers here said-- during my tramps in Southeast Asia.
How elegant you will think my little feet are, in their
pointed toes and shiny leather in best Japanese fashion.
I rather dislike them but what choice have I? The second
was to buy ten silk scarfs to be used as Babushkas, to be
sent to Pidwoloczysko R.N., Ternopil obl, USSR, to the
sister of a little Russian refugee who cleans the floors
in the room at the gymnasium where I do my exercises. He
gave me ten dollars, but in sober fact the scarves cost me
over thirty and I compromised by eight scarves at that.
Still, he will be happy that they have been sent, and his
sister one hopes will be equally happy if in fact they ever
actually arrive. It being just lunch hour, once these
purchases were made, with the help of the chief English-
speaking shopper's aid whom the store supplies--she asked
solicitously after Susan-- I decided to take my chance on
a Japanese movie a few doors from the store. In I went and
down I sat before what turned out to be a Japanese version
of "I am Curious." I left before it was quite finished,
my own curiosity having been satisfied. Carrying my shoes
and scarves tenderly, because the shopping bag had torn,
I came home and made myself a sandwich. An art gallery
dealer phoned to say that a wooden carving (modern in age
and manner) was now ready and he asked to bring it out. So
it now graces my window sill and I wonder if you will like
it. I somehow think you will. I shall think of it as your
birthday present. It is carved from an old piece of cherry,
a post in a very old Japanese farm house, and has the mellow

2

京都・河原町・御池

京都ホテル

電話 (075) 211-5111

テレックス5422-126

quality of its age. I suppose someone might say it had
a Brancusi sweep of line, but it really has its own mastery.
I doubt that the carver is very well known, though he is
a professor at the Kyoto School of Arts, a distinction
given only to good ones. We went to his home to look at
the possibility of some enameled metal for a corner at
the shore, and I saw this on the floor of his room as we
drank our second cup of tea. It had been in a show in
South America, and he had brought it back, not wanting to
let it go. Anyhow I have it now. I obviously could not
have afforded to buy a comparable piece in an American or
British gallery.

Then back down to the city again for dinner. I look
on these few days as a kind of dry-run for the period after
Susan leaves on the 1st. My plan is to get my own breakfast
and lunch at the flat, but to go out for one meal a day
of cooked food. Our maid has deserted us for the time be-
ing, in favor of a sick child, and says it will be a fort-
night at least before she gets back. So I shall have to
make my bed and learn to sweep until her face is at the
door again. I rather doubt that housekeeping is Kewpie's
metier; chocolate creams are.

Bit by bit I hope to work my way through the accumu-
lated mail, both that sent directly here, and in xerox from
Mrs H. Being alone makes this part of the chores easier.
And Susan is often at the typewriter for her notes, which
she brought up-to-absolute-date before she left for Tokyo.
(I had, by the way, in the course of this letter, a phone
call from Tokyo saying all was well, the hotel reservation
held, etc. I spoke also with Lizzie who seemed excited and
in excellent spirits.) My brother writes that he is to be
married again on June 6th, this time to the widow of his
lawyer and old-time friend, so he has known her for many
years. I am extremely happy about this, and he obviously
is. He has had a troubled marital life, never had friends
in Gardner really, having gone away to school so young,
and is not made for a life alone. They go to Venice and
Florence, his favorites, for their wedding trip.

Horace writes again, this time chiefly about the
Horace Gregory Award. I won't try to forward it on. My
letter to the committee apparently arrived and the suggest-
ions pleased them, though I have heard nothing from them
so far either about it or whether I actually am on the
committee. No, I will send the letter on--it is too com-
plicated to paraphrase. My advise was that he should not
ask for veto power, since this would endanger the very
aloofness he hopes for. But that if his friend the physicist
at Rockefeller Institute is on the committee, or I am, we
can quietly get his opinion and advise. The truth is, he
must not ask for a veto; this would ruin the whole thing.

4

京都・河原町・御池

京都ホテル

電話 (075) 211-5111

テレックス5422-126

does not seem a sufficient defense that he kept on deceiving the Czechs even though continuing to accept their money. I suspect that he probably did not give very much over, if weighed on that sort of scale, for the type of information he had access to doesn't seem sensitive. What may have happened to make the Czechs want to continue is this: every intelligence officer wants (indeed must) have a string of informers if he is to keep his job and seem successful. It is very probable that in turning over Owen's reports to HQ, the Czech embroidered on them so as to make Owen appear more important than he actually was. I do and I do not feel sorry for Owen, and if I feel sorry at all it is because he is so obviously a little man and so weak, and hence the brother of us all.

You will be glad to know that this is, I think, the end of the stored stationery at hand. I still have envelopes galore. But once the envelope is opened you will be unmistakably with me in Konoe Hall. I hope you note my return stamp. It is important in Japan; in Switzerland they may suspect you of being an Owen.

All love,
Norman

13 May 1970

Dearest Fido,

There is really hardly enough to report
to justify a letter, unless it be that I managed almost
twenty yesterday in diminishing my pile, and about fourteen
this morning. Still remaining are the letters of thanks
to hosts in Australia, in Fukuoka, and in Tokyo. But these
will simply have to wait until after Susan leaves. But by
then of course still more business mail will have come
in.

I did venture out for a brief walk yesterday
midday, curious to see where the seeming protest-rally
was being held that dinned through the open window into
my ear. It proved to be the play of the junior high
school diagonally across the street from Konoe Hall. I
had not realized what the series of buildings were. Per-
haps it wasn't a protest meeting, but at any rate both
students (male and female) and teachers were practising
shouting at crowds through an amplifier. I have dis-
covered that the Japanese actually lust to put an ampli-
fier to their lips. The workmen directly across the
street who are working below ground to put up a high-rise
telephone company building shout to each through one con-
stantly. Tourist guides use bull-horns to keep their
herds in order. The building some ten feet from the other
windows of our flat, where from noon until ten at night,
symphony orchestras, flatting sopranos, and glee clubs
do their things, they sometimes have folk-dancing in a
room hardly bigger than the studio at Kenwin. But orders
are given to the dancers through amplifiers, though a
whisper would suffice. So perhaps the junior highers
indeed are not protesting but only training for life.
There must be several schools of thought as well as grades
of achievement. The front of the school is decorated by
a high decorative stone on one side, in the best Zen
manner. On the other is a pool into which the Manniken
Pisse, from Brussels, urinates copiously all day long.
I doubt the Swiss would choose just such an academic
ornament.

My venture today was more pedestrian. I had
Kewpie take me to Takashimya's where I bought three little
steaks (of gold one would presume from the price) and
three pork chops (whose economy endeared me to piggery)
and ten eggs (they are sold that way always, not by the
dozen), and some French beans, all to be put in the frig
against Susan's and Lizzie's homecoming tomorrow. This
will be enough for the first night, and a start towards
the next. But Lizzie will be able to have the fun of
marketing with her mother. I think Ines would like the
experience, though no doubt finding much to object to.

And now I am trying to prepare my lecture to-
morrow at Doshisha on Wordsworth and Coleridge, and type
out the poems to be mimeographed for Shelley and Keats.
No letters from you yesterday or today, but I have been
so lucky I can hardly complain.

I had hoped to give you a xeroxed copy of Hilda's
book but see by the enclosed that they, like similar
American xeroxers, give nothing away. It might be inter-
esting for you write to ask how much, and see how long it
takes actually to arrive. Play secret agent. All love, Zemmar